Yes, I know politicians, Royals and stars, but I'm just as tough on

ORY Bremner is having a bit of trouble with his David Blunkett. It's not that the Education Secretary's lines aren't funny enough.

He's saying things like, "Although we promised to reduce class sizes to 30, we've been finding that some children are still counting up to 46 in their classrooms...that's plain bad maths."

No. It's a series of other irritations. First of all the black Labrador who is posing as Blunkett's guide dog gets bored. Bremner tries to bribe him with a biscuit, but to no avail. Exit dog, still barking. Then Bremner's eyes go all blurry behind his contact lenses, with the result that he can't read the autocue properly and muffs a line.

The response is dramatic. Surrounded by actors dressed as MPs on a set depicting the House of Commons, Bremner loses it. He thumps his fist on the dispatch box furiously. "F*** it!" he yells, not once but three times.

I'm in a studio in Soho watching Britain's most famous and durable impressionist putting together yet another show.

Rory, who didn't know I was watching from the gallery, gets a little coy about his swearing during the Blunkett sketch. "Er...sorry about that," he says. "Those bloody contact lenses. I wouldn't have done that five years ago. I wouldn't have let it out. I suppose it's healthier this way."

At the age of 37, we are seeing a new, calmer, more contented Bremner. A lot of things have happened to him. He's got divorced, found a new girlfriend, travelled, learned to deal with depression. Most importantly, and potentially lethal for a satirist, he's been taken up by many of his victims. He knows them well and meets them socially.

Recently he was at Prince Charles's 50th birthday party at Highgrove. Anyone who has seen his wicked impersonation of the heir to the throne, with his jaw set in concrete and what looks like an invisible coathanger in his mouth, might well wonder why Charles didn't set the dogs on him.

Far from it. Rory even did a turn. He sang a spoof Dr Dolittle song If I Could Talk To The Vegetables in his plummy Charles voice. How did the birthday boy take it? "He fell about. That's what I like about him - he can laugh at himself. But he didn't laugh as much as the Queen of Spain. She nearly fell over. She had to be lifted back to an upright position."

His birthday greeting to Charles consisted of a message from Bill Clinton. It said: "I remember my 50th...I just can't remember her name."

Only Camilla Parker Bowles was a bit wary of him. On his new CD/ cassette, Beware Of Imitations (on the Laughing Stock label), to be released tomorrow, he does her voice. "It came to me second or third hand that she was rather apprehensive about meeting me. She was afraid to speak to me too much in case she gave too much away."

Others have been only too happy to welcome him into the fold. He has lunch with MPs regularly. On holiday in France one summer, he partnered Tony Blair in a tennis match against rock stars Dave Stewart and Bryan Ferry. "You can tell a lot about someone by the way they play tennis. Tony was full of enthusiasm. We beat them by a huge margin. It would have been even huger except that Dave and Bryan decided to pack it in and go for a beer.

"OK, so I see some of them socially, but it doesn't make any difference to the show," he says. "I challenge anyone to prove that I've soft- pedalled on anybody because I happen to know them."

Only one MP has had what you could call a real row with him. "I once did quite a cutting sketch on Peter Mandelson. He got a bit upset. A few days later he said to me, 'What do you think my poor mother would have thought of that?' I said, 'Who do you think we spoke to to get the information?' He was livid. 'Did you really speak to her?' he kept asking.

"I told him not to worry, 'we went to Hartlepool and couldn't find anyone who knew you'. The thing about Mandelson is that you're never quite sure if he's serious or having you on."

Success may have brought Bremner an entree into upper class society, but he insists he's not had his teeth pulled. There are times, though, when he seems more establishment than the establishment. He even owns a racehorse.

Rory was educated at Wellington, one of Britain's top public schools, though he often makes light of it. "I was going to say that a public school education didn't do me any harm - but look at me. Here I am in Soho, dressed as Richard Whiteley and in a few hours' time I'm going to be Margaret Beckett."

The crusading spirit may still burn brightly and he drives himself as hard as ever, but he seems less frazzled, more at peace with himself. For a start, his private life is happier. Last year he met Zoe Appleyard, an investment banker 12 years younger than him - "the brightest person I have ever met," he says. They are now a couple.

He says he would like children at some point and would hate to reach old age without becoming a father.

"I think I'd be OK at it," he says. "I've got godchildren already and I like being with them. I suppose I like having the child in me brought out."

There is a lot more balance about him now - not that long ago he wouldn't have mentioned children, nor anything else beyond the next show. His workaholism reached such a pitch that he even used to bring his dirty washing to the studio with him and pile it into the tumble dryer outside the dressing room.

At one stage he suffered from anorexia - his food intake shrunk to two pieces of toast a day - and terrible, clogging depressions. He's mostly over them now. He sleeps six or seven hours a night and has finally come to terms with himself and the way he is.

The difference between the new Bremner and the old is that he now has a life outside his work. This Christmas, for instance, he will be flying off for two weeks to watch cricket, first in South Africa then in Australia.

He has begun to see his work as a joy rather than something to be slaved at.

"It is a great way to spend your life, making people laugh. I've always been a perfectionist so sometimes I lost sight of that. Now, when we're writing the show we spend most of the time laughing.

"I've come to terms with fame, too. After all, the reason I went into this business in the first place was because I wanted people to approve of me and like me. I love it when builders shout at me, 'Ror, I saw your show last night, and it was f***ing brilliant,' I often shout back, 'I saw you putting in that joist yesterday and it was f***ing brilliant too'.

"I don't mind being recognised at all as long as I'm not mistaken for Paddy Ashdown. Then I'd have to explain Liberal party policy and nobody has the faintest idea what that is."

He roars with laughter under his Whiteley wig and motions to my notebook. "Put that down, put that down. It's funny. They'll love it." So here it is. I hope you like it, and Rory does too.

Copyright 1998 MGN LTD
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