Category: Celebrities

By Elliott West

“I went to the doctor the other day, I said I broke my leg in three places. He said, ‘Don’t go to those places’.

A Tommy Cooper joke.

Introduction

Tommy Cooper is an example of one of the best comedians that the world has ever witnessed. A bungling magician who could reduce the audience to fits of laughter by just walking on stage. His oversized stature, catchphrases and brilliantly crafted jokes were legendary. A man who was a perfectionist and a gifted magician, a member of the Magic Circle and someone who collected thousands of props to perfect his act. Blink and you will miss the sleight of hand, using his humour to conceal the trick. Yet beyond all the laughs, there lay a very complex character, Tommy suffered from stage fright, and nerves, turning to the bottle as an emotional crutch. The results were hidden for years, well-known in the profession but brushed under the carpet to preserve his national treasure status. Secrets that he took to the grave but sadly a trend amongst the inner angst of so many comedians who reached the very top of their profession. I aim in this piece, not to rubbish Tommy’s rightful place as a legend but to show that there is always a bigger picture and for all those who have gone through a similar experience, this insight will be vital for raising awareness of the dangers of excessive drinking. The demons that it can muster and the devastating impact it has on those that you love.

The Inner Demons

Tommy Cooper’s death live on stage in 1984 sent shockwaves through the world of entertainment. Suffering a massive heart attack during his act, the comedic magician drew his last breath live on television and parted company with this earth to a wave of laughter of applause. The audience was ignorant of the truth at the time, thinking it was part of the act but beyond the suit and fez, lay a man in ill health, ravaged by years of alcohol abuse and legs bound tight due to ulcerations. An adulter who had a 17-year -affair with his personal assistant Mary Kay despite his long marriage to Gwen, the woman he affectionately called ‘Dove’.

Sometimes work pressures cause you to react outside the ordinary box but it can’t excuse the inexcusable act of domestic abuse. It was only after Tommy’s death that the full extent of this abuse was revealed. His victims were his lover and wife. After heavy nights on an alcoholic bender, Copper lashed out with his fists. A tall and strong Welshman who would throw Mary across a room in a fit of rage, leaving her with the emotional and physical scars of his actions. A black eye, and bodily bruising but forgiven due to the deep love she had for him. A man who struggled to deal with his fear of criticism, once telling the audience at the Glasgow Empire to “fuck off” when his act was not well received in his early career.

Beyond the joke of once asking a member of staff for a gin and tonic to pour on his cornflakes, Tommy was never far from an alcoholic beverage. It was in the home, the dressing room and often carried in a paper bag with him. Cooper could drink to no tomorrow, collapsing into a state of drunken oblivion to only get up the next day to start again. It was a demon that Gwen his wife, alerted his manager Miff Ferrie about on several occasions, once punching his wife in front of their children. She threatened to leave him but it never materialised. Cooper accused her of giving back as good as he gave. A cry for help that was silenced by Tommy having a heart attack in April 1977 in Rome. An attack that the Italian doctors attributed to chronic alcoholism. A health scare that Cooper would blame on running a family, work and the secrecy of a mistress.

The Mistress

Gwen always denied she knew anything about Tommy’s affair with Mary. An affair that began in 1967 and led to a relationship that was like a second marriage. Doomed from the outset as Mary always knew that Copper would never leave his wife but a secret buzz that the magician craved in his life. Mary was the touring companion who listened to his woes, calmed his nerves, bound his painful legs and was the instigator of perfecting his tricks, watching him for hours devise new routines and put his personal magical touch to his act. Yet with this affair came Tommy’s baggage. He once flung her to the floor in a Derby restaurant after she laughed at his complaint that the crackling of his roast pork was soggy. He also tore the seam off an expensive dress when they argued about luggage and an occasion when she was anxious about keeping an appointment and Tommy ripped her watch off her wrist and threw it across the room.

The Inner Lie

Tommy joked to friends that he only drank for medicinal purposes, citing that he was sick of being sober. However, you only have to look at some of his stage appearances to see the profound effect that drinking had on him. In 1974 he stayed behind at a Merseyside club and carried on drinking until 7 am and as a result, didn’t show up for a subsequent show, being made to lose a quarter of his appearance fee. The older he got, the later he got for a show, the organisers having to fill in with the band till he showed and once in Southend, he walked off stage five minutes into his routine. This was despite pleas from his friends and loved ones not to drink.

The Demon Booze

Tommy did try on several occasions to battle the booze, visiting a Hampshire health and turning to alcohol-free lager for a while. Yet he nearly killed Michael Parkinson on his 1979 Christmas appearance when he forgot to put the safety catch on the guillotine and it was only the quick response of a BBC technician running off to flick the switch that saved Michael from serious injury. Tommy looked tired, sick and washed out. You have to look at his last appearances on his show on Thames Television to witness a man who was drunk when performing, slurring his words, awkward with his timing and unable to remember his lines. In a Sodastream advert, his voice had to be dubbed with a voiceover of a Cooper impersonator as he was too drunk to say the lines. He even had to have an exclusion clause inserted in his insurance cover referring to a state of intoxication or whilst suffering from alcoholism directly or indirectly”.

