On 12 December 1993, he made an infamous appearance at the British Comedy Awards where he made a joke comparing the set to Hampstead Heath (a famed London cruising area for gay men) and stated that he had just been fisting the former Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont. Although the joke was met with uproarious laughter from the audience and Lamont himself did not complain over it, he was criticised in some newspapers, particularly by the "Daily Mail" and "The Sun", who both launched a campaign to have him banned from television. Clary found for the next few years his television appearances dried up.