Rob Brydon’s quick-wit has charmed us all. But it wasn’t always so simple. Here, he talks about his five children, being prodded by Boris and the moment his fortunes changed…
There are two versions of the comic Rob Brydon: Television Personality and Twickenham Dad. And although the two identities have lived hugger-mugger inside him for decades, occasionally overlapping, “like tectonic plates”, says the 55-year-old, they are rarely seen out in public at the same time. I’m lucky this afternoon that I get to meet both Brydons: the performer, who is polished and smiley if a touch remote, as well as the softer, more relatable father-of-five. It’s Twickenham Dad I meet first. When I come up on Brydon on a London street he is peering through the window of a home-furnishing showroom, taking pictures of a nice bit of garden furniture that’s caught his eye.
This furniture looks to be hewn out of stone and (we both note) has no obvious price tag. “So whatever you think it costs,” says Brydon, in his measured and pleasing Port Talbot accent, “add lots of zeroes on.” He is wearing a fitted, felty suit and has his charcoal hair neatly parted. The enduringly youthful face, lightly scarred from teenage battles with acne, is mostly covered by a pale pandemic mask. He removes the mask once we’re seated in a nextdoor restaurant. Angling his thick-framed bifocals, Brydon studies the menu, taking an age to choose and dramatising his indecision for the waiter’s amusement.
