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11 January 1953 – 2 November 2020
The novelist recalls his friend, the actor and joyful comedian who suffered badly from stage fright and was too shy to publish his own stories

Lynn Shelton remembered by Mark Duplass
Read the Observer’s obituaries of 2020 in full

I first met John Sessions nearly 30 years ago, in the early 1990s, when he was introduced to me by Ian and Victoria Hislop one evening at their house. Ian and John had worked together in the 80s on a show called After Midnight and, of course, on Spitting Image. In a way that first meeting prefigured all the others I would have with John. Even a fleeting encounter could engender a kind of spontaneous, personal, private cabaret. He was simply the funniest person I have ever met. You’d be having a perfectly normal conversation with John and suddenly his imagination would be triggered and he would go off on a riff, seasoned with a gallery of characters that he could imitate perfectly. It was a real privilege, and it was amazing how he just generously gave away – or threw out – all this amazing material. All his many close friends can testify to that unique hilarious joy he provided for his tiny select audiences of intimates.
That first night we met the riff was specific – about an elderly actor returning to the Belgrade theatre, Coventry, and being hugely offended that his photograph wasn’t anywhere to be seen in a building that was full of photos of other actors. The outraged expostulations of overweening vanity and self-regard went on to ever more surreal lengths. You laughed so hard it hurt. I remember another, later, riff in the back of a cab when John suddenly started imitating Tony Blair practising his “mockney” for Cherie, perfecting the glottal stop with the phrase “hot-water bottle”: “Ho’ wa’er bo’le – how’s that darling?” The cabby was laughing so much he nearly crashed. Continue reading...