Circuit Training 51: Amy Lamé, definitely not lame

The many discerning Londoners (me included) who've spent the last decade or so devotedly tuning in to the daily ramblings of Britain's finest radio DJ, Danny Baker, will also have become pleasingly familiar with Amy Lamé along the way.

The New Jersey native is Baker's regular sidekick on BBC London, when he isn't on sabbatical writing the much-anticipated new Muppet show - more of which later - and she hasn't toddled off to tackle Edinburgh. The new Fringe effort, Unhappy Birthday, is based around her fixation with Morrissey, and the ups and downs of pop obsessions generally. It doesn't seem to be doing her any harm, in truth.

Having chanced her way into a presenter job on the splendidly contentious BBC magazine show Gaytime TV, Lamé started a big gay clubnight, Duckie, enjoyed a lucrative modelling career, hosted her own radio show, popped up on the lowbrow reality show Celeb Air, turned to higher-brow broadcasting and is now writing a regular column about her daily exploits. And those daily exploits are currently very much focussed on the Fringe...

Talk us through Unhappy Birthday...

The show is really about über-fandom and pop obsession, our obsession with celebrity and our obsession with these icons, which hold so much meaning for us. My particular brand is the Morrissey-slash-Smiths version, but you could have grown up being obsessed by Abba, or Madonna, or New Kids on the Block or One Direction.

If you've ever experienced being on the edge of extreme fandom, if you had the haircut, or ever walked round your local market on a Saturday waiting for the other cool kids to go, 'yah, love your t-shirt,' that's totally where the show is coming from.

Is it quite high-concept?

It's set up like a birthday party, so when you come to the show you're sort of like my mates, you're all invited, but I've also invited Morrissey, and we're waiting for Morrissey to turn up. So it's sort of like Waiting for Godot, pop generation.

The title Unhappy Birthday is the title of a Smiths song and also I feel like I have the worst birthday in the world, the third of January. Everyone's three days into not smoking and not eating. Of course this has left me scarred well into adulthood.

How did you get into performing?

My first show was the first time I was ever on stage, it was in 1994 at the ICA. I was writing sort of autobiographical stuff and my friends in the cafe - I'd only been in London a couple of months - said 'you should be on the stage, make it into a show.'

I did quite an academic degree then I came here on a bit of an adventure, so I decided to put this show on even though I'd never been on stage and had never put together a show or anything. I did two nights, they both sold out, it did really well and there was a TV producer in the audience who saw me and gave me a job as a TV presenter. It's one of those things that never really happens.

And that was Gaytime TV - a much talked-about show at the time.

It was on BBC2, the first mainstream gay show, I was the travel presenter. I did that for three years, then I had my own series on Channel 4 just for one series, sort of a comedy quiz show but it didn't go too well. And then I decided to get into radio and started working at Greater London Radio, and had my own show. I was simultaneously doing radio, writing new one-woman shows, starting my clubnight Duckie, and working a lot as a photographic model.

I had a really prolific modelling career, obviously unusual kinds of things, namely advertising and stuff, quite high-profile stuff here and abroad. So that was a bit of fun, but really a lot changed when I started doing the breakfast show with Danny Baker. I gave up doing my own show on the station to go and work with Danny, and I've been working with him on air now for 11, 12 years.

How did you two meet?

We just met there. He likes Americans, and I think they wanted someone to be on air with him, with a voice and personality they felt would complement his. I didn't know anything about him, I'd never heard of him. All my friends said 'he's a football loving lager lout,' all these preconceived notions, but I knew nothing, I didn't even see him in the Daz ads.

So it was an arranged marriage?

Initially we were both a bit like 'who's this?' We were just thrown together on air, I didn't really meet him before I went on air with him, he's not into that. We never had production meetings, we'd turn up five, 10 minutes before the show and make it up as we go along.

But it was our second or third show and I remember having a conversation on air about our favourite autobiography or something, and he said his was From Drags to Riches, the story of Danny La Rue and I was, like, 'Hmm, I wasn't expecting that! Ooh, what's going on here then?' In the film version of this my eyebrow raise and I stroke my chin.

Of course...

We just kind of clicked, and once we both let down our perceptions of each other it was just a great radio love affair, and I still feel like that about him. He was my 'matron of honour' at my civil partnership, and I've learned so much from him: even now, broadcasting with him, every show is like a masterclass. It's the perfect way of learning how to do radio the way no-one else does it.

I think you've helped changed perceptions of him too, in London anyway. The repartee he has with you and (fellow sidekick) Baylen Leonard is very different from the laddish image people had of him.

Oh that's interesting, I never really thought about it like that, that's good to know. Maybe we bring out another side of him.

So what about this 'Muppet' show he's writing?

It's so exciting - dream job! I'm so happy for him. Even though he's got to take time off from the radio, it's almost like the lifetime of everything that he's done has built up to this, and it's such an amazing feather in the cap. They chose exactly the right person for the job, because it has to straddle kids and adults - he's so good at that.

He's so funny, on a creative role as well as a writing role, he's working on creating some of the new characters, developing the characters. It's just, y'know, big teatime Saturday night entertainment - that's him, really grounded and rooted in what works for family entertainment. He'd better base Miss Piggy on me, that's all. If that Miss Piggy doesn't have some of my catchphrases I'm gonna be really upset.

You personally have done some varied TV over the years...

I did reality shows, and now I kind of do more cultural commentary stuff, Sunday Morning Live, The 10 O'Clock Show, Sky News, that kind of thing. Although I wouldn't be averse to doing another tacky TV show, after I did Celeb Air I felt like I had to just maybe gain a bit of my credibility back.

I recall Gaytime TV being pretty controversial, but then we had the Daily Mail at home.

I think for gay people it was a real lifeline, because nothing that mainstream had been on TV before. It was just a lighthearted magazine style show, it was on at like, 9pm, it was post watershed. I still get gay people coming up to me going, 'oh my gosh, Gaytime TV was so amazing, in Aberystwyth growing up, feeling really isolated, the fact that I could watch that...'

So I think it was groundbreaking in that respect. Maybe it was controversial for Daily Mail readers, but nowadays I think it appears quite cutesy and retro.

Presumably it isn't really needed today?

I think gay has gone totally mainstream. At that point we didn't have the age of consent, at that point we didn't have gays being open in the military, we still had Section 28. There were still a lot of barriers that are easy to forget now because the UK is so advanced in terms of equality, but then it was a really, really big deal. And I think it was shows like that that helped change people's perceptions. Being in people's front rooms, that's a really big leap.

Is Duckie still going strong?

Yeah, Duckie's still on every Saturday at the Vauxhall Tavern, so I'm doing that, taking a bit of time off from the radio just to do the show, the tour, go to Edinburgh and stuff like that. And I'm writing for this new 'freemium' magazine, Scout, I'm writing this weekly column for them. I'm really pleased to be a part of it, it really seems to have an independent spirit. Anything that gives Time Out a run for its money is a good thing.

So what are you up to post-Fringe?

I want to get straight back on the road. I'm in conversation with some theatres in the States, and in Australia; it'd be my dream to take the show to the States because I've never actually performed in my country of birth.

The prodigal daughter returns.

Yeah!

Amy's Fringe show Unhappy Birthday is on from 2-26 August at Assembly Three (Listing).You can read her weekly musings at www.scoutlondon.com