A lively figure on our television screens for decades, Paul O’Grady was shocked by how badly Covid-19 affected him – and how long its effects lasted.
The presenter, who has previously had two heart attacks, was unable to work for two months last year.
He was so concerned about his health that he contacted his cardiologist, fearing he might never recover.
Paul recalls: “I managed to escape Covid until last year and then I caught it. I didn’t half get it; I was really ill.
“It wiped me out, I was shocked at how bad I was. I was a good two months getting over it. My breath had gone.
“I’d go out to feed the pigs and I’d have to sit down two or three times on my way there, wheezing.”
His heart doctor took an X-ray and diagnosed Paul as a recovering Covid victim. Paul, 67, host of the long-running ITV series For the Love of Dogs, spent the summer recuperating at his Kent farm.
He recalls: “All I did was sleep. I’d wake up, go downstairs and sit on the couch and then pass out for another four hours.
“I’d get up, have a cup of tea and then go back to bed and sleep all night, it was very odd. I just felt terrible with it. I’ve never slept so much in my life. I’d had all the jabs, but it just finished me off.
“Thank God I’m over it now, but at one time I thought: ‘Is this ever going to go? Am I ever going to get my energy back and stop being tired?’ It wasn’t pleasant.”
Long Covid has blighted tens of thousands of lives. This week the Mirror revealed NHS staff off work with it will get half-pay for six months from March 1, and face losing their jobs after that.
Paul caught the virus in July while in Malta filming the second series of Sally Lindsay’s The Madame Blanc Mysteries.
He recalls: “We got one day’s filming in the can and that night I felt a bit off and then the next day I felt like I was dying. I had a vicious headache and a terrible cough. I spent nine days in a hotel room going slowly around the bend.
“There were only two channels on the telly. One was the BBC and the other was E!. I know everything about the Kardashians now. I could go on Mastermind and they could be my specialist subject! It was a really lengthy script and I’d learnt it and then of course I didn’t get to do it. I eventually flew back home and I felt a lot better and then after a couple of days I felt shocked and I was back in bed again, I just couldn’t shake it off.”
Paul, who used to perform in drag as acerbic Lily Savage, eventually recovered and is this year back at work playing Miss Hannigan in a nationwide tour of the musical Annie.
The infamous caretaker of a New York orphanage, Miss Hannigan despises children and much prefers a drink to childcare.
Paul, who also played the role in the West End 25 years ago, says: “You can play her two ways – really evil, with no redeeming features at all, or you can play her for laughs, which I tend to do.
“So, she’s either hungover or drunk. When she’s hungover, that’s when she’s evil, but I play her as a happy drunk. It’s a lovely show and a real hoot. The audience roared with laughter, because of the state of me.
“I have rollers in my hair and the lippy is smeared so you can tell she’s p****d!”
Meanwhile, Paul is still busy with For the Love of Dogs, his multi-award-winning ITV series. In it he helps re-home unwanted and abandoned animals at the famous Battersea Dogs & Cats Home.
And Paul reveals that this is the toughest time in the show’s 11 years history, as so many people are now having to give up their pets because of the cost of living crisis.
“You wouldn’t believe the state of some of the dogs we get in. Especially now, because people can’t afford to look after them any more,” he says sadly.
“People are heartbroken – these are well cared for, well-loved dogs they’re bringing in. And they just say: ‘we can’t afford them; we can’t afford the vet’s bills.’
“Little vet’s practices have become huge corporations, so it’s nearly £100 before you put your foot in the door.”
Paul is married to ballet teacher and arts manager Andre Portasio, and they live with a collection of pigs, goats, chickens, sheep, dogs and owls.
Even successful performer Paul feels the pinch from vet bills.
He says: “It costs almost as much to have a pig put to sleep as it did to have a stent put in my heart.
“Where’s the sense in that? It’s outrageous what they’re charging, so a lot of dogs just get dumped by the roadside or tied up in a wood.”
Paul is also a successful radio DJ. On Christmas Day he hosted a show on Boom Radio and for the previous 14 years, he has had his own popular Radio 2 Sunday evening programme.
He quit last summer after being asked to share the time slot with comedian Rob Beckett, each doing 13 weeks before taking a break. Paul admits: “I was a bit narky when they asked me to share the slot. My hackles rose and then I thought, I’m going to honour my contract.
“I’m going to give my notice in properly and I’m going to go with no complaints, no bitching and no tears and just say ‘thank you very much for having me’ and then leave.
“Some of the listeners said to me they thought I was very dignified.
“They were expecting full guns blazing! But it’s a shame because I always loved Radio 2.
“It seems to be that both telly and radio are terrified of an older audience. It makes me laugh.
“They assume that teenagers are going to be dancing to Radio 2 on a Friday night. Are you out of your mind? They don’t listen to the radio. They should have left Radio 2 alone for the older listener.” Even without the radio show, Paul still has plenty going on.
He is planning to write a third book of his children’s series Eddie Albert and the Amazing Animal Gang and he’ll be back on TV again later this year with a new series about elephants, filmed in Thailand.
But one programme we won’t see again is the game show Paul O’Grady’s Saturday Night Line-Up.
“I didn’t like it.” Paul says frankly.
“I did the pilot and we all misbehaved so badly that we never thought it would get commissioned, but it did. I said I’d do it, but I didn’t like the format. You were up and down all the timeline up, sit down, line up.
“It was basically a chat show where nobody plugged anything, and that I liked, but I didn’t think much of the game and I had no intention of doing another series. It wasn’t for me.”
Paul has no intention of retiring but every year tells himself he is going to slow down – only to take on more work as soon as he’s offered it.
“I’m supposed to be winding down, not winding up,” he smiles, as he contemplates his seven-week tour of Annie (he is sharing the role of Miss Hannigan with Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood).
“I’m 68 this year, I’m no spring chicken and yet here I am touring around the country in Annie. But then what would I do if I wasn’t working?”
- Paul O’Grady is in Annie at certain venues. See anniethemusicaltour.uk
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