Glasgow Big Night Out

Glasgow is a most fabulous city.

My great Glaswegian friend, Janey Godley says,

-SCOTTISH ACCENT

-Nicholas Parsons, born in England but made in Glasgow.

Glasgow is remembered by everybody in our business, pure and simply,

from the Glasgow Empire

which was reputed to be the comedian's graveyard.

SHOUTS

All I can say, and I hope everybody can forgive me,

is only my laundryman and myself knew how terrified I was.

I've fainted with fear at Glasgow Empire.

JEERS FROM CROWD

All right, Glasgow? Yeah!

Pantomime, I wanted to do in Scotland.

Any time I had the chance to go back and do it,

it would be to Glasgow I would go.

We felt it was our audience.

We felt, yeah, we are Glasgow.

In fact, someone said that to us when we were up there the last time.

They said, "You two must be Mr and Mrs Glasgow now."

Which is a lovely saying.

It was magical, absolutely magical.

The orchestra would play the overture and you would wait there.

And then the curtain would rise and there were footlights,

so the footlights would welcome you

and you could feel the atmosphere of the audience coming towards you.

It was wonderful.

It's Glasgow!

This is my city.

Big town, boom town.

Brawling town.

Ships are made here.

Slide down its slipways to the coffee-coloured Clyde

and sail out, flanked by cranes

that rear like rampant monsters to the sea.

The shipyards were a great place. It was full of humour.

I think they had to be under their working conditions.

Everybody had different nicknames and everybody knew each other

so the patter was going all the time.

Well, the patter went all day long. It really did.

They would have nicknames for people, you know.

There was one foreman, he kept...

They called him the Sheriff. He kept rushing up saying,

"What's the hold up? What's the hold up?" He was Sheriff.

I'd just come from an English public school

and I was talking very much like that.

-And they were...

-GLASGOW PATTER

Not only that, the biggest shock of all,

I discovered they were using words as adjectives

I'd only seen on lavatory walls before.

It was a living, breathing experience.

I mean, they may have been strange to me

but I was an absolute oddball to them.

How I survived, I don't know.

It was really a platform.

Hard work, they probably hated it,

so it was a platform for gags that were flying around all day.

But then slowly they thought,

maybe we'll get a job in a variety theatre by night

and slowly you might be able to leave the shipyard

and then become a professional comedian or entertainer.

Some of the comedians moved up from that

and made a living from it, eventually.

Billy Connolly is your example of that, you know.

Billy's a wonderful example of Scots humour in comedy.

I wear finger picks. Do you see that? Do you know why that is?

It's because I used to work in the shipyards.

-LAUGHTER

-Really.

And the reason I wear finger picks because of the shipyards

was these wee time keepers, they used to have a wee hut and they sat in it.

Waiting for you, this wee...

And it had a wee flap on the window, this wee hut.

And if you were late, you were allowed 15 minutes

and I used to come clattering along with sandwiches

flying into the air, trying to get in in time.

Imagine running into the shipyard, you know.

Trying to get in. my God.

He'd wait until you were three yards and go...

Aargh!!

There's lots of Billy Connollys around.

You can walk into any pub

and you'll meet a Billy Connolly.

Most pubs you go into in Glasgow,

there's always a story teller at the bar and he'll be telling you a story.

Mind you, I wasn't always lucky in New York. No fear.

I had an operation while I was there.

You see, they had to take a piece of bone out of my left leg

which they still have in a bottle with a label on it.

And the bottle says "The only thing we ever got out of a Scotsman!"

Of course, I was unconscious at the time or they'd never have got it.

Every Glaswegian's a comic really.

I went to a fairly posh school but all the boys loved speaking

gutter Glasgow to the horror of their parents.

And they were all rushed to elocution classes.

There was a famous director who used to say,

"Glasgow's got two industries - shipbuilding and elocution."

You can go into Glasgow, you can stand at a bus stop

and talk to the woman beside you,

and you will hear her whole life story before the bus comes.

You will go and sit in a restaurant

and if you sit at somebody's table and they're strangers,

again, same story, you will not sit there po-faced as you would in Edinburgh and not talk.

Edinburgh and Glasgow, same country, very different cities.

In Edinburgh when a gun goes off, it's one o'clock.

Edinburgh loves Glasgow humour too.

Glasgow humour is the lingua franca of Scottish humour, really.

At first I didn't know that until I played Aberdeen.

It's Glasgow they want to hear, Glaswegian.

Glasgow was probably one of the cities in the country

that had the most theatres.

These theatres, especially in Glasgow, they just opened up.

Local neighbourhood theatres from the Gorbals to the Gallowgate.

Very much of the people for the people.

It was a really, really scruffy, scruffy theatre called the Queen's Theatre.

I was once taken to the balcony

because I insisted on seeing what it was like. I love theatre.

I remember the audience down below were sitting on benches.

One part was tip-up seats and another part was benches.

If they didn't like the act they threw things on stage.

Somebody actually did stand in the wings and did pull them off

with a long hook thing. That really did exist.

I remember my mother being furious my father had taken me there. "How could you take her there?"

Glasgow had a very, very distinctive style of variety theatre

which was very much working class.

It was always, basically, the same but that's why variety

was so good, because you had so many different acts.

