Five things you might not know about… Julian Clary
The camp comic rose to fame through appearances on The Joan Collins Fanclub and Sticky Moments
1 Born Julian Peter McDonald Clary in 1959, he gained his first flush of success as The Joan Collins Fanclub, accompanied by Fanny the Wonderdog who performed staggering impressions of the Queen Mother. Fanny died at the grand old age of 19.
2 Co-devised with Paul Merton, Clary fronted his very own quiz show in 1989 called Sticky Moments which served mainly as an arena for a positive glut of innuendo and featured guest appearances from the likes of Harry Enfield, Barbara Windsor, Nicholas Parsons and the Beverley Sisters.
3 He now in Kent lives next door to Paul O'Grady in a house once owned by Noel Coward (for 'next door', read 'an acre or two away'). Clearly this residence got his creative juices flowing as he wrote a novel entitled Briefs Encountered, set in and around the quite probably haunted pile.
4 In 2007, Clary made a cameo appearance in Neighbours, with scenes shot in London when a character who was having an affair with a English footballer stopped him in the street to use his mobile.
5 While he is a darling of the mainstream press now thanks to shows like Strictly and Celebrity Big Brother (which he won this year), it certainly wasn't always thus. A notorious live incident at the British Comedy Awards in 1993 when he inserted the words 'fisting' into a sentence which also contained 'Norman Lamont', the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, had tabloids demanding he be sent to a gulag until planet earth froze over.
Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, Sat 27 Oct; Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, Sun 28 Oct.