Life the Universe and Me
Ternary Segment.( if it goes more than ten parts it'll be in Swahili)
We ended part two on a cliffhanger , not really but anyone who reads this in the wrong order will be confused , tough!
It's 1965 and I'm in the Palladium Theatre Edinburgh as half of a Dancing act, The Shows is Aly Wilson a scots comic very funny and a nice man , Hector Nicol producer and Aly's straight man, Roma Derry and George Johnson -Scottish Singing Duo, Mal Hollander -all rounder, Johnny St George Singer ,a troupe of Dancing Girls and Us , not a big cast but there were lots of musical numbers and many comedy sketches ,
Mal Hollander was a great character, during first couple of days he asked. “Do you play golf “ answering truthfully that it had never entered my head, that weekend (no shows on Sunday in Scotland) off we went to Prestonpans Golf course, I was lousy but at the same time fell in love with the game and we played every available moment sometimes getting up at 07.00 am for a quick nine holes in before rehearsal, Mal was good company, easy going, light hearted and funny, over the next few weeks my social apprehension was slowly melting away. Sometime during that short season I lost something else , well not actually lost but , how do I explain this delicately, there was a troupe of dancers and one took a liking to me, well a little more than just a liking, maybe that's why my social awkwardness was disappearing. !
OK enough , this is not 50 shades of Konyot . If you haven't got it by now I'm not going into any more detail,
It's 1965 and I'm in the Palladium Theatre Edinburgh as half of a Dancing act, The Shows is Aly Wilson a scots comic very funny and a nice man , Hector Nicol producer and Aly's straight man, Roma Derry and George Johnson -Scottish Singing Duo, Mal Hollander -all rounder, Johnny St George Singer ,a troupe of Dancing Girls and Us , not a big cast but there were lots of musical numbers and many comedy sketches ,
Mal Hollander was a great character, during first couple of days he asked. “Do you play golf “ answering truthfully that it had never entered my head, that weekend (no shows on Sunday in Scotland) off we went to Prestonpans Golf course, I was lousy but at the same time fell in love with the game and we played every available moment sometimes getting up at 07.00 am for a quick nine holes in before rehearsal, Mal was good company, easy going, light hearted and funny, over the next few weeks my social apprehension was slowly melting away. Sometime during that short season I lost something else , well not actually lost but , how do I explain this delicately, there was a troupe of dancers and one took a liking to me, well a little more than just a liking, maybe that's why my social awkwardness was disappearing. !
OK enough , this is not 50 shades of Konyot . If you haven't got it by now I'm not going into any more detail,
I mentioned comedy sketches , in Scotland they were called Scena's (pronounced Shayna's) and they usually involved many of the company doing small parts, in each of the six shows we did there were 2 or sometimes three of these Scena's, during the first week we did a hospital sketch,plus something military and I was in both, as the weeks went on I was in more and more with bigger roles and even getting laughs in some of them , Laughter is infectious and I caught the bug up there in Scotland . When we finished the run Hector had arranged for us to go to the Gaiety Theatre Ayr for a short season , same deal change of programme every week but he had also recommended me to be the Compere of the show, He said I had a knack for comedy, my timing was good and being compere meant that I only had to present the acts but if I wanted to I could do some gags during those Intros; It was an incredibly kind thing to do, I have been lucky enough through my 6 score years and ten (plus a couple more ) to meet people who have been a huge influence in whatever success I've had and I'm forever grateful for their friendship and advice, I will introduce them as the story goes on .
Ayr was a success , my partner Irene was a superb dancer I just hung on and tried to keep up, The compering was a revelation, standing alone onstage telling a story and getting a laugh from a couple of hundred strangers is the most incredible feeling, none of my material was original but I had, as Hector Nicol said, good timing and that is a most important ingredient in any comedy exercise.
Our lives are based around rhythm, from our heartbeat to our walking gait everything has a tempo , listen to speeches from great orators , It's there , Michael Kidd one of the main dancers in 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers' was a brilliant tap dancer, he once did a routine in perfect time to an Adolf Hitler speech .
Comedy lives and dies on timing and diction, too many modern comedians and singers forget the importance of the words.
After Scotland I returned to London , we had a contract for the '66 summer season on the Central Pier Morecambe but that didn't start until Easter so back to dance school, Pageboy job had gone so I got work in a local garage as a petrol pump attendant on nightshift ,three weeks, two holdups, one with a gun the other with a knife, who knew garages were so dangerous so I looked for other employment , Quickly. !!.
I got a job in a wallpaper factory as a filing clerk ,Up until then the only thing I filed was my nails.
