Interview

HL: Do you think a convertible betokens a flippant mind?

ET: No, I think it betokens a time where traditionally people think a person is more carefree, is more open to, as it were, a convertible lifestyle.

HL: By the way, are we deserving to be happy?

ET: Well, it's back to what your parents told you, that you're lucky, which basically means that you're going to have to work for the rest of your life to deserve that luck.

HL: Yes.

ET: I met you at a Footlights audition, in Cambridge, 30 years ago. Now, do you have any recollection of that?

HL: I actually do. I remember being-

ET: Nineteen.

HL: Yes, although I didn't walk around the place thinking, I'm 19. That wasn't in the forefront of my consciousness. But I was dragged to this . . . it felt a little like a dungeon. Of course, it was actually a rather nicely appointed chamber, but it felt like-

ET: It was called "the dungeon," wasn't it?

HL: Yes. A windowless dungeon by a woman called Allison.

ET: You had to be the Emperor of China, because it was very funny. And I turned around to Martin Bergman and said, "He's a star." I've told you that story before.

HL: Oh, yes. But here I am, vocally blushing. Now, you, may I say, were already a star. People spoke of you in hushed tones.

ET: I hadn't done anything by then.

HL: But Bergman, he knew the stuff of which you're made.

ET: We had already done a sketch, though, actually, a couple of years before. Because he was in his last year when you and I turned up.

HL: Yes. He had a long black overcoat which made him look like a Gestapo officer. I think he rather relished the fact that it made him look like a Gestapo officer.

ET: I think it made him attractive to an awful lot of women in Cambridge.

HL: Really? Long black leather coats work?

ET: They did then.

HL: They did back then!

ET: Come on, it's 30 years ago, Hugh. You wore a long black cloak, for crying out loud.

HL: A cloak. What was I thinking? I really can't. I just read an 800-page history of the Scottish Enlightenment and, honestly, I may as well just start it again now, because I cannot remember a single thing. I can barely remember where Scotland is.

ET: I have a very clear memory of your book.

HL: Do you?

ET: Yes. The Gun Seller.  I read it twice. I don't know whether people know that you've written this wonderful book, but they ought to go out and read it right now, because it's hysterical. I remember there's a piece in it where you describe walking upon virgin snow and you describe the snow. You're saying, "Oh, no, please don't walk there." I get that feeling with virgin snow. You don't want to walk on it, because it's this utter destruction of something absolutely perfect.

HL: It's perfect and defenseless.

ET: And defenseless. Exactly. And what do we do? We turn it into slush? How typical of the human race.

HL: Isn't it?

ET: Now, do you think you would describe yourself as a misanthropist or a misanthrope?

HL: No. I don't think so. I have misanthropic days-or half-days. I can get into a sort of muttering, curmudgeonly state. But no, I don't think I am overall. Believe it or not, perhaps I don't show it much, or well, but I think I like people.