Rupert Everett describes, during an interview with Christian Anthony during the Magdalen College School Arts Festival, how a trip to the cinema to see Mary Poppins "unhinged me...I became a cross-dresser overnight." Dressing up in Mum's tweed skirt, young Rupert developed a fantasy that he was the secret daughter of Julie Andrews. He was so obsessed that a child psychiatrist was consulted.

A teenage Everett was captivated by Nicholas Roeg's cult film Performance (1970) which featured designer sex romps and music by the Rolling Stones. "The decadence...we only listened to military bands at home." The glamour wove its spell, and Rupert Everett had found his vocation.

He is a charismatic man, comfortable in this setting (an impeccable curtained (he loves curtains) marquee in the Magdalen College grounds). His appearance coincides with the paperback edition of part two of his autobiography. He speaks as he writes, or writes as he speaks, telling colourful tales, occasionally pausing for a moment of reflection or a killer witticism.

With success "you become monstrous" - later "you realise that your character is constructed by other people...it's an illusion." Born a generation earlier, Everett would have lined up comfortably with the Film Stars of Old Hollywood, but he arrived just as the party was ending. The Reagan and Thatcher years were not good to Hollywood, ushering in an asset-stripping culture and profit-conscious compromises. "The advertisers are in charge now" - nowadays movies reflect either deep violence or deep Puritanism. Hollywood men are voracious - to succeed Hollywood women have to develop a male quality - "the iron claw beneath the velvet muff."

The conversation romps on: Best Friend's Wedding...death... "fascinating"...Aids...the Belle Époque, Everett's favourite period. Oscar Wilde "the Jesus Christ of the gay world" and there is charm, good humour, wit and a nice dose of bitch to spice things up. His memoirs are definitely worth reading, as numerous reviewers agree, and, Rupert Everett is jolly good company.