Julian Clary

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2005

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the comedian Julian Clary. Julian Clary brought camp out of the closet and into the TV mainstream. In the late 1980s he burst onto television screens as The Joan Collins Fan Club, attracting a surprisingly broad audience with his extreme make-up and innuendo. The son of a policeman and a probation officer, Julian was born and brought up in Teddington and Surbiton, and as a child was deeply religious. He discovered his comic talent at Goldsmith's University in the late 1970s where, as well as taking part in rather serious drama productions, he and a friend created the duo Glad and May - two over-made-up cleaning ladies with a passion for 'rummaging' through the handbags of their hapless audience.

In recent years, Julian has toned down the make-up and innuendo in order to take on a new role - Julian Clary, family favourite, star of prime time. Where once he had cult status, he now has serious mainstream appeal, recently presenting the new National Lottery show on BBC1 and reaching the final of Strictly Come Dancing.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Garu Nanaka Ji Ki Jai Kar by Dana Gillespie Book: Stop Thinking, Start Living by Richard Carlson Luxury: All-purpose prosthetic arm

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2005, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is an entertainer. He's the man or one of them anyway who brought camp out of the closet and on to mainstream television.
0:38.0	With his full makeup, gairish costumes and endless innuendos, there's nothing he likes better, he says, and a warm hand on his entrance.
0:45.0	He enjoyed great success with, among others his show sticky moments on Channel 4.
0:50.0	He had a conventional upbringing in southwest London, but was teased at school for being
0:54.8	effeminate.
0:56.2	He enjoyed some success as a drag artist, worked the alternative comedy circuit, and then
1:01.0	glittered into television.
1:03.0	Over the last 10 years or so, his careers moved via his one-man show and appearances in
1:08.3	pantomime to his present-day role as family favourite in all sorts of different shows, not least strictly come dancing in which
1:15.2	he reached the final last year. If I never went on stage again, he says, maybe I'd miss it, but I don't
1:21.4	think I really would. He is Julian Clary. I can't believe Julian
1:26.2	that you could do without an audience. I mean, it's what you do, isn't it?
1:29.3	Strut your stuff, flaunt yourself, you need it?
1:32.4	I quite like it, but I think when I said that I was
1:35.2	responding to someone else who'd say that you know they could absolutely wither and
1:39.6	die if they if they didn't appear on stage that it was the meaning of life to them.
1:43.6	It's not the most important thing in my life, you know, I would get by.
1:46.8	But what used to be important was shocking people, but you're not so shocking now.
1:51.2	Now we've moved into mainstream as it were.
1:53.7	No I'm not so bothered about that. I mean things evolved you kind of grow out of
	...

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