Finding His True Self

Chris Hallam pays tribute to the many different lives of comedian and broadcaster Paul O'Grady

- Chris Hallam

At the dawn of the 21st century, the comedian Paul O’Grady was in an unusual but not unenviable position. On the one hand, he had been behind one of the biggest comedy success stories of the 1990s. The enormous popularity of his onstage persona Lily Savage had expanded way beyond the confines of the 1980s London gay scene into the very heart of Britain’s mainstream. Once seen as a somewhat taboo act suitable only for an adult audience, by the 1990s Savage was appearing regularly on family-friendly light-entertainment shows such as The Big Breakfast and Blankety Blank.

But, through it all, Paul O’Grady himself remained quietly unknown to most people, almost as if Lily Savage was a comic book superhero and Paul was her secret identity.

A thoroughly ordinary-looking tall, thin, grey-haired, bespectacled man in his mid-40s, O’Grady could easily walk around London unrecognised. Only his distinctive voice – which O’Grady had never made any attempt to disguise – gave him away.

However, all this was about to change. O’Grady was growing weary of Lily Savage. “I come back to my flat some nights and there’s an old leopard-skin handbag on the floor and a pair of her shoes and some old coat,” he complained. “It’s like living with some boozy old barmaid who’s trashed the place.”