Richard E Grant's My London

The actor goes dancing at 5 Hertford Street and wants to be stranded on Mustique
London lad: Richard E Grant
Hannah Nathanson22 January 2015

Home is…

Petersham near Richmond. It’s equidistant between Heathrow and Piccadilly Circus, with a beguiling combination of urban and rural landscape.

Favourite album to travel with?

Stevie Wonder’s 1976 Songs in the Key of Life double album. It was released during my first year at university and is always on my party playlist.

Most romantic thing someone’s done for you in London?

My wife accepting my marriage proposal at Heathrow airport.

Where would you recommend for a first date?

Walk across Waterloo Bridge at dusk and see if you have enough to talk about by the time you reach the other side.

Favourite shops?

Liberty, Richard James, Daylesford Organic, Bluebird, Anya Hindmarch.

What do you always pack?

Bowers & Wilkins headphones.

Earliest London memory?

Feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square aged seven, when my parents brought me over from Swaziland, then going on the roller coaster in Battersea Park.

Best place to let your hair down?

I’m allergic to alcohol, which I discovered when I was 16, so I get behind the lawnmower and cut the grass instead.

Ever had a run-in with a policeman?

Playing Withnail, I was drunk driving and ordered to ‘Get in the back of the van!’

Best meal?

Crab linguine at Skye Gyngell’s Spring in Somerset House.

Strangest place you’ve ever slept?

In a cave in Lesotho on a school geography trip in 1974.

Favourite pub?

The Salisbury, across the road from the Coliseum, has incredible etched-glass windows and remains an authentic Theatreland pub that hasn’t been gastro-wined up.

First thing you do when you get into a hotel room?

Jump on the bed, run a bath and test the speed and quality of the room service.

Best place for a nightcap?

I’ve been taken to 5 Hertford Street by friends. I like it because you can dance without having to prove you’re under 25.

Best thing a cabbie has said to you?

He had five daughters and advised me, as the father of one daughter, to ‘like’ every one of her boyfriends ‘no matter what’, which has stood me in good stead.

Place you’d most like to be stranded?

Macaroni Beach on Mustique in the Caribbean. The sand is powder-soft white, the sea is ultramarine blue.

Top tip for getting over jet lag?

Stay awake till it gets dark, then sleep with an eye mask and ear plugs.

Best advice you’ve been given?

My late father claimed: ‘If you have five true friends in your life, consider yourself a rich man.’ So, by his measure, I’m a multimillionaire.

At the moment you are...

Completing a TV series called Dig, set in contemporary Jerusalem, created by Gideon Raff (writer of the original Homeland).

Last show you saw?

Made in Dagenham, starring Gemma Arterton, was witty, moving, inventive and infused with an indomitable British spirit of resilience.

Richard E Grant’s 7 Deadly Sins will air on the Discovery Channel in March

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