The impressionist on Jeremy Corbyn, Michael Gove and why current politics are beyond satire.
IT’S show day in the Scottish border town of Kelso. Flags are flying on the banks of the Tweed, tractors are revving and gleaming farm animals are being led off trailers. It’s an important day for the area, but not one you would associate with a comedian, less still one as well known as Rory Bremner. He is here, however, moving faster than anyone has moved in the Ednam House Hotel for years, accepting coffee, making small talk about the weather and cutting a tall, well-dressed dash in the tartan surroundings.
The Bremners moved to the Borders in 2003—he’s married to the sculptor Tessa Campbell Fraser and they have two teenage daughters. ‘It’s where we relax,’ he says, ‘although it can be depressing watching Wimbledon in front of a log fire. I’m often reminded of Billy Connolly’— he breaks into a rumbling Glaswegian accent, his first impression of the morning— ‘saying that we have two seasons here: winter and July.’
Mr Bremner is probably Britain’s best-known impressionist. Huge in the 1990s and, to an extent, in the early 2000s, when he was one of Channel 4’s main talents, fronting Rory Bremner, Who Else? and Bremner, Bird and Fortune in an unbroken 18-year run, these days, it’s fair to say that, although busy, he struggles to get the big jobs he once enjoyed.
He’s just completed a run of stand-up dates around the country, which he relished. ‘It’s a really political time at the moment with Trump and Brexit and satire is limping along behind trying to make sense of it all,’ he says. ‘The election was called in the middle of the tour: I was a bit like Brenda [cue indignant female Bristolian]: “What? Not another one?”’
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
