Boy George: Drama chameleon

He's bitched for Britain, got pleasure from tea (and something stronger), and is on to at least his third career. Is there still any mystique to Boy George? In his dressing room, he reveals just a little bit more

Boy George is, of course, actually George O'Dowd, son of an Irish builder, but he opted for Boy George, he says, just as Culture Club were starting out and record companies would ask: "Who is the girl singer?" He was, yes, very girly and ringletted and beribboned back then. He was like a freaky little doll. (Toy George?) He's not so girly now, though. Or not today, at least. No ribbons. No frock. No make-up, even. He is actually surprisingly beefy, rather startlingly butch, and 40. Perhaps he should be Big Boy George now. Or even Big Goy George, as he seems, over the years, to have sought spiritual enlightenment through all religions bar Judaism. Just a thought.

Whatever, although he is plumper, more manly, altogether less doll-like, he can still (hurrah! hurrah!) be as girlishly bitchy as ever. The edges haven't been rounded off here at all. Indeed, he can be so girlishly bitchy, it's practically thrilling. At one point, I ask him what music he listens to at home. He says: "Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Nina Simone... the first four bars of any Nina Simone song wipe out everything Madonna has ever done... Patti Smith, Edith Piaf..." Not Steps? I interrupt. "Steps should be stepped on," he says. "They all look like they've escaped from a P&O ferry." Later, we get on to Mick Jagger ("I only met him once, when he said, 'I like your sneakers'") and Jerry Hall. "She once accused me of corrupting the youth of the nation. I call her German Corridor." German Corridor? "Jerry, German. Hall, Corridor." I say I always wanted her to marry Bryan Ferry, so she could be Jerry Ferry and – who knows? – maybe her middle name is Kerry. Then she'd be Jerry Kerry Ferry and – who knows? – maybe her other middle name is Sherry and then...

"My joke is better," he says, with a scandalised pout. George can still do an excellent, tip-top scandalised pout.

"True," I agree, not only because I do, but because even if I didn't, I wouldn't dare say so. George is open, honest, resolutely himself and all that but, still, there is this thing about him that suggests that he could out-sulk anyone. I vow not to make any more rubbish jokes. I vow not to point out that now he's macrobiotic and all that, couldn't he be Soy George?

We meet at the Venue, a new West End theatre just off Leicester Square, where the musical Taboo is currently playing. Boy George wrote the music and lyrics for Taboo, which is autobiographical while simultaneously taking in the whole early-Eighties New Romantic club scene. Yes, it's wildly egotistical, but I've seen it, and it's terrific fun, strongly recommended. George is in it now, too. George did not intend to be in it, but when the actor who plays Leigh Bowery (the extraordinary Australian artist who frequented the early Blitz scene) had to leave to meet his TV commitments, George agreed to step in for six weeks. There are, I note, George fans waiting at the front entrance when I arrive, with posters they hope to get signed.

Actually, that's not quite right. I notice one fan (female, late thirties, waited all day) at the front entrance when I arrive, with a single poster she hopes to get signed. George is running late and when, finally, we meet in the bowels of the theatre, I ask if he stopped to give the poor obsessed woman his autograph. He says he didn't. "I just waltzed past." George, I say, that's not very nice. "These people don't think you are going to work. And that's what I'm doing for the next six weeks. I'm going to work." It's still not very nice George. "You have to be bloody-minded," he finally concludes, "or you'd go mad." Would you? Perhaps. Then again, I do think George rather likes to distance himself from the obscure hordes. After all, not being one of the obscure hordes always been something of his raison d'être. He could never be Hoi Polloi George.

Anyway, what with Taboo coming on top of his best-selling, vividly truthful autobiography, and that coming on top of the umpteen interviews he's given over the last 20 years, what is there actually left to ask Boy George? Frankly, it's all been done, hasn't it? Culture Club, the No 1s, then his descent into narcotics, over-eating (Boy Gorge?) and self-pity until, finally, he managed to clean up and make good again as a clubland DJ and newspaper columnist. What is there left to know about Boy George? I can't think of anyone with less mystique. I put all this to him, with the added, admittedly pathetic plea: please, tell me something new to ask you. Give me a new line in questioning. He says, sulkily, with another scandalised moue: "You're the journalist."

"Um... favourite colour?"

"Why don't you ask me if I think God exists."

"George, do you think God exists?"

"Possibly."

I figure that, if he's not going to help out, I'll just fire off some random questions, and see where it gets us, if anywhere.

"Do you consider yourself intelligent, George?"

"You know, I went to Oxford University recently where I was asked: 'Have you ever worn fingerless gloves?' I said: 'You're at Oxford, and you're asking me if I've ever worn fingerless gloves?' I don't think education necessarily makes you intelligent."

"Do you respect money, George?"

"I grew up in a household where my dad would take a whole month's wages – and not even just his wages, but also the wages of those who worked for him – and put it all on a horse. So, no."

"What do you like to do that has nothing to do with music?"

"I like unstructured days, where I can lie on the sofa eating Doritos."

"So, they make macrobiotic Doritos now?"

"Some days I just think, 'Fuck it.' I'm not as extreme as some of my macrobiotic friends who won't use a hairdryer because they think they are blowing electricity into their brains."

Does he read?

"I go through reading phases," he says, "and then long phases of not reading."

"What did you read during your last reading phase?"

"Memoirs of a Geisha, The God of Small Things, the Tony Parsons book which, I'm afraid to say, I quite liked."

"Why are you afraid to say that?"

"Because I hate Tony Parsons with a vengeance. He once wrote something really nasty about me. He wrote that while George Michael was a dignified homosexual, I was a disgusting cliché of a queer. Little did he know that, on the other side of the world, Mr Respectable Homosexual was about to be arrested in a toilet. I would never do it in a toilet."

