Heathcote Williams - Television

Television

His first brush with TV overlapped with community politics. It came courtesy of a 1970s experiment by the BBC in what became known as "public access television". Williams, in the dubious if green guise of a tree somehow blessed with oratorical powers, regaled the watching millions for a full fifteen minutes on the virtues of life without Westminster. Albion Free State was his name for a utopian vision of an England free from government and bosses. Williams was one of 120 or so squatters who had commandeered a small chunk of West London, just about visible from Television Centre itself. Frestonia, as the extensive squat was known, had declared itself independent of Great Britain. The actor David Rappaport was proclaimed Foreign Minister and Williams served as ambassador to the UK. Postage stamps were issued bearing the face of Guy the Gorilla instead of the Queen; they made no mention of currency, but simply carried the legend, God Will Provide. The whole rebellion, which exasperated the authorities for years, entailed much litigation before the bulldozers were finally able to move in.

Williams later applied his abilities as a conjurer – he has long been a member of the Magic Circle – to come up with a Christmas play based on the little-known fact that Charles Dickens used to revel in performing magic shows for his friends and extended family. What the Dickens! depicted the novelist, with the likes of Thomas Carlyle and Thackeray standing by to assist, as he manipulated "airy nothings" and assorted props to the delighted squeals of foundling children from the Thomas Coram Home. The production featured a young Ben Cross as Dickens, with a supporting cast that included Dinsdale Landen and Kenneth Haigh. It was broadcast by Channel 4 in Christmas 1983, with a repeat screening the following Christmas.

In March 1993, Williams was the not entirely enthusiastic subject of a spoof arts documentary titled Every Time I Cross the Tamar I Get Into Trouble. Screened by Channel Four in its Without Walls slot, it implicitly sparred yet again with the recurring theme of the fatality of fame, its hollow allurements and the nature of fandom. In this instance, just for a change, a twinkling Pacino appeared happy to cast himself in the role of fan, implying his own supposed discomfiture with the whole grisly business of showbiz renown. The BFI film database characterises the film thus: "An account of Heathcote William's work, and Al Pacino's obsession with his writing. Includes an interview with Harold Pinter and footage from Pacino's film The Local Stigmatic."

The half-hour film was presented by the comedian and musician John Dowie, amply cut out for the part by dint of his own declared anorakish urge to collect all available Williams memorabilia. The fruits of his scouring the auction lists and the second-hand bookshops, he revealed, he kept in a special large wooden box. The element of spoof revolved around the conceit that the film's subject didn't turn up until the very last minute, and then only to decline to take part. In fact, he had appeared earlier, but in a variety of ludicrous disguises. The title alluded to the fact that Williams, living at the time in Cornwall just the other side of the River Tamar, seemed twice over the years – first after AC/DC, and then in the wake of Whale Nation – to have come to grief as a consequence of having succumbed to the temptations arising out of not just one, but from a second 15 minutes of fame.

In 1998, he appeared in an episode of the US TV sitcom Friends.