Celebrity encounters

[pigamus]

Angel Islington, 2002. Outside the tube station. I'm saying goodbye to my ex-fiancée, having fucked up our relationship quite spectacularly. I'm in tears, obviously. I know I'm never going to see her again. It's by far and away the worst day of my life.

And then I glance to my right, and standing just a few feet away from us is Helen Lederer.

What else could I say? "Do you know who Helen Lederer is?"

She did. And then she had to carry on listening to my blubbery gnashing and wailing and I'm-so-sorrying whilst pretending not to look at Helen Lederer.   

[WhoMe]

10 years ago I worked at the Fringe as a sound/lighting techie and flyerer for a few acts on our roster, so this is mainly from that time:
David O'Doherty was prob our biggest act, he was great. Would come out to chat and help flyer/entice passing trade before shows. Didn't have to as he sold well anyway. We drank with him in the pleasance courtyard one night, either because it was his birthday or the end of the run. Can't remember.
Mate and I somehow got into drunk, mildly flirty conversation with Paul Sinha as we exited the gents at the Gilded Balloon.
Same mate got grinded on by Jennifer Coolidge (Stifler's mum) who was completely hammered. Her assistant bundled her out of the party after that. We still talk about it and convince ourselves it did actually happen.
One of the guys I tech'd for knew Jim Jefferies well. Got introduced to him after one of our acts' shows when he came over to chat during the post-show debrief/counselling session.
In one of the staff/act bars John Bishop appeared on my right while I was getting drinks. I mustered a 'how're you finding the festival... ah, that's good cheers' before leaving.
Loads of great memories from working there. Didn't bring a penny home but that wasn't the point really.

Non-Fringe related - Sean Hughes came for xmas dinner at my aunts' house a long time ago. Didn't know who he was at the time but he was very affable. I wasn't old enough to chat to him meaningfully. Knowing about him now makes that day a lot sadder.

[Jack Shaftoe]

Used to run events in a big bookshop, close-ish to London so we could get big name authors in fairly easily.

JK Rowling: lovely but slightly haunted. She was great with the kids who'd turned up but this was for the third book, so she was on the brink of being mega-famous and you got the sense she knew she couldn't do this sort of thing for much longer. 

Bernard Cornwall (Bloke who does the Sharpe books). Nicest man ever.

Ruth Rendell (awesome crime writer): frosty and horrid. She's dead now.

Will Self: bit snippy and sniggery

Neil Gaiman: delightful

[chveik]

i was introduced to the singer from franz ferdinand at a warehouse thing a couple years ago. i was really fucked so kept singing mocking versions of his songs back at him

lovely stuff

[Dex Sawash]

lovely stuff

Imagine he was pleased someone knew more than one. I can only pull up a little guitar fill (or bridge or whatever)

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

Imagine he was pleased someone knew more than one. I can only pull up a little guitar fill (or bridge or whatever)

i mean it was largely me slurring like AAHHhh sYAYy DONTCHA KNOWWWwwW

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

Same mate got grinded on by Jennifer Coolidge (Stifler's mum) who was completely hammered. Her assistant bundled her out of the party after that. We still talk about it and convince ourselves it did actually happen.

Sister and friends met her and said she was utterly hammered when they met her.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Was in a cafe in Partick and Limmy and his missus came in and sat at the next table. Limmy went over to look at the chill cabinet with all the desserts and fancy gateaux in it, and I had to fight the urge to attempt a recreation of that sketch where the waiter brings two spoons and does a bit of 'how naughty to eat some of your partner's dessert'-type mugging, and then they all dance to 'In the Night' by the Pet Shop Boys. But I didn't (the Pet Shop Boys weren't there).

Also saw Alexei Sayle having a coffee in a pavement cafe in That London, but I assume everyone is mingling with celebs constantly in That London.

Ed Byrne once bought me a bottle of beer.

Apart from that mostly just football people - Gordon Strachan, Kenny Dalglish, Henrik Larsson walking his dog (I think it was called Simba - not very original).

[Fr.Bigley]

sami hyypia gave me a death stare as I was sat adjacent to him on a flight to Manchester from Helsinki, later found out it was his testimonial match next day, I must have reminded him of Roy Keane or summat.