You never knew. If you got a programme you knew who was on

but sometimes it was better without a programme, as a surprise to what was coming on.

You wanted to see the support acts.

They were part and parcel of your evening. You'd get your dancers...

You had a novelty act which could be a dog.

Then you'd have, perhaps, a magician or a juggler.

You'd get your soubrette who would sing songs.

They were called soubrettes.

They would sometimes put the words of the song down

so that you could actually sing it. They'd be mad songs.

# An aeroplane, an aeroplane

# Away we go up high... #

That sort of thing. Mad. But the audience loved it and joined in.

It was just amazing, amazing. I'm very glad to have been part of it.

The only place that still does variety is the Pavilion.

I think we're probably the only traditional variety theatre

left in Glasgow.

It's a great-shaped theatre for comedy.

It's intimate and it's lovely and it's in the centre of town,

and it was a brilliant place for comedy.

-It is a typical...

-Variety hall.

The difference with the Pavilion is that you're very close to them.

The balcony comes down and sits in a curve

and you could almost shake hands with someone sitting...

They had ashtrays at the side, you could shake hands with someone.

They were so close to you.

You'd speak to the man in the box and that's where that localised,

close humour developed from and that made them feel much warmer.

And then you can see the reaction, the people can see

the reaction of the people's faces in the box as well. They've got two audiences.

They're watching the stage and watching the people in the box if they're talking to them.

Out!

-Who are you?

-I am a Spanish bull fighter.

-Oh?

-Are you a matador or a toreador?

-No, I'm a shutta-door.

It's got good memories for me, this theatre. Ian and I met here.

We met in this theatre in the panto.

Ian was the electrician and Janette was one of the dancers on stage

and the romance blossomed, I think, and still going.

-He used to throw me sweets down.

-That sounds terrible.

-Merry Maid caramels.

-Do you want a sweetie, wee girl?

I can't say what the tag is, it's too rude.

-Keep quiet, sonny, there's a show on.

-Would you like a crisp?

No, he doesn't want a crisp. Just keep quiet.

Sorry, as you can gather from my accent I'm from Scotland.

I cannae find the wee blue bag.

The man who was the big star at the Pavilion,

round about 1949 I'm talking about,

was Tommy Morgan. Tommy Morgan was a lovely man to work with.

"Clarety, clarety" was his saying.

# Oh, clarety, clarety, be full of the joys of spring

# Don't you travel, travel, And good luck it will bring. #

His catch phrase was "clarety, clarety",

which was a derivation of "I declare, I declare".

I don't know how it came in to "clarety, clarety",

it kind of shortened in.

He was a great, great man, a great comic

and had great following at the Pavilion.

He was there for years and years and years.

He performed there at least 19 years.

19 summer seasons.

-I saw Tommy Morgan, you'll fall about with this...

-Oh, really?

..at my Auntie Jessie's wedding.

In those days you used to have weddings,

you either had the wedding do but sometimes you went to the theatre.

-We all went to the theatre and we were in the box.

-After the church.

After the church. We had fish and chips at the Berkley and then

-we went to the theatre. There'd be about 40 of us.

-Funny wedding.

Funny what they used to do. And Tommy Morgan was on.

Tommy Morgan's ashes were secretly buried in the attic in here

so we just leave him alone and he looks down at us.

I think that's the thing, he looks after us.

There always seems to be something, a show that comes out of the blue

for the Pavilion and not saves us, but keeps us going.

I bought him that jacket. The wine jacket. I bought him that.

I told him that night, son, you wear that jacket

and you will meet the woman of your dreams.

And he ended up with her.

Two Irish people came into the theatre wanting to hire the theatre for a summer season.

And I said, what's it for? A play, Mrs Brown. I said, no.

They went away and came back every day into the foyer

and stood there until I saw them.

This went on for probably a week, I chased them and said,

"That'll never work."

I think what Brendan O'Carroll does will resonate with Glaswegians

because it's so down to earth in the way that

people love in Glasgow.

Mark told me he had the best mum in the world

and it turned out to be you.

Ooh!

-So, Mrs Brown...

-I'm not finished my stare yet.

At first I didn't know it was a man at all.

He's so believable as that little Irish housewife.

Terrific, terrific.

Very, very funny.

I was just glad they waited 12 years

and I got 12 years out of it before it disappeared...

Because it's now doing arenas, you know.

I'm glad I got the 12 years' business out of it.

Surprised? Yeah.

I'm surprised because it's not the usual kind of comedy

that television would take on, you know. It's, how can you say it?

It's old-fashioned variety, really, that's where it stems from.

I think we're the only sliding roof in the UK.

It used to be the advert, come and see the stars at the Pavilion.

They opened the roof at the interval and you looked up

and there were the stars.

They weren't on the stage, they were up in the sky.

I used to open that roof when I worked there,

-when I was the electrician.

-You used to clean that chandelier as well.

There's no chandelier because it fell down when I was cleaning it.

They used to have two beautiful big chandeliers.

And they were doing them.

I was supposed to unwind it, a huge big thing you had to do.

Anyway, I flipped the ratchet up and it wouldn't go back down

and it just come smashing down.

They were doing a dress rehearsal at the time.

