I don’t believe it!

Got the right place? Yup, this looks like it. I’m about to meet TV’s grumpiest man, and his fixers have booked us a room in a fashionable media institute in Covent Garden. I peer through the frosted glass at what appears to be a hotel, a bistro, a therapy centre and a health farm all wrapped into one. It’s the kind of place where brunching executives can enjoy an organic chocolate bun and a milky stroppuccino while upstairs, in the anxiety suites, commissioning editors are being massaged, hypnotised and rebirthed from the comfort of their rowing machines.

I glance down the street. A dark figure is ambling towards me. His collar is turned up, his head is low over his chest and his face is obscured by a cap and thick glasses. Is that him? I think it is. I don’t believe it! Richard Wilson. He slips through the glass doors and greets a pair of beaming PR girls. I’d read somewhere that he was prickly but he seems perfectly genial and relaxed with them. A moment later, when I’m introduced, his face breaks into the smile that Victor Meldrew never gave. We’re escorted to the lift by tight-skirted usherettes and he keeps up a patter of jokey comments. In a trendy corridor we pass a log with spikes in it. ‘That’s the comfy sofa.’

And when we’re abandoned in a stylish and utterly cheerless conference room, he peers around grimly. ‘I’m here all afternoon. Talking about the play.’ ‘So this is a junket?’ I ask. He pauses, then tosses my words back at me with their meek English edges transformed into gnarled Scottish flints. ‘Yesss,’ he says, ‘this is a chunkit!’ But he makes it sound funny rather than aggressive. So we talk about the play. Whipping It Up is a satire set in the government whips’ office shortly after a general election which the Tories have won.