'I'm content now'

Pink is a colour that sits easily with camp comedian Julian Clary, but today he's slightly perturbed about the bubblegum shade gracing the cover of his debut novel, Murder Most Fab.

''Do you think heterosexual men will buy it?'' he frets quietly, in the familiar dulcet tones that brought us double entendres galore in All Rise For Julian Clary, Sticky Moments and, more recently, The Underdog Show.

''Someone called it Dick Lit,'' he muses. ''I wanted to call it Dead Man Wing but they wouldn't have it.''

At 48, Julian admits to having had a little botox to remove some forehead lines that made him appear constantly cross, but he looks much younger than his age.

His memoir, A Young Man's Passage, published last year, has remarkably similar moments to his latest fictional yarn - explicit gay sex scenes, the damage that fame can do and a constant search for happiness.

Julian has spent more than two years writing Murder Most Fab, a dark comedy about Johnny Debonair (JD), a gay man who becomes a rent boy with an eclectic mix of clients, one of whom claims to have terminal cancer and asks him to fulfil his greatest fantasy - to kill him.

In various weird circumstances, JD almost unwittingly becomes a serial killer, bumping off other lovers who become nuisances.

Clary has long been interested in crime, which is why he has featured numerous murders in the book. ''My preferred reading has always been true crime, serial killers and all of that. Often it's quite tacky and badly written, and that's fine,'' he says.

The book is fantasy, of course, but Julian's own life has at times been almost as promiscuous as his protagonist, who later becomes a TV host whose world becomes increasingly chaotic, drug-fuelled and hedonistic.

''The plot is similar to my own life - the rise and fall,'' Julian admits. ''It wasn't intended. I don't think fame in itself is going to make you self-destruct but it can if all the other components are there. You get surrounded by people who don't really have your interests at heart.''

For several years at the height of his success, the comedian became precious and difficult, he recalls.

''I lost sight of reality and I became unreasonable and demanding.

''For example, I refused to get into a maroon car because I don't like the colour maroon. Rather than say 'Don't be so stupid,' agents would say 'We quite understand. No more maroon cars will be sent'. When you are on the up and you feel indestructible you become a bit of a monster.''

His fall from grace came after his infamous joke at the 1993 Comedy Awards that he'd been backstage carrying out an extreme sex act on then-chancellor Norman Lamont.

When he delivered the line at the live event, the audience roared with laughter, but TV executives took a sharp intake of breath and, when the media slammed him for the remark, Clary was deemed too dangerous to be put on live shows, where many believe he performs best.

Few were aware, however, that at the time the comic was going through a personal crisis, popping Valium for his frequent panic attacks and sleeping pills for insomnia, unable to come to terms with the death of his lover, Christopher, who had Aids and whom Julian nursed until the end.

For years he had trouble forming a new relationship but now he is settled with his boyfriend Ian, who's in advertising. They met on holiday on a yacht in Ibiza and it carried on from there.

They don't live together - Julian spends his time between his flat in Camden, north west London, and his house (Noel Coward's former home) in the Kent countryside, which he shares with his dog, Valerie. And they have no plans to change the arrangement.

''I've got my flat, he's got his flat and it never occurred to me to move in with him or him with me.''

He laughs at the suggestion of tying the knot with Ian in a civil ceremony. ''I've not been asked! And I don't want to ask him.''

Clary often mentions Ian in his fortnightly column for the New Statesman, not always in the greatest light.

In one description, he says: ''My non-smoking, teetotal, 30-year-old boyfriend's idea of a wild night out is to drink fizzy water instead of still. If he's not in bed by 10.30pm with a liberal sprinkling of talcum powder in every crevice, he's liable to have a panic attack. He's so squeaky clean it's like going out with Tim Henman, but without the stamina.''

But the depth of feeling is clear when he reveals that he ran each chapter of Murder Most Fab past his partner before it went to the publisher.

''He said all the appropriate things,'' he smiles. ''He lived with me writing it and disappearing into another room every evening. He knew when I was stressed about it and all the looming deadlines and was quite good at saying 'Go and do your homework'.''

The extrovert admits he found it hard to assume a writing routine.

''I tried writing early in the morning because I read that's what writers do, but I was absolutely rubbish. I did buy a big oak desk and sat in my study looking out at the garden but I couldn't write a word.

''I wrote most of it in London sitting at my breakfast bar with the phone ringing in the background. I'm better in a busy environment. I don't like complete silence.''

Despite this, Julian admits he has become a bit of a hermit in recent years and no longer craves the clubbing nightlife he used to enjoy. He has TV work, but likes variety. ''I do lots of different things. I do writing, performing, radio.''

He always believed he would gravitate into novel writing when he hit middle age. ''I didn't want to be prancing around making buggery jokes in my 50s. I wanted another way to scratch a living. It's a nice vision of my future to be living in the country writing books.

''I get more of a thrill out of writing than performing. If you write a funny line in a book it will be there forever, but if you say a funny line on stage it's lost in the ether as soon as you've had the laugh.''

Julian still does one-man shows, although he'd rather do occasional dates than full-scale tours. He's also hoping to get another series of The Underdog Show and is in discussion about several other TV projects, on which he won't elaborate.

His life is cleaner and much more enjoyable now, he reflects.

''I'm very content now, but that's only happened in the last five years. I don't go out to nightclubs. Actually, I don't want to go out anywhere.''

In an ideal working world, he says, he'll be doing more of the same in the next decade.

''I'll be doing the tenth series of The Underdog Show and writing my fifth novel, having done part two of my autobiography.''

* Murder Most Fab, by Julian Clary (Ebury, £16.99).