And the man who owned the theatre, Mr Ballantine, just said to me,

"That's dreadful, dear boy, take the other one down, we can't risk that."

I didn't tell him it was me that flipped it.

Obviously there was something wrong with it.

If you were a little bit well off, you pay your one and sixpence

or something or a shilling to get into the local.

Then you might, if you had a little bit more money,

then go to the Empire on a Saturday night.

Maybe to see some top-notch entertainer.

When you went out with your first boyfriends, you knew you had arrived

if you were taken to the Empire Theatre and sat in the front row.

Then you discovered years later that the boyfriends that took you

there had regular bookings, it didn't matter who

they took on a Saturday night but you were special.

Glasgow Empire opened in 1891 and that's when it started

off with the big shows coming over, the big orchestras and that.

And then through the years it slowly built up

and people went to Empire to see the big stars.

Harry Houdini, while he was appearing in Glasgow, the great

escapologist, at one point went to use the backstage toilet,

got locked in the toilet, couldn't get out

and one of the cleaners and the porter had to come and free him.

It's a hard one to believe that Harry Houdini would get

himself locked in to a toilet.

I wouldn't think so but that's the story.

Probably the most famous act to play the Empire

was Wilson, Keppel and Betty.

They did a sand dance.

To this day you would never think that these people could earn

a living coming on like the Sphinx and doing a sand dance to

that song, dur dur dur, dur-dur, dur dur dur...that one.

But they did.

Da-da, deedl-deedl-deedl, dressed with a wee fez and a wee, short, white skirt.

They played it probably more than anybody...ever!

And that particular week, I did Wilson, Keppel and Beattie.

And we did the same thing and I wrote a wee thing...

# We are the Calton coolies

# But we're no foolies

# Not on your life

# On your life, on your life

# We've come to... #

And I did the song and then we did the wee dance and that.

The problem with the audience in the Empire,

when they went to the Empire, they wanted to see the star.

So, the supporting acts got a hard time sometimes.

Glasgow is remembered by everybody in our business, simply,

pure and simply from the Glasgow Empire.

Which was reputed to be the comedian's graveyard.

Comic's graveyard... it's where they died.

This was the reputation that Glasgow Empire got.

That's the one theatre people in our business talk about,

the Glasgow Empire and if you say "The Glasgow Empire"

to older performers, they would usually go "Oh, ho-ho-ho..."

They remember it.

I remember once going on there and we came off to our own footsteps.

And the fireman was in the corner and he said to us, he says,

"They're getting to like you."

LAUGHTER

-Really? They hadn't thrown anything.

-They hadn't thrown anything, yes.

They sat there.

There's a comic, I won't mention his name but he fainted, Des O'Connor.

Yes.

LAUGHTER

He actually walked on and went...

As a kid, I used to see some southern comics

die on their backside in Glasgow.

Poor Des O'Connor was one of them, God bless him.

There's a famous story of Des O'Connor fainting on stage.

Poor Des.

I fainted with fear at Glasgow Empire.

No-one told me that the national sport, at that time of Scotland, was

go to the Empire on a Friday night and wait for the English comic.

LAUGHTER

And I'd been in showbiz about half an hour...

Four weeks to be exact and my agent said, "Well, if you do well

"up there, there's 35 weeks on that tour, that Moss Empires circuit."

And I went up there and I didn't know what I was going in to.

And they dragged me from my room, half made up, half hair done,

threw me on and I walked out

and I was about as funny as a road accident, you can imagine.

And I was telling the jokes back to front.

I said to myself, you just told that one.

No, you didn't. Yes, you did.

Well, I won't now. I didn't get a laugh first time!

But actually hearing a silence...

You can hear a silence. Listen.

When it's that quiet, it gets louder!

When there's 3,000 people watching you.

So I thought, "I don't need this.

-"I'm going to faint!"

-LAUGHTER

It took a lot of courage, now I realise, or stupidity.

And I went down in a heap on the stage.

And I remember the musical director's head...

He pulled himself up over the footlights. He said,

"This isn't the act, son. This isn't the act."

-LAUGHTER

-I said, "No, get me off.

"I've had it."

And they dragged me off through the curtains, upstairs.

Eric Morecambe, for years... He started some of the stuff.

He said that I was the only comic selling advertising space

on the soles of his shoes.

LAUGHTER

The story there was he was rushed up to the Royal Infirmary in Glasgow.

His manager, I believe, followed him up and says,

"Come on, get back. You're on again in the second half."

And he appeared about another eight times after that in the Glasgow Empire.

So it couldn't have been that bad.

I think a lot of the comics come on...

They looked nervous, you know?

And that just made them worse.

What a hard life they have when they walk out on that stage

and there's all those people looking at them and they think,

"God, I hope you're going to laugh. I hope you haven't had a bad day."

And they put in the first gag

and they wait for that reaction.

If they didn't get a laugh, they got worse.

Because comedians, they thrive on input

and if it got quieter and quieter and quieter,

you could actually see them cringe, dying to get off.

All artists were nervous playing The Empire Glasgow.

No doubt about it.

They were a tough audience.

# Bamba, bamba

# Bamba, bamba

# Bamba, bamba... #

They say that Shirley Bassey, when she came,

the first time she came,

they were talking and sherricking her

and she just stopped dead and went to the front of the stage

and told them if they didn't shut up, she wasn't singing.

