I saw Bill Nighy the other day, on West End Lane. He looked exactly like Bill Nighy. My head went: “Oh! It’s Bill Nighy. You know him.” And then: “No, you don’t! He’s an actor. You just like him.”
He strolled past me, carrying on with his business. I then turned around to look at him from behind. He was dressed impeccably in a handsome overcoat, carrying a very stylish bag, and simply and unmistakably being “Bill Nighy” – sharp and chic, elegant and tailored, precisely as you would expect. Probably carries a pocket watch. If he doesn’t, he should.
Of course my head then went, “You should’ve said something”. But what?
“Hiya Bill! You were robbed of that Oscar!”?
Or: “Hiya Bill! I’ve seen that you’re an avid reader! Would you like one of my novels?”
No. Terrible ideas. Plus what writer carries a supply of their own books around?
We walked on in our different directions.
There are loads of famous people roaming around London, as numerous as double deckers. Every time I encounter someone of note I get a familiar feeling and I temporarily think, “Oh, I know them!” when I don’t.
It was only a few weeks ago that retro-national treasure Su Pollard was having lunch at a table beside me in a restaurant Marylebone. I heard her iconic and lovable voice before I saw her face. I knew that voice. I looked over and my mind went, “Hi-de-Hi!” But, I remembered that I don’t know Su.
Ho-de-Ho. I left and headed up Baker Street.
Over the years, there have been many other brief encounters. In the Nineties, I met Jason Donovan in Aldo Zilli‘s. Everybody hung out at Zilli’s (I have no idea why, it wasn’t so great). The details are fuzzy (it was the Nineties, man), but I recall Jason asking me to watch his bag while he went to the loo. I obliged, he returned, and that was that. Any dream won’t do.
At another party, late in the same decade, I met Steve Coogan. He was very charming, as was his girlfriend of that time. When I met Frank Bruno, he decided to change my name to Jimmy. “Ha ha,” I said, and asked him if he wanted punching.
Randomly, I’ve seen (and had that “familiar feeling”) with Eddie Izzard no less than three times on the Tube, with Patsy Kensit twice (once in a designer store in Bond Street), with Jo Brand in an Islington pub, with Gok Wan in Habitat on Finchley Road, with Jimmy Carr at a Soho bar, with Fizz off Corrie in a West End restaurant, and with the very beautiful Catherine Tate outside a classroom at the Sylvia Young theatre school.
One day, outside Regent’s Park, I saw I woman I thought I knew right in front of me, and she was smiling. It flew out of my mouth: “What are YOU doing here?” and we embraced. She said she was going to an art show. In that moment, I realised she was Janet Planet (Grace Stephenson) from Confidence Man, a wacky and wonderful pop act whose every song delights me to the toe. I went to jelly with the cringe and blush. We got a selfie and I died over and over on the way home.
Whilst zipping around Soho with three work colleagues one afternoon, Jeremy Paxman strolled towards us. “Hey look, it’s Jeremy,” one of us said, casually. A section of the pavement between us was narrowed by some builders’ scaffolding. The TV presenter gave way at his end so that we could walk through from ours.
One by one, we passed him going, “Hello Jeremy!” to which he happily replied “Hello!” each time. Four identical “hellos” in a row, he said, in the same cheery tone, as if we were his pals. It wasn’t ’til we turned the corner that we stopped and laughed,
“That was actually Jeremy Paxman.”
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
Back in 2012, I encountered Harry Styles standing outside The Queens in Primrose Hill with Nick Grimshaw. We ended up having a chat and a laugh. “Grimmie” made a comment about Harry liking older women. “She’s not that old!” we all scoffed as a photo was taken. Regrettably, though, in the pic I do look like Harry’s granny. I saw him again recently, at an Electric Ballroom gig. He’d come over to say “hello” to our group. I didn’t say, “HEY HARRY! IT’S ME, YER GRAN! REMEMBER?” But I did think about it.
When my sister came to London to visit with her two sons, we met three notables in the same afternoon. First off was Ed Balls near Great Portland Street. Exuberant and friendly, his piercing blue eyes locked onto my sister’s red hair, and we walked down the street chatting together. I say “we”. I mean the other two. I was the spare part of the group. Ed was warm and cordial. Why are politicians always more likeable after they leave politics, we wondered. I was told later, by a Scottish political acquaintance, that he was “one of the worst” and it was “advisable not to fraternise with the likes of Balls!”
Later on the same day, we bumped into Dave Myers, one half of cooking duo The Hairy Bikers. My sister got a selfie but Dave acted as if he was meeting someone special. He couldn’t have been nicer, explaining he was only there to have his photo taken beside a poster advertising that the Bikers were appearing at the London Palladium – for Dave, the realisation of a life-long dream. He died, of course, last year. What a sad loss of a gorgeous human. He really was the cream.
Finally, dashing down just off Carnaby Street, we saw Rupert Grint. The “familiar feeling” hit me again, like he was my pal. He rushed past as swiftly as a flying broom, and my nephews didn’t believe us when we told them they’d missed Ron Weasley.
It’s an occupational hazard: in London, the stars live among us. I fully expect to see Bill Nighy on the street again one day. I’ll say nothing, of course. But I’ve ordered a few copies of my books to carry about.
Julie Hamill writes novels, appears on Times Radio and does lots more. Follow her on Bluesky. Support OnLondon.co.uk and its writers for just £5 a month or £50 a year and get things for your money too. Details HERE.