My hols: John Barrowman

[Laisy]

Skiing, snowboarding, a hot gymnast ... John Barrowman loves a holiday with thrills
From The Sunday Times
May 6, 2007

можно я поеду с ними на входные?

The actor John Barrowman, 40, was born in Glasgow, but moved to the USA when he was eight. He made his name in West End musicals such as Sunset Boulevard and Anything Goes. On television, his appearances in the revival of Doctor Who led to a role in its spin-off series, Torchwood. He can currently be seen as a panellist on Any Dream Will Do (BBC1, Saturdays). He lives in London and Cardiff with his civil partner, architect Scott Gill

‘I GET fidgety – that’s why I’m always working – so I have to think of different elements when Scott and I go on vacation. The first few days are relaxation: beach, pool, maybe some spa stuff. After that, we have to do something cultural for Scott. So we look at rubble. Scott’s an architect and he calls it ruins. Then we do slightly risky activities such as snowboarding and water-skiing – though my contract doesn’t allow me to at the moment.

I love the adrenaline rush. If someone’s going out on a wetbike at the same time, I will establish if it’s okay to race, and maybe put a little wager on it, like a drink at the bar. It’s fun and you get to meet people. A long time ago, Scott and I were on a wetbike together in Florida, I did a 360-degree turn and I didn’t know he had flown off. I thought, “What’s he doing in the water?” He said, “You ran me over!” He was fine, but it was a bit frightening, so now he won’t race.

Health-and-safety regulations don’t seem to exist in Turkey, and I kind of like that. When we stayed in Kalkan, we went to the Saklikent Gorge, where you can cross a rope-and-wood catwalk over this torrent of water. The river flows past all these cafes and I couldn’t understand why people were sitting there soaking wet. They were chucking themselves off the walkway, letting the water carry them down and then getting out at a cafe. So we did too. It was great, almost like being out of control.

We had a fantastic vacation three years ago when Scott’s niece turned 16 and my niece was 17. We took them to Santorini to show them how much fun you can have without getting into trouble. We had song-and-dance competitions by the pool, and spa baths with champagne, and we took the girls horseback riding on the beach. Then, towards the end, a Greek Olympic gymnast moved into the villa above us. The girls were like, “He is hot!” And Scott and I were like, “Yeah, he is hot!” So we were all trying to jump up and look at him.

Our most recent holiday was a real luxury. We stayed with our best friends in Palm Springs, for sun, eating and shopping. I’d like to go to the Mall of America in Minnesota: it takes four days to get through all the shops. From Palm Springs, we flew up to Seattle. Don’t laugh – this sounds so cheesy – but I went to the original Starbucks. It’s a warehouse with a coffee bar, but it bugged me that they no longer used the original coffee machines. Scott and I are aeroplane nerds, so we went to the Boeing aircraft facility and did a tour of the 777 production line. Then we drove up to Vancouver. The bay is stunning. For Scott’s birthday treat, I hired a seaplane to fly to Cypress Mountain. I don’t like flying. I was sitting in the front and the pilot kept saying, “If this goes wrong, you do this and this.” I was like, “Dude, don’t even start!” We came to two peaks, the guy tilted the plane and flew right between them. I could see what brand of jacket the skiers below were wearing. I kind of crapped myself, but it was amazing. From there, we went to Whistler and spent 10 days snowboarding.

The first time I skied was when Scott and I followed the pioneers’ wagon-train route across the United States. We ended up in Lake Tahoe, but I didn’t let on to Scott that I hadn’t skied. He went down one side of the mountain and I went down the other, not realising it was a black run. The wind was picking up, it was snowing and I had visions of hitting a cliff – being overdramatic. I gave him hell for leaving me. After that, I did smaller runs to get my ski legs.

We went through a phase of doing American-history trips. Scott’s the map-reader; I do the driving. We like finding things people normally wouldn’t see, such as Carhenge, which is American folk pop art in Nebraska. I like cars, Scott likes Stonehenge: perfect. It’s mostly old Cadillacs embedded in the ground. We stayed in what, when I was a kid, we called Psycho hotels. I remember my dad telling exciting stories of places we’d visit, so when Scott and I took my niece and nephew, I’d pull off on a side road and pretend the car had died. We’d create this whole story and the kids would be saying, “Please start the engine, Uncle John!”’