And they just...that was it.

She had them in the palm of her hand after that.

# O-o-o-oh, yes! #

APPLAUSE

They are good audiences,

cos they understand creativity and performance.

And if they like you, they're wonderful.

But if they don't like you, they let you know.

They lose all interest in you whatsoever

and you might as well just leave.

Because you're doing no-one any good, you or them.

So just get off the stage.

BOOING

The verbal comedians, with their southern accent,

weren't liked by a lot of the Scottish audiences

because they couldn't understand them.

I went on and I started my little preamble, praying...

And I'm not a religious man but praying that I wouldn't be killed.

And a bloke in the gods shouted out,

"Och, away hame you Sassenach.

"Who are you, coming up from London with all your la-di-da?"

Well, I was trying to speak English!

Somebody like Bruce Forsyth now would be out there

and if somebody sherricked him from the audience,

bang, you put in a line and cut it.

Good evening. How are you? All right?

Did you wonder where you were?

LAUGHTER

That's it. Got the sandwiches?

Bob Monkhouse would be the same.

His only problem was he used to say that

if he did get a sherrick from the audience

he had to let it go past

because he couldn't always understand the diction.

"Get off, ya bass. Oh, you big jessie." HE MUMBLES

But no, there is a swathe of Scots

who are sort of anti-English.

And the lower down you go in the classes,

an awful thing to say,

the more you get at that.

And the more, kind of, sentimental they are about Scotland,

in a quite ridiculous way.

# I'm only a common old working lad

# As anyone can see

# But when I get a couple of drinks on a Saturday

# Glasgow belongs to me. #

All the trouble, really,

and all this heckling thing you hear about,

it started...it would be on a Friday night, later.

The licensing laws in those days were extremely strict.

No drink whatsoever after 9:30.

So they'd sunk a few and if the bar was still open in the theatre,

it was at the interval,

it was the last chance they had to get a drink before it.

So when they came back, they had quite a few.

Then in they go to the theatre, "Eh! Oh!"

It was "Let's party" time. You know?

INDISTINCT SHOUTING AND BOOING

They used to throw things, as well.

That was... I never had that, thank God.

But I've seen people having tomatoes and things thrown at them.

BOOING

And the pennies would come from the gallery and land on the stage.

And some comics would make a joke of it and pick up the money and say,

"Good, that'll help my wages this week."

And others would say, "Oh."

It just put them off, kind of thing. You know?

And then they realised, being Scotsmen,

that they were mad throwing money away.

So they used to take the screws from their work

or small parts of rivets and things and throw them.

And they were quite dangerous, as you can imagine.

The classic story of all time, of course,

is the Mike and Bernie Winters story.

They came up here before they were known as Mike and Bernie Winters.

They really were just starting off in their careers.

Everybody's talking about me.

I've just made a very big novelty record.

-A novelty record?

-Mm!

They say I'm going to be the next Shirley Bassey.

Shirley Bassey is a girl.

I told you it was a novelty record!

Mike was the straight man who went on first.

And he'd come on and play the clarinet, right?

It wasn't bad but...

They didn't like it very much.

And he was dying the death quietly.

Suddenly, from behind the curtains, appeared Bernie.

Who puts his head through the curtains and goes, "Eeeeh!"

INDISTINCT BABY TALK

Eeeeeeh!

And a voice from the gallery said,

"Christ, there's two of them."

And every time you died?

Well, it was getting pretty regular, yes.

LAUGHTER

-So why did... Did you ever think of giving it up?

-Well, I couldn't.

It was my living, wasn't it?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

The biggest problem was to get southern artists,

especially comedians, to work Glasgow

cos it was a tough theatre.

You were in a trap.

If you wanted to play the number-one dates,

you had to play Glasgow.

So yes, there was a problem.

Sometimes it could be covered by an extra fee.

There's a little mouse,

a little mouse walking along the pavement in Piccadilly, there.

And a woman frightened it.

It stepped off the kerb and got knocked down by a bus.

Picked himself up, went across the road and went into a music shop.

-Said to the man behind the counter, "Do you sell mouse organs?"

-LAUGHTER

There was another story.

Max Miller, years ago,

he had appeared in the Empire and did his stint

and his agent asked him a few weeks later

to go back to the Empire and he said, "No."

He said, "I'm not a missionary, I'm a comedian."

So he didn't want to go back up to the Empire!

Doon the line a train came puffin'.

Scotland - ten, England - nothing.

Arr!

It's not true to say that it was just a graveyard for everybody.

I think Ken Dodd had a difficult time to begin with

but then was beloved and came back many a time.

I'll talk to you, sir.

You look full of the spirit.

LAUGHTER

He's full of something. He keeps slipping out of his seat!

My first line to a Glasgow audience was,

-POSH ACCENT:

-"I suppose you're all wondering

"why I've sent for you."

And a man uncoiled himself from about the third row,

with half a bottle of whisky,

and he looked at me and said,

"Cripes! What a horrible sight."

And the audience roared and that was it.

I was in.

Ken could play anywhere and do well.

He just won't go until he does well.

I go to the doctor's and the doctor tells me I need a holiday. He said,

"Why not take a hiking holiday? Have a break, have a kitbag."

