Clive Anderson has no idea where he’s going. Or, for that matter, how he got to where he is. Throughout our interview, he stresses just how wildly unplanned his career has been. Indeed, before we get started, he offers a warning: ‘I may come across as a rather indecisive and drifting kind of person, actually because I am.’ Yet upon inspection of his career, ‘indecisive and drifting’ would be the last words to come to mind. Instead, over the past twenty-five years he has forged a consistently successful career that has seen him rarely absent from radio or TV. His stints on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Clive Anderson Talks Back, Have I Got News For You and many others have made him a familiar face to audiences in Britain and even across the world, yet despite such success, Anderson maintains his career has crept up on him.
At Cambridge, he seemed destined for comedy stardom, serving as president of the Footlights alongside Griff Rhys Jones and Douglas Adams, and it soon took priority. ‘It became my main preoccupation… but it had a sort of time-consuming aspect to it. You’re writing and rehearsing at exactly the time you’re supposed to be concentrating on your work, so it’s not ideal.’ Would the Footlights be to blame for any exam failures? ‘It’s a convenient thing to blame. I think I’d have been capable of wasting my time without Footlights, but [without it] I might have done a bit better.’
Despite this, Anderson emerged from Cambridge intent on becoming a lawyer, and laid comedy to bed. He sighs ‘I think it was sort of a failure of imagination, in a way… it didn’t really strike me that there was a world that needed me to be an actor or a stand-up comedian. I did want to be a barrister, so I did that.’ At least, for fourteen years. But his Footlight days weren’t dead: ‘I did keep up comedy in that I used to write sketches and jokes for radio and then TV programmes, but I didn’t really pursue it very much. It was like a little hobby that occasionally paid money.’ Yet eventually, law and comedy proved too tricky to balance: ‘I found it just too difficult, time-wise. But I didn’t really throw down my horse-hair wig and say, ‘Right, I’m stopping doing it’. I continued to do it for a while, until I realised, ‘Ooh, well I’m not really a barrister any more’. Has he considered returning to law? ‘I always thought I would… [But] now sufficient time has gone by that I’d have to start and retrain really.’
For Anderson, the gradual shift into comedy and presenting was accidental and, in many ways, he didn’t take it seriously: ‘When I was doing the telly, I’d be thinking, ‘Well, I’m not really a chat show host, I’m actually a barrister. I’m just doing this for a bit of a laugh.’ This shows onscreen, as he seems to lack egotism or vanity. He pauses. ‘I’ve experienced TV cameras, and they’re quite brutal. I certainly don’t usually watch my own programmes, because I don’t really like what I look like on television. I’d like to preserve the thought that I might look slightly different in real life, but I think that’s just a delusion really.’
Anderson seems to go to great length to paint a picture of himself as plain lucky, and rarely attributes his success to his own skill. ‘I’m not a great mover and shaker – things seem to happen to me, good or bad. I’m not very good at banging on the door and saying, “Look, this is what I should do”. I find that a difficult process.’ Yet the longevity of his career is not down to luck, but to talent. His rapid wit is renowned – though it has occasionally backfired. Infamously, the Bee Gees stormed out mid-interview after a few too many jibes, but that was anything but intentional: ‘I just stumbled accidentally into asking the wrong thing. I realised when they left that I’d trampled on a few nerves, but I didn’t do it intentionally. Well, that makes it worse doesn’t it?’
Such moments are rare, however. Instead, he has spent much of his career meeting his personal heroes, from Frankie Howerd to Peter Cook. His encounter with the latter led to an inspired special edition of his chat show, wherein Cook was the only guest and appeared as four different interviewees. It’s worth finding on YouTube. ‘I particularly liked that programme because it was great to work with Peter Cook in a proper comedy context… he didn’t really like talking about himself, he liked improvising and jollying away.’ With this impressive track record and Jonathan Ross’s impending departure, I suggest there’s a gap he might fill, but Anderson is quick to dismiss it. It’s a shame, as the dry wit for which he is famous would make a welcome change to the slightly more laddish, even juvenile, humour of Ross. But Anderson has no such doubts of the man’s skill. ‘I’m sure Jonathan Ross will crop up somewhere else as well, whether it’s on ITV or Sky or something. I doubt we’ve heard the last of Jonathan Ross.’
Currently, Anderson is mostly confined to radio, which he admits isn’t always ideal: ‘To be brutal, it’s not as well paid on the radio as it is on television, [and] it’s not as high profile. [But] it’s not really within my control.’ Still, many experienced a sense of déjà vu with the Second Prime Minster’s Debate, wherein Adam Boulton appeared as a weightier incarnation of Clive Anderson.
The man himself doesn’t see the resemblance: ‘I think it’s rather a cruel thing to say that he looks like a fat version of me! I’m sure that’s one of the worst insults I can imagine anyone giving.’ Nonetheless, he was present at the debates in spirit: ‘[The moderators] just had to say, ‘Mr Clegg! Mr Cameron!’ And so it was a little bit like Whose Line Is It Anyway? ‘And now I want that in the style of someone who does want to get elected.’ ‘Mr Brown, now do it with a smile on your face, to see if you can maintain it for more than a couple of minutes.’ He laughs at this, but adds, ‘forgive me if I ramble on too much. And please put it into sentences so I sound halfway reasonable.’
Such hesitancy is in stark contrast to his more confident onscreen persona, and while he has not been on television much recently, it seems doubtful that he’ll be away for long. For all his self-deprecation and even self-doubt, Anderson remains a witty and reliable host, and it has always been skill rather than luck that has sustained his career. He admits that he currently has ‘three or four projects which are in the ‘let’s go to lunch’ stage or ‘I’m just showing this to the controller’s stage,’ but quickly adds, ‘they sometimes come to nothing. I’m slightly nervous about talking about anything that isn’t set in stone.’ He needn’t worry. With things as they are, it doesn’t look like he’ll be retraining as a lawyer any time soon.
