I met Rod 22 years ago this month. We had been selected as team-mates on a gameshow pilot, and, halfway through the morning’s filming, we went for a fag break. He said to me: ‘This is crap, shall we go to the pub?’ We scarpered and spent the rest of the day in a Covent Garden pub, working our way through the drinks list and chatting away like chipmunks.
He would tell me that all the best people treat their bodies like bins (and all the worst like temples)
I’d never been starstruck by anyone before I met Rod. However famous or talented actors are, their job is to say stuff written by other people. Rod, however, was a legend to me. I began reading his Guardian columns at university. Though I was studying all the greats of English literature, it was Rod’s writing which felt like a ribbon-wrapped gift, a treat, a joy.
His capacity to address dark, complex subjects with the lightness of a chef sprinkling icing sugar was dizzying. He was so profoundly funny, made each of his sketches look so easy, but beneath the deliberately pugnacious language a serious artist was at work.
I think I loved his language of insults the most: luckily, he issued forth a stream of them like a Middlesbrough Shakespeare.