-So, I...

-LAUGHTER

I said to him, "While I'm at it, could I have a wig with a hole in?

"Cos I might be playing a bit of polo."

He said, "No, certainly not.

"There's too much of this abusing the National Health Service."

He said, "We had a fellow in here this morning.

"He wanted four wooden legs -

-"He was making a coffee table." So anyhow, as I said...

-LAUGHTER

Yeah. Well, he still comes up every year

and does two nights in the Pavilion to sold-out houses.

You're there to one o'clock in the morning.

Take your sandwiches and your flask. Yeah.

So still going strong.

# I've got more than my share

# Of happiness. #

In the 1950s, of course, a lot of the big American acts came over.

It was a threat, I think, they said,

"You want to play the London Palladium?"

And every American did.

"Certainly, you shall play the Palladium.

"But you have to do a week at the Glasgow Empire."

The Glasgow Empire was the start of the European tour

and they said if you made it at the Glasgow Empire,

you could make it anywhere.

A lot of the American stars were very popular up there.

Bob Hope was but he had to admit... his line was, he said,

"if you like you, they let you live," he said!

Now, we don't have titles in America.

We have two classes -

the people and the Kennedys.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

And there are more Kennedys than people.

Jack Benny... and you couldn't get more American.

And Bob Hope the same but Benny more.

I think they liked the thing that he portrayed

of being so mean!

The Scots - sorry, Scotland - they like that.

Of course, I know what you're laughing at.

You know, you believe all that stuff about my being stingy

and you call it mean over here, I believe.

But believe me, ladies and gentlemen,

that is a character that I assume on the television,

just for your entertainment.

Because I'm not stingy or anything.

I throw my money away, you know.

Not far. But...

LAUGHTER

I was doing one of those seasons at the Alhambra

when Eartha Kitt was playing the Empire.

And my wife went to see it.

# I'm just an old-fashioned girl

# With an old-fashioned mind

# Not sophisticated

# I'm the sweet and simple kind

# I want an old-fashioned house

# With an old-fashioned fence

# And an old-fashioned millionaire... #

Anyway, I got the news from my wife that she had dried.

She kind of fluffed a couple of lines

and was pretty mortified.

How mortified, my wife discovered

when the agent who had come up from London to support Eartha

grabbed my wife and said,

"She's very temperamental. Come backstage.

"I'm going to need all the help I can get!"

So my wife went backstage but unfortunately,

the manager of the theatre had invited two Kelvinside ladies round.

"We'd rather like to meet Eartha Kitt."

"Oh, well, come backstage and I'll introduce you."

So, those hapless ladies - not being in the business

and not realising how vulnerable artists are after they've given

a performance - especially ones in which you've just buggered

something up - sailed into the dressing room and said,

"Hello, we enjoyed your performance very much.

"Did you forget your lines at one point?"

And of course, Eartha was curled up like a cat glaring at them,

and my wife rushed in and said, "Miss Kitt, it was wonderful."

I saw a matinee with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis,

and Jerry Lewis was walking up and down the corridor.

And I never realised he was so handsome.

And the stage door keeper said to me,

"Jerry Lewis is very upset Dean Martin is not here yet."

This was for a matinee. And I said, "Oh."

He said, "Yes, they think he's been out on the booze."

-# Pour it as quickly as you can

-Hey, brother, pour the wine... #

Jerry Lewis was getting distraught

because the show was due to go on very shortly,

and I was standing at the stage door,

and all of a sudden this car drew up and out came Dean Martin.

# Pour the wine, pour the wine, pour the wine. #

And I think they'd found him in a hotel in Loch Lomond, him

and the musical director.

So they were getting about Scotland while they were there.

Jerry Lewis wasn't at all pleased.

# Hey, brother, pour the wine! #

Thank you very much, you're very kind.

C note.

PIANO PLAYS

No, not now. Why do you want to do it now?

-Do you know what's next on the agenda?

-But I'm all set up and ready.

I don't care if you're set up and ready, you can't do it now.

You didn't stop me when I was just standing.

You waited until I got the band set and everything.

I just wanted to see if you were going to go through with this thing.

-All right.

-What, are you out of your nitwit?

LAUGHTER

-All right.

-Do you know what comes now?

-No.

Well, you'd better, because I don't.

Another wonderful story is Liberace.

MUSIC: "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady

Despite being American, he didn't leave any tips,

and the stagehands were just on a pittance, and they really

expected a few pounds in their pocket at the end of the night.

But the problem with Liberace was not so much him

and his lack of gratitude, it was his piano.

This was an 18 inch rake on the Empire.

Two stagehands had to hide under the piano the entire performance

holding on to the legs, the wheels, to stop it rolling into the pit.

And he still didn't give them a tip.

People like Laurel and Hardy, great international stars,

the only reason they got away - because they knew them

from the films and they would suddenly start - very sensibly -

they would start singing, # ..down to West Virginia! #

-BOTH:

-# I-i-in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia

# On the trail of the lonesome pine... #

Well, they liked that, and they'd seen them do it on screen,

you see, so they got away with it. And they did the usual mucking about.

They liked that.