Penny Pincher

Cooper was often accused of being mean and stingy. He never bought a round in a club or pub and always wanted free tickets for anywhere he went. He once refused an old tramp a lift outside the Palladium telling him “I’m not a fucking taxi service”. A performer who was accused of being the tightest man in the business. He used to carry three envelopes in his pocket with only one containing money. He used to impress the doorman leaving a show by offering a tip, knowing full well that they would be left with an empty envelope. There was also the classic example of him tipping numerous taxi drivers, parting with the comment “Have a drink on me”. He would stuff the tip in the taxi driver’s pocket only to find later it was a tea bag. Yet beyond all the criticism, Tommy was a person you only had to look at to feel happier.

By Elliott West

“I don’t go out of my way to be outrageous, I just go out of my way to look at things”.

Dave Allen

Introduction

With a lit cigarette in his hand and a glass of whisky by his side, the suited Dave Allen used his television chair as his procrastinating pulpit. The Irish comedian never failed to have a bee in his bonnet about something. Raging about the Catholic Church, politics or anything authoritarian, Allen could be irked by something as simple as a blown Christmas tree bulb or an old lady taking too long to count out her change in a supermarket queue. Dave was a firebrand comedian who was a master of calm ferocity with a television show that ran on the BBC for 20 years, a mixture of one-man pieces to camera and sketches. Allen was like a boiling kettle, the old type with a whistle. Jokes that would ring true and we as the television audience could identify with them.

Even as a child, I loved to watch this cutting-edge humour. It made me convulse with laughter. An indulgence that brightened up your evening and made your gripes in life slightly more bearable. Although Allen’s work was scripted, he made it seem effortless. As if it was a man down the pub putting the world to rights. A mixture of make-believe and real-life experiences fleshed out by a ruffled Irishman who sent electric charges through his body language. A comedian who was a one-off and someone who set the benchmark in comedy. Cross-legged, brushing his suit every so often with an easy swipe. Allen had his audience in the palm of his hand and made them roar with laughter. A comedian who was a natural storyteller.

The Cutting Edge

Born David Tynan O’Mahony in 1936 in Firhouse, Ireland, Allen was the son of an Irish father and an English mother. His father Nora was the managing editor of The Irish Times and his mother Jean was a housewife. Spending his first years in Keenagh, County Longford and Dublin, Dave’s father died when he was 12 and at the age of 14 the family moved to England. Born into an agnostic household, Allen was still put through the motions of a Catholic upbringing. Taught by stern and no-nonsense nuns and priests at Newbridge College, Terenure College and the Catholic University School, this sowed the seeds for Allen’s disdain of religion. A pure faith that was riddled with hypocrisy. Yet before he found his purpose in life, the Irishman had to learn a trade. Worked as a copy boy at the Drogheda Argus in Fleet Street, a Butlins red coat in Skegness, a stand-up in strip clubs and night clubs, a sales assistant in a toy shop in Sheffield and as a door-to-door salesman of draught excluders.

Persuaded by his agent to change his name to Allen as his surname was clumsy and unpronounceable, he believed his stage name would go to the top of the agents’ list as it began with the first letter of the alphabet. A comedian lost the top of his left index finger after it was caught on a machine cog. An accident that he would embellish throughout his life, claiming his brother John had bitten it off or it had been eaten away by strong drink.

The Lucky Break

Dave Allen had his first television appearance on New Faces in 1959 and would go on to tour with Adam Faith, Helen Shapiro, and Helen Tucker across South Africa. Through Tucker, he went on to get a spot on an Australian television show working with Digby Wolfe as his resident comedian. He would go on to return to the UK and appear on The Blackpool Show, Val Parnell’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium and The Val Doonican Show. He work also appear on Tonight with Dave Allen on ATV.

The Trademark

“The hierarchy of everything in my life has always bothered me. I’m bothered by power. People, whoever they might be, whether it’s the government, or the policeman in the uniform, or the man on the door – they still irk me a bit. From school, from the first nun that belted me.”

Dave Allen

In 1968 Allen signed a contract with the BBC, working on The Dave Allen Show and later Dave Allen at Large from 1971 to 1979. He would return to the BBC in 1990 and then did his final series on ITV in 1993. A comedian who would go on to live in semi-retirement at his house in Holland Park. He would go on to throw his trademark cigarettes in the bin, sick of their smell. A comedian who grew old disgracefully. All with meticulous timing. Allen died peacefully in his sleep in 2005. An Irish comedian who voiced a person’s inner thoughts and attempted to make sense of them.

By Elliott West

An 82-year-old man goes to his doctor.

‘I want a complete physical examination. I’m about to get married,’ says the old man.

‘How old are you?’ the doctor asks.

‘I’m 82 and she’s 24. I want a complete examination to make sure everything’s working properly,’ says the old man.

The Doctor said, ’24! Well, I’ll do the examination. But it might be better if you also got a young lodger. You know, company for your wife.’

‘Yes, yes, what a good idea,’ says the old man.

The doctor meets him again a few months later.

‘Did you get married?’ asks the doctor. ‘How’s your young bride?’

‘She’s pregnant,’ says the old man proudly.

‘And, erm, how’s the lodger?’ says the doctor nervously.

‘She’s pregnant, too,’ says the old man”.

