RP:Where did you grow up?
Bullard: London. Yeah I was born in Londin, I grew up basically in London…
NVDL: What part of London?
Bullard: [Speaking in a cockney Michael Caine accent] South London, just south of the Thames; place called Sutton. Sutton Surrey.
[Laughter]
Bullard: What was then known as the commuter/stockbroker belt. Because a lot of stockbrokers [and] commuters lived there. It was about 12 miles away from central London. So I was born there, grew up there, went to school in Sussex, and then moved up to London and sort’ve started working there. You know, flats around some of the swankier areas when it was affordable.
NVDL: Did you ever see Diana?
Bullard: I didn’t. I didn’t. I did keep inviting her to parties but she NEVER turned up.
[Laughter]
Bullard: But I did play cricket with [garbled] her brother.
RP: What’s your earliest memory?
Bullard: Earliest memory?
RP: I hope not fighting with any kids at school!
Bullard: I think, I think oddly enough my earliest memory is probably riding in a car, a model car, in a roundabout, on a family holiday. I’ve even got a photograph of it.
Sort’ve, you know, getting into this car… …and going round and round on this carousel. So that was early stages of motoring enthusiasm there.
RP: Yeah [Laughs]
Bullard: Fortunately I couldn’t drive the car off the carousel, it just went round and round and round. So it was a family holiday; so I think I was about 6 or 7.
NVDL: Tell us about your book.
Bullard: Richard Branson appears on the cover of my book, in cartoon form, but so does Jacob Zuma; but I appear bigger than both of them, because it’d my book. [In an American accent]: Why the hell not.
[Laughter]
Bullard: It had advanced sales of four and a half thousand.
NVDL: How many books have you written so far?
Bullard: [Garbled] three. This one is the third. The first one was a compilation of the Out to Lunch column, Jonathan Ball; the second was Out To Lunch Again which wasn’t very well marketed, and this one is with Pan MacMillan and they’ve done it with [garbled] more excitement. And they’ve got a bit more [vim] going. But you know it’s one of those books you want to sell by Christmas, because people want to buy it for their Christmas stocking. But they do sell it at the airport after that; you get little royalty cheques dribbling in. But it’s really got to hit the Christmas stocking market.
RP: So it’s not launched yet?
Bullard: No, it is. Actually it came out – it is printed now – and is being launched next week [currently last week], and I’m going to the launch on Wednesday in Cape Town; staying at the Mount Nelson. Then doing something at Kalk Bay Books. There about ten launches. Jenny Cryws Williams – for her book club – we’ll do something on November 18th. It should be good. It’s on ‘Publisher’s Choice’ which is a good thing, with Exclusive Books, so it’ll be prominent. And then it will fade away.
NVDL: Is it divided into politics…?
Bullard: Nah it’s just literally, chronologically [the column] over the last two years.
NVDL: All the articles.
Bullard: Yeah. It’s the weekly column. But the nice thing is when you follow it through, because you don’t need any sort of explanation as to what’s happening, it’s quite clear in the articles. But if you follow through from number one, I think written in 1994, and I think the first article in the book is 1995 or 1996, you actually follow through what was happening in the country. You know, your emotional high points and low points, and the gossip, and it’s very interesting going back. You see so and so was arrested for that. That was 1998. God Lord he still hasn’t gone to jail. And the articles – and obviously I would say that this – but they do bear reading again. You can sit down and read a few articles, have a chuckle and it’s quite a good read. And if I add my signature to the book [he adds with a wry smile] it adds about another hundred rand to the value, even more.
RP: Well when I buy the book I’m going to ask you to sign it. When is the official launch.
Bullard: On the 10th (of October), two days ago. But it’ll be in the bookshops probably from the middle of next week.
RP: What would the retail price be?
Bullard: About 120.
RP: What book are you reading right now?
Bullard: I’m reading ‘God is not Great’, by Christopher Hitchens.
RP: is that your favorite author or-
Bullard: [Exclaiming] No, Hitchens writes for Vanity Fair; writes very very well. I tend to read a lot of magazines. I read books at Christmas time because I have more time to do it. And it takes me about two weeks to read a book during the year.
NVDL: Didn’t he also write something about religion being poisonous? I remember reading-
Bullard: Yes, yes. I think he’s written another book as well. Richard Dawkins wrote the book uh-
NVDL: The God Delusion.
Bullard: The God Delusion.
NVDL: Did you read that?
Bullard: I did. Yeah. And then Hitchens wrote ‘God is not Great’ and he’s been promoting that recently, and it’s a very interesting book. It’s obviously going to upset a lot of people-
NVDL and RP: [Chuckling]
Bullard: But I actually quite like that style of writing. And it makes you think. And it’d quite good to have your views or…beliefs…challenged. And he’s intellectual. It’s well written. But otherwise: novels. Trashy novels when they come out, and classics. I reread people like PG Woodhouse, who I still think is the best, one of the best comedy writers…
NVDL: Have you heard about Doris Lessing?
Bullard: Yeah. And Evelyn Waugh, and…
NVDL: Virginia Woolf?
Bullard: [Absent mindedly repeating…] Virgina Woolf…[Pauses]. Not really.
NVDL: It’s more feminist.
Bullard: Not really; it didn’t really work for me.
NVDL: I’ve also struggled to read…because she’s so important I’ve tried to read her.
Bullard: I know this sounds terrible but I actually do really enjoy reading Shakespeare’s plays. Every so often. Because I think there’s tremendous wisdom in those…
RP: Although I wouldn’t read it now, I really enjoyed it at school.
Bullard: I’ve got a nice leather bound volume now, which I found at a second hand bookstore. You sit down and read Hamlet or…
NVDL: What’s your favorite Shakespeare play?
Bullard: I like the tragedies. I’ve been in quite a few Shakespeare plays; in fact I was in Hamlet at the Civic theatre before-
NVDL: Were you Hamlet?
Bullard: I was Laertes. I was banished on page 19-
[Laughter]
Bullard: I came back on page 70 for a swordfight. But I was a very convincing Laertes. And it was in 1987 at the Civic Theatre. Freezing cold; during June. Two week run. And I’ve got photographs of me in tights, um, on the battlements…having a swordfight with a guy called Cole Cameron.
RP: I think we need those photos.
NVDL: Ja I think we need the car photo and this one.
Bullard: Frightening. Frightening.
RP: Maybe [people will] see the other side of you.
NVDL: [Holding up both hands] David Bullard: A Retrospective.
Bullard: What you didn’t know. Actually, what you didn’t know is-
This interview continues next week under the title:
Bullard: Behind the Scenes With Helen Mirren (And Other Stories)
For other interviews click on the following tag below: The Bullard Tapes
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