# Like the mountains, I'm blue

# Like the pine I'm lonesome for you... #

-HIGH-PITCHED FEMALE VOICE:

-# In the Blue Ridge Mountains

# of Virginia On the trail of the lonesome pine. #

Can you imagine how exciting that was?

You'd seen the movies perhaps as a kid and then Laurel

and Hardy after the silent movie era, they went touring.

I think the American influx really was the first time ever

someone from outside Scotland had made an impression

on the audiences, so suddenly they weren't English people,

they were from somewhere else and they accepted this,

they thought this was OK.

And of course most of the American acts were bloomin' good anyway.

I mean, they loved Danny Kaye.

I think they thought he was a Scotsman! McKaye. Mackay. But...

Because they'd seen him on the screen.

Danny Kaye was enormous. Oh!

He went on stage and sat down on the stage with his legs

dangling into the orchestra pit and wowed them.

-# Ah!

-AUDIENCE: Ah!

# Oh, here's a story about Minnie the Moocher

# She was a low down hoochie-cootcher

# She was the roughest and the toughest rail

# Minnie had a heart as big as a whale

# Oh, hidey-hidey hi

AUDIENCE: # Oh, hidey-hidey hi

# Hee-dee-hee-dee-hee-dee-hee

# Hee-dee-hee-dee-hee-dee-hee. #

And I was at the Pavilion appearing in the show when Danny Kaye

came to the Empire, and I couldn't see him.

But I came out of the theatre after the show this night

and I'm walking down the road and I saw this car pass,

and there was hundreds of people following it.

The audience obviously had come out of the Empire, saw the car,

knew that Danny Kaye was in it

and ran behind the car all the way down to the Central Hotel.

SCREAMING AND CHEERING

So I followed on and ran down the road behind all the crowd

and we got to the Central Hotel

and everybody was shouting, "We want Danny, we want Danny!"

All saying "We want Danny!" This is about midnight.

And eventually the doors opened

and out came Danny Kaye on to this little balcony.

And he had to come out and sit on the balcony

and sing Ballin' The Jack.

# First you put your two knees close up tight

# You swing them to the left and then you swing them to the right

# Step around the floor kinda nice and light

# And then... # You didn't make me laugh.

LAUGHTER

And everyone in the street did the movements.

"First you put your two knees close uptight

"You swing them to the left, then you swing 'em to the right

"Step round the floor kind of nice and light

"And then you shake around, shake around with all your might."

Everybody in Glasgow that was out there in the street

was doing Ballin' The Jack.

# Spread your arms...

# Way out in space

# You do the eagle rock with such style and grace

# You put your left foot out and then you bring it back

# That's what I call ballin' the jack. #

And I'll never forget it. It's one of the things I'll always remember.

And I thought, can you imagine this huge star -

and he was a big, big film star -

out in the middle of Glasgow singing Ballin' The Jack?

# First you put your two feet... # Hey! Altogether now!

-Could only happen in Glasgow!

-HE CHUCKLES

# But when I get a couple of drinks on a Saturday

# Glasgow belongs to me!

# Glasgow belongs to me! Glasgow belongs to me! #

TRUMPET FANFARE

# In Mexico, where the breezes blow

# There are mounds of gold, senorita. #

Roy Rogers and Trigger were my first crushes as a child.

I equally was in love with the horse as much as I was in love with him.

I know he came to the Empire with his horse Trigger.

We saw the horse box draw up, and Trigger come out,

but I was never lucky enough to get close to see him.

# Give me land, lots of land under starry skies above

# Don't fence me in... #

He was called the singing cowboy

because he used to do a lot of songs, and Trigger used to dance with him.

He used to pick things up off the stage. He would count - you know,

"What's two and two?"

He would paw the stage four times and things like this.

# Please don't fence me in Just turn me loose... #

Touring at the time they were staying in the Central Hotel,

they brought Trigger along to Central

and took him into Central and up the staircase.

And I think there was a wee balcony to tie him,

he came out on the balcony. All the people were standing outside - "Oh,

"Trigger is staying there as well."

# A four-legged friend A four-legged friend

# He'll never let you down... #

One of the stories... I met a guy who worked at the Empire

at the time, and I believe they said Trigger wasn't a very nice

horse, because, as they passed, he always tried to have a bite at them.

Being stagehands, Glasgow stagehands in particular,

they used to give it a kick when they were passing just to annoy it, so...

-How old was Trigger when he died?

-Trigger was 33.

In comparison to man's age, that makes him about 115.

Boy, he was a great horse.

He was iron, and he carried me through 180 pictures.

If there is a heaven for horses, that's where Trigger is.

# That wonderful one, two, three, four-legged friend. Whoa, Trigger! #

The '50s did very well.

But then of course it slowly petered out, because the younger people,

the variety theatre wasn't their world.

And then of course rock 'n' roll came along.

# Put your glad rags on Join me, hon,

# We'll have some fun when the clock strikes one

# We're gonna rock around the clock tonight... #

It was a hybrid. The variety shows were a hybrid.

They were old-fashioned turns and new-wave turns.

It couldn't make up its mind.

Certainly jugglers and people like that - the kids would come in to see

Cliff or the Rolling Stones,

and these other people would be on the bill -

who are these old geezers?! It was a different sort of entertainment.

