Peter Rhodes on the art of acting, food porn and Brexiters who refuse to die

Reports of our deaths have been greatly exaggerated. Ever since the 2016 EU Referendum, I've received emails “proving” that Remain is now the majority. This is because all the Leave voters of 2016 were not only ignorant and bigoted but also incredibly old and probably senile. As time passes, so this theory goes, the rickety old Leavers die off, making Remain the majority. However, the General Election results suggest that, while we old Brexiters may spend all day watching repeats of Countdown while marinading in our Tena pants, we can still summon the energy to find our way to a polling station and put an X in a box. You wanted a People's Vote? That was it.

There is a glorious moment in the Ricky Gervais comedy series Extras when Sir Ian McKellen, best known as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, reveals the secret of his acting. He begins by explaining that he is not a real wizard and adds: “What I do is I pretend to be the person in the film or play.” This is the thespian's art reduced to its silly simplest but delivered with great seriousness. It is a slap in the face for actors who take their craft too seriously.

It would clearly be daft if the only person allowed to play a wizard was a wizard. Yet that seems to be the place some actors want to take us. After a series of rows about white actors playing black characters or able-bodied actors playing disabled people, Richard E Grant declares that gay characters should not be played by straight actors.

The irony is not merely that Grant has played gay and drag-queen roles himself but that his best-known film, Withnail and I (1987), featured one of the most memorable gay characters, Uncle Monty, played by the late, great and definitely straight Richard Griffiths. During his distinguished career, Griffiths played a number of gay roles. Fans sometimes assumed he was gay and he'd explain: “Look, I'm just acting.” Words to ponder.

A BBC reporter described an example of “food porn” on YouTube showing “a fresh turkey being covered in fragments of cheese-flavoured crisps and then stuffed with what looks like three kilos of cheddar.” Another clip shows a 100-layer lasagne. Others feature “heinous levels of barbecue sauce.” All are designed, like regular porn, to shock or delight. I'm not entirely surprised. When folk become too fat for sex, indulgence by food takes over.

I may have seen the beginnings of food porn 30-odd years ago on a trip to Arkansas where a local newspaper had a column of deeply dodgy recipes. It had the look of a sleazy dating column but the items on offer were on the lines of: “My grandma's triple-layer chocolate cake recipe – buy it for five dollars.” The guilty plump pleasures of the Deep South 30 years ago have dribbled into cyberspace. Oh, rude food.