Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A verbatim recurring question in The Guardian's Q&A series.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 August 2024 source ↗
When my trousers nearly fell down at Buckingham Palace. I was there to collect my OBE, and the suspenders for the beautiful Alexander McQueen suit I’d had made for the occasion went missing. Naomi Campbell was with me and we had a good laugh about it.
Modelling tuxedos at the Oklahoma State Fair in 1971.
When I was 11, I went down a water slide and my bottoms didn’t go with me. Everyone saw my bare white butt.
Also my most triumphant: 2017 at the Royal Court. Julie Hesmondhalgh reads my psychologist’s report over two hours. Every excruciating intimate word of it. Extreme verbatim theatre. One night only.
I worked a janitorial job, cleaning university dormitories after students had gone home for the summer. You can’t imagine the condition some of those rooms were in. They could have doubled as sets for a slasher film.
We are too often advised to live life to the fullest. That’s too much pressure. The key is to find joy and poignancy in the quiet and mundane. Life is lived between the so-called big moments.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but if I could go back and fix the mistake, I wouldn’t be here.
With a wistful smile.
A white-hot explosion that turns into a comforting warmth.
I don’t even voice them. Perhaps the books are my outlet here.
Adam Lambert, Adele Parks, Alex Hassell, Alison Steadman, Andrew O’Hagan, Bear Grylls
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