I was originally interested in Keith because I suppose I felt I knew him, though of course I’d never met him or spoken to him before a few weeks ago. I first saw him on TV’s Multi-Coloured Swap Shop when it debuted in the 1970s - I think it may have been the first ever episode. Keith was only a teenager and he was easy to relate to, a kind of Jimmy Osmond figure. He was “you”, the child viewer surrogate, good-natured and energetic and up for it. Robin to Noel Edmonds’ Batman. I sort of grew up with him, watching him later on Cheggers Plays Pop, then his marriage to presenter Maggie Philbin, whom you also sort of knew from Swap Shop, all of which made him more familiar, closer...
He was taken off children’s BBC in 1984 or thereabouts. I remember coming back from the US, where I was living in the 1990s, and one of my friends saying that Keith Chegwin had come out as an alcoholic. This would have been more than 10 years after I’d last seen him on TV, but you know how the TV heroes of your childhood stay with you; and I remember thinking: Cheggers? A boozer? It just didn’t compute. You couldn’t imagine anyone less cut out for drinking. Keith was all about early starts and country living and good clean fun. What demons could he possibly have?
And now here he is, yet more years later, still on TV, still going and going. Still jumping around, being enthusiastic and energetic and youthful, even though it’s now 25 years on, and he’s 44, and a divorced alcoholic, and the butt of many a joke. You just wonder what spurs him on.
In April, Will [a television director and colleague of Theroux’s] shot some tape of Keith, and I watched it. I was struck by Keith’s face, how weathered he looked, and also the fact that Keith smoked throughout the interview. Didn’t just smoke, but smoked hard, caving his cheeks as he sucked out every last bit of smoke. All the while, he was talking about these terrible knockbacks, being dumped by the BBC, or being told some jingles he composed were unusable, and yet still being upbeat and cheerful. This battle-scarred juggernaut of positive energy, trundling on and on. It’s one thing to stare into the abyss, but with Cheggers you feel he could make the abyss the basis of a gameshow on Challenge TV - “What if we fill the abyss with blue gunge and we have kids swinging on ropes, trying to get across....”
Keith and I are riding in his big, comfortable car and he’s telling me about his lungs.
Louis Have you given up? Coz you smoked when Will came - was it Will who came and met you?
Keith Oh God, yeah.
Louis And you were chaining it.
Keith Well, I’ll tell you the story now. I went to a gig and I thought, this is really odd coz I can’t smoke coz it hurts.
Louis What were, your lungs?
Keith Yeah, yeah. So I couldn’t breathe. And I thought, that’s very odd. So I thought, I’ve got to get some nicotine in somehow, so I went and bought some Nicorette chewing gum. And so I was chewing the gum and trying to smoke at the same time, and then, God, it got worse and I can’t tell you I’ve never been so frightened. And it was like a set of bellows - I could only get them open, like, a third, if that. So I went to the doctor and they, um, gave me some drugs and stuff...
Louis So what was his diagnosis?
Keith Well, we went for an x-ray, er, coz he was a bit concerned. Um, but when the x-ray came back, he turned round and said, er, ‘Come and have a look at this’. I felt like a kid. Everything on an x-ray that’s white is solid matter. And the whole of my lungs were solid.
Louis But why?
Keith Well, it is full of, er, well it’s infected anyway coz of the bronchial thing. Erm. Coz of the smoking as well.
Louis So, this sort of fossilised your lungs?
Keith Oh God, awful. So I’ve got to go - actually it’s probably this week, er, he said he’d call me in for another x-ray, see how I’m doing. But erm . . .
Louis That’s good that you’ve given up. How many were you smoking?
Keith Oh God, I’ll be honest, um, I mean, seriously, 60 a day. I never had a cigarette out of my mouth.
Louis That is a lot, isn’t it?
Keith still has a Merseyside accent. When he says “er”, it sounds like “air”, and when he says “erm”, it sounds like “airm”. He says either “air” or “airm” at the end of each thought. It comes across as humility, as though he’s saying, “I’ve finished, now you can say something, or I’m happy to keep talking if you like, it’s up to you.” Also, because of Keith’s constant energy and enthusiasm, almost everything he says could have an exclamation mark after it. There’s still something of the young Saturday morning children’s TV presenter about him, even though he’s 44 now, twice married, a recovering alcoholic. His hair is grey and combed back, and he’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt and baggy black jeans.
Louis I’ve just been reading your, um, your drinking memoirs [Shaken But Not Stirred]. I just finished it on the train. It’s quite ... it’s a shocking book.
Keith Oh, good!
