the times | Saturday June 11 2022 saturday review 5
race or gender,” he says. “I don’t think reli-
gion is a characteristic. It’s an allegiance.
It’s a choice.
“It’s just this perennial problem that
comedy is bound to have in the atmos-
phere that we have now, which is to be
kind. The culture is to be nice to people,
which sounds great and in principle is
something I would support, but in prac-
tice, every joke has a victim. That’s what
a joke is.”
Has he ever been offended by a joke?
“Probably. I remember in relation to my
stammer, I once rang a BBC producer. I
can’t remember his name. John? Anyway,
his second name began with B, like yours.
Say his name was John Billen. I often
stammer on a B and it was him
on the end of the phone, but
I wasn’t sure it was. And
I said, ‘Is that John
B-B-B-Billen?’ and
he said, ‘S-S-S-
Speaking.’ And I
thought... That’s
the first time
that had hap-
pened to me.
“Then I said,
‘Oh, this is Row-
an Atkinson here.’
And there was a
terrible silence.”
Revenge served pip-
ing hot! But a rare retalia-
tion. Over Zoom, Davies
explains what the private Atkin-
son is really like. For example, to say good-
bye before flying back to LA, Davies
dropped in on him at an indeterminate
hour — neither teatime nor evening
drinks. Atkinson had prepared not only
tea and cake, but also alcohol, nuts and
olives. “He’s a lovely, lovely chap.”
“There are some movie stars that you
work with who can be difficult to be close
to, but Rowan is a fundamentally really
nice guy. Seeing somebody like that in
pain is a difficult thing. He has no choice
but to listen to the perfectionism that tor-
tures him, but in the end, when you get
to the cutting room, you’re so relieved
that he’s gone through all that pain and
misery because what you end up with
is the thing that everybody wanted at
the beginning.”
Charlie Chaplin once made a co-star
retake a scene 342 times. It is one of
history’s mercies that he and Atkinson
never made a film together. On the other
hand — what a masterpiece that would
have been.
Man Vs Bee premieres on Netflix on
June 24It sounds as though you’re...
No, I can’t.”
I explain that when
I saw pictures of
the house initially
I thought he
had filmed there
during lockdown.
“It’s not really
accurate to de-
scribe it as
my house,” he
says.
Is it not his
house? “No,
I’m sorry,
I can’t talk
about that.” I see
this fact-checkingmoment as an opportunity to explore
other misunderstandings. Is it true, for
instance, that he has an IQ of over 170?
“No idea. I’ve never had my IQ tested as
far as I’m aware. So I don’t know.”
It’s stated as fact on certain websites.
“Well, what’s also there as a fact is that
I’m dead.”
That is true. How does that make him
feel? “It’s very funny. My accountant
rings me up every six months and says, ‘I
know this is a silly question to ask, but
I’ve read it again that you’re dead and I
just want to check that you’re not.’ I say,
‘No, I’m not, I’m fine.’ It’s very odd. It’s
because something on the net never
goes away and it’s completely immune to
denial or truth.”
Is Mr Bean an extra-
terrestrial (a popular
theory extrapolated
from the sitcom’s
opening that has
Bean fall to Earth
down a beam of
light)?
“He’s a fict-
ional character.”
But did he
play him as an
extraterrestrial?
“I didn’t play him as
an extraterrestrial,
no.”
Here’s another: Was he
in discussions to play Adolf
Hitler in Peaky Blinders? “Gra-
cious me!” He has not heard that one?
“I haven’t. And the answer is a
definite no.”
While undoubtedly he is
irritated by the press, one
of the very good things
about Rowan Atkinson is his
stout defence of free speech.
Opposed to making attacks
on religion a hate crime, in
a letter to The Times
in 2018 he even
defended Boris
Johnson’s joke
about burqa-
wearers and
letterboxes.
“There has
been manifestly
a lot of success-
ful lobbying
from reli-
gious groups
to make a
religion a pro-
tected charac-
teristic, akin toCOURTESY OF NETFLIXhe is at least good at getting in a car and
driving away and forgetting.
Is that why he drives nice cars? “To drive
away from my inner torment? No, I just
enjoy them, but they happen to be a very
good, therapeutic outlet.”
Our interview never becomes Man vs
Interviewee, but around this point our
journey together does hit a few bumps,
starting with when I ask if his daughter,
born to his partner, the actress Louise
Ford, in 2017 (after the end of his mar-
riage), had found Man vs Bee funny. “I
don’t talk about my family or their atti-
tude,” he says.
A bit later, I mention that the amazing
home wrecked by man and bee looks
very much like Atkinson’s house in Ox-
fordshire. “I can’t talk about that either...
‘The culture
is to be nice
to people
— but in
practice every
joke has a
victim. That’s
what a joke is’
disaster zone Atkinson as Trevor, a luckless housesitter, in Man vs Bee, also left
and below left. Below: in Blackadder II in 1985 with Patsy Byrne and Stephen Fry