Happy camper Julian Clary

By DEBORAH ROSS

I meet Julian Clary at his club, Century, on Shaftesbury Ave. He's already seated at a table when I arrive, looking wistfully out of the window. Julian does a very good wistful. It's as good as his waspish, if not better.

The view is of an Angus Steak House and a Chinese hairdresser where, Julian has noted, "you seem to get a massage". "I've always wanted to adopt a Chinese baby" Oh? "Yes, two of them. I've even got the names: Ping and Pong. Look, they do seem to do a very good massage over there."

Next, we turn our attention to the Angus Steak House, which is empty as usual. How does the chain survive? We don't know. Although, that said, when Julian was in his youth and was coxswain for a rowing club, "the team would celebrate a win by going to an Angus Steak House." What did you start with? Melon boat? "Yes. Or melon ball."

He just can't help himself. Does he still enjoy a warm hand on his entrance? I reckon so.

His mother, told him he shouldn't do this interview. "She reads the Independent and says you're trouble." Are you sure, I ask, she didn't mean delightful? "But I said I was going to do it anyway. I like a challenge." He recently did OK! from his second home in Majorca. Was that a challenge?

"It was a very easy afternoon's work." Did you get paid? "Of course. I wouldn't do it otherwise. I did say, though, that I didn't want to be too far back, because the less important you are, the further back they put you.

"I wanted all the cliches. I wanted a bowl of lemons, which I managed to get in, and I ordered this huge bunch of flowers. They could hardly get them through the door, and the photographer ignored them."

He's done quite a few lengthy profiles over the years and I wonder how it feels, picking up a newspaper or magazine and reading about himself. "I always get bored halfway through. It's a formula, isn't it. You start with: 'Julian turns up wearing an expensive-looking jumper and too much jewellery.' Then it's the potted history, which is when I glaze over, and then there might be an interesting bit at the end."

He was born in Teddington, the son of a policeman father and a probation-officer mother who doesn't know "delightful" when she sees it ...

We study our menus. Can you cook, Julian? "No. I made The Boyfriend tuna on Ryvita last night. Still, he seemed reasonably pleased." Actually, he studies his menu, while I study him.

He is a most beautiful man. Wonderful complexion, rosebud mouth, wistful, almost melancholic eyes. What a shame, though, that he is gay. What a waste and all that. Julian's hobby is laundry. Julian can't cook, no, but he is still something of a domestic goddess. The big love of his life used to be his Dyson vacuum cleaner. And it's not any more? "It got blocked and my Brazilian cross-dressing cleaner asked me if I'd get one of those Henry vacuums." The sort with the smiley face on? "Yes. So I did. And it's very good. I don't have the Brazilian any more. I now have a Portuguese woman who, as we speak, is giving my back passage a seeing to."

Julian has a new dog, Valerie. His dog, famously, used to be Fanny, recently died, aged 19. Fanny performed with Julian when he first achieved cult status as the Joan Collins Fan Club.

It was Fanny who, in a pearl necklace, did those uncanny impressions of the Duchess of York, the Queen Mother and the Pope. Julian has tried taking Valerie on stage but, sadly, she wouldn't have it.

"The noise, the lights, were not to her liking. She now quivers whenever she goes near them." Julian also has a cat, Gloria, "a bad-tempered old madam".

His yearning for children is movingly real, though. "I'd have had children if I could, but I think it's not to be. I did have a broody few years, and got very close to it. A friend of mine worked out her cycle and everything, but I was on tour at the time."

He would be an excellent father, I think. There is something very tender about Julian Julian which, possibly, is why the British public love him so. He's not just grubby jokes (although he did panto in Richmond this year during which there were doubtless many "He's behind you's.)

Still, it's all underpinned by an engaging lovability, a vulnerability and fragility. Psychologically, he's never been that sturdy. He used to suffer horribly from panic attacks, but "I've now cured myself of them with breathing techniques and by being happier. Panic attacks are a form of anxiety depression. I didn't even realise I was depressed."

His worst time, perhaps, came in 1993, after the British Comedy Awards. He made a rude remark about Sir Norman Lamont, who was in the audience. In truth, only 12 people out of 13 million viewers complained, but it was enough to cause a huge hoo-ha.

And the ripples continue to this day.

After the 1993 incident, he went a bit "doolally" and even thought of suicide. He got a load of pills and booked himself into the Intercontinental Hotel at Hyde Park. What were you thinking of? "I was mad at that time." And you're not now? "No." How come? "It's a technique. You learn that thoughts are just thoughts. They are not important." He now lives in Camden with Valerie and Gloria, but not The Boyfriend. He has a live-out relationship with The Boyfriend. "He's a charming person, but I don't think I'll say his name. He won't like it. They often don't."

- INDEPENDENT