Comedy lives and dies on timing and diction, too many modern comedians and singers forget the importance of the words.
After Scotland I returned to London , we had a contract for the '66 summer season on the Central Pier Morecambe but that didn't start until Easter so back to dance school, Pageboy job had gone so I got work in a local garage as a petrol pump attendant on nightshift ,three weeks, two holdups, one with a gun the other with a knife, who knew garages were so dangerous so I looked for other employment , Quickly. !!.
I got a job in a wallpaper factory as a filing clerk ,Up until then the only thing I filed was my nails.
( how are we liking the humour so far, OK it gets better ,,,, maybe )
A few weeks after I got there they introduced a Computerised filing and accounting System , everyone go OOOOOH ! , the computer in question was an ICT 1500 and it was the size of a small house , it looked exactly like those you see in all the old B/W films , big cabinets with whirring tapes, flashing lights and people walking around with clipboards and files full of paper , I was one of those people, there had been 4 of us in the filing clerks room but we were now , wait for this it's a goodie , we were COMPUTER ANALYSTS again with a OOOOOH please , thank you.
Our job was to go through the reams of paper that came out of the printer,look for mistakes and work out if they were the fault of the original programmers , the typists who typed up the programme or if it was a computer error, To be honest none of us knew what the hell we were doing ,mostly we made it up as we went along , If we'd been in Cape Canaveral in July '69 Apollo 11 would have ended up in Birmingham .
A few weeks after I got there they introduced a Computerised filing and accounting System , everyone go OOOOOH ! , the computer in question was an ICT 1500 and it was the size of a small house , it looked exactly like those you see in all the old B/W films , big cabinets with whirring tapes, flashing lights and people walking around with clipboards and files full of paper , I was one of those people, there had been 4 of us in the filing clerks room but we were now , wait for this it's a goodie , we were COMPUTER ANALYSTS again with a OOOOOH please , thank you.
Our job was to go through the reams of paper that came out of the printer,look for mistakes and work out if they were the fault of the original programmers , the typists who typed up the programme or if it was a computer error, To be honest none of us knew what the hell we were doing ,mostly we made it up as we went along , If we'd been in Cape Canaveral in July '69 Apollo 11 would have ended up in Birmingham .
Just before Easter, bags packed and on the train for Morecambe , I had digs just opposite the pier , full board £4 10s per week , use of cruet 2s/6p extra. (a gag for the oldies reading this ) the Central Pier show was run by Eddie Morrel the show starred Billy Stutt an Irish comic, Tommy Wright a baritone singer who was also Billy's straight man, Johnny Stafford harmonica player, us, and a troupe of dancers ********, there were other artists but my memory of them has gone. It was a normal end of the pier summer show, Big opening ,lots of musical numbers and acts and an even Bigger finale. There was no chance to do any comedy as that was all done by Billy and Tommy, I did manage to get some golf played and followed some other new interests ****************** !
The Central Pier also featured the Marine Ballroom which during the summer had Pop concerts every Sunday , Billy Stutt was asked if he would compere the shows but declined because he liked his day off , When Tommy also refused it was offered to me and I accepted straight away, it was a chance to improve my compere skills plus it was extra money and I wanted to buy a car . The first concert of the season featured The Troggs with a supporting group , I dressed in my Bronze mohair Dinner Suit , frilly fronted shirt, Bow Tie and tan patent leather shoes , I know what you're thinking -Smoooooth ! , I had the intro ready with a few gags to start off , backstage I asked Reg Presley the Troggs lead singer if there was anything special I should say for the intro , he gave me a weird look and just walked away , Showtime I went out onstage to announce the support act, I did a couple of opening gags which died but I thought OK , I'm a bit nervous it'll get better later on , I announced the Interval without the aid of any more gags , that went well ! The second half was the Troggs, I walked out to a barrage of noise and screams reminiscent of Finsbury park a couple of years earlier when I got to the middle of the stage I had mentally thrown out all the gags and funny stuff I was going to do and as loud as I could said into the mike “Ladies and Gentlemen=The Troggs ! End of the show wished everyone goodnight announced next weeks attraction walked off the stage got paid and went back to the digs for my evening meal , (I could afford the cruet now),
This was my Sunday routine until the end of the season, go the the ballroom meet the acts have a chat , announce the show over the screams , go home, During that time I met the Troggs , PJ Proby, Hermans Hermits, The Who, Tom Jones and the Squires and many others who would become household names over the following years , It's a quirk of life that I remember them but they would have absolutely no idea who I am but before the end of the season I'd bought a VW ---Result !!!!!!.
