Tea With Twiggy podcast

#106 - Richard E. Grant

14/11/2026
0:00
48:26
Manda indietro di 15 secondi
Manda avanti di 15 secondi
Richard E. Grant joins Twiggy for tea at last, after years of trying to make it happen. He tells her about the boy from Swaziland who knew at seven or eight that he wanted to be an actor, and who arrived in London in 1982 to seek his fortune. They talk about his 38 years with the voice coach Joan Washington, the film he wrote and directed about his own childhood, and the night a director made him drink a whole bottle of wine for a part. In this episode: A house stuffed full: Richard calls himself a maximalist, and Twiggy says her husband Lee insists he is a collector, though she thinks he is a bit of a hoarder. The secret of a long marriage: Twiggy and Lee met after earlier relationships that had not worked, and she says he still makes her laugh after 40 years. Richard met Joan at the Actors Centre in Covent Garden in 1982, when he went looking for help with a Belfast accent. Soon after, she asked him to record dialogue in Siswati for a Royal Shakespeare Company play, and he says the conversation that started that night never stopped. Swaziland and Cape Town: Richard's father was the director of education in what is now Eswatini, and refused to pay for drama school on its own. So Richard got a degree and trained as an actor at Cape Town University, and the university let him do both over four years. Twiggy, meanwhile, grew up in Neasden, where a bomb once dropped at the back of the family garden, and where she could hear the cheers from Wembley on a Saturday. Being discovered: Twiggy was a shy child who ran out of ballet classes crying. At 16 her dad let her leave school for modelling on one condition, that her mum, her dad or a chaperone was always with her. Richard says he still feels about 19, and tells the story of Sir John Gielgud's advice to cultivate younger friends. Ken Russell and The Boy Friend: the director who cast Twiggy picketed outside Equity to get her a card, and said he wouldn't make the film without her. They remember Glenda Jackson's day on set, Murray Melvin and Vladek Sheybal, and Twiggy explains how she ended up opening her first panto asleep by the fireside. Withnail and I: how Richard met Bruce Robinson in 1986, why he got the part after Daniel Day-Lewis went off to make The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Bruce directing a stage version. They also talk about Nuremberg, Russell Crowe and Ethan Hawke in Blue Moon. Broadway: Tommy Tune, My One and Only and 18 months on stage in New York, until Twiggy needed to come home to her daughter Carly. Richard remembers a dinner at the Bombay Brasserie with Julie Christie, Paul McCartney, Linda and a young Stella. My Fair Lady and Pygmalion: why Richard doubts My Fair Lady could be staged the same way now, and what it was like to have a 36 piece orchestra behind him at the Sydney Opera House. Wah-Wah: the film Richard wrote and directed about his Swaziland childhood, shot in the places where it all happened. It took five years to get made. Then Can You Ever Forgive Me?, shot in 26 days. Barbra Streisand: the two foot statue of her head that Richard commissioned for his garden, and the letter she sent him. Twiggy remembers the party where she met her in 1967, and the dance she turned down from Steve McQueen. A perfume and a memoir: Richard's first attempt at perfume at 12, and the one he made 45 years later that became a bestseller at Liberty. Then A Pocketful of Happiness, the book he wrote about Joan from her diagnosis to her death, which grew out of the diary he has kept since he was 10. And the story about the night before the last day of rehearsals, when Bruce Robinson made Richard get drunk for the film. LINKS Twiggy's official website: https://theofficialtwiggy.comEvery episode of Tea With Twiggy: https://theofficialtwiggy.com/podcast The music for the podcast is Twiggy's version of Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks and can be found on Apple Music here: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/romantically-yours/693460953 If you have enjoyed listening to Tea With Twiggy, please take a moment to give us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts. It really helps other people find the show. And if you have not already, please subscribe so the next episode arrives automatically. A Stripped Media production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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