Paul O'Grady's producer pays tribute to late entertainer: 'His wit was his superpower'

I was very lucky. Paul and I first met when I asked him to present a radio documentary celebrating the 40th anniversary of Cilla Black’s showbiz career. We did some other things on Radio 2 and he brought a knowledge and passion for musicals I wasn’t expecting. Paul was just fun, and no diva. When he turned up at the studio, he’d arrive on the back of a motorbike, carrying a Greggs sausage roll.

We did the Sunday afternoon show on Radio 2 together for 14 years, 546 episodes. If you wrote the formula down on paper, it was “music and messages”, which could describe a million radio shows. What made it special was Paul O’Grady. He wasn’t a radio jock, nor a presenter, he was a host and he knew how to talk to just one person at home, whether they were in the bath or doing the ironing. He brought humour, not gags but proper stories.

Sometimes things didn’t go according to plan – he’d get tangled up in the headphones or bang the microphone. And if he was at home the dogs would kick off, or the doorbell would go. Whether he planned it or not, I never really knew. Over the years I did get the giggles an awful lot.

When the show began, I never spoke, then one day the chat between us went on air by mistake, and he introduced me as “Malcolm”. From then on, I became his straight man; we would have on-air conversations and I even got my own microphone. Another presenter might not have wanted a producer to do that, but Paul knew I could be the butt of the joke and I could poke him to tell him other stories. I’ve worked with a lot of presenters, and he was among the most generous of them.

We became close friends as well. When he did panto, I sent him food parcels including Spam, and during lockdown he sent me candles, books and Golden Girls pillowcases. At my wedding, he came as one of the two Ugly Sisters with Graham Norton, and he would always ask after my mum and the family.

Despite his famous friends, he loved a quiet country life in Kent, where he lived in a farmhouse with his husband, former ballet dancer Andre Portasio – they married in 2017. He had countless animals – alpacas, pigs, chickens, owls, sheep and, of course, his dogs. He knew his neighbours and all the little local shops.

On the day that Paul died, I was at his home, having a cup of tea. We were meant to be making plans for our new show, due to launch on Boom Radio, but really we were laughing, reminiscing, plotting, doing what we always did. It was the perfect afternoon. When I left, he gave me a hug and said, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” I said, “Go inside, I don’t want you watching me try to reverse the car down the drive.” We’d had two hours of fun, and two hours later he was gone.

Paul’s wit, which became his superpower, was an instrument honed in pubs and clubs on the northern circuit where he held court as his alter ego Lily Savage. Lily had been carved out of the strong women in Paul’s life as he was growing up in Liverpool. His auntie Chrissie used to work on the buses as a clippie, and he got a great deal of humour from that environment.

A lot of drag acts in that era went the Shirley Bassey route with glamour, but Paul went the other way. There was an element of truth to Lily. Once, he was working on The Big Breakfast as Lily and they sent him to a red carpet Oscars event in Los Angeles, with lots of A-list stars. Robin Williams came up to him and said, “Charlton Heston fancies you, he doesn’t realise you’re a man in a drag!”

Later, on the radio, Paul would invent these stories about Lily’s retirement and how she now ran an establishment for young ladies in Amsterdam. And I’d think, “This isn’t in the script. He’s gone rogue. How are we going to get him back on track to play Dollar?”

The last time I saw him, I told him we’d had a huge response to his show on Christmas Day and we had plans to do a whole series – I played him his new jingle that afternoon for the first time. Now, of course, it will never go out on air, but Paul got to hear it and he was chuffed to bits. He felt Boom Radio wanted him, and he felt appreciated and valued. I’m very grateful for that, and for having such a good friend for so many years.

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