| Like many writers and artists who frequented | | | | Waterhouse, to write the play Jeffrey Bernard |
| Soho's The Groucho Club and The Coach and | | | | is Unwell, based on a real incident when |
| Horses, Afshin Rattansi first met Jeffrey | | | | Bernard found himself locked in the pub |
| Bernard in the 1980s. A revival of the Keith | | | | overnight. Bernard was later portrayed in |
| Waterhouse play starring Tom Conti in which | | | | the play by Peter O'Toole, another Coach |
| Bernard is the lead character, talking about | | | | regular. But the pub is best known for its |
| life at the Coach has just opened in London's | | | | fort nightly Private Eye lunches at which the |
| West End, coinciding with the announcement | | | | great and good are plied with cheap food and |
| that Rattansi's novel "The Dream of the | | | | even cheaper wine in the hope they will be |
| Decade" will be on sale at the bar.The play | | | | indiscreet. One of the more recent scalps was |
| is named after the line that often appeared | | | | John Hemming, a new UK Liberal Democrat MP |
| in the UK's Spectator magazine where | | | | who confessed to getting his mistress |
| Bernard's column, "Low Life" would have | | | | pregnant last week after an Eye lunch.Peter |
| appeared had Bernard not imbibed too much to | | | | O'Toole was a perfect Bernard when he |
| complete his piece. Rattansi recalls Bernard | | | | appeared in the 1989 premiere. He had been |
| explaining to him that he only drank to stay | | | | warned so many times of his own demise. And |
| the pain of diabetes. "But on a particularly | | | | he responded by perfecting the look and |
| sunny Saturday morning in Groucho's, I asked | | | | manner of a very polite, but very insolent, |
| why he wanted a Vodka Tonic as there was | | | | ghost. As the New York Times has it, "he is |
| sugar in the Tonic. He told me that sugar in | | | | theater through and through, as witness his |
| tonic was okay. He then proceeded to drink | | | | apprentice years at the Bristol Old Vic when |
| himself into a kind of coma."The Dream of the | | | | he did one of the great Hamlets, along with |
| Decade includes vignettes of characters that | | | | Chekhov, Beckett and John Osborne's Jimmy |
| frequented Soho in the 1980s and is a quartet | | | | Porter, plus the dame in the theater's annual |
| in one volume. It was Norman Balon the famous | | | | pantomime. And then, after he had yielded a |
| owner of the Coach and Horses up until a few | | | | goodly part of his interior to surgery, he |
| weeks before the revival of the play who said | | | | came back on the London stage in 1989 in the |
| the novel should be sold from behind the bar | | | | play "Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell," a one-man |
| of the infamous tavern. The new owners of the | | | | show and a bow to being self-destructive, |
| rapidly changing pub say they will carry on | | | | alcoholic but undefeated."Bernard's life, as |
| the tradition. "The Dream of the Decade - The | | | | reconstructed in the play at least, is hardly |
| London Novels", which is officially to launch | | | | inspiring or even particularly eventful. |
| in the UK in the winter, is thus available at | | | | Dedicated to the pursuit of drink, gambling |
| a special price in the most famous public | | | | and sex, he stumbles from one minor crisis to |
| house in London.The play, often remembered as | | | | another, each entirely of his own making. The |
| a one-man show but in fact packed with | | | | highlights are incidents of child-like |
| characters performed by a versatile suporting | | | | silliness, such as his involvement with a |
| cast of four, was a highly successful vehicle | | | | friend who runs a book on cat-races that he |
| for its original star Peter O'Toole, who | | | | holds in the hall of his Battersea flat.The |
| appeared in the original run at the Apollo | | | | script is littered with the type of anecdotes |
| Theatre and in a later revival at the Old | | | | which would fall flat if told by lesser |
| Vic. 'For the next three months, I'm going to | | | | voices. A less successful raconteur would |
| be playing a smoker, a drinker, a womaniser | | | | find himself mumbling, "It's funny if you're |
| and a gambler - all the good things in life,' | | | | drunk," apologetically. The |
| says Tom Conti, who at 64 is a year younger | | | | Waterhouse-O'Toole magic is to make them |
| than Bernard was when he died. But Conti | | | | funny when you are stone cold |
| looks in far ruder health. He has often | | | | sober.Waterhouse's Bernard is a feckless, |
| hinted in the past that he and his wife of 38 | | | | irresponsible and self-indulgent drunk, who |
| years, actress Kara Wilson, have enjoyed an | | | | lurches from one pointless bohemian |
| open marriage. There only daughter Nina, | | | | distraction to another without a care in the |
| herself an actress, has said that both her | | | | world. He is also charming, loyal to his |
| father and mother had enjoyed 'a string of | | | | friends, generous of spirit, enormously |
| affairs' during their marriage.'It is a gift | | | | witty, without malice or shallow media |
| of a role. Jeffrey was a one-off - great fun | | | | cynicism. The play is a hymn to a beautiful |
| and a very likeable man. The last time I saw | | | | loser, a free spirit, enslaved by the spirits |
| him was in Wheeler's restaurant in Soho and | | | | you pay for.In the "Dream of the Decade" |
| he looked as if he wasn't going to last the | | | | characters are the same even if thematically |
| day. He was completely unrecognisable from | | | | there are deeper historical resonances with |
| the man I had met years previously. It was | | | | changing British and U.S. culture and of how |
| really quite scary.'Another character in the | | | | the media scene has changedas the newspaper |
| novel, the owner of the Coach and Horses, | | | | barons of old gave way to big corporations. |
| Norman Balon, has just retired. Mr Balon, | | | | Rattansi began his career writing for the |
| whose memoirs are titled You're Barred! You | | | | London Guardian newspaper, which informs the |
| Bastards, worked at the Coach & Horses since | | | | last novel in the volume, "Good Morning, |
| 1943. The pub, which occupies a prime | | | | Britain." The London of "Dream" is far more |
| location at the corner of Greek Street and | | | | inclusive that Waterhouse's Bernard's London. |
| Romilly Street, provided inspiration for | | | | And the bar in the second novel, "Reproach" |
| Bernard's Lowlife column in the Spectator | | | | is starker and colder than the Coach, famous |
| until his death in 1997.Bernard's antics at | | | | for its literray, artistic and theatrical |
| the Coach also inspired his friend, Keith | | | | crowd. |