Whose line is it anyway?

Watching the early 1990 quiz show Whose line is it anyway? (re runs on Sky Dave Channel) With benefit of hindsight has been an interesting experience. My favourite improvisation comedian on the show was always the doe-eyed Tony Slattery. The former Cambridge Footlights performer seemed to be the most daring, the most anarchic and ever so “dangerous” contestant in the show. He always seemed to be slightly surprised that sometimes dirty, always witty but certainly razor sharp ideas and phrases shot from his mouth time and time again during the show.
Knowing what we do now about his nervous breakdown in 1996, when he descended into bipolar psychosis after binging on alcohol and cocaine, it is easy to recognise the dangerous undercurrent in his erratic television performances. The hilarious flight of ideas, pressure of speech and bizarre thinking made the audience love him, and it was that audience that wanted and expected that level of lunacy every time he appeared.
In 2003 when interviewed by Miranda Sawyer, Slattery said of his breakdown:-

“'I have,' he says, 'very strong recollections of behavioural disinhibition, ungovernable, compulsive, socially unacceptable behaviour, irrationality... but then that would suddenly flip and negative symptoms would replace, like utter social withdrawal, isolationism, mutinous... my symptoms were florid and uncontrollable and profoundly disordered"

I have always loved Slattery's bizarre and near-the-knuckle genius. Watching re runs of him at the peak of his career make me wish him well.