[Tony Tony Tony]

Whilst in the queue for a flight back from Hong Kong (business class, it was taxpayers money after all) my attention was drawn to a vision of loveliness ahead of me and moreover her male companion. Couldn't place him at first then recognised him as ex footie player and currently god botherer David Icke.

Knew then that my flight was going to make it safely home. 

Also on a related note sat in a seat on a Lufthansa flight back from Munich and the seat bore a small plaque saying His Holiness the Pope (the Nazi one) had seated in that very spot.

Again knew then etc....

[Jockice]

Bob Wilson sat behind me on a flight from London to Manchester once.

[Tony Tony Tony]

Bob Wilson sat behind me on a flight from London to Manchester once.

Did he drop his in flight meal?

[finnquark]

I was Aloe Blacc's security detail, for one night only.

[jamiefairlie]

Bob Wilson sat behind me on a flight from London to Manchester once.

One of HMHB's best.

[Echo Valley 2-6809]

Stood behind Jamie Carragher in Lime Street M&S queue

Could have been a lookalike - I know someone who met the spit of him.

[Cuntbeaks]

1990, sold Ricky Ross of Deacon Blue fame the cheapest fridge we had. I warned him it sounded like a electrical sub station when it was on. He said he didn't care, it was for a tenant of his. He also looked like a vagrant.

1994, sat close to Jon Pertwee in a Chinese restaurant in Derby. He winked at my Mrs. He wasn't holding back on the bevvy.

2014, saw Sadowitz haggling over a bundle of second hand CDs and DVDs in Missing Records on Argyle St. Held the door for him as he left, bottled out of being a fanboy.

2017, saw Billy Connolly being stopped every 10 yards by well wishers on Bath St in Glasgow. Was going to cross over and join in, but didn't bother.

[non capisco]

1990, sold Ricky Ross of Deacon Blue fame the cheapest fridge we had. I warned him it sounded like a electrical sub station when it was on. He said he didn't care, it was for a tenant of his. He also looked like a vagrant.

Real Gone Cunt, more like.

[bigfatheart]

As a kid (about 8) my Mum and I queued behind Simon Day in the Derby branch of Marks & Spencer. He was buying a salad. The Fast Show was pretty much the only grown up show I watched so it was mind-blowing that one of them had appeared out of my television set and was now in Derby.

In my teens, while coming back from a family wedding in Ireland I shared a plane with Discharge. When my sister told my Mum who they were, her response was "I could tell you all about discharge".

I also saw Justin Lee Collins in a branch of Zavvi, not that long after his harassment trial. He cut a fairly low-key figure, but all the same I played it safe and didn't go near any George Clooney DVDs.

[Sonny_Jim]

Arse.  I do this all the time.  For example, once I asked a DJ to play 'Everybody loves the sunshine' by Ray Mears.

EDIT:  Oh and whilst I'm at it, I was drunk at a pinball convention[nb]Yes, these things exist.  Go to one, they're great[/nb]., yabbering on about Tempest to some random guy, who politely informed me that I was talking to none other than Jeff Minter.  Old school game designer who wrote Tempest 2000.  Is this the most niche answer in this thread?

[xxxx xxx x xxx]

I once had a pee next to Bobby Moore. I mentioned this to a workmate once and he said: "So have I!"  Yeah, but I bet he's never had a pee between two members of Pop Will Eat Itself.

Well I once peed next to Jon Langford at the Bradford 1 in 12 Club.  He was hung like a donkey, believe you me.

[Jockice]

Well I once peed next to Jon Langford at the Bradford 1 in 12 Club.  He was hung like a donkey, believe you me.

I very narrowly missed having a pee next to Gordon Banks once too. He finished at the urinal about 30 seconds before I got there. I was planning to try and do the whole England 66 team, which is pretty ironic for a Scot.

Also, when Celtic played Manchester United at Old Trafford a few years ago a mate of mine managed to get a pair of tickets to be picked up on the night. He went to fetch them while I stood alone in this little alcove thing at the side of the ground. And who should walk past while I was there? Only Bobby Charlton. Of course by the time my friend returned - after about a minute - Bobby was nowhere to be seen. So he didn't believe me. I found it hard to believe myself. Not Charlton being at OT, just the timing of the whole thing.