Louis I consider myself a heavy drinker. But I was really shocked by the depths of alcoholism that you reached. You didn’t exaggerate it at all, did you?
Keith No. In fact, I smoothed off some of the edges.
Louis Did you?
Keith Yeah, because I mean I would cut all the, huh [starts singing in self-consciously aphasic way as if to say, “I don’t know where to begin”], er-de-de-la-la! It’s like, you know, with the general public you can’t go totally over the top because then it just becomes shock, shock, shock, shock, shock, shock, shock, shock, boring, boring, boring. You know, there’s no middle, beginning and end, you know. But . . . what’s the word? . . . I think it did me a lot of good ...
Louis In what respect?
Keith Oh, it’s done me far [inaudible] it’s the best thing I ever did was drink.
Louis Why?
Keith Erm, it sorted me out totally. Not that I don’t care, but I don’t worry so much any more. I used to panic. It got rid of a lot of dead wood.
Louis What did, drinking or giving up drinking?
Keith Oh, giving up drinking. Oh sorry, no, drinking in general did me a favour coz it’s put me - it’s given me a new, I’m a new person now.
Louis In what - really? Um, you’ve got to explain that.
Keith tries to explain. He says, “It got rid of a lot of dead wood in my life.” I don’t understand what he means, but we don’t have time to go into it as we’ve arrived at Keith’s home. It’s a handsome 17th-century farmhouse, with a gravel drive and perfect topiaried hedges. Keith shares his house with his wife, Maria, and their young son, Ted. Before we go in, we sit in the car for a few moments.
Keith Are you hungry?
Louis Yeah.
Keith Good. I’m starving.
Louis Yeah. Er, now, what are the rules of the house, coz I know ...
Keith None.
Louis Well, no, but as far as Maria goes, coz I know that she’s not keen on cameras - but could she be in the article?
Keith I think she . . . I’ll ask her.
Louis Would you?
Keith She’s, um, oh what’s the word? She’s totally un-media, which is fantastic. She used to be a groom. And, erm, I can’t think. If you bumped into a girl in the high street, that’s Maria. She’s very easy - I mean, she loves cleaning the house.
Louis Does she?
Keith Oh, I can’t tell you. Her favourite job is cleaning.
Louis I’ve got a feeling that that’s a division of labour between you, though. Because you, you are pure media. And you’re sort of like always “on” and always happy to oblige, and then does she kind of cool you down a bit and sort of say, “Look, no, enough, you know, calm down”? Or, no, maybe I’ve got that totally wrong.
Keith No, it’s just that, I don’t know, it’s a great leveller when I come home. Coz I can’t be, you know... ?
Louis It’s totally normal, you mean?
Keith Exactly ... Now, there’s no rules in the house, and obviously you can drink, smoke, anything you like. We, er... do you smoke?
Louis Yeah.
Keith Oh brilliant. Maria does.
Louis Shall I stop this [meaning the tape machine] for now or...
We go inside. Maria is in the kitchen: pale, strawberry blonde, younger than Keith - she might be early 30s. She is wearing a white fcuk T-shirt, jeans and a blue fleece. She’s made us lunch. The kitchen is big and comfortable; there’s an Aga and a tropical fish tank and rough-hewn beams run along the ceiling. It would make a perfect setting for an at-home feature in a glossy magazine. Keith says he has been invited to do spreads, but Maria won’t let cameras inside the house. Over lunch, Keith and Maria ask me about myself; I tell them I have a US passport and that I used to live in New York.
“We love America, don’t we?” Keith says. “We want to emigrate.”
Maria says, “Yeah, we would.”
“We’d go tomorrow,” Keith says.
I ask them what’s stopping them.
“Family, I suppose, isn’t it?” Keith says. “And I have a daughter of 13 and work and, you know?”
“Baltimore always looks nice,” Maria says.
After lunch, Keith takes me upstairs to where he works. He’s got a small recording studio where he composes jingles and incidental music for TV shows. But the project he’s most excited about is Cheggers’ Bedroom, a live “TV channel” on the web, which ran for a trial period of seven weeks in the spring, broadcasting from Keith’s house. It strikes me as paradoxical that, while Maria won’t allow cameras in the home, Keith was running a live video of his bedroom on the web.
Louis And it’s a real bedroom. So where would the camera have been?
Keith I can put it on. Hang on. [To himself] Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith.
Louis And it really is from your bedroom?
Keith Oh God, no, this is, er, let me just. Do you want me to fire it up?
Louis Why not?
Keith It will take me - come on, Keith, get your brain in here. [Getting frantic.] Er, what am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? Hang on, Louis, I’m nearly there.