The end of the season also saw the end of the 'Dancing Dunnes' by mutual agreement, I had my guitar, some songs, some impressions, some gags, some contracts for the clubs in Manchester and of course a car, life was good. Before I went to Manchester I had a date for a club in Barrow-In-Furness, I had heard things about this place and I should have listened but I was young and stupid, OK -when you've all stopped giggling , yes I know , now I'm old and stupid, I get it, but this was a contract with good money, for the season in Morecambe my partner and I got £35 between us, one week cabaret solo I got £60, not too shabby.
The Central Pier also featured the Marine Ballroom which during the summer had Pop concerts every Sunday , Billy Stutt was asked if he would compere the shows but declined because he liked his day off , When Tommy also refused it was offered to me and I accepted straight away, it was a chance to improve my compere skills plus it was extra money and I wanted to buy a car . The first concert of the season featured The Troggs with a supporting group , I dressed in my Bronze mohair Dinner Suit , frilly fronted shirt, Bow Tie and tan patent leather shoes , I know what you're thinking -Smoooooth ! , I had the intro ready with a few gags to start off , backstage I asked Reg Presley the Troggs lead singer if there was anything special I should say for the intro , he gave me a weird look and just walked away , Showtime I went out onstage to announce the support act, I did a couple of opening gags which died but I thought OK , I'm a bit nervous it'll get better later on , I announced the Interval without the aid of any more gags , that went well ! The second half was the Troggs, I walked out to a barrage of noise and screams reminiscent of Finsbury park a couple of years earlier when I got to the middle of the stage I had mentally thrown out all the gags and funny stuff I was going to do and as loud as I could said into the mike “Ladies and Gentlemen=The Troggs ! End of the show wished everyone goodnight announced next weeks attraction walked off the stage got paid and went back to the digs for my evening meal , (I could afford the cruet now),
This was my Sunday routine until the end of the season, go the the ballroom meet the acts have a chat , announce the show over the screams , go home, During that time I met the Troggs , PJ Proby, Hermans Hermits, The Who, Tom Jones and the Squires and many others who would become household names over the following years , It's a quirk of life that I remember them but they would have absolutely no idea who I am but before the end of the season I'd bought a VW ---Result !!!!!!.
The end of the season also saw the end of the 'Dancing Dunnes' by mutual agreement, I had my guitar, some songs, some impressions, some gags, some contracts for the clubs in Manchester and of course a car, life was good. Before I went to Manchester I had a date for a club in Barrow-In-Furness, I had heard things about this place and I should have listened but I was young and stupid, OK -when you've all stopped giggling , yes I know , now I'm old and stupid, I get it, but this was a contract with good money, for the season in Morecambe my partner and I got £35 between us, one week cabaret solo I got £60, not too shabby.
Manchester in the mid-'60's was the place to be , I had a room in a hotel in Moss side, anyone who knows Manchester will be giggling now because Moss side was known as a place to obtain horizontal refreshment 24/7, well , known to everyone except me , this wouldn't be the first , or last, time this happens , ( wait until part 4 or possibly 5).
The club scene was really lively and having arrived with a contract initially for two weeks I stayed throughout the winter working social clubs in the evening and night clubs at night , pretty obvious really. One club became a bit special , The 'La Petite' became a sort of social club for performers, it was open into the early hours and you could relax, swap stories about the places we'd worked, both good and bad , card games started, a great place to wind down.
One event brought life into focus , on 21st October in Aberfan in Wales a colliery spoil tip collapsed , sliding down the hillside and engulfing the school and parts of the village, 144 people died including 116 children. The response from the nation was immediate ,a national memorial fund was setup ,artists and performers in Manchester played their part , a series of charity shows raising money for the fund was organised throughout the city , At the La Petite we did a charity marathon, I think we did over 24 hours and raised a few thousand pounds , a small drop in the millions that were eventually raised but well worth it .
The club scene was really lively and having arrived with a contract initially for two weeks I stayed throughout the winter working social clubs in the evening and night clubs at night , pretty obvious really. One club became a bit special , The 'La Petite' became a sort of social club for performers, it was open into the early hours and you could relax, swap stories about the places we'd worked, both good and bad , card games started, a great place to wind down.
One event brought life into focus , on 21st October in Aberfan in Wales a colliery spoil tip collapsed , sliding down the hillside and engulfing the school and parts of the village, 144 people died including 116 children. The response from the nation was immediate ,a national memorial fund was setup ,artists and performers in Manchester played their part , a series of charity shows raising money for the fund was organised throughout the city , At the La Petite we did a charity marathon, I think we did over 24 hours and raised a few thousand pounds , a small drop in the millions that were eventually raised but well worth it .