Frankie Howerd joke

Introduction

Comedy timing is an art and Frankie Howerd had it in abundance. A man who made his audience roar with laughter. A brand of humour that was executed with a camp flavour. All coming from a person who was painfully shy, a nervous wreck before he performed. Beads of sweat enveloped his brow, a suit that was ill-fitting and a toupee that was beyond ridiculous. Yet with brilliant scripts from the likes of Barry Cryer, Howerd was able to transform into a barrel of laughs, complete with a unique batch of catchphrases including” Titter ye Not”, “Don’t laugh!” and “No Missus!”. Yet beyond the humour of this modern-day court jester lay a man plagued by his own conscious. A gay man who led a secret life, constantly fearing that his truth would be his undoing if it was ever revealed.

“Frankie did not want to be gay. When people came to visit I would be put in another room. He was terrified it would affect his career. “I was a handsome young man and he would hide me away. In the beginning, I was hidden when anyone of note came here. I was even hidden away from his sister, and his mother for a time.” 

Dennis Heymer

Frankie Howerd was a comedian who went in and out of fashion several times in his career. The lows took their toll and led to bouts of depression. So much so that he even tried LSD therapy to try and purge his demons. What was not known to the public was that Frankie’s long-term chauffeur and manager, Dennis Heymer was his boyfriend. A relationship that lasted for 41 years with the couple sharing a home in both London and Somerset. This information didn’t come out into the public domain until after Howerd died in 1992.

Frankie had first met Dennis when he was a waiter in 1955. A time when homosexuality was illegal and fear of being outed could lead to a prison sentence and possible blackmail. Howerd struggled with his sexuality and only told his closest friends that the two were an item. Frankie was so paranoid that the truth would come out that he paid several blackmailers to keep their silence. Fans and the media chose to believe that he was a confirmed bachelor. Despite the couple’s love for each other, Howerd remained promiscuous and assumed a predatory nature. Behaviours that Heymer found dangerous and heartbreaking. Yet he remained loving and loyal, forgiving his partner’s cheating ways. He even drove Frankie every Friday to his psychiatrist, leaving him until Monday morning whilst he underwent LSD therapy.

Life After Frankie

“Behind the scenes, he was a great showbusiness man and together he and Frank toured the world and met prime ministers and other heads of state. he was president of the Frankie Howerd OBE Trust, and several other trusts have benefited from the guidance he has given them.”

Chris Byrne

Frankie Howerd died on the same Easter weekend as Benny Hill in 1992. His style of comedy still attracts a massive fan base. Yet Dennis Heymer only revealed the full details of his relationship with Howerd in an interview in 1997. Yet the plot thickens around Heymer. The couple had a so-called adopted son called Chris Byrne. A term used to avoid gossip. After Frankie’s death, the two became close and started a relationship despite a 40-year age gap between the two.

Yet doubts have been cast on the strength of this relationship as towards the end of Dennis’s life, Chris became his career and the two got married. Some say this was so that Byrne could inherit Howerd’s multimillion-pound estate including his £800,000 Wavering Down cottage and memorabilia that included 38 years’ worth of Frankie’s showbiz diaries. Although Howerd’s sister Betty said they don’t exist, believing that her brother had no interest in keeping a diary. Unlike Kenneth Williams who kept one throughout his life.

“He died in my arms as I always said he would. It was quite peaceful and I thanked him for everything he had done for me, and he thanked me for what I had done for him”.

Chris Byrne

Betty and Chris never saw eye to eye and the situation was inflamed when Byrne set up a trust to raise money for good causes in his name. An act that Betty thought was just to exploit her brother’s name. Heymer died at Wavering Down at the age of 82 in 2009. After a private cremation, his ashes were carried to a second service in a replica ancient Egyptian sarcophagus carried by a horse-drawn hearse. The couple both believed that they had previously lived lives in ancient Egypt. The coffin was then buried in Frankie‘s grave in the village churchyard in Weare.

By Elliott West

“There’s some very peculiar people in this street”.

Ena Sharples

Introduction

Violet Carson was the original battle axe in Coronation Street as Ena Sharples. A god-fearing, Christian woman who sat in a frosted glass booth in the snug of the Rovers Return, sipping on a half-pint of milk stout, gossiping with Minnie Caldwell and Martha Longhurst. She loved to get into verbal scrapes with Elsie Tanner and wore her haircut and coat with pride. A lady with an acid tongue and brass neck but someone the characters would turn to for wise advice. Whether she was in the corner shop, cafe, Kabin or the Rovers, Ena could fear god into you with just one icy stare. The archetypal Mancunian who could fire abuse from a thousand paces whilst tucking into an Eccles cake and sipping a cup of piping hot tea. Her bark was worse than her bite but by heck you didn’t want to cross her. Yet Ena could show her softer side behind this Teflon exterior, a sucker for entertainment and family.

Behind the Hairnet

Violet was specifically chosen for the role of Ena after Tony Warren, the brainchild of Coronation Street worked with her as a child actor on Children’s Hour. Carson was by then a veteran of entertainment, an actor and a performer who had been around since the early days of radio. Born in 1898 during the reign of Queen Victoria, Violet Helen Carson was born in Ancoats, Manchester. Her Scottish father, William Brown Carson ran a flour mill and her mother Mary was an amateur singer. As a child, Violet took up piano lessons and played in the local cinema as the musical background to silent films and talkies came about, she turned to singing.