Louis We’re not live, Keith. You can take as long as you like. [Noticing a photo on the wall of Keith on the set of Cheggers Plays Pop] Look at that. How old were you in this picture?
Keith Twenty-one. Oh God, that’s... So it was 22 years ago. It’s frightening.
Louis And were you drinking much in those days?
Keith Well, no. I mean, I was always one of the lads. I mean, I’d go to the BBC bar after that [taping Cheggers Plays Pop], and then go to another bar after that and another bar after that. And so it would go on.
Louis But it wasn’t interfering with your work.
Keith Er, no. I mean, God, the work wasn’t that difficult, though. You could stand here and explain the game and competition and I’d turn round and say, [polished Cheggers delivery], “Simple competition, all you’ve got to do is stick your picture on here, walk over to this light, twist it that way, and then try and throw a dart into the Cheggers sign there. Go.” Simple.
Louis How many series did you do?
Keith Er, nine. So it was a long time.
Louis Well, it’s certainly one that’s stuck in people’s memory, I think.
Keith Well, I think so, coz it was something like, er [fussing with cables and switches], what am I doing, what am I doing? Help! [Switching something on.] Ta-ra! With a bit of luck.
Louis [Looking at a drawing on the wall] Is that supposed to be you? It doesn’t look that much like you. [Noticing they are both now on-camera and appearing together on Cheggers’ monitor.] Oh! That is brilliant.
Keith Fantastic, isn’t it? We’d play games and competitions and, like, you have to guess what tunes is Cheggers having today by three o’clock.
Louis Get us back on the screen. I liked it when we were on the screen.
Keith Oh, it’s quite nice, isn’t it? So I could turn round and say [Cheggers delivery again], “Hello, welcome back. Well, I’ll keep you busy right the way throughout the day” et cetera, et cetera. So it was fantastic really. Er.
Louis [Transfixed by screen] Is that really what I look like?
Keith But, you see, we’ve got the facility to play videos and advertising and everything. And, I mean, it went potty.
Louis When are you going back on air?
Keith Well, within about four, five weeks.
Louis Do you say “on air”?
Keith Oh, I do. Well, coz it’s TV on a PC ... But when we come back it will be bigger, brighter and better.
Cheggers’ Bedroom was reckoned to be a huge hit by internet standards. So successful, in fact, that in May a band of Chinese computer hackers hacked into and defaced the site. To this day, their motives remain unclear: some said it was a misguided attempt to protest against American cultural imperialism, or possibly they thought, from its name, that Cheggers’ Bedroom was a porno site. Cheggers’ Bedroom broadcast seven days a week, 10 hours a day, with Keith at the helm the entire time. Keith says he enjoyed it so much that he didn’t find it tiring. On one occasion, he fell asleep “on air”. He says the viewing figures actually went up.
It strikes me that, after years of living and working at the whim of producers and channel executives, this is Keith’s chance to be master of his own fate, and also to show the world how a network should be run. He talks about years of meetings with television executives, pitching idea after idea, making tapes, and nothing coming of them. “You know,” he says, “within this framework, I can go and do the programmes that I want to do for once.”
Louis What would you put on if you were running TV?
Keith If I was running TV now, right, er, as soon as the afternoons come up, I’d put Val Doonican, Max Bygraves and Dana.
Louis Dana International [the Israeli transsexual]?
Keith Er, no, Dana as in the Irish Dana, used to sing All Things - All Kinds Of Everything in the Eurovision Song Contest.
Louis I don’t think I know her. What about Joe Longthorne?
Keith Yeah, him as well. Fantastic. The reason being is because 50% of the nation are bloody pensioners. And they don’t get any television to watch.
Louis Are Val Doonican and Max Bygraves alive?
Keith I think Max Bygraves is.
We wander into Cheggers’ music studio, which is next door to the “bedroom”. It’s tiny. There’s a mixing desk at one end, a keyboard off to one side. He plays me one of his own compositions, a soft, synthy piece he recorded as background music for Cheggers’ Bedroom. It sounds smooth and competent, if a little nondescript. If you heard it, you might say, “I wonder who writes this kind of thing?” and imagine someone in a cubicle in an office park. I ask to hear something else and he plays me a cheesy version of Kumbaya. He says it’s for the show he’s doing tonight at a club in Luton. He’ll play it as a gag, after a big intro about how he’s going to play one of the most moving, wonderful songs of all time. Hitherto, he’s used Lady In Red by Chris de Burgh, but it doesn’t work because everyone sings along. “Well, it’s quite a good song,” I say. We go downstairs.
