Having begun his career in the mid-1980s, Julian Clary is a pro when it comes to performing and dazzling his peers in showbiz.
However, that’s not to say everything goes according to plan all the time…
Julian has toured in several stage shows, including pantomimes, for over three decades and will return to the London Palladium in 2024 for his ninth year.
This time, he’ll be praying that he avoids any dalliance mortality.
Speaking to , Julian recalls the three times he’s almost met his maker in front of a live audience.
‘I’ve had several brushes with death,’ begins the 65-year-old comedian.
‘On three occasions, a glitterball has crashed to the ground, and the old-fashioned glitterballs are huge and very heavy. They were made of metal and hooked up above where you’re performing with a safety chain.
‘But somehow, three times over the decades, something has gone wrong and a scenery change has happened when something has knocked into the glitterball so it’s come loose and crashed to the ground, within inches of me each time, and smashed onto the stage.
‘Once, in Australia, it crashed onto a woman sitting on the front row and crushed her knee, severely injuring her.
‘Each time, I’ve thought… I could’ve died, but I’ve also thought, what a way to go!’
Admitting that his near-fatal incidents were ‘terrifying’, Julian recounts one time in panto when he had to descend to the stage on a giant swing.
‘They had to put me up there 10 minutes before my entrance. So, I was hanging up there, 30 feet above the stage, with lights and bits of scenery all around me, and you can hear them all clunking.
‘I’d be swaying around on the wires and you can’t help but think, if something went wrong now, it wouldn’t end well!’
Given his personal experiences with on-stage calamities, it seems fitting that Julian’s next novel is set in the place he knows so well — the theatre.
The TV star has released many books, including children’s novels and autobiographies, over the years, with his newest, Curtain Call to Murder, telling the delivilish story of how a dresser finds herself investigating a cold-blooded killing.
Having spent two years penning the upcoming work of fiction, Julian is ready for it to be released, telling us how he got lost in the ‘private world’ as he constructed the characters and planted red herrings to deceive readers.
‘The actual writing process was really exciting, as I’ve not done murder mystery before,’ he shares, noting that he’s slightly ‘bereft’ that his work is finished and he’s ‘missing’ it.
‘But it was great fun. I put myself in the book as well, as the narrator’s voice, and there’s quite a lot of comedy along the way.’
On where he draws inspiration from, Julian has ‘always thought that theatre is quite a dangerous place.’
‘There are all these things going on above you. In the flies, heavy weights, and lights… if you wanted to kill someone, it’s quite a good place to do it.’
With his protagonist being a dresser, he adds that she’s the perfect person to suss out the murderer’s identity: ‘Dressers are often very quiet people, but they see everything and they know everything. They don’t just dress you.
‘In panto, because I have about 10 costume changes, I spend so much time with my dresser. You talk to them, they counsel you, and you tell them your secrets.’
Julian is gay – branding himself a ‘renowned homosexual’ in his Instagram bio – and is known for wearing flamboyant outfits and cracking outrageous jokes.
Combining the two worlds of writing and comedy is important to him since they’re what he does so well, but he’s also keen to incorporate the enriching diversity he’s surrounded by in his own life into his writing.
‘I think you write about what you know, so it’s just a natural thing that would happen,’ he says when asked why inclusivity matters, having frequently platformed ‘othered’ communities in his previous books.
Acknowledging that it’s become almost trendy to try to tear down ‘woke’ culture, Julian continues: ‘I can only worry about my attitudes and my world. I think there’s so much to be gained from diversity and inclusivity.
‘My life is so enriched by all of that and I can’t contemplate going backwards in any way. When I think how everything’s changed in my life, it’s amazing.’
The star, who started dating Ian Mackley in 2005 before marrying in 2016, confessed he didn’t envisage having a career talking about ‘[his] gay life’.
‘I never thought I would be able to get married and live happily, openly as I do with my husband.’
And living happily he is, while also brushing off pressure to top his previous achievements or compare himself to other famous writers, such as Richard Osman, who is the author of the bestselling Thursday Murder Club mystery novels.
‘I can’t do anything about it, but I understand it,’ he says of people likening him to other celebrity authors. ‘But I don’t go around comparing myself.’
‘You’ve got to find the pleasure in it all,’ Julian declares proudly.