The British comedy scene seems to have grown increasingly hostile to Christianity in recent years. The puerile inanity of Monty Python’s Life of Brian seems tame compared to the atheist invective of 21st-century comedians such as Stephen Fry or Ricky Gervais. So I was shocked when I heard that the comic actor Alex MacQueen regularly attends Mass at Farm Street in Mayfair, London.
His name may not be instantly recognisable, but chances are you have seen his face on television or at the cinema. He has appeared in the medical drama Holby City, the adolescent sitcom The Inbetweeners, the political comedy The Thick of It and the silent sitcom Pompidou. On the big screen, he has featured in Four Lions, I Give It a Year and Cinderella. Last year he played alongside Michael Caine in Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s award-winning film Youth. Both on the box and the silver screen MacQueen is reputed for small but memorable roles. He is frequently cast as the straight man who must remain po-faced as comic mayhem unravels around him.
I meet him in the cafe at the top of Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road. Over coffee and a croissant, he tells me about his recent trip to Lourdes. He has been a volunteer on the annual Westminster diocese pilgrimage for five years. Although at first he found the thought of brushing someone else’s teeth daunting, he is now used to the hands-on care of sick and disabled pilgrims.
“When it’s required you do it and it’s easier than you might think,” he says. “You just get on with it.” Yet he freely admits that the plight of some sick pilgrims unsettled him. “It made me think: ‘If I was in that circumstance would I want to live like that?’ So it did raise some difficult questions, some of which I haven’t yet resolved, to be honest.” He quickly adds that he is “instinctively” against assisted suicide.
Catholicism is in MacQueen’s blood. He tells me that his grandfather established a kind of Catholic commune in Scotland in the 1950s. Several families lived together in a ramshackle building, with a chapel and a Catholic chaplain on site. “At one point there were 50 children living there,” he says.
MacQueen’s journey to Catholicism was straightforward: Catholic parents, a Catholic parish and a predominantly Catholic education. But his path to acting was more complicated.
After graduating from Durham, he served as a parliamentary researcher to the Labour MP Roger Stott in 1995-96. “It was a fantastic year, just watching the beginnings of New Labour behind the scenes. That got me interested in the law and so I applied to Cambridge to do a Masters in international law. My thesis focused on the Northern Irish peace process.”
He then trained to become a barrister. But after a year of pupilage he resolved to follow his dream of acting. By chance he ran into an old friend who had become a casting director. This led to a successful audition for a part in the European art house film The Emperor’s Wife. He was then cast in an Utterly Butterly advertisement which led to an audition for The Thick of It. I ask if his brief stint in the Palace of Westminster helped him prepare for that role.
“The secret to The Thick of It is that it’s not about politics in the slightest,” he says. “It’s about human beings crashing into each other and colliding, and seeing the effects of greedy, avaricious people when they get together in a small place and what fireworks then go off.”
MacQueen argues that, while his career has undoubtedly been blessed, his success relies on refusing to take no for an answer. Although he has a gentle and unassuming personality, he also possesses a deep reservoir of tenacity and self-belief.
“Looking back I can see how lucky I was. But at the time it’s a permanent cycle of trauma, struggle and anxiety. I got a huge amount of disappointment and rejection along the way. National Youth Theatre rejected me twice before I got in. Cambridge said no twice before I got in. I would say quite a bit of it is persevering and handling rejection.”
MacQueen says he loves the Jesuits because they are comforting, open-minded and “maverick”. Unsurprisingly, he loves Pope Francis too.
“I really like the fact that he is trying to put at the heart of the Church’s teaching the importance of loving one another – God is love, rather than God is holy,” he says.
“We are here for 20 seconds so just be as loving as you can to those you encounter and, of course, hold dear certain principles.
“You’re not surrendering your beliefs by being compassionate to those who don’t share them. We are all in the gutter and we all require forgiveness, so let’s make sure we dish it out as much as we can.”
I ask if his conscience is ever troubled by the crudity or irreverence of some of the comedies he appears in.
“Institutions created by humans should be mocked and challenged and shouted at and offended,” he insists. “That’s very important. But on the other hand, treat people kindly as well. Going out of your way to hurt people’s feelings comes at a price.”
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