Xmas I went to Peterborough for Pantomime , I was 'Man Friday' in Robinson Crusoe, Yes I was in 'Black Face' actually I was blacked up all over except for a black curly wig , after the show I was always the last one out of the theatre and the shower looked like an oil slick, I did the role a few years later in Camberly but I'd learnt by then -black tights, black longsleeved leotard , black gloves adapted as socks ( they looked like feet) and a tight thin nylon balaclava , topped off with the black curly wig , the only black make-up was on my face , I was finished and out of the theatre before the final note of 'God Save The Queen' .
Back to Manchester , learning all the time , getting better and working better clubs until late one evening travelling back to the city from a gig in Chesire there had been an accident on the dual carriageway , the Police, Fire and Ambulance service were already there, the hard shoulder and inside lane were blocked and the police were directing traffic slowly onto the outside lane past the incident , for whatever reason the driver two cars in front of me stopped and in a few seconds there were 4 stationary cars , I was the third , no one saw the 5th car until it was too late , he was speeding down the road didn't see the lights around the accident and hit the car behind me which went up in the air and crashed down on the back of my VW with his front bumper resting on my back seat and my front bumper under the boot of the car in front, I remember getting out of the car , I wasn't injured and luckily neither was anyone else in this 4 car game of squash , I managed to get my boot open ( on the old VW's it was at the front) found my instruments and Dinner Suit , a couple of scratches on the guitar and trumpet cases but otherwise OK , the car was obviously a write off but at the time it didn't seem to bother me I just kept telling the police that I had to be in Manchester as I had a show at 10.30, I must have sounded like a complete idiot but I was insistent and eventually a Women PC put me in a squad car and drove me to the Piccadilly club, not only that she came in and explained the the manager what had happened , all a lot different from the procedure today . After she'd gone the manager, who was a really nice guy gave me a very large whiskey to calm me down , now when I say very large I mean VERY LARGE, I did my usual spot of about 30-35 minutes got a taxi back to the hotel and slept for two days, in retrospect I was obviously in a state of shock
When I returned to the Piccadilly club a couple of days later everyone was extremely kind constantly asking if I was alright and did I want anything, did I feel OK , I asked the manager what was going on and he said that on that night I had done nearly an hour onstage the act was fine and I had ended up as usual with my song and dance number but I had done an encore singing a sad ballad ( or a bad salad as we used to call them ) and cried all the way through it , he said it must have been the effect of the whiskey , I said what whiskey , I don't drink ! He then explained about me being brought to the club by the PC, being told about the accident and giving me the drink to steady me , It was the first time in my life I had ever had strong alcohol , as a child If we were at the family home in Brixton my cousin and I would be given a small glass of white wine with lots of lemonade at Sunday dinner so that we felt like grown-ups but otherwise it wasn't something that interested me, I have made up for it since but never before a show , you never know I might start singing and crying again.
Anyway the outcome of all this was no car and getting around to the clubs without one was impossible, the insurance was going to take a while to sort out so back to London where Ron and Mother were in talks with a producer called Stella Hartley about a short summer season in Douglas, Isle of Man, they got me into the show as choreographer and performing in the musical numbers on the understanding that I could do my act around the clubs on the island while we were there and this was agreed .
Before we went off for the summer we moved house , from Shepherds Bush to Barons Court, we had the top two floors of a house and I was given a small room on the top floor , all was sweetness and light until I realised the date we would be moving , 20thMay 1967 – this of course means nothing to 99.99% of you reading this, but to me it was devastating for the 20th of may 1967 was Cup Final Day -not only Cup Final Day but one of the teams in the final was ??? you guessed it ==== CHELSEA , the other was some bunch of scruffs from north london, tottenham something or other, this was a catastrophe , I tried to get the moving day changed but the man who owned the moving company was a lodge friend of Rons and was doing it on a Saturday as a favour so we couldn't really ask him to change , after much ( heated) discussion with Ron ,on moving day morning I was given the key took my B/W portable TV on the underground to the tube station near the new house went upstairs to my empty room sat on the floor and watched , on a grainy screen , as my beloved Blues lost 2-1 to the mob from white hart lane. years later it still hurts. !
We moved in , settled down and started rehearsing the summer show in a local hall before all setting off for the Isle of Man , we had nice digs in Douglas up a hill not far from the theatre , my brother ronnie was about 16 months old and getting interesting , he had refused to crawl on the way to walking instead choosing to shuffle about on his bum , Oh how I wish mobile phones with cameras had been around at the time !.
