Leigh Francis

[faceless]

My hols: comedian Leigh Francis
01/04/2008
http://travel.timesonline.co.uk

‘FRIGHTENINGLY, my wife says there’s a bit of me in all my characters – and with Keith Lemon, it’s nervousness about travelling. Jill and I went to Cairo, for example, and on the first morning the guide told us not to drink the water, not to shop in the souk and not to approach the locals. I thought, “We can’t get off the bus!”

The new series is a spoof reality show, and I stayed in character everywhere I went – Mexico, Japan, America, Iceland, Egypt and Australia. Keith is well meaning but an idiot, so he reacts inappropriately to everything he encounters. But my producer knew I’d had some bad holiday experiences, and deliberately chose destinations where I’d feel uncomfortable. That’s why we went to Egypt – and why, in Australia, he made me swim with dolphins.

He knows I’m terrified of dolphins. I reckon anything that cute and intelligent must have ulterior motives. I’d read that they sometimes gang up and attack sharks. And, sure enough, they really barged me about. What you see on that episode is not acting: it’s just me, and my naked fear.

My big bugbear about travelling, though, is the whole rigmarole in airports. It’s like a two-hour prison stretch in a mall. Jill likes the shopping, but I don’t really need any luxury leather goods, and end up buying travel speakers – again. I’ve got a drawer chock-full of travel speakers at home.

My childhood holidays were spent in Bridlington, in a static caravan because my dad liked to pretend he was roughing it. I think that’s why Jill and I went to Disneyland for our honeymoon: in our youth, it was a place only middle-class children got to visit. I loved it, but I unnerved the Disney characters by chatting to them. Alice in Wonderland came wandering through our hotel, so I invited her to join us for breakfast. She looked at me like I was a raving lunatic. They don’t expect you to talk back, do they?

Ironically, playing Keith Lemon has cured me of my travel phobia. Keith is dim but endearing, so the locals took him under their wing: I got to do some fantastic things – like dancing on stage with the Chippendales in Las Vegas, and singing Icelandic folk songs with the Sugarcubes.

Reykjavik was a revelation. Everyone’s so cool there. The bars don’t get going till 11pm, but then they party all night. And everybody looks like a model. The morning after, we went snow-biking on a glacier – which must be the world’s greatest hangover cure. I’d like to go back to Japan, too. The Japanese take themselves terribly seriously, which I guess is why they’ve developed so many surreal and seamy subcultures. We had a brilliant tour guide called Hugero, who bought us ground-up snake powder, which is meant to be an aphrodisiac, and took us to the Fuji Rock Festival at Naeba. It must be the cleanest music festival in the world – the loos were spotless, and the fans wore little trays around their necks for their cigarette butts.

Surprisingly, though, I found America was the richest travel experience of all: full of strangeness. We went to the Testicle Festival at Rock Creek Lodge in Montana, where Hell’s Angel-types gather to eat deep-fried bulls’ testicles – which taste godawful by the way. That was weird enough, but then the bikers’ wives started wrestling in oil, and there were naked people everywhere. We couldn’t get out fast enough.

One place I can really recommend, also in Montana, is the Lonesome Spur Ranch at Bridger. I had 20 minutes to learn to ride, then we were out on the trail, rounding up cattle. The landscape, the light, the whole mythic feel of the place, blew me away. It’s easy to lose yourself in the vastness of those mountains – all the stresses of telly-world back home in London, the triviality of celebrity culture, completely banished.

The people were so genuine, too. They warmed to Keith despite his ineptitude. My big mate was an improbably named cowboy called Tim. At the end of my stay, he turned to me and said: “Keith, you’re a great man.” I felt so guilty. I thought to myself, “Oh, God, I’m not great at all. I’m not even called Keith.”’

Leigh Francis talked to Vincent Crump