Married at the age of 28 in 1926 to the road contractor, George Peploe, this marriage would sadly end in tragedy when George suddenly died in 1929 at the age of 31. They never had any children and Violet would never remarry. In 1935 Carson went to work at BBC Radio in Manchester, performing comical musical numbers and light operatic arias in radio shows such as Songs at the Piano. A regular performer on Children’s Hour on the BBC Home Service, she was also on Nursery Sing Song from Manchester. She would also go to work on Woman’s Hour and acted in numerous radio dramas.

“I’d just like to go like the way me mother did; she just sat up broke wind, and died”.

Ena Sharples

Coronation Street

Originally to be entitled Florizel Street and based on Tony Warren’s experiences of growing up in Swinton, Greater Manchester, the Granada bosses rubbished the title saying it sounded like a brand of disinfectant. Violet was 62 when she got the part but when she donned the wig, hairnet and coat, looked considerably older. Unlike her embattled character, Violet was a lovely, warm person, well-spoken and reminds me of Noele Gordon who played Meg Richardson/Mortimer in Crossroads minus the champagne and Rolls Royce lifestyle. Tony Warren knew when she first auditioned for the role of Ena in character that she was the one. His words fitted her like a glove, brash, like Churchill in a woman’s clothing. A woman who had a stern expression who sank a thousand ships, a bulldog chewing a wasp.

This was television soap opera in its infancy, a Mancunian kitchen sink drama that had more grime on it than the weathered chimney pots that towered over this working-class street. With its shaky credits and grainy filming. There were only 20 actors when Coronation first aired in 1960 and Ena Sharples made an instant mark. Scripts that were beautifully crafted around characters such as the now-only original member Ken Barlow played by William Roache, Doris Speed as Annie Walker, Pat Phoenix as Elsie Tanner, her stage son Philip Lowrie as Dennis Tanner and Jack Howarth as Albert Tatlock.

The set may have been rudimentary and amateur but the script was dynamite. Originally envisaged as only a short-running drama series, it has turned out to be a soap opera that weathered the test of time. A drama that graced our television screens since 1960, outlining numerous Prime Ministers and world events and cast iron as one of Betty’s notorious hot pots. A drama that isn’t afraid to tackle real-life issues and brilliantly mixes raw drama with comedy pathos.

Walking off the Cobbles

As for Violet Carson, well her character of Ena Sharples stood the test of time, present in the soap from 1960-1980. Despite poor health in the 1970s and a stroke that forced Violet out of the soap for most of 1974, she still managed to make appearances until she decided to go and stay with a friend, Mr Foster in Lytham St Annes while her flat at the street’s community centre was being renovated. A place were Ena believed that the air was better to breathe. A final scene that was beautifully played out between herself, Ken Barlow and Albert Tatlock in April 1980. However, in real life, Violet became ill with pernicious anaemia and although a door was left open for her return, she never graced the famous cobbles again. Living with sister in a bungalow in Bispham, Blackpool, she shunned the limelight and never made any further public appearances. A year after retirement, she underwent surgery for an abscess but never fully recovered. Violet Carson passed away aged 85 on Boxing Day in 1983 after suffering a heart attack and was cremated in a private ceremony at Carleton Crematorium in Blackpool.

Violet’s Legacy

As Ena Sharples, Violet ruled the roost. Her performances were so powerful and memorable that they are still talked about today. If you put Ena in a room with Bet Lynch,  Hilda Ogden, Elsie Tanner, Ivy Tilsley and Annie Walker, there would be an almighty verbal explosion. A female catfight that anyone would pay their last pound to watch. She would have had Margaret Thatcher shaking in her heels, a reinforced lady that had a steel punch with her tongue. She says what she means and means what she says. As Ena, she represented something that was gradually dying out, a nostalgia that viewers instantly warmed to and clung to. She once said that if she couldn’t be Vi Carson, she would rather be Ena Sharples than anybody else. An icon in her own right, fierce, punchy but an absolute gem in real life. Her picture still hangs over the stairs at Granada Studios in Manchester, casting her watchful eye over the present cast.

By Elliott West

“He leaves behind a soft afterglow”.

Harry Secombe

Introduction

If you are of a certain age and I am, then who can not forget those warm and retrospective memories of our childhood? Weekday afternoons were always a joy with a feast of brilliantly made children’s programmes on the few television channels we had then. All with a catchy theme tune and plenty of memorable catchphrases. One that stood out and set a few world records itself was Record Breakers. A show that was a memorable host for many years, Roy Castle. Roy was a one-off, highly adaptable entertainer and presenter who could play countless musical instruments, could sing and was a brilliant tap dancer. A man who had a cheeky grin, a thick Yorkshire accent and could surprise you with his act at the flip of a coin. An actor and entertainer who encapsulated good old-fashioned variety and gave it a modern-day paint lick.

King of the Castle

Roy Castle was a jack of all trades and a master of them all and certainly performed with so many greats of the time. While researching this piece, I came across so many clips of Roy beautifully executing his craft with precision timing. Roy, filmed in black and white, trying to conduct an orchestra while Bernard Cribbins is hammering in the background, building a rostrum. A routine that turns into a two-piece song about the very same piece of wood. Also, the skit where Castle joins the veteran entertainers, James Casey and Eli Woods, two fools and a straight man as Roy describes the contents of a cardboard box under his arm that he claims contains a multitude of jungle animals. A sketch that was performed on an early Parkinson show and at a Royal Variety performance. So where did this excellent performer emerge from?

