| Dark days for Denis By: Allan Brown for The Sunday Times 20 May, 2001 The connection between clinical depression and a genteel BBC comedy-drama concerning a Jewish cop on Glasgow's southside is not immediately apparent. In fact, it is practically nonexistent when I arrive at the Langham hotel in London's West End to interview its star, Denis Lawson. The ostensible subject is The Fabulous Bagel Boys, a one-off television film in which Lawson plays Detective Inspector Morris Rose; kosher guardian of the garden suburbs, the man who watches the Neighbourhood Watch, who assures those behind the twitching net curtains that "there's less to this than meets the eye". The piece is funny, touching and well-written and the hope within BBC Scotland is that it can become a series to rival Scottish Television's Taggart (cheekily, its first line of dialogue parodies the famousTaggart line: "There's been a murder"). Towards this end Lawson has installed himself in the hotel's Chukka Bar for an afternoon of promotional chit-chat. Before the afternoon is out, Lawson will have surprised both of us by discussing at length, for the first time, his 25-year battle with clinical depression. In the meantime, we amiably canter over the peaks and troughs of the extensive CV he has built up since departing his native Crieff for London in the early 1970s. He is one of the few actors to appear in all three installments of the Star Wars trilogy. It is immortality of a type, although he is embarrassed by his involvement; partly because the films were so populist, partly because his role amounted to blink-and-you-miss- them cameos as Wedge Antilles, a rebel fighter pilot. The worst part is the "slightly mad" fans: Lawson refuses their invitations to Star Wars conventions, dodges their letters and still has not seen the commemorative doll in his image. Now 53, the actor and director retains the vigilant, aquiline looks that made him a pin-up for a certain faction of thinking women after the success of his first big picture, Local Hero, in which he played Gordon Urquhart, the fiercely amorous hotel proprietor. He even carries off a flamboyantly striped Paul Smith shirt beneath a muted turquoise suit. Just back that morning from New York, on business relating to his burgeoning third-string career in short-film production, he apologizes for being jet-lagged and for the occasional anecdote that wanders off at a tangent. Lawson's manner is thoughtful, cultured and slightly actorly, in that way actors have of making their every artistic dilemma a matter of table-clutching moment. Away from the screen, his accent reveals itself as strikingly similar to that of his nephew Ewan McGregor (his sister Carol is Ewan's mother): the same marbly Perthshire inflection, crisp yet slightly slurry. Television has always been Lawson's bread and butter (he can currently be seen as a camp television executive in the ITV comedy Bob Martin, with Michael Barrymore, and he starred in the Hornblower series), affording him a comfortable lifestyle in Crouch End, London, with his girlfriend Sheila Gish, another television regular. But the theatre is his first love, particularly the long string of West End comedies and musicals in which he has appeared. In 1999, he also had a stab at directing, with a revival of Little Malcolm and his Struggle Against the Eunuchs that starred his famous nephew. A typical slice of crazed 1960s agitprop, the production was nonetheless a huge success and prompted from McGregor a quote to the effect that Lawson was its ideal director. “He’s different from other people”, he said. Denis understands the depths of depression.” The remark seems curiously lateral in the context of Little Malcolm, and when I put it to Lawson he feigns confusion. Really understand depression? How interesting, how very interesting," he murmurs, rather like Sherlock Holmes might on beIng told that Moriarty lives round the corner. “Where did that come from? Look, I've no idea how that was relevant to the play. I suppose we must have talked about that in relation to the background of the character." Clearly improvising slightly, Lawson goes on to talk about the low-Ievel anxiety that afflicts actors: the intense highs and lows, the adrenaline, the come-downs. "In this business it's…I...I know a lot of actors like that," he says vaguely. Considering the assiduousness with which Lawson maintains his laconic demeanour, there is something provocative in these mild evasions. So, was his nephew implying that depression is something of which Lawson has had first-hand experience? Lawson pauses, looks absently round the room, then wipes the corners of his mouth. He laughs ruefully. “Well, it is something I've gone through”, he says finally. “Its very funny you bring this up, because I've not actually talked about this before and I’ve begun to feel that depression is very widespread now and that I really ought to talk about my experience of it. "A lot of people I know -or think I know - these days come up and tell me they're suffering from depression. I suffered from clinical depression for many, many years and recently I thought it might help other people to talk about it. “ln its most extreme forms it would be like an Illness,” he continues thoughtfully, reminding himself. "Very debilitating. I could barely walk. I suppose I’m talking about six or seven very extreme episodes over many years, along with ongoing lower level awful, lethargic feeling. Continued on Page 2 |