Lantana with Paul Whitehouse.

I bump into him now and again because and we both like to hide in Lantana, a little Australian cafe off Goodge Street. Paul Whitehouse is a proper comedy genius who, because of his casual and unaffected nature, didn’t always get the credit he deserved. Take this track and the Loadsamoney character. Paul co-wrote both but Harry Enfield got all the credit. After a few years in the background, however, he stepped forward and people saw his fantastic talent for creating and inhabiting characters. When I arrived at Lantana, he looked up with his trademark grin/sneer and said “Oh Gawd, they let anyone in here now” before sharing his table with me. He’s performing with Harry Enfield at the Hammersmith Apollo tonight and I should have got him to put my name on the door. Though he’d no doubt have grin/sneered and said, “Oh Gawd, they’ll let anyone in there now”.