Tony Hendra’s ‘Father Joe’ splendidly crafted
Tony Hendra will always occupy a warm spot in my heart because of his hilarious (and uncanny) imitation of John Lennon on “Magical Misery Tour,” one of the selections on National Lampoon’s 1972 LP “Radio Dinner.”
Hendra was one of the Lampoon’s founders, and he recounts both his days there and how the Lennon send-up came about in “Father Joe.” But only in passing. For this is definitely not your usual show-biz memoir.
True, Hendra starts off with an account of how he “was fourteen and having an affair with a married woman.” It comes about because Hendra’s parents send him to a Church of England school. A young neighbor takes on the job of providing Tony with Catholic religious instruction, and the neighbor’s wife takes a shine to the boy.
When the husband discovers the affair, he takes Tony to Dom Joseph Warrilow, a Benedictine monk at Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight — the Father Joe of the title.
Father Joe turns out to be someone who takes Jesus at his word that the law was made for man, not the other way around. Writes Hendra: “Being a monk, he spoke of God. But rarely unless linked with the word ‘love.’ “
Hendra is so taken with Father Joe that his only ambition for the next few years is to become a monk himself. Instead, he ends up at Cambridge University, where he sees Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett stage “Beyond the Fringe” and undergoes another conversion — to the possibility of changing the world through satirical laughter.
What follows really is an often-told tale with the usual ingredients: sex, drugs and egos in collision. There is a marriage, of course, and two children, but Hendra proves a neglectful husband and father.
Naturally, he abandons his faith. One day, he gets a letter from Father Joe, “and — I couldn’t remember ever doing this before — I didn’t open it right away.” When, days later, he does open it, “all that crossed my mind was: ‘I bet I could write a great parody of a Father Joe letter.’ … I knew I’d passed a milestone.”
Gradually, with Father Joe’s help, Hendra finds his way out of the wilderness of self and starts attending Mass again. It isn’t until after Father Joe dies that Hendra learns that he was far from alone in depending on the monk’s counsel. The current Anglican archbishop of Canterbury counted the Catholic Dom Joseph as his spiritual adviser. Apparently even Princess Diana sought Father Joe’s help.
Hendra’s book is so funny at times that you wonder if you’ll ever get through it for laughing. At other times, it truly brings a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye. It is splendidly crafted and a welcome reminder that true religion is about learning how to love.