He’s been known to stand up at award dos and say things like “Jeremy Beadle should be clubbed to death”. He once punched a colleague of mine full in the nose for writing something not entirely flattering about him. It did make him, yes, very hard to warm to, as he now seems to understand. “Perhaps people did sense that, as a person, there was something about me that didn’t ring true. That inside this cheeky vaudevillian was something quite dark.” And, in the end, that dark bit decided to rise and punch HIM full on the nose? Perhaps, yes, he accepts.He doesn’t know where the rage comes from.

“It’s still work in progress.” He says he doesn’t know why it eventually turned inward – in the form of self-hatred – and in effect blew him up. I suggest that perhaps he had to destroy himself, so he could start again as someone else, as someone truer. He is now thinking about writing a pop-up book on psychiatry.But that rage That cruel and immensely unfunny rage, even. My friend said, `In this state, you must go and see a doctor.’ I went to a doctor and he said: `Right You are going to take a taxi and go to hospital’… eventually, I saw a psychiatrist who said, `You’ve lost it big time.’ And then he said, `I can feel more rage and anger coming from you than I have done in approximately 20 years of clinical practice, and now let’s toast crumpets.’”The rage Yes. I can’t think of any other reason why we didn’t like him more Certainly, he’s handsome enough Big, with good hair and very dark eyes Verbally, he’s fantastically dextrous He can be very funny. It wasn’t so much disorganisation, I might have a meeting or voice-over at 4pm.

I’d be up, scrubbed, showered and ready to go by 8am, but then go into a sort of cataleptic trance. I’d sit there, absolutely motionless, just staring at a spot on the wall, or a bit of light on the floor, and then I’d snap out of it at ten to four, and panic Did I have the right tie on? I’d go through all my drawers Clothes went up in the air I’d start to cry. The frustration made me later and later and more and more physically unco-ordinated. I’d eventually turn up with a cut or a bruise or something… do you find my speech pattern very fast? I’m making up for two years of going for months on end without saying a word…”When did I first seek help? After a five-day period of sleep deprivation, and a close friend, who’d tried in vain to stay in touch, broke into my flat My speech was disordered I was very dehydrated from the drugs My body was making constant jerking movements I was in a state of hyper- vigilance The smallest sound would make me jump.

Even, perhaps, that it was necessary, in a strange sort of way.”I’d had depression before and it’s common and you deal with it,” he explained “It was bleak I’d withdraw for a bit, but then it would pass. It was like the black dog got you, gave you a little shake, but then let you go But this wasn’t like that. The black dog got me in its jaws and just hung on for two years. It came out of the blue and got mixed up with all sorts of other things Amphetamine abuse Cocaine abuse Complete lack of self-care A sleep disorder started.

The psychiatrists still haven’t put their finger on this yet. It was almost periods of narcolepsy – I could sleep for three days at a time, but then wake up at the end of those three days feeling totally unrefreshed – and then I couldn’t get to sleep for three days after, so I’d be pacing about with what they call psycho motor agitation.”And in the depths of those horrible two years, I couldn’t work, because I was incapable of turning up anywhere on time. Big time.”
This rectorship business is actually Tony’s first job in two years, since he had a great, big, fat nervous breakdown Some may say he had it coming. OK, I made the last one up but, he’d probably have done it if it had been offered. He was almost omnipresent although, funnily enough, never much liked. I mean, did you ever overhear anyone saying: “I just love that Tony Slattery”? Or: “What a genius!”.