126 answers answered between 2004 and 2026 one of 25 in The Q&A
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I was in the musical Elvis, and after a costume change I went below stage to be raised up on a platform. As I was raised up, I blanked and couldn’t remember the first line of the song King Creole. I mumbled the first few lines and hoped nobody would notice.
When I was a teenager, I laughed at a joke I didn’t understand. Whoever told the joke turned to me and said, “What are you laughing at?” Of course I didn’t know and he obviously knew I didn’t know. It was excruciating.
I’m president of my neighbourhood association. At my first meeting there was a discussion about developments the association should oppose. I said: “Nothing could be as bad as that horrible new house next to the church.” “I designed that,” the chairman replied. I shut up.
Pretending I’m happy when I’m not.
It was a small gig and I was doing Three Minute Hero, which has a long, held note at the end, and I fell off the stage.
Signing away the rights to my life story to a major motion-picture company for a sum that I have since been told was way below the market rate.
Appearing on US breakfast radio. I heard the DJ say that after the news we would hear from the author Lincoln Child. I had to choose between making a guy with a mixed-up PR release look like an idiot or pretending to be Lincoln. I pretended.
That time I congratulated a waitress on being pregnant.
Falling off the stage and on to the pianist during the opening number in the Mother Goose pantomime at the Citizens theatre in Glasgow.
Gloria Hunniford’s wedding at Hever Castle 20-odd years ago. We had a lovely buffet and a few drinks and then I had to get a cab back to the train station. I said to the driver: “I’m ever so sorry, but I’m not going to be able to hang on till I get to the train. Could you possibly take me down this alleyway?” He said: “Yes, of course.” As I prepared myself to go “to the ladies”, this police car came along and the policeman said: “Hi-de-Hi!”
When I was doing a masterclass at a theatre and I had to leave the stage because I was about to shit my pants.
In the 1950s I went to the Chelsea Arts Club’s New Year’s Eve ball at the Royal Albert Hall dressed as a Christmas pudding, with swimming trunks under my costume and holly in my hair.
Fifteen years ago, I totally forgot my lines on stage and was mortified. We skipped two pages of dialogue and took three minutes off the play – to the delight of the audience!
I was about six years old in a market square in Italy and my dad said, “Oh, those shorts would look perfect on you.” So he whipped my trousers off and I hadn’t got any knickers on.
Nobody has answered this one yet.