Sean Hughes, the comedian, died last week. The news came as a sad shock. Those who had known him over the years didn’t realise how deadly a grip the booze had got on him. And in the end it looks like it did for him. He was just 51.
Last week there was a curious piece published in The Guardian that outlined Sean Hughes’ faults. But didn’t detail a lot of the good.
I was friends with Sean several years ago. I was introduced by my wife and her oldest friend who had known him a good deal longer. This was a thrill as 10 years previously I had thought Sean Hughes was one of the coolest men alive.
I was friends with Sean several years ago which was a thrill, as I had once thought he was one of the coolest men alive
There he was on TV making it clear that skinny Irish boys with dark, curtained hair, a love of The Smiths and a way of furiously smoking cigarettes could get girls AND take England if they were funny. Which was ridiculous, of course, as nobody else was quite like Sean Hughes.
He was tremendous fun, and VERY funny. A generous host, great at table-football, withering, charismatic, a good storyteller, funny on meeting Morrissey, obsessive about music, miserable about Crystal Palace, encouraging of poor attempts to make vegetarian meals. And present. He was there if he said he would be.
I know he was a bad boyfriend. And he could be unnecessarily cruel in relationships. He was not always great with women. He could also be egotistical and self-centred. Despite that, I liked him a great deal.