Game For A Laugh

Alistair McGowan is an impressionist, comedian and actor best known for his take on David Beckham, Sven-Göran Eriksson and Gary Lineker.

But did you know he was also a football addict who just couldn’t give up on the game? Well you do now thanks to Ronni Ancona, his Big Impression partner, who challenged him to quit.

So how hard was it? “It was excruciating,” Alistair immediately agrees, “but I already had doubts in my mind about football and I always respond to a challenge,” the 45 year-old smiles.

So when Ronni, his work partner and ex-girlfriend, suggested that he give up football as a social experiment, he agreed. “And it was fascinating,” he adds.

So did he mind? “What, being her guinea pig? Well I think Ronni wanted to test it out on me to see if the plan could work for her husband. But we fought a lot and it was sometimes very painful. Hopefully there’s lots of humour in our arguments, because we do get very, very cross with each other, being opposites, but that’s why we work so well together.”

So what did he discover?

“Well, that it’s a common thing to argue about football in a relationship and I had to work out why, and how I was addicted.

“My work had a lot to do with football and my dream had always been to meet my football heroes, and there I was mixing with them and meeting them, and I wasn’t going to pass that up. So it was affecting me professionally and socially. I couldn’t escape from it,” Alistair explains.

And on top of that, Alistair had to endure his relationship with Ronni being dissected in the book.

“When you have very strong feelings for someone and it doesn’t work out, you can either walk away and never see them again or be friends and develop a special bond, which is what we’ve done. We have been through so much together and when you’re 26 you think you’ll be together for ever, so writing this was quite emotional in parts,” he says. “We just hope it might help other people.”

Alistair failed by the way, during the panto season tour, and went to a live game in Plymouth a year into his abstinence.

“It was a bit like having a fling with an old girlfriend,” he explains cheerfully. “And once I’d inhaled that nicotine I realised what a great high football was, but it’s just not me anymore,” he says.

Ronni Ancona just wants you to know that she has nothing against football itself, the actual physical game, “it’s just the deluge of stuff that comes with it like a big monster; the greed and the aggression,” Ronni tails off.

“I’m just worried that people are going to throw rotten eggs at me on stage,” she frowns. “But when I went out with Ali he was incredibly obsessed about football and there were definitely three of us in the relationship – Alistair, football and me,” she says adapting the famous Princess Di quote.

“I remember one New Year’s Eve when we went away with some friends and he spent the whole time reading the football results and checking up on the scores, and I can’t see how that’s different to someone having a swig of vodka after breakfast,” she says.

“Apart from anything else, it’s so rude. And Alistair is not your stereotypical football fan, which makes it all less of a cliche and more interesting.”

Yup, taking on the football fans is a big deal, but Ronni has never been one to shy away from a difficult issue.

After all this is the girl who impersonated Posh & Becks and Nancy & Sven.

So was it hard to align the two sides of the story?

“Well yes because I owe a lot to football and made my name through its characters, but it’s six of one and half a dozen of another because I worked in a football obsessed world.

“And I think it’s a bit like passive smoking. You just can’t get away from football and it’s such a controversial subject. This is just about finding a balance and acknowledging the affect it has on our relationships.”

And yet, however funny we find this pair, who work so well together, they have always had morals.

“We were invited to one of Posh & Becks’ infamous Christmas parties, and declined because we thought it might affect our work,” Ronni explains. “Because they were such a big part of our act we decided against it.”

But if you want to hear the two sides of the argument for yourself, come to Blenheim’s Orangery on Sunday.

So what should the audience expect?

“Oh I’m sure we’ll have a bit of a tiff, we always do,” Ronni laughs. “But we are best friends and know each other far too well. To be honest I’m terrified about getting up on stage, because I don’t know if I’ve kicked up a storm,” she says, grinning. Nothing she can’t handle I’m sure.

Ronni Ancona and Alistair McGowan talk to Simon Kelner, Editor-in-Chief of The Independent and The Independent on Sunday at The Orangery in Blenheim Palace. Go to woodstockliteraryfestival.com