# The young ones

# Darling, we're the young ones

# And young ones

# Shouldn't be afraid... #

I saw Cliff Richard

and all the girls were at the stage door scratching a car

they thought was his, and it turned out not to be his car!

And it was all, "I love you, Cliff," scratched on the car.

But that was my first time I ever met Cliff Richard -

some poor soul's car was all, "I love you, Cliff!"

SHE LAUGHS

But he was a handsome young man and a great performer with The Shadows.

Wonderful.

Well, in those days, it wasn't the television.

People knew them through records, mostly.

Johnnie Ray and Frankie Laine and all these people, you know?

SCREAMING AND APPLAUSE

# It was a night

# Mmm, what a night it was, such a night... #

Johnnie Ray was there,

and at that time he had hit number after hit number.

Just Walking In The Rain, things like that.

# Just walking in the rain

# So alone and blue... #

Johnnie Ray was a very big one here because at the time they had

to have commissionaires right along the front of the circle,

cos the girls were ready to throw themselves off for Johnnie Ray.

People would try to get on the stage and things like that.

It's a wonderful moment for an artist.

As long as he's got people protecting him!

They'd been saying it was the end of variety since about 1789.

But it's always survived.

Sadly, when television came along,

that really was the

final nail in the coffin.

Cos you could sit at home, beer was cheaper than it was going to

the pub, sit at home, you could see the people, hear them - almost free.

That's what did variety.

Television was coming in.

Now, for a while that helped to support places like the Empire,

where the big stars went, cos people would then go to see

who they'd seen on television, see them in the Empire live.

But as time went on, people stopped going, they could just

watch them on television, and it just slowly declined and declined.

Television, we've a lot to be thankful for,

but it's killed a lot of acts.

Cos once they were seen on television, who was going to pay to

go and see them on stage?

And also, the City of Glasgow got rid of a lot of the housing

within the city centre, so all of the tenement buildings...

Right round the Pavilion here was tenement buildings,

with people staying in it.

So I think that disappeared as well, people moved out the city

and they didn't come back into the city for a night's entertainment.

-NEWSREADER:

-..tremendous upheaval.

Still, the plan's going ahead pretty fast,

and with the families moved out, the old buildings come crashing down.

The minute they pushed them out to those housing estates,

that's when it started to go down I think, because you couldn't get out.

Before they started redeveloping Glasgow, people stayed within

walking distance of the theatres, or a short tram car or bus ride.

But when they moved them all out to

places like Drumchapel, Castlemilk, Pollok, it was a long bus ride in.

There was no buses after eight o'clock at night,

and then they wondered why they got riots out there!

Nothing for them to do.

I know that the Empire closed in 1963.

And I co-produced the last night in the Glasgow Empire.

And I walked in backstage, and...they're painting it all.

And I knocked at the ladder and the guy looked.

"Oh, Johnny, what you doing?" I said, "What you doing?"

He said, "We're painting all backstage here."

I said, "But they're pulling the place down 10 days fae noo."

He said, "I know that, but it's the Red Army Ensemble for the

"last week, and they just want the place nice for them."

They did a wonderful show, the Red Army, the Russians, the soldiers.

They painted the whole place!

RUSSIAN-STYLE MUSIC

APPLAUSE

I think the last show I saw there before it closed down was

the Russian Army, and that was amazing,

and then, what they did, they brought the usherettes on stage,

and all the front-of-house team were brought on,

because the theatre, sadly, was closing down.

And you'll never guess who was one of the people in it - Albert Finney.

Albert Finney was in it, and Duncan Macrae,

and at the very end they both came out with pickaxes and struck

the first blows into the stage in the demolition of the Empire.

And that was the last thing at the Empire, but a guy e-mailed me

at one point regarding it, he was one of the demolishing team.

He said, "Well, I'm actually the last guy to sing in the Empire.

"Before we demolished the stage I went up

"and sang Champion the Wonder Horse."

MUSIC: "Champion the Wonder Horse" by Frankie Laine

Thought it was sad, it was a great shame,

because it was a great theatre.

We sang Auld Lang Syne like it's never been sung before.

Yeah. It was sad to see it go, it really was.

MUSIC: "Auld Lang Syne" by Robert Burns performed on bagpipes

It was the death of a theatre. You don't want to see a theatre die.

Previous to the last night,

they had taken all the lead weights out the bottom of the curtains.

Sold them off to the scrap merchant, made a few bob for theirselves.

And made arrangements to sell the velvet curtains once

the theatre shut,

which they did as soon as the shows shut down.

The next morning they brought the curtains down, rolled them up.

The guy they were selling them to came round in his van,

put them in the van, and he just buggered off, he never paid them,

went away with the curtains, they never got a ha'penny for them.

But somebody somewhere's probably

got a set of curtains made from the Empire.

They turned it into a big office block

and I think that lay half-empty for a long time.

Dino's restaurant's there at the front of Sauchiehall Street,

and an Ann Summers shop, right on the corner.

HE LAUGHS

There used to be a plaque there, just next to the Ann Summers shop,

but somebody at some point has went round Glasgow

and nicked all the plaques where the theatres used to be. Disappeared.

NEWSREADER: The Alhambra Theatre.

Until not so very long ago,

the showplace of show business north of the border.