Louis What was your happiest time, TV-wise?
Keith Oh, Big Breakfast.
Louis Really?
KeithYeah, I can’t tell you.
Louis More so than Cheggers Plays Pop and Swap Shop?
Keith Yeah, definitely.
Keith hasn’t told me much about the gig. He wants it to be a surprise. It could get quite risqué, apparently. I ask him if there will be naked women. “More than likely,” he says. One man in Coventry ran on stage, vomited into a pint glass and then drank it.
“Well, they’ve had a few drinks, some of these people,” I offer, rather lamely.
Around seven, after an early dinner of lasagne with Maria and Ted, we’re back in Keith’s car, heading for Luton. It’ll take two or three hours, Keith says. It’s not a bad distance, by his standards. Last week, he had to travel up to Aberystwyth for a gig.
In the boot is a suitcase full of gear for tonight’s show. We’ve also got to pick up John, who helps Keith with props when he’s on stage. We’re running about 10 minutes late and Keith’s anxious not to keep John waiting.
We talk some more about Keith’s alcoholism, and about his split from Maggie Philbin, the presenter he met and fell in love with during his time at Swap Shop. I’m beginning to understand why Keith is pleased he was an alcoholic. I think he feels that having peered into the abyss - having, in fact, fallen into the abyss and rolled around at the bottom for several years - nothing scares him any more.
Louis How old were you when you got the work on Swap Shop?
Keith Seventeen.
Louis Seventeen?
Keith Aye.
Louis Was that crazy?
Keith Stupid. Coz I’d never been in front of the camera as a presenter in my life.
Louis And it’s live ... I mean, we talked earlier a little bit about longevity. Is there a short way of explaining how you achieve longevity in this business? Coz TV presenting is a funny business, isn’t it?
Keith I’ve always found if you want to get on in show business, lie. It doesn’t matter how much talent you’ve got, whether you can sing, act or dance. You know, lying’s your biggest thing ... They never check you out.
We pull into a car park. Keith spots John. John’s a young man, burly, wearing black jeans and a heavy woollen jacket with a kind of Native American pattern.
Keith Fantastic. Oh, go on, smirk, you bastard.
John Hi, guys.
Keith Go on, say it.
John What?
Keith I’m late.
John Naah. [John climbs in the back seat of the car.]
Keith Are you all right, John?
John Yeah, good thanks.
Keith Any news?
John Nothing.
Keith I’ve done, er, that Kumbaya thing.
Louis Yeah, it sounds very good.
Keith Coz Lady In Red does not work.
Louis Yeah. Well, you’ve got to go with the audience.
Keith Well, as Louis says, you know, it’s quite a popular number.
Louis Yeah, it’s not a bad song. [Singing quietly] “I’ve never seen you looking as lovely as you did tonight, I’ve never seen you shine so bright... “
Keith We’re just talking about lying. About how to get a job in show business.
Louis What is a TV presenter? What is the actual skill that it entails? Do you know the answer?
Keith I don’t know, I mean, what I would say is that, you see, I’ve never wanted to be a television presenter.
Louis No? What did you want to be?
Keith A performer. And this is why I still do live gigs...
I ask Keith about his days as the BBC’s flagship children’s presenter, and how it ended. He is unbelievably phlegmatic about the whole thing.
Louis You recognise that you’re the exception, er, not the rule as far as that goes?...I mean, if you’re thinking about it, Paul Daniels famously went public over the way he was treated.
Keith Silly. Silly.
Louis Er, Bruce Forsyth?
Keith Yes. And Noel Edmonds.
Louis What about, er, Tony Blackburn? Actually, he didn’t do it so much as Dave Lee Travis did, did he?
Keith Oh, it was stupid. Why do they do that?
Louis Well, coz they’re upset. They’re upset and they feel ill-used. I mean, I understand that totally. I don’t find it surprising in the least.
Keith Yeah, but we’ve all been used and abused, but I don’t knock ‘em for it, because that’s the way. I mean, the BBC were fantastic. Fourteen years I was there! Good God! That’s amazing, innit? You know? Fourteen years at the BBC. I had three years at Sky TV. Fantastic. I had, er, three years at Channel 4. Fantastic. Two years at Channel 5. Fantastic! I can’t thank ‘em enough.
Louis You’re working your way down the channels.
Keith Exactly. You know, I’ve done cable TV, I’ve done satellite TV, I’ve had everything. You know, when somebody phones up and says no more Sale Of The Century, I go, “Well, we did do 180.”
Louis No more what?