Roy Castle was born in 1931 and raised in Scholes near Huddersfield, Yorkshire. His family lived in a small terraced house and they lived next door to his grandparents. A modest but very happy upbringing. Roy was a natural talent at an early age, taking up tap dancing lessons at the Nora Bray School when he was seven years old and quickly became an accomplished singer and dancer. Recognising his talent, his mother replied to a newspaper advert in the Huddersfield Examiner looking for young talent in the area. Roy auditioned and got the part in a song and dance revue, entitled ‘Youth on Parade’ which later became known as ‘Happiness Ahead’. A show where fine-tuned and matured his talents.

However, this aspiring career was interrupted when Castle was called up like so many for National Service. A time that grinned and beared as it prepared him for life. One that he passed he passed the medical A1 fit despite being short-sighted and having a hernia at the time. Joining the RAF and it was here that he learnt to play the trumpet and he continuously practised, thanks to bribing his colleagues to a free haircut. A skill he learnt from his grandfather who was a barber. If you refused his trumpet playing, you got a duff cut. Roy continued to tread the boards at this time, appearing in summer seasons at regional theatres and also in pantomimes. He also formed a musical trio with comics Norman Teale, Frank Randle and Marjorie Kendall, performing a stage show entitled “Randle’s Scandals of ‘53”, for two years. An act where the ‘in the box routine’ was formulated that I mentioned earlier.

Big Break

Thanks to an appearance on the same bill as Dickie Valentine, the British crooner, Roy was offered a seven-minute solo slot and four minutes with Dickie on the television show ‘Saturday Spectacular’ that Dickie was about to appear on by the producer Brian Tesler. Unknown to Roy, Bernard Delfont was in the audience. Delfont was so impressed by his performance that he offered him a two-week run on a variety bill at the Prince of Wales Theatre, a theatre that my Great Uncle’s variety act, Jo, Jac and Joni appeared at during the same period of the 1950s.

So successful was this run that Roy was then offered to appear at the 1958 Royal Command Performance. Castle went down a storm and was hailed as the hit of the show. It was here that met the former Goon, Harry Secombe and the two would strike up an instant friendship, one that would become lifelong and lead to many appearances together over the following years. A string of television shows would ensue. Shows such as “New Look”, his first own television programme, “Castle’s on the Air” and guest appearances in popular programmes such as Val Parnell’s Saturday Spectacular”, “Sunday Night at the London Palladium” and “The Good Old Days” as well as “Putting on the Donnegan”, “Calling Dickie Valentine”, “The Jo Stafford Show”, “Summer Spectacular”, “The Morecambe & Wise Show”, “Who is Secombe?”, “Mainly Millicent” and “The Billy Cotton Band Show”. Roy was also in one of the most successful pantomimes held at the London Palladium. Humpty Dumpty starred Harry Secombe and Roy played Simple Simon.

The Theatre Trail

Castle continued his successful run by doing several overseas tours with stage shows in both South Africa and Kenya. He would return to the UK to do Summer Season and in 1960 did one with Frankie Vaughan and Tommy Cooper in Brighton. He also revived his part in Humpty Dumpty and did another show with Harry Secombe and trumpeter Eddie Calvert entitled “Let Yourself Go”. A show that opened the doors for him to go to the USA where he appeared on the “Gary Moore Show” alongside Julie Andrews. This was the first of 42 appearances on the show.

Roy who famously introduced Eric Morecambe to his future wife Fiona Dickson, went down a storm in the USA and even appeared at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas where he was invited to Frank Sinatra’s table and received a standing ovation from Ol’ Blue Eyes himself. Castle decided to live in America for a while with his wife Fiona and returned to the UK in 1965 when their first son Daniel was born in the July of that year. They would go on to have Julia, Antonia and Ben who has become a successful musician. Later that year, Roy appeared with Harry Secombe again in “The Pickwick Papers” as Sam Pickwick. A tour that travelled the UK and the USA on Broadway. Castle was nominated for a Tony Award for “Best Supporting Actor in a Musical” and the musical went on to be made as a programme for the BBC.

Films

Roy Castle would also appear in a number of films during this period. Terrors’ House of Horrors” as ‘Biff Bailey’ and “Dr Who and the Daleks” playing ‘Ian Chesterton’ alongside Peter Cushing on both occasions. He also made his notable appearance with the ‘Carry On’ team as ‘Captain Keene’ in “Carry On Up the Khyber” (1968).

Later Career 

In 1969 took over from Eric Sykes in the comedy farce, “Big Bad Mouse” at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London and would also land his own BBC show, “The Roy Castle Show” that was hugely successful and ran between 1964-1970. He also appeared in the infamous “One of Seven” in 1973, a series which showcased the talent of Ronnie Barker. Castle appeared in “Another Fine Mess”, a part that received a rapturous review by Barker who described it as a brilliant performance. A comedy where the two play Harry and Sydney, planning to impersonate Laurel and Hardy but get a bit too close to the real thing.

