The Complete Man and Boy Trilogy: Man and Boy, Man and Wife, Men From the Boys. Tony Parsons

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       Three

      Marty grew up eating dinner with the TV on. Television had been his babysitter, his best friend, his teacher. He could still recite entire programming schedules from his childhood. He could whistle the theme tune to Dallas. His Dalek impersonation was among the best I have ever heard. The Miss World contest had taught him everything he knew about the birds and bees, which admittedly wasn’t very much.

      Although I was nothing like him, Marty took to me because I came from the same sort of home. That doesn’t sound like much of a basis for friendship, but you would be surprised at how few people in television come from that kind of background. Most of the people we worked with came from homes with books.

      When we first met at the little radio station we were both what was laughingly referred to as multi-skilled. Marty was mostly skilled in fetching sandwiches, sorting mail and making the tea. But even then his grinning, pop-eyed energy was such that everyone noticed him, even if nobody took him seriously.

      I was in a more elevated position than Marty, writing items, producing shows and sometimes very nervously reading the news. As I said, I was always lousy at coming alive when the red light came on – only slightly better than Gina. The red light came on and, instead of coming alive, I went sort of dead. But it turned out to be what Marty was born to do.

      When we suddenly lost the regular presenter of our late-night phone-in – the nut shift, we called it – to a job in cable television, I persuaded the station to give Marty a shot. Partly because I thought he would be good at it. But mostly because I was terrified of having to do it myself.

      Amazingly, he worked wonders with the most unpromising material imaginable. Five nights a week Marty took calls from hangers, floggers, conspiracy theorists, alien watchers and assorted loony tunes. And he turned it into good radio.

      What made it good radio was that Marty sounded like there was nowhere else he would rather be than chatting to the mouth-foaming denizens of nut nation.

      We slowly started to build what they call a cult following. After that, we very quickly began to get offers to put the show on television. People bought us lunch, made flattering noises and made big promises. And very soon we abandoned our successful radio show, a rare case of rats deserting a floating ship.

      But it was different on television. We couldn’t just let our guests practically wander in off the street as they had done on radio. Amusing lunatics who had been impregnated by randy aliens were no longer quite enough.

      After a year fronting his own show, Marty still looked like he was exactly where he wanted to be. But the strain was starting to tell, and every week he needed a little more time in make-up to cover the cracks. It wasn’t just the seven-day stress of finding good guests that was putting those licks of grey in his bottle-blond hair. When we were on radio, Marty had nothing to lose. And now he did.

      He was in the chair of the make-up room when I arrived at the studio, brainstorming about future guests to the group of young women who surrounded him, hanging on to his every wishful thought while the make-up girl attempted to make his skin look vaguely human for the cameras. He dubiously sipped the glass of water which had been placed in front of him.

      ‘Is this Evian?’

      ‘Did you want sparkling?’ asked a sweet-faced young woman in combat trousers and army boots.

      ‘I wanted Evian.’

      She looked relieved. ‘That’s Evian.’

      ‘I don’t think so.’

      ‘Well, it’s Badoit.’

      Marty looked at her.

      ‘But there wasn’t any Evian in the vending machine,’ she said.

      ‘Try the green room,’ he suggested with a little sigh.

      There were murmurs of assent. The green room – the holding pen for the show’s guests – was definitely the place to find Marty’s Evian. Crestfallen but smiling bravely, the girl in combat trousers went off to find the right water.

      ‘I’m thinking classic encounter with Hollywood legend,’ Marty said. ‘I’m thinking Michael Parkinson meets the stars with his clipboard. I’m thinking Tinsel Town. I’m thinking Oscar nominee. I’m thinking…Jack Nicholson?’

      ‘Jack’s not in town,’ our researcher said. She was a small, nervous girl who wouldn’t be doing this job for much longer. Her fingernails were already chewed to the knuckle.

      ‘Leonardo DiCaprio?’

      ‘Leo’s unavailable.’

      ‘Clint Eastwood?’

      ‘I’ve got a call in with his office. But – doubtful.’