When Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff retired from international cricket in 2010 and lay down his bat and ball, he had already accrued the game’s highest honours including man of the series for England’s stunning victory in the 2005 Ashes as well as the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year. He could have eased himself into a lucrative career in commentating, but really, how could he when there was still an array of novel challenges to face? Since stripping off the cricket whites, Flintoff has pulled on the satin shorts of a professional heavyweight boxer (one bout, undefeated); the greasy apron of a mobile fish fryer; and, most recently, the feathered crown of King of the Jungle in the Australian version of I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here.
His latest escapade is to become the first professional cricketer to play the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a three-night run at the Pleasance with Freddie Flintoff: 2nd Innings, a largely unscripted show which seems to consist of, as he explained, “me and my mate spending some time together and having a laugh”. The same high-wire format was pioneered back in 2000 when two friends took to the stage with a sofa, a piano and songbook in a show called Unplanned — but then the friends were David Baddiel and Frank Skinner, who turned their idle and witty banter into a successful TV show which ran for three series.
Flintoff and his friend Clyde Holcroft, a writer and TV producer, may already have the experience of hosting a successful podcast but the show does raise the spectre of Al Pacino’s latest round of theatrical “An Evening with . . . ”, not principally designed to entertain but to replenish his wilted bank balance. Yet Flintoff insists he isn’t doing it only for the money.
“Well, personally I am being paid for it. Let’s be clear. But me and my mate Clyde just started doing a podcast last year, we didn’t edit it, it was just us talking and people seemed to like it. So we thought about having a tour and it just escalated. I know Jack Dee and I’ve been to his concerts and I know John Bishop and it looks good fun, people laughing and having a joke. I just thought, why not?”
The honest answer to this particular question is that both those gentlemen are professional comics who spent years honing their craft. They didn’t appear under the spotlight on a stage in the Fringe on a whim and driven by a cheeky grin, a shrugged shoulder and a congenial attitude best described as: “C’mon, what’s the worst that can happen?” The prospect of under- delivering, of taking both £20 and an hour off someone’s life, doesn’t seem to trouble Flintoff too much. His relaxed attitude is almost endearing, although one imagines him taking a dim view of any member of the public who tried to walk into the Oval and bowl a few with the same amateur can-do spirit.
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“I’ve had the chance since retiring to box, run a fish and chip van and do all these sorts of things, so I like trying something new. So far it’s been great. The opening night in Preston was great fun. We had 300 people, the atmosphere was amazing but there was a little bit of nerves. It’s just me and my mate spending some time together and having a laugh, and people seem to laugh with us. I talk about some of the things I got wrong as a cricketer on and off the field. It is quite self-deprecating. The stories are linked to cricket but it’s not a cricket show.”
He admits the show is a work in progress: “It’s awful when you tell a story and it’s going on and on and 350 people are listening and you know it’s going nowhere and they know it’s going nowhere. It is a horrible place to be. We will take those bits out.”
So are we getting the highlights?
“Hopefully.”
A decade on from his own Ashes triumph, Flintoff remembers listening to the first Test match of the 2015 Ashes while filming a TV show. “Ten years on from the Ashes I was in a studio. I was thinking, ‘How things have changed.’ But you move on.” There are mixed emotions when he looks back on his playing career. “There were a lot of lows. My career was up and down. I just never found that consistency that professional sports people talk about. But then the lows are quite good fun too because there is only one way up from there. Get back to it. My time as captain was pretty average and having surgery 12 times wasn’t fun.
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“Sure I made mistakes but I didn’t do jail time. It’s just things I can laugh about now. I was all right. I never set out to be a great player. I just loved to play cricket.”
As anyone who spent time in his company will know, Flintoff has a laid-back charm and he laughs and chuckles frequently during our conversations. It’s clear from the photographs and footage of his appearance on the Australian version of I’m a Celebrity that he has kept himself in good condition and is a long way from the twin ruins of a retired sportsman; indolence and obesity. In fact it is Flintoff’s relaxed manner, humour and amiable character that has made him a growing TV personality and producer who works hard to concoct the challenges he faces for the entertainment of the audience. Yet it was while presenting a documentary on depression among top athletes that he gained a clearer insight into his own personality. He recently said: “I spent a lot of time hating myself,” but today is more positive. “I have no axes to grind and I’m really happy. I’ve had the opportunity to do loads of different things. It must be horrible at the end of a sports career, and I’ve seen people do it, you have bad thoughts and regrets going round in your head, but I don’t have that.”
He admits, however, that the documentary was enlightening. “I did the documentary but I didn’t expect to give away so much as I did. Or to put it another way, I never thought I would learn so much about myself. It was like therapy for me, speaking to people and identifying with them. Sports people do suffer. It’s not that they are especially prone to it. If it happens to Ricky Hatton, who is a hard boxer, it can happen to anyone. People need to talk about it. The first step towards helping yourself is to admit it and get help.
“People praise me for talking about it but I don’t see it as a problem. Maybe 20 years ago. If I have a bad leg I’ll see a physiotherapist. I don’t think mental health is any different. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It just happens. I don’t see why people shouldn’t talk about it.”
When I ask him about increasing the presence of cricket in Scotland’s schools, he is surprisingly cautious. The game is still perceived as the preserve of private schools and, as Flintoff admits, cricket equipment isn’t cheap. “It is an expensive game. It’s not like football, when you put two jumpers down and with a ball you’ve got a game. You need the facilities and a lot of schools don’t have them. But if you speak to schools and speak to communities then I’m sure there are better ways to spend thousands of pounds. It can be a really tough sell, but I’d love to see it played more widely in Scotland.”
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It remains to be seen if Freddie Flintoff: 2nd Innings will see the many fans he’s accrued from his sporting days and alternative career as television’s new have-a-go hero ensure a respectable turnout. Either way, he exudes the sanguine attitude of a man confident that he can cope with whichever way the ball bounces.
“I have got more of a fear of looking back in 20 years’ time and saying, ‘I had a chance to do this and didn’t do it.’ I do a lot of varied things and it’s just fun. I’m not in the situation when I’ve had to do something I didn’t want to do, which is pretty nice.”
Freddie Flintoff: 2nd Innings, Pleasance, Edinburgh, August 27-29, £20, pleasance.co.uk