Record Breakers

Thanks to a recommendation by the Blue Peter producer Alan Russell, Castle was offered the presenting job on Record Breakers in 1972. A show that only set thousands of new world records in a book that children used to receive as a birthday or Christmas present, “The Guinness Book of Records”. It was a show that not set new records but showcased Castle’s brilliant talent as well. Who can forget when Roy tap-danced his way into the record books, completing one million taps in 23 hours and 44 minutes in 1973 and 1990 and playing 43 different instruments in 4 minutes whilst maintaining the same tune. A programme that received a BAFTA for Best Children’s Light Entertainment or Drama programme in 1977. A show where Roy sings the theme tune, “Dedication” and who can forget the knowledge of the McWhirter brothers? Not forgetting Cheryl Baker as well.

Later Years

Roy Castle would go on to appear in “Mr Polly” in 1977 and 896 performances between 1983-1985 of Cozmo Brown in “Singing in the Rain”. However, in 1992 Roy was diagnosed with lung cancer. A disease that his wife attributed to him playing smoke-filled clubs for many years as a trumpeter, a direct result of passive smoking. Despite this devastating diagnosis, Roy continued to remain positive and work through gruelling sessions of chemotherapy, recording his twenty-second of “Record Breakers”, the BBC series “Primetime” and a run as Tony Pickwick in the “Pickwick Papers” at the Chichester Festival Theatre and the 1993 Royal Variety Performance.

Roy also spent his time raising money for the Centre of Excellence, a research facility for lung cancer in Liverpool and undertook a ‘Tour of Hope’ where he took a 1,200 nationwide train journey, raising £1 million in three days. In 1993 he received an OBE from the Queen for his services to charity and show business and even managed to write his autobiography “Now and Then” in 1994. Roy sadly passed away later that year, aged 64.

The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation 

 

“It’s too late for me. But it’s not too late for our children and our children’s children”.

Roy Castle

This charity is a fitting tribute to not only Roy’s life but vital support to millions of lung cancer patients. Their helpline is a vital tool for anyone going through this illness and has raised millions of pounds through events such as charity cycling challenges and walks. Podcasts and nurses are available to help you and there are a number of free support sessions also available including a free will-writing service. This year would have marked Roy’s 90th birthday and this excellent charity set up in his memory means that his legacy and his dedication to make things better for the future generations lives on.

By Elliott West

“Confidence has a lot to do with interviewing – that and timing”.

Michael Parkinson

Introduction

Debonair and slightly rugged, Michael Parkinson never pulled any punches when he interviewed someone. The son of a Barnsley coal miner, Parky as he fondly became to be known, loved nothing more than the spoken and written word. In love with the black and cinema of his youth and loved nothing more than watching a cricket match or having a round of golf. Born in 1935 in Cudley near Barnsley, Yorkshire, his journalistic and television career would span 70 years. Michael had the knack of getting the best out of an interview, making the comic, actor or sportsperson, relaxed and making them feel that were not in a studio but down the local pub having a chat. He knew when to pose the difficult questions, exposing the true personality of anyone who sat before him. A Yorkshire lad through and through, whose style was unique, silky smooth with an element of brash.

The Journalistic Eye

Michael Parkinson may not have been an academic at school, leaving school at 16, achieving only two OLevels and the prized 11 plus previously but he had natural talent, a prized possession that will get you places with recognition. Michael was a wordsmith and after leaving school, he went on to get a job working for a local newspaper, gathering sports results. This newspaper career would continued after a brief pause for two years while he joined the British army for national service during the Suez Crisis. He served as one of the youngest captains and as a press liaison officer. However, when he returned, Parkinson returned to the world of print and joined the Manchester Guardian before working at the Daily Express in London.

Newspapers would be swapped for television as Michael got a job with Granada  Television as a current affairs presenter and would later switch to the same role at the BBC. Yet his big break would come in 1971 when the BBC offered him his own Saturday night chat show complete with his surname as the title. This was manna from heaven for the Yorkshireman. The black chairs and brown set admittedly didn’t complement this BBC gem and when one of the first guests, Orson Wells couldn’t fit in the provided chair, the production team had to scour the BBC for a big enough replacement.

Parkinson was a celebrity magnet. Most guests opened up to him but a few like Tommy Cooper, Frankie Howerd and Kenneth Williams couldn’t ditch their stage masks for a candid interview. Williams played the audience with his acid wit and was invited back several times for his raconteur entertainment value Frankie made his way through with well-rehearsed jokes and Tommy with his collection of magic tricks. Both nervous and perspiring as the questions were fired at them.

These early shows were for me the best. They showcased British and Hollywood greats, some ageing but never losing their magic spark. Fred Astaire, Lauren Bacall, Jimmy Cagney, Jimmy Stewart, Bette Davis, Robert Mitchum, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Shirley Temple, Peter Ustinov, the cream of the crop of the cinema screen, Parkinson interviewed them all bar his ultimate hero, Humphrey Bogart who had long since passed in 1957. All gave him and ultimately us, a fascinating insight into cinema, a fly-on-the-wall look at a world that few experienced and showed how actors and actresses behaved and lived when the camera had stopped rolling.

The original series finished in 1982 but not before Parky had to avert the glaring stare of Muhammad Ali on four occasions, was mauled by Rod Hull and Emu and was romanced by Miss Piggy. Michael took a long break from the show. A run of 11 years ended after Parkinson was enticed away to become one of the teams on TV-AM, alongside Anna Ford, Robert Kee, David Frost and Peter Jay. However, Parkinson and the team were soon ousted due to their complete lack of managerial experience. This wasn’t a good time for Parky and he started drinking heavily as a result. A television car crash led him to make his decision to pack his bags and present his chat show in Australia.

