Free Size Matters Not: The Extraordinary Life and Career of Warwick Davis by Warwick Davis Page B

an actor inside. The actor’s torso was made up to look like the goblin rider, while the actor’s legs, hidden in the costume, maneuvered as the ostrich’s legs.
     
    There were six of these riding goblins that charged through all at once. I couldn’t see them coming and take after take I ended up flat on my back as they took me straight out. It was like being inside a bell being repeatedly struck with a metal bar – and it always seemed to be the biggest bloke who managed to hit me.
     
    Kenny Baker had it even worse. He was standing next to the castle wall when a cannonball was fired at it. The cannonball was of course magical and goblin-like – it had arms and legs. It was supposed to explode when it hit the building and it certainly did that. A huge cascade of sparks fell onto an unwitting, highly flammable Kenny, who promptly erupted into flames. For some seconds he just stood there, in that blissfully unaware state people go into when their hair is on fire, after which – when most of their hair has burned away – they innocently ask, “What’s that smell? It smells just like . . .”
     
    Just as the flames of recognition flickered across Kenny’s face, a stagehand came sprinting from the side and slapped him to the floor with an almighty forehand to his enflamed head. The flames were extinguished in seconds but poor Kenny was left with a severe case of sudden-onset baldness and temporary double vision.
     

     
    The Davis family home was far, far away from Elstree and the hotel we were offered as accommodation had less charm than a real-life Farty Owls (a.k.a. Fawlty Towers). For some reason, as soon as you stepped into your room, the temperature dropped to something close to freezing.
     
    Then Dad had an epiphany.
     
    “Well, we’ve just bought a bigger and better caravan, why don’t we stay in that?”
     
    It was true – in a rare fit of extravagance Dad had bought a caravan with double-glazing, cold running water, and so much space it had an echo. He parked it just twenty feet from the stage door that led to the Goblin City. Suddenly I had a bigger and better dressing room than David Bowie – and it was closer to the stage. All I had to do was wake up and wander in to work.
     
    Unfortunately, Dad made my life more difficult by staying with me for the entire five weeks of filming and inviting everyone to “his place” for a drink. I struggled to sleep as the little actors Jack Purvis c and Kenny Baker traded showbiz stories with Dad.
     

     
    With filming completed a wrap party was organized. Oddly enough, I met one of my childhood heroes – Miss Popov from Rentaghost – at the party, which was held on the Goblin City set. By then she was playing Audrey in Coronation Street but she still very kindly did Miss Popov’s accent and touched her nose for me (this was how one disappeared in Rentaghost ).
     
    Kenny and Jack had formed a group called the Mini-Tones and they performed a cabaret atop the castle wall. It was a crazy place to have a party. This was the mid-1980s and everybody was dressed in white, the set was filthy, and it wasn’t long before everyone looked as if they’d just been down a coal mine.
     
    Finally, after eight weeks spent running around the huge stage being chased by radio-controlled rocks and admiring (from afar) Peter’s gorgeous daughter, the film was done and it was back to school.
     
a Henson kept my life cast in his house as an ornament. It’s still out there somewhere. Come to think of it, there are bits of me everywhere.
     
b They left nothing to the imagination.
     
c Jack Purvis was one of the few cast members who’d been in all three Star Wars films – as a Jawa, an Ewok, a Dustbin Droid, and Chief Ugnaught. Jack also played a key role as Wally in Terry Gilliam’s cult movie Time Bandits . There were plans for a sequel but Terry Gilliam later indefinitely shelved it after both Jack and David Rappaport, who played the other key role, suffered terrible