Fielding Fenella - Do You Mind If I Smoke?

I met Fenella in a west London Pilates class in March 2011. I didnt know she was famous when she dropped her mat next to mine, but I liked the look of her and I wondered what her story was. We spoke a few times before it occurred to me that I knew her from Carry On Screaming, but I honestly didnt think she looked old enough to have been in a film made in 1966. (I had no idea what else shed done. My expertise is in post-punk and soul music.)

One Saturday morning the Pilates teacher didnt turn up. We were waiting together; we were chatting. The teacher really wasnt coming so we went for coffee. Coffee became a regular thing and I quickly recognised the blindingly obvious: Fenella is an incredible raconteur. I loved her stories and I knew we had to do something with them. She was resistant at first. We kept talking. I upped the ante by buying cakes to go with the coffee. I think she succumbed, finally, when I said, How about ice cream? I think that was our big moment of mutual understanding.

In July 2011 we began a long series of meetings every Thursday at the now defunct Caf Rouge on Chiswick High Road. Very kindly, the manager let us sit in the basement, which had tables that were rarely used. Each week Id come back with new questions. Id let Fenella talk and Id say as little as possible; just let her go. I recorded and later transcribed every word. I discovered she had appointment diaries that went back to childhood. There are a few gaps in the years, but in the appendix of this book theres a straight run of her busiest and most exciting years, 19581968. You wont find every detail there, but as I listened she seemed to be in Vidal Sassoon practically every week for a cut or a comb-through; was constantly in sound rooms recording voiceovers for various products; and that was in between her actual work of acting! To help stir up old memories we went on mini-pilgrimages to where she used to live in Clapton. We walked up to her old school and the caretaker gave us an impromptu tour. I think this trip led to The Clapton Flasher anecdote that appears in the chapter Clapton Child.

Fenella was eighty-three when I met her and I wasnt really sure why she still wanted to be working, but then in May 2012 I saw her perform a reading of some excellent Greek translations at the Reform Club. She was in good company that night, with Simon Russell Beale also appearing When I saw her perform, as I passed a packet of tissues along the row to the woman sobbing with emotion, shattered by Fenellas delivery in her role as Hekabe, I understood why she still wanted to work.

But the phone doesnt ring that much when youre eighty-three and youre not actually a dame. The offers of work tended to be invitations to sit and sign photos at conventions or appear in Q&A evenings, which was fun but not acting. As time went by, sharing Fenellas frustration I started to organise things for her. I set up her website, which has been an amazing way to connect to people who really do value her, and we set about doing our own things. Weve made a number of themed internet radio shows together things like gospel, jazz, cult TV themes and soundtracks. Great fun and well received. As I became the worlds leading expert on Fenellas career, we set up our own An Evening With Fenella Fielding nights. Our first was in Newcastle, my home town, where we had a full house (263 people) at the Tyneside Cinema. As we took the lift down to the auditorium I wondered what the hell I was doing. Id never done anything like this at all. We walked into the auditorium and Fenella got a standing ovation just for being alive, she said. The energy was incredible. I think I just fed off that and the night went brilliantly.

Finally, we found a way to get Fenella on stage actually performing parts. I went back to the writer of the excellent Greek translations, David Stuttard, and asked him to write a two-hander for Fenella to read with Stephen Greif. Again, I wondered what the hell I was doing as I found myself producing one-off performances in the West End of our show Just A Little Murder.

The book had stalled, though. Id present pages and Fenella would say something like, Its action-packed. Which was clearly not an endorsement, so the book didnt progress from there at all.

In 2016, determined to get things moving, I put together some chapters not in a book form, but as a piece Fenella could read to an audience. We arranged the first ever performance at The Phoenix Artist Club that summer. It was a full house. Fenella was astonished by the reaction and still reminds me now about the audiences first laugh on the line about mental masturbation (in the chapter Innocence Lost); how they were hooked. We were hooked, too. We did lots of shows there chapter readings followed by a short Q&A as we honed what would become the audio book release in June 2017. The print book deal followed on from that.