The show was successful with a nice company, I'd put some good scenes together even doing an acrobatic dance with Mum , but after the first week I spent very little time at the digs with the family, there was a good reason for this , I'd fallen in love.
End of part three
Back to Manchester , learning all the time , getting better and working better clubs until late one evening travelling back to the city from a gig in Chesire there had been an accident on the dual carriageway , the Police, Fire and Ambulance service were already there, the hard shoulder and inside lane were blocked and the police were directing traffic slowly onto the outside lane past the incident , for whatever reason the driver two cars in front of me stopped and in a few seconds there were 4 stationary cars , I was the third , no one saw the 5th car until it was too late , he was speeding down the road didn't see the lights around the accident and hit the car behind me which went up in the air and crashed down on the back of my VW with his front bumper resting on my back seat and my front bumper under the boot of the car in front, I remember getting out of the car , I wasn't injured and luckily neither was anyone else in this 4 car game of squash , I managed to get my boot open ( on the old VW's it was at the front) found my instruments and Dinner Suit , a couple of scratches on the guitar and trumpet cases but otherwise OK , the car was obviously a write off but at the time it didn't seem to bother me I just kept telling the police that I had to be in Manchester as I had a show at 10.30, I must have sounded like a complete idiot but I was insistent and eventually a Women PC put me in a squad car and drove me to the Piccadilly club, not only that she came in and explained the the manager what had happened , all a lot different from the procedure today . After she'd gone the manager, who was a really nice guy gave me a very large whiskey to calm me down , now when I say very large I mean VERY LARGE, I did my usual spot of about 30-35 minutes got a taxi back to the hotel and slept for two days, in retrospect I was obviously in a state of shock
When I returned to the Piccadilly club a couple of days later everyone was extremely kind constantly asking if I was alright and did I want anything, did I feel OK , I asked the manager what was going on and he said that on that night I had done nearly an hour onstage the act was fine and I had ended up as usual with my song and dance number but I had done an encore singing a sad ballad ( or a bad salad as we used to call them ) and cried all the way through it , he said it must have been the effect of the whiskey , I said what whiskey , I don't drink ! He then explained about me being brought to the club by the PC, being told about the accident and giving me the drink to steady me , It was the first time in my life I had ever had strong alcohol , as a child If we were at the family home in Brixton my cousin and I would be given a small glass of white wine with lots of lemonade at Sunday dinner so that we felt like grown-ups but otherwise it wasn't something that interested me, I have made up for it since but never before a show , you never know I might start singing and crying again.
Anyway the outcome of all this was no car and getting around to the clubs without one was impossible, the insurance was going to take a while to sort out so back to London where Ron and Mother were in talks with a producer called Stella Hartley about a short summer season in Douglas, Isle of Man, they got me into the show as choreographer and performing in the musical numbers on the understanding that I could do my act around the clubs on the island while we were there and this was agreed .
Before we went off for the summer we moved house , from Shepherds Bush to Barons Court, we had the top two floors of a house and I was given a small room on the top floor , all was sweetness and light until I realised the date we would be moving , 20thMay 1967 – this of course means nothing to 99.99% of you reading this, but to me it was devastating for the 20th of may 1967 was Cup Final Day -not only Cup Final Day but one of the teams in the final was ??? you guessed it ==== CHELSEA , the other was some bunch of scruffs from north london, tottenham something or other, this was a catastrophe , I tried to get the moving day changed but the man who owned the moving company was a lodge friend of Rons and was doing it on a Saturday as a favour so we couldn't really ask him to change , after much ( heated) discussion with Ron ,on moving day morning I was given the key took my B/W portable TV on the underground to the tube station near the new house went upstairs to my empty room sat on the floor and watched , on a grainy screen , as my beloved Blues lost 2-1 to the mob from white hart lane. years later it still hurts. !
We moved in , settled down and started rehearsing the summer show in a local hall before all setting off for the Isle of Man , we had nice digs in Douglas up a hill not far from the theatre , my brother ronnie was about 16 months old and getting interesting , he had refused to crawl on the way to walking instead choosing to shuffle about on his bum , Oh how I wish mobile phones with cameras had been around at the time !.
The show was successful with a nice company, I'd put some good scenes together even doing an acrobatic dance with Mum , but after the first week I spent very little time at the digs with the family, there was a good reason for this , I'd fallen in love.
End of part three
Oh , I bet you come back for part 4 !.
1 comment:
Actually I have never grown tired of sitting on my arse
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