A Pocketful of Happiness

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Walk, lurch downstairs, utterly overwhelmed and discombobulated. Tears blurring everything. Grateful to have something to do. Newly arrived in London, I was waitering at Tuttons brasserie in Covent Garden, and had just secured an acting agent, who suggested getting accent coaching to help me play Northern Irish, as there were so many dramas being made about the Troubles and “you’re dark-haired and blue-eyed, so you could go up for Irish roles.”

Attempting to be “normal” in this uniquely abnormal situation exhausts us all, and we’re in bed by 9 p.m. It's is a remarkable mix of humour and tragedy, sprinkled with name-dropping, and delivered with insight and charm.He details with evocative precision what it was like to care for Washington during her illness. Anyone who has ever looked after a terminally ill person will know exactly what he means when he describes her “lemony irritability” on a bad day, and I especially liked his description of Washington’s moods vacillating “like the cast of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, between Dopey, Grumpy, Sleepy, Happy, Bashful and visiting the Doc”. While I was grateful that she didn’t think I needed endless coaching, I was also frustrated that after only two sessions I no longer had a legitimate reason to see her again. She was also a few years older than me, married-but-separated, with a young son, and with a string of prestigious productions and a movie to her credit. Must be jet lag. But let’s face it, Swaz, it’s really boring, and I couldn’t hear a word that young woman was whispering.” I've always liked Richard E Grant, ever since my family watched his version of The Scarlet Pimpernel yearly like it was some kind of religious ritual and later, as an older teen, I found his autobiographical film Wah Wah about childhood trauma, colonialism and being the outsider quite powerful (especially since my granddad actually lived for a bit in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and described similar experiences) and his exuberance on social media about everything is endlessly endearing. I felt for him when he publicly announced losing his wife on socials and his enduring love for her was palpable #couplegoals. I was therefore quite interested in reading this memoir.

As with all celebrity autobiography, Grant is a victim of his own success. My mind wandered to other people who have experienced what Grant has without the exuberant wealth and high society support network that reaches the echelons of King Charles. Whilst you feel for Grant as a human, the way in which the book darts between trivial celebrirty anecdote and personal moments is emotionally draining and confusing. Richard also explores the house where Lorca’s family lived during the poet’s final years, and learns how his eventful life was cut tragically short when he was killed in Granada by a fascist firing squad in August 1936. Talking about her keeps her memory alive, and is a vital part of his journey with grief, enabling him to continue living. One such devotee was the great American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, who lived in Antibes’ sister town Juan-les-Pins for two years in 1925. Richard visits the Hotel Belles Rives, formerly the seaside house rented by Fitzgerald, his wife Zelda and their daughter Scottie. It was here that Fitzgerald was inspired to write his classic Tender is the Night.Not very good—it’s an impression rather than the real thing and you couldn’t sustain a whole performance doing that. Needs to be as accurate and authentic as possible.” The world feels beautiful to me at the moment. I’ve never felt quite like this before about anyone. I can’t find the right words to tell you how I feel, because the sensations are new to me. I so love everything about it—just being in the same room with you is wonderful. You’re a very special person—I’ve always thought so, even before I fell in love with you—so open, so generous, so… EVERYTHING. I want you to be happy, to be successful, to feel complete, whatever happens between us. At the moment I want US to happen together. Read “The Good-Morrow” by John Donne—that’s how I feel about you— When Richard E Grant’s wife, Joan Washington, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer just before Christmas 2020, she didn’t really want anyone to know. “It won’t cure me!” she said. But Grant and their daughter, Oilly (Olivia), had different ideas. They felt they needed the support of their huge circle of friends: anything else would be too lonely. And perhaps, they also pointed out, this worked both ways. Grant remembered how upset he’d been on hearing, out of the blue, of Victoria Wood’s death in 2016. The news had made him feel he’d failed her; that he wasn’t close enough to her to be told her cancer had returned. I ask if his friends have started trying to fix him up with eligible women. “Some have, yes. And I find that absolutely bizarre. It’s not something I could even conceive of at this point. It’s still too raw and present, and I am still having an ongoing conversation with my wife in my head,” he says. But it’s not, of course, the same as the real thing.

Something metaphysical is certainly happening to me!!! I’ve never written a letter like this before. How wonderful life is. I love you, my darling. Joan X I find it very, very helpful, because it makes something that seems unreal feel real. It’s astonishing to me that I, who started out in one of the smallest countries in the southern hemisphere, should have this life, so if I write it all down, then it actually happened,” he says. There was stuff that involved body doubles – now how can I say this without giving it away? I can’t tell you what it is, because it’s a plot spoiler. Anyway, there are doubles of things, put it that way. And that was surreal to do.” It is a difficult read in moments and will certainly make you consider how you might react when a loved one passes away, as we will all experience at some point. But consider this book not a burden, but a balm. A reminder that there is life and hope and love all around us.Around this time, I received a letter from Equity, the actors’ union, and was informed that a retired actor called Richard Grant had complained, after seeing his name outside the Churchill Theatre, requiring me to change mine. Called Equity in a panic and explained that I had no money, and that my name was printed on all my ten-by-eight photos already. I have read Richard E Grant before so I knew he’d write some amusing anecdotes and tell some great stories, but I was unprepared for how deeply this, written after the death of his wife Joan, would move me. I entered into this book under the notion it would be solely focussed on Grant’s experience of losing his wife. Understandably so, given the memoir’s title is the parting advice upon her death, in addition to Grant’s press tours where he continually touted this as a memoir on Joan’s terminal cancer. Thank you Richard E Grant for sharing your pain and yet give us the occasional loud laugh in writing.

Sorry, should have said, I like to smell everything in sight. Always have done. Ever since I can remember. Can’t understand why everyone doesn’t. You’re a brilliant cook.” I’m a retired character actor, and my real name is Peter Grant, but I had to change it in 1929, as there was an actor with that name already.” This resulted in experiencing ‘literary whiplash’ - pulled around from an emotional chapter to subsequently being regaled with glossy celebrity tales in the next one, and feeling slightly uncomfortable about how they could be within such close proximity of one another. What will surprise audiences most about the show? Hopefully, that you don’t know what will happen, it’s not obvious. I don’t think of what’s going to happen or how it’s going to turn out. That’s the draw of it. Brutal to witness Joan telling Oilly that “more tests are required, chemotherapy is likely, as I have an as yet undiagnosed form of lung cancer.”

Richard E. Grant's French reading list

Frustrating? I suppose sometimes it was. But at the same time, you know, it was always a bit tongue-in-cheek-y from her,” he says. Thank you for writing honestly and lovingly about your wife and caring for her when she was dying from lung cancer. Lying shoulder to shoulder, I look across to where this “dark mass” is hiding inside her. Waiting. Just like we are, on the outside, waiting to identify what it’s doing and how far it’s spread.