Barry Fantoni: Stroke of genius

"I've only ever lived within six miles of where we're sitting right now," Barry Fantoni laughs as we sit down in his Clapham home.

While the geographical scope may be limited, it's done nothing to hamper the prolific creative output of this 60-something artist, playwright, musician, novelist and cartoonist.

"Although I was born in the East End of London, I spent comparatively little time there - Hitler sorted that. We had the first knocked through house in East London - but it didn't go sideways, it came from the ceiling down!" he grins. "The Luftwaffe designed it."

The Fantoni family moved to Southwark and later to Brixton. "My father was a painter and an amateur musician. My mother was an amateur pianist. From a very early age my father made me paint - made me paint. I don't know why. There was never any logic in that because there was no reason why I would make it as a painter. Why he forced a pencil into my hand and said 'draw' I don't know. Maybe it's just what fathers do to sons. They just tell you to do what they do."

It wasn't bad advice, as it turns out, and Barry won a place at Camberwell College of Art. His time there came to a premature end, however, after he became student union leader and organised the painting students in executing a mural in the style of Toulouse Lautrec that depicted the faculty in racy poses. Expulsion soon followed. "Then I went to Europe, and that was the making of me really," he says.

When he returned, he not only made it as a painter, he also made a major contribution to the development of Pop Art. The critical success of his work eclipsed his tarnished academic record, and he went on to teach at Croydon College of Art, where fellow teachers included Bridget Riley and Howard Hodgkin.

Barry's energies weren't entirely expended on fine art and academia, however; he has explored almost every angle of the media that exists. He joined Private Eye as a cartoonist in 1963 and he remains a member of the editorial staff to this day. He later became the front-page cartoonist for The Times, was a regular illustrator for The Radio Times, art critic to The Times and a music reviewer for Punch. He's also written two detective novels and is at work on a third.

In the 1960s Barry fronted the BBC's music and fashion programme A Whole Scene Going On. "Ready Steady Go was the one television programme where the Rolling Stones and the Beatles could plug records. The guy who was producing it said would I design a pop art background for it? So I did a collage. Then the BBC said, 'Maybe we should do a magazine programme,' so they decided to interview the man who designed Ready Steady Go.

"I was interviewed by a man with Brylcreem on his hair and a tie, and there was me with lots of hair and everything. They said, 'Here's the future! And this other guy isn't, so could you do the show?'"

Barry said yes to the job and suddenly became a television presenter. "The show had 16 million viewers, it went out live, and I was TV Personality of the Year as a result. Number two was Cliff Richard, number three was Tom Jones and number four was Mick Jagger."

While Barry's TV days are behind him, he still takes to the stage to play jazz, which suits his energetic temperament. "The whole point about playing jazz is that it's about impatience. It's about desperately wanting to know what you're going to do next. That's the point - you don't what's going to come next, but that's what so exciting." He uses a piano for writing new songs. "As an instrumentalist I play all the reeds and the double bass. I'm mad. It doesn't stop!"

A natural performer, he is patron on the Landor Theatre, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. "I act, but mainly I write, and I also direct when I have to. Sometimes I do all three," he says. "I needed to make paintings come alive. It was great painting, I still enjoy it from time to time but it lacked the dimension that theatre has. Words to me are the most important thing, not the images."

He's just finished writing a musical about Charles Strouse, who wrote Annie. Meanwhile behind the scenes, Barry and the theatre company are in talks that could lead to the Landor presenting shows at the Lewis Media Centre's 200-seat theatre at Millbank.

While today performing arts have overtaken his interest in fine art, an exhibition of Barry's work opens this month to reveal his private life as an artist for the first time. The show includes early landscapes, interiors and portraits.

"I had a flat on Clapham Common, I rented it for 17/6d - that was under a pound a week. All my early pictures were either done looking up from a flat on top of Brixton Hill where my mum lived looking across London, or of the change of Brixton being essentially a white market to a multicultural market. All my landscapes were looking out from the flat on the Common. If you live and work in a place you become part of it. I can't imagine living anywhere except south London."

Put on a Happy Face, Barry's new musical about Charles Strouse, appears 10-25 April at the Landor Theatre, 70 Landor Road SW9 9PH; 020 7737 7276

Public Eye, Private Eye, an exhibition of Barry's art, appears 22 April-22 May at Thomas Williams Fine Art, 22 Old Bond Street W1S 4PY; 020 7491 1485

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