[Pancake]

Saw Paul Daniels and the wonderful Debbie McGee in Heathrow in the 90s, you could hear his cuban heals clip clopping a mile off

[lebowskibukowski]

Once had a piss next to Paddy Ashdown in the Metroploe hotel in Brighton.
Saw Kevin Bacon having a pint in a shitty little pub in Lewes.
Recently sold Dean Lennox Kelly some LED lamps.
That's about it...

[Psybro]

I shook Olé Gunner Solskjaer's hand leaving a Raconteurs gig in Manchester in 2006. The support act was 'Norway's top live band' BigBang so I think he'd come to see them. He seemed nice.

David Guest once showed up at the Royston Beer Festival for some unfathomable reason.

Whatever The Troggs now consist of were sat behind me on a flight from Frankfurt to Manchester.

[Mr Farenheit]

1990, sold Ricky Ross of Deacon Blue fame the cheapest fridge we had. I warned him it sounded like a electrical sub station when it was on. He said he didn't care, it was for a tenant of his.

A fridge called Dig-ni-ty

[Rizla]

I was once very, very drunk with a mate and bumped into Mark McDonnell of sketch show Velvet  Soup on the streets of Edinburgh...

A mate of mine did some writing for that show - he definitely wrote the y-fronts sketch, possiblythe scottish bookcase too - but if memory serves he'd also previously written a stage show for McDonnel and Steven McNicholl, and one of the sketches in this was a very funny Laurel & Hardy-esque routine involving strobe lighting to create a flickery old-movie effect, and the joke was always that the two would, in the course of performing some innocuous activity, end up looking like they were engaging in a sex act. It was this routine that the two actors went on to create a fringe show from, without crediting my writer friend. A short time after all this, I bumped into McDonnell in the Bongo Club at chucking out time, and did some of the sketch show's catchphrases at him ("why I oughta!!" I seem to remember) and he looked terrified. "How do you know that?" he asked, incredulously. "I'm a friend of (X)'s, he's not happy about your fringe show by the way!" I laughed.

I wonder who got the charger.

[Oh, Nobody]

Early 90s: Dinner break at school and there's a new furniture shop opposite the chippy being opened by none other than Question Of Sport stalwart Emlyn Hughes. Bunch of kids go over for autographs, I go walong cuz it's either that or head back to school. Everybody gets their autographs then Emlyn turns to me and says "Do you want one too, lad?"  "Nah you're alright"

Early 2000s: In That There London for college end of year show, me and a bunch of other, older, kids emerge from some underground station or other to see Jon from S Club 7 getting out of a taxi. One girl practically has a meltdown at being so close to one so famous. Autographs are grabbed, photos are taken. Then Jon turns to me and says ""Autograph?"  "Nah you're alright"

2004 or so, got chatted up by Cathy Davey after a gig "Nah you're alright" but turned her down as I didn't want to miss my last bus. What a lad.

[rectorofstiffkey]

I once sourced a particular white powder for a particular cast member of Peep Show. My guess is that this was not his first similar transaction that evening judging from his facial movements...

I'm amusing myself by imagining that you're talking about David Mitchell.  Appreciate that this is very unlikely.

Was this the true purpose of Gerard's nose tube?

[Jittlebags]

The entire Wales team at the departure lounge in Bologna in the 90s at some point. I remember Speed, Hughes and Southall being there - Speed was carrying an acoustic guitar, Hughes signed my mate's Inspector Morse book. Bobby Gould was skulking in the corner prior to his sacking to be replaced by joint managers Hughes and Southall for the next game which I think was against Denmark. I remember Southall looking dapper on the touchline in a black suit for that one.

Oh, and we flew back on the same plane as the team, them being behind the curtain forward in first class. Ex Wales goalie Dai Davies sat behind me though.

[Shaky]

2004 or so, got chatted up by Cathy Davey after a gig "Nah you're alright" but turned her down as I didn't want to miss my last bus. What a lad.

.

I've just googled her - you silly, silly IDIOT! She might've driven you home, at the very least.

During a family holiday in Portugal we walked past an out and about Martina Navratilova. I was also present in the same uni pub as Tony Slattery and Stephen Fry when they were each up for Rector (on separate occasions). Slattery was extremely manic and clearly not a well man. I didn't bother Fry but he seemed very at ease and friendly.