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Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes' office. Good morning. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:33 | |
Who's calling? | 0:02:33 | 0:02:35 | |
No. | 0:02:35 | 0:02:37 | |
Morning, Janet. How are you? | 0:02:39 | 0:02:42 | |
-Fine, and you? -Did you have a good night? -Not bad. And you? | 0:02:42 | 0:02:46 | |
-Good audience? -Picking up. | 0:02:46 | 0:02:48 | |
Good. Glad to hear it. | 0:02:48 | 0:02:51 | |
-Was Eric all right? -Yes, fine. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
-Good. -I'll just get your tea. | 0:02:54 | 0:02:57 | |
HATTIE JACQUES: 'You know that one three down, five letters, brother and sister born at the same time? | 0:03:08 | 0:03:15 | |
'That was "twins".' | 0:03:15 | 0:03:17 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:03:17 | 0:03:20 | |
ERIC SYKES: 'I put that in. | 0:03:20 | 0:03:22 | |
'No, you put "twits".' | 0:03:22 | 0:03:25 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:03:25 | 0:03:27 | |
'I was thinking of us.' | 0:03:27 | 0:03:31 | |
MALE VOICE: 'It's all done with mirrors.' | 0:03:35 | 0:03:38 | |
KNOCK ON DOOR | 0:03:49 | 0:03:51 | |
< Hi, Eric! | 0:03:54 | 0:03:56 | |
Morning. | 0:03:56 | 0:03:59 | |
-Morning, Janet. -Hi. | 0:04:02 | 0:04:04 | |
TOMMY COOPER: 'To look at me, you wouldn't think I've had the flu. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:15 | |
'I was in bed with 104. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:18 | |
'That's a lot of people in one bed.' | 0:04:18 | 0:04:20 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:04:20 | 0:04:23 | |
Every morning, Eric has his cup of coffee. | 0:04:46 | 0:04:49 | |
And this is the mug that Norma gave him - "Golfaholic". | 0:04:49 | 0:04:54 | |
Plus he always has his four ginger nuts. | 0:04:55 | 0:04:59 | |
Not three or five - four. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:02 | |
If there's too little, he asks for more, and if there's too many, he just doesn't eat them. | 0:05:02 | 0:05:08 | |
No, not in a couple of days' time. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:28 | |
Eric's in the West End at the moment in Caught In The Net. | 0:05:28 | 0:05:33 | |
No, I'm sorry. Really, he's absolutely... | 0:05:37 | 0:05:41 | |
OK. Thank you. Bye-bye. | 0:05:42 | 0:05:45 | |
Next week, rehearsals(!) They're all mad. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:50 | |
WOMAN'S VOICE: 'The biggest majority of Lancashire girls for cotton. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:58 | |
'We all had to go to the mills. They were weaving, winding, reeling, | 0:05:58 | 0:06:03 | |
'blanket seller, picking the cops. They were everything. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:07 | |
'I was brought up in a world of cotton mills. Cobbled streets, rows of identical houses | 0:06:07 | 0:06:14 | |
'differing only in numbers. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:16 | |
'Early memory - used to lie in bed and hear the sound of clogs like giant ratchets | 0:06:16 | 0:06:23 | |
'as sleepy workers streamed down Ward Street in the darkness to the factories. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:30 | |
'Ten minutes of endless clop-clopping, the cacophony of clogs and a sudden petering out. | 0:06:30 | 0:06:38 | |
'A silence broken only by the mournful factory hooter. | 0:06:38 | 0:06:43 | |
'It's then I waited. Seconds, minutes I stared at the dark ceiling | 0:06:43 | 0:06:49 | |
'and waited. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:52 | |
'And, eventually, the scrambled, frenzied panic-stricken clack-clack | 0:06:52 | 0:06:56 | |
'of the one who was going to be late. | 0:06:56 | 0:06:59 | |
'Whether it was the same person every day, I don't know. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:05 | |
'But he was the one I will remember. | 0:07:05 | 0:07:07 | |
'That pitiful slockering of clogs as he made his way to the implacable iron gates of the factory. | 0:07:07 | 0:07:14 | |
'I know now why I'll never forget him - | 0:07:15 | 0:07:20 | |
'it was me, and is.' | 0:07:20 | 0:07:24 | |
MUSIC: "Clair De Lune" by Debussy | 0:07:24 | 0:07:27 | |
'May 1923 was a very momentous year. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:33 | |
'In the British Empire in that year, cotton was king and my father was working in the cotton mills. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:40 | |
'The Duke of York was married. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:46 | |
'He became King George VI, | 0:07:46 | 0:07:49 | |
'and his wife, the Queen Mother, is still alive, God bless her. | 0:07:49 | 0:07:54 | |
'The Communist Party hold a mass rally in Hyde Park - one of the first ever. | 0:07:58 | 0:08:04 | |
'We had a new prime minister - Stanley Baldwin. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:09 | |
'And of course, the year 1923 was the first Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, | 0:08:09 | 0:08:14 | |
'when it is in history books about the policeman on the white horse and spectators invaded the pitch. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:21 | |
'Incidentally, it was Bolton against West Ham. | 0:08:23 | 0:08:27 | |
'But the most momentous thing about May 1923 - | 0:08:29 | 0:08:33 | |
'I was born. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:35 | |
'Well, it was important to me!' | 0:08:35 | 0:08:38 | |
If I want to write something, it seems to be here. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:56 | |
The minute I come in through the door there and I close it, | 0:08:56 | 0:09:01 | |
then I'm in MY world... | 0:09:01 | 0:09:05 | |
of creation. | 0:09:05 | 0:09:08 | |
I can't tell you how many shows I've written here, | 0:09:08 | 0:09:12 | |
or how many films, and everything I've learnt. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:17 | |
I used to have the floor above, the office above, but now I've got the ballroom suite! | 0:09:50 | 0:09:56 | |
It's got icing on the ceiling. You wouldn't believe it was derelict. | 0:09:56 | 0:10:02 | |
All of the photographs that I have around | 0:10:15 | 0:10:19 | |
depict my life from almost when I started. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:23 | |
See, my comedy is 1,000 years old. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:41 | |
Comedy is what you laugh at. If you laugh at it honestly, it's funny. | 0:10:41 | 0:10:46 | |
If it's funny, it's comedy. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
I didn't know I could write. | 0:10:56 | 0:10:59 | |
A fortune teller - this was when I was in my first revue in Swansea, opening night. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:06 | |
She came to the digs where everyone was staying. | 0:11:06 | 0:11:10 | |
She told my fortune and she said, | 0:11:10 | 0:11:12 | |
"Your mother's dead, isn't she?" I said, "Yeah." | 0:11:12 | 0:11:16 | |
She said, "She's been dead a long time." I said, "She died at childbirth. I never knew her." | 0:11:16 | 0:11:22 | |
And she said, "Do you ever feel that someone's walked over your grave, like a touch on the shoulder?" | 0:11:22 | 0:11:30 | |
I said, "Yeah." I didn't, actually. | 