"No?"

"I'm white cotton sheets and candles."

The one thing that I am, actually, quite keen to discuss with him is the nature of fame. After all, he's been there, done that, and been spat out at the end. The only thing he didn't do was end up dead, face down, bloated and blue-faced, in a swimming pool. Why does fame, I wonder, turn out so horribly for so many? And why do so many people long for it, at whatever cost? George says, in his case, he yearned for fame from early childhood as a form of revenge. "Revenge on all those boys at school who tripped me up and called me queer. I wanted it because I didn't fit in, was always an outsider. You know, when it came to picking football teams it was always: 'Oh, we don't want George, the poof.'"

So fame would help give you a valued identity? "I think it is also about the search for love. But, of course, the irony is the more fame you get, the more you have to put barriers up. People can get close, but not close enough." I say it's an odd thing to seek, though, when you really think about it. I mean, what is fame? The advantage of being known by people you don't know and don't care about? "It's about being liked," he continues, "although people say you can't be liked unless you like yourself. How do you do it? How do you learn to like yourself? I've been in therapy for four years and I'm not there yet." He likes therapy, he says, because it gives him someone intelligent to talk to. The gay scene, he adds, is not noted for its intelligent chit chat. "It's all: 'Ohhh, did you see Geri Halliwell's shoes on Top of the Pops?'" Did you? "No! I was too busy concentrating on how bad her lyrics were!" I wouldn't say George doesn't like himself. Just that he might not be as narcissistically happy with himself as he affects.

George O'Dowd was, yes, always an outsider. As a kid growing up in Eltham, south-east London, he was called "queer", "fag", "bum bandit" and "poof". And not just at school, but at home, too. Who first called you those names, George? "My [five] brothers, probably." And what's the first thing you wore to startle the good folk of Eltham? "Black lipstick. My mum said: 'You can't go out like that.' Then she said to my dad: 'Gerry, Gerry, tell him he can't go out like that.' My dad lowered his newspaper and said, 'Well, if he wants to get beaten up...'" Did you wear black lipstick so your dad would lower his newspaper, would pay attention to you? "Possibly," he accepts.

His parents divorced recently after 43 years of marriage. George was all for it. "I wish my mum had done it earlier. I'd been telling her to leave him since I was 14. Dad treated her like a piece of shit and it annoyed me. I saw this woman working her bollocks off – cleaning, tidying up, shopping – while all he did was order her around." She is, he says, having a great time as a divorcee. "She's doing the house up as she wants it. She's been to South Africa, Spain. The first time she went to Spain she was still married and she said to me: 'I've got a ticket for Spain, but I haven't told your father.' I told her to go, go, GO! I said leave him a note telling him there is a chicken in the freezer, and GO! She went, but when she got back he wouldn't talk to her for six weeks." I wonder if his father feels George is on his mother's side. "I am. I was. I always will be," says George. George no longer has much of a relationship with his father. "He got remarried two weeks ago and I wasn't invited to the wedding. It's a weird situation. Part of me thinks: he's my father. He went out to work and put bacon on the table. But he never calls to ask me how I am. And if he does, the conversation turns to him within 30 seconds. I love him. He's my dad. But it doesn't mean I have to like him." This search for love business. Is it the search for a father's love?

I ask George if he feels in any way loved now. "No. Absolutely not. Not at the moment. I've recently finished with someone." I say I wasn't talking about boyfriends necessarily. He says neither was he, by which, I think, he means he wasn't talking about sex. "Sex is so easy to find. You can buy it. I'm not that interested in sex. I prefer a cuddle and a snog." (And a cup of tea, of course). When did you lose your virginity? "I lost it at 16 to a 37-year-old Italian I met on the tube. I was working as a courier, and I was on the tube when he approached me. He said: 'Are you a boy?' I said: 'Why?' He said: 'Or are you a girl?' I said: 'What do you want?' He said: 'Where are you going?' I said: 'I'm delivering a parcel.' He asked if he could come with me, so I said all right, and then he asked me to a dinner party. It turned out to be Anton Dolin's party. Lindsay Kemp was there. I was surrounded by these really grand, opulent homosexuals."

And that's where you did it? "Yes. There should be a plaque outside the house now." He later went home and watched telly with his mum and dad, all the while thinking: "If you knew what I did last night, you'd knock me all the way to Woolwich." There is something quite lonely about this anecdote. There might be something quite lonely about George, too. Indeed, for all his lack of mystery, for all we think we know about him, has he spent so long on the outside that he can never properly let anyone in?

Time to go, anyway. George needs to get into make-up for the show. One last question, then. Are you proud of the music you've made? Are you proud of "Karma Chameleon" and "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me"? "They're not my best work," he says. Come now, I say, they're terrific pop songs. "How do you know if a song is terrific?" he says. Because it stands the test of time, I suggest. Because, I continue, you could play the first few bars of "Karma Chameleon" and most people would be off. "You could say the same about 'The Birdie Song'," he says.

"True," I admit.

"And 'Agadoo'."

"Point made."

"And 'Una Paloma Blanca'."

"George. You're right. I'm wrong. Shut up!" He gives a triumphant little pout. He can still do a tip-top triumphant pout. I forget, by the way, to tell him it's a shame he never went to sea, because then he could be Ahoy George.

'Taboo', The Venue, Leicester Place, London W1 (0870 899 3335). Culture Club play two summer dates: Liverpool Kings Dock (08707 460 000) 6 July, and the Royal Albert Hall, London SW7 (020-7434 2222) 7 July