However, thanks to the love and support of his wife Mary, Michael managed to beat the bottle and quickly returned to the more familiar shores of the UK. A job opportunity would soon arise after a vacancy became available for the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs following the death of Roy Plomley. Various presenting stints would also various television programmes including the game show Give Us A Clue. He would also keep his hand in a journalist, writing a sports column for the Daily Telegraph.

The Return

Class will always shine through and Michael jumped at the opportunity to revive his chat show, firstly on the BBC in 1998 and later when the show moved to ITV. This revamped version of the show would bring together past guests such as Sir Billy Connolly, Sir Elton John and Sir Michael Caine with the wave of modern-day celebrities such as Tom Hanks and George Michael. The format was essentially the same with guests interviewed individually and then encouraged to engage in the conversation between guests. Parkinson always maintained that he was the boss of his show and his guests were invited to converse in his virtual living room, the television studio.

Parkinson was the architect of the British chat show and many would try to emulate him. However good Russell Harty, Michael Aspel, Terry Wogan and later Jonathan Ross, Graham Norton and Piers Morgan are, none have reached Michael’s gold standard. Parkinson eventually hung up his chat show host title in 2007. Apart from occasional appearances at International cricket matches, Sun Life Assurance adverts, writing an autobiography and presenting compilations of his old chat shows, Parky decided to take the more relaxed style of life. However, he did do a stint as a presenter on Jazz FM in his last years.

The Final Crease

I was quite shocked to see how frail Michael Parkinson had become recently but sadly old age comes to us all eventually. To coin a cricketing phrase, Michael had a good innings and certainly a few sixes in his time. Never losing his wit, charm and that cheeky glint in his eyes, Parkinson can be very proud of his achievements in his 88-year life. His original BBC series commanded an audience of 12 million with 361 shows and more than 1,000 guests. His total of guests amounted to 2,000 over 40 years and his enthusiasm to question never waned. A true giant of television and a national treasure who will be sadly missed.

By Elliott West

“My neighbour asked if he could use my lawnmower and I told him of course he could, so long as he didn’t take it out of my garden”.

Eric Morecambe

Introduction

As a lover of comedy, I would describe Morecambe and Wise as the British sonnet to Laurel and Hardy. An act that had gags galore, perfect comedy timing, and well-rehearsed. Friends for life, this comedy duo, dominated our television screens for many years and whose Christmas shows placed a very special present under the tree every year. The tall and lanky, pipe-smoking Eric and the short Eric with hairy legs and a long-running joke about an imaginary hairpiece that you couldn’t see the join. Eric’s paper bag trick, the rousing musical numbers and dancing off the stage to their unique signature tune, Bring Me Sunshine, a song written by Arthur Kent in 1966. They were the perfect comedy package, an act whose comedy inspired so many future comedians to tread the boards in their footsteps. 

In this piece, I want to rewind the clock and delve into the historical archives, looking at the very early lives of Eric and Ernie and trying to capture the initial spark that would propel this act into future stardom. Comedy can never be created without natural and these two had bags of it, Eric was the comedian and Ernie was the brains of the act. A comedy formula that fused on contact, producing work that tickled the laughing organs into a wave of hysteria, causing an audience to roll around in laughter with tears in their eyes. This was a type of comedy that you couldn’t bottle, it was a one-off and ran off typewritten scripts like liquid gold.

The Early Years 

If you looked up Eric Bartholomew’s education on the internet or in a reference book, you would be hard-pressed to find much information, other than he attended Lancaster Road Junior School and Euston Road Senior School. By his own admission, Eric wasn’t a scholar and subsequently didn’t learn much. Eric spent most of his time avoiding education and preferred ‘smoking anything he could ignite’. He preferred instead to spend his time at Mrs Hunter’s dance classes above the Plaza Cinema or the Jubilee Club learning his trade in entertainment.

This was Morecambe in the 1930s, a seaside Lancashire town that Eric would later take his stage name from. A bustling place in the Summer, the pier and theatres were the pulse of the community. The beating heart being the Arcadian Theatre which nowadays has made way for a Aldi supermarket. It was at these ‘pies and peas’charity shows that Eric began to shine. In 1937, aged 10, Eric attracted the attention of the local press, receiving a glowing write up in the Lancaster Guardian for an appearance with his dance partner Molly Buntin doing a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers style number at a fundraising bash for a new church at Cross Hill. So successful was the act that his mother Sadie persuaded him to create a solo act based around the American artist and impersonator Ella Shields,

Kitted out by his mother, Eric wore a tailcoat, beret, and trousers too short for him, carrying an oversized lollipop. He hated the act but the combination of impersonations of Fred Astaire and Bud Flanagan from the Crazy Gang was highly popular with the Lancashire audience and led to further auditions in Manchester and London and led to an audition with the bandleader Jack Hylton, aged 13 for his touring show, Youth Takes a Bow. Bartholomew quickly became the star of the show and got rave reviews in local newspapers. When the top billing changed, Ernest Wiseman was brought into the role.

