Drifting Around The Room In Leeds

Evesham-born Renaissance man Alistair McGowan talks to Gerald Heys about his latest project: an album of solo classical piano music

‘Chronic remorse’, Aldous Huxley says in his introduction to Brave New World, does none of us any good. If you are haunted by regrets, he suggests, you should concentrate on doing better next time and not brood on past errors. Alistair McGowan is making amends in spades. Having given up the piano at the age of nine, for what he then felt were the more virile rigours of the football field, he has, for the last three years or so, been showing contrition by devoting himself to what he considers ‘the king of instruments’. His competitive urges appear to have taken a very satisfying turn. ‘As a child, I saw competition in terms of sport and beating other people, not in terms of getting the best out of yourself, which is now what I think is the best thing in life.’

Alistair is probably best known for The Big Impression, the BAFTA award winner that was, for four years, one of BBC1’s top-rated comedy programmes. But over the last 27 years, he has worked in almost every area of show business and the arts: impressionist, stand-up comic, actor, singer, writer of sketches, articles, and stage and radio plays. And it looks like there’s still plenty left in his creative tank.

Though he rejected the piano as a boy, the instrument must have somehow entered his soul. He felt the urge to take it up again in his mid-30s: ‘I thought, Come on, you’ve got to do this. But it was – and this sounds stupid – rudely interrupted by The Big Impression, which was so all-consuming that for five years, there wasn’t a chance to sit down at the piano. Before that programme began, I was doing an hour’s practice a day.’