Keith No more Sale Of The Century.
Louis Did you do Sale Of The Century?
Keith Yeah, I did that on, er, Challenge TV.
Night falls as we reach Luton. We’ve been talking about the television shows that Keith has turned down. “People always think Keith Chegwin does everything,” he says. “I turn down a lot.” Back at the house, Keith told me he doesn’t think he would appear on Banzai, the Channel 4 betting show, though he hasn’t been asked. He says he turned down Celebrity Big Brother (he sounds faintly regretful about this) and also said no to the Heineken advert that featured Peter Stringfellow and Jimmy Hill and other celebrities singing Close To You by The Carpenters. (“I just don’t get the gag. What is it? So what? Who gives a toss?”)
Louis What about Dennis Pennis?
Keith Oh, fantastic.
Louis Did you do one with him?
Keith No. I wrote a series for it. [Banging the steering wheel with excitement] Oh, he blew his career! Oh, I can’t tell you!
Louis Why are you getting so animated?
Keith Oh well, I was so annoyed. He did that Dennis Pennis thing to the stars and celebrities and I thought, great! Now what you’ve got to do now is the follow-up to it. And that is do Parkinson, but do it as Dennis Pennis. And then he went out and did this stupid series where it was all scripted comedy and it just didn’t work... I was so annoyed, I really was. I thought, oh, how can you do that?
Louis He never did you, isn’t that amazing? Well, you don’t do a lot of openings, so ...
Keith No, I don’t, I’m afraid. I thought it was fantastic.
Louis Yeah, it was good. They should bring him back.
Keith Yeah, I mean I thought it was star. Um, but I thought whoever is in charge of him just, you know ... You make a success of something - and Ali G has played it by the book. Fantastic. You know, he’s done that, he’s done the series. Then he did the Man From Kazakhstan and he’s left it for a bit and he’ll come back.
Louis Did you ever see the celebrity interviews on Trigger Happy TV?
Keith Oh yeah, they were quite nice... You know, that’s why, you know, I’ve never done - I can’t think of anything I’ve done that I’ve really been happy with.
Louis What, you can’t think of anything you’ve done that you’ve been happy with?
Keith Well, not, you know, not, er, I’ve always done something and it’s always been a compromise, you know, of ideas.
Louis You mean about your whole TV career?
Keith Oh yeah, very much so.
Louis You’ve never done something that you were totally happy with?
Keith No, never. No. I’d honestly say there’s nothing. There’s nothing I’ve really done that I’ve gone - yeah.
We reach Luton town centre. Like many English town centres, it has a baffling one-way system. We make the same circuit several times, passing through the same constellation of roundabouts.
Keith We are looking for some club called Liquids. Which is at number 44 something road.
Louis We could ask at the BP?
We find the club. It’s still early, about 9.30pm. Keith’s not on until 11pm, so we pile in the car and head back out on to the highways of Luton.
Keith Let’s find a pub. Yes?
Louis Okay.
Keith Fine. Um, what’s the word - oh God, it’s that bloody university again.
Keith is pontificating about the internet - “The dot.com era’s dead. It’s gone. Oh, I can’t tell you” - and his vision for Cheggers’ Bedroom. Keith has made up his mind that we’re looking for a hotel bar, rather than a pub or a wine bar. We drive further and further into suburban Luton until we’re in a modern development of Barratt-style housing, with no pubs in sight, no newsagents, even, let alone a commodious hotel bar.
Louis We should go back the way we came, shouldn’t we? Coz these roads are getting smaller and smaller.
Keith I know we’re getting nearer and nearer. Oh God, this is silly. Have I ever done this before, John?
John No, it’s because you’re chatting.
Louis Oh, should I - shall we just focus on getting somewhere?
Keith Er, yes, no. No, we’re all right.
John Anywhere else and there’s, like, pubs everywhere.
Keith I know. What’s going on? Every town we go to there’s just too many bloody hotels. They must have a local boozer here, you know? But, yeah, I mean the other thing I’ve always said is that there’s no way we can compete against terrestrial TV. Er, and nor would we want to really. Erm.
We give up on the idea of a hotel bar; we’ve spent half an hour lost in a thicket of Barratt homes. At this point, any pub will do. Keith recounts the story of being in Macbeth, the Roman Polanski version, in 1971, aged about 15. He played Fleance. “Roman Polanski says, ‘You get back on horse.’ And I said, ‘No, I’m hurt.’ He said, ‘You get back on horse.’ Oh God! An argument started and I told him to fuck off! Yeah, it’s weird. And, um - how about this place here? Does that look a bit seedy?”
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