To the public, it was the ultimate in theatre-going,

the big night out of the live show circuit.

Going to Alhambra meant your good suit, or for the ladies,

a party dress and a special hairdo.

Now, alas, the theatre has been stripped of all its finery.

The place lies empty, gathering dust

and awaiting the imminent arrival of the bulldozers which will

render this once high temple of

sophisticated variety

into a shapeless mass of rubble and twisted girders.

Before anybody had any chance to do something about stopping them...

..they actually moved in the day after they'd said

they were thinking about stopping it, and demolished one of the walls.

They don't do that now, I think

they've got to get permission to knock things down, haven't they?

Not just a few bob, "Get it down."

It was the most wonderful theatre I think I've ever

been in in my life, and I've played some rather good ones in London.

But the Alhambra was very, very special.

This is all that remains of the Alhambra Theatre - at one time

the biggest, the newest and the best-equipped theatre in Scotland.

It was very sad. I remember an old actor

saying to me, "This is the death of the dinosaurs",

he said, and it was all very downbeat and sad really.

But we still have live theatre, which is

the thing that it's all about.

Well, fortunately there is still pantomime,

and fortunately it still maintains a tradition.

-Hiya, pals!

-AUDIENCE: Hiya!

Because they do get to join in, and the children love it,

and if the children love it, the adults love it.

What do you call a Scottish Red Indian?

I don't know, what do you call a Scottish Red Indian?

Hawk-eye The Noo.

A lot of pantos have moved on and become big shows

rather than audience participation,

we've kept a traditional in our panto

of audience participation,

but bring it into today's technology with lighting and lasers

and special effects, and it's probably our main show in the year.

< Oh! Oh, my goodness.

-What's he doing?

-Praying.

-Praying?

If we do a good panto, and we get good money for panto,

that keeps us going, we don't need to be bothered running up

and down the country doing other things.

At our stage, and everybody says, "Oh, you're so lucky",

and I say, "No, I've worked for it, I've been 50 years in the game."

I used to get so angry when I read in the papers

"He's now reduced to playing pantomime."

I thought "REDUCED to playing pantomime"?

My pantomimes were as glamorous as the television show.

APPLAUSE

LAUGHTER

# I'm Neptune's daughter

# Love sudsy water

# Come and plunge your sponge into my beautiful foam... #

This is a creation which must be as good as the television's,

and therefore I want - if I'm doing dame -

I want the dame things to look wonderful.

I was a complete chandelier in one, then pressed a button

and it all lit up, that kind of thing.

I think my costumes probably cost more than any other

costumes that anybody has had, but I could be wrong about that.

But I also loved those pantomimes, because you could tell

the whole story but then keep putting in dialect words.

I remember when I was playing an ugly sister,

Cinderella left an invitation to the ball on a mantelpiece,

and I had a long glove to the elbow,

and when you did that...

it could look like a strange snake.

And when the ugly sister spotted this ball ticket -

which she shouldn't have -

in her mind...

..this snake-like thing went out, and as you did that and got nearer

and nearer you could hear the whole audience going...

breathing in, as I grabbed it and said...

"Where did this ball ticket come fae?"

Now the "come fae", of course, was a huge laugh.

Because that's how they say, "Come from."

The humour, you don't have to think about it

because it is the humour of the people, it's your humour,

it's what you were brought up with since birth.

# For these are my mountains and this is my glen... #

HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER

LYRICS DROWNED OUT BY LAUGHTER

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

When I played pantomime south of the border I didn't enjoy it nearly

so much, because you'd to cut out all those dialect words,

and all those dialect words is why I used to go back and do it!

Note carefully the key word "helza".

This is we are apt to use at social functions thus.

Or...

And most frequently we say...

LAUGHTER

I appeared with him in the Theatre Royal in Glasgow,

my first pantomime, and that was Cinderella.

And Stanley Baxter was Buttons.

And he was the best Buttons I have ever seen,

I used to stand in the wings every night and cry,

the minute he proposed to Cinderella it used to break my heart,

cos she turned him down obviously.

But he did it so beautifully that the tears would be streaming down

your number five, nine and three greasepaint make-up that you wore.

Somebody said once, I think it might have been Sybil Thorndike,

that the national theatre of Scotland is pantomime.

There's some truth in it. We take it much more seriously.

Pantomime is... It's like group therapy.

I mean, you're sitting there in your dressing room

half an hour before the curtain. The Tannoy's on.

They're all coming in, and the noise and the patter.

They're talking to their kids,

"Oh, you've never seen, wait till you see this, bla bla bla."

And it's crackling off the wall, the Tannoy.

And then the overture, the curtain goes up,

and everybody cheers, we haven't even said hello!

CHEERING

3,000 people cheer, it's like...a drug.

As I say, I would prescribe it on the National Health.

Never mind the pills, give them tickets for the pantomime.

Oops!

MUSIC: "I Wish I Was In Glasgow" performed by Iain MacKintosh

# I wish I was in Glasgow

# With some good old friends of mine

# Some good old rough companions

# Some good old smooth red wine

# We would talk about the old days

# And the old town's sad decline

# And drink to the boys on the road

# Glasgow gave me more than it ever took away

# And prepared me for life on the road. #