Joined at the Hip

Ernie was everything that Eric wasn’t. He didn’t play the fool, he was an accomplished song and dance man. Someone who had already been on stage at Alexandra Palace on the BBC and was definitely a veteran at entertainment by then. So the cocky Ernie joined Eric and the two became inseparable friends. So close was their friendship they shared digs and railway journeys together and literally wouldn’t shut up. These private jokes would become their comical formula and in 1941, the duo got their chance at the Liverpool Empire. This was the birth of Morecambe and Wise and the audience didn’t even know it!

Their early act was based on Abbot and Costello but there was a problem. They were called Bartholomew and Wise, which sounded like a shop name. It was Bert Hicks, the husband of the American jazz singer Adelaide Hall who was touring with the show that gave Eric the lightbulb moment. Eddie Anderson, the black comedian who played Jack Benny’s butler on the radio had taken the place he was born as his stage name and so Morecambe and Wise were born.

By Elliott West

“I wonder if anyone will ever know the emptiness of my life”.

Kenneth Williams

Kenneth Williams, photograph courtesy of The Daily Express.

Introduction

Kenneth Williams is best known for his radio performances on hit comedy series such as Hancock’s Half Hour, Round The Horne and his many characters in 26 of the 31 Carry On films. Yet beyond the acid wit and charm of this highly intelligent raconteur lay a tortured soul who could never embrace his sexuality rather than describing himself as chaste and devoid of sexual feelings, the worst-kept secret that was transparent in his camp nature but one that still felt the need to keep amongst his closest friends and under the lock and key of his private diaries that ran over 43 volumes and captured the ongoings of 40 years of his life from the age of 16. Kenneth forever lived in the shadow of his parents Charlie and Lou, his father a hairdresser by trade who Williams secretly despised, a man who had a hatred for loose morals and effeminacy and his mother who he could never cut the apron strings from, a matriarch who remained as a neighbour to his King’s Cross flat for the remainder of her life.

This was a man who loved to be the centre of attention, the ideal guest for a chat show host, who always had a funny story up his sleeve but someone who loved the solitude of his own company, happy to flash his bare bottom to the builders working on a development in the Euston Road but who hated guests using his toilet in his minimalist flat that still had the factory cellophane around the cooker in the kitchen. Williams loved to wallow in his medical woes which consisted of a combination of flatulence, haemorrhoids and abdominal pain. Ills that he took a cocktail of medication from a cabinet in his galley kitchen.

The Loudest Laugh

Kenneth Williams loved to hog the limelight. When he worked with Tony Hancock in his long-running BBC radio show, Ken was the person who popped up in bit parts but made the most of it and produced some hilarious performances that had the audience in stitches. Yet this attention made Hancock paranoid, a comedian who always aspired to better things and ended up parting days with Williams and his sidekick Sid James. Tony accused Williams of his characters not being lifelike but these charactures had been perfected since his army entertainment days when he first dabbled as a mimic, doing the voices of Winston Churchill and Nellie Wallace. Whether it was the brilliance of the gay slang of polari of Julian and Sandy or the artificial language in song of Rambling Sid Rumpole, both reveal a small insight into the private life of Kenneth Williams. A man who got his sexual pleasure from looking at himself in the mirror and someone who had little control over his emotions. He was like a running tap that had a broken washer, gushing and running at double speed.

Yet the opposite of laughing is crying and it is clear from his diaries that Williams wasn’t happy in his own skin. He loved to attack others just to disguise his lack of self-worth. Kenneth contemplated suicide from an early age, an act that is mentioned continuously in his entries. Yet even after reading his diaries, you are still left wondering who was the real Kenneth Williams. A man who had multiple suppressed personalities and who even his closest friends struggled at times to understand and cope with.

Scraps From The Table

Kenneth had the world at his feet and could have been a very successful classically trained actor, forging close friendships with Harold Pinter and Joe Orton. Yet he chose the entertainment path instead and subsequently never reached his full potential. He should never have accepted the programme International Cabaret as a host and probably should have jumped ship when the Carry On film scripts in the latter years, Carry On Emmanuel, the last film in 1979 was an obvious example. Yet despising the scripts, Ken loved the closeness of the Carry On family. A family that he never had. Here he could shock and entertain with few being offended as they knew him so well. Pinewood Studios where the films were made on a shoestring budget under the direction of Peter Rogers, you could often hear one of Kenneth’s infamous farts whistling around the sets. Even in his last years, he was willing to take part in the never to be made Carry On Dallas and would have appeared in the ill-fated Carry On Columbus if he had lived.

The Last Days 

Towards the end of his life, Kenneth Williams was in constant pain, suffering from a stomach ulcer that he ignored for far too long, preferring to self-medicate instead. He looked tired, and his skin was turning grey, sitting rigidly in the chat show chair, most notably in one of his last television appearances on the Joan Rivers Show. The eyes didn’t burn as bright and his nose didn’t flare as widely as it used to. Retiring to the solitude of his North London flat, it is unclear what happened in the last hours of his life. In pain, he reached out to the antacid tablets in his medicine cabinet, confused by his ravaging pain. Perhaps he intended to make this his last act in 1986 by committing suicide. His final diary entry, the day before his death reads ‘What’s the bloody point?’. Whether it was an accidental overdose or an intended suicide., the inquest delivered an open verdict, and this was a tragic ending. A comical depressive genius, a talent who died at the tender age of 62, a man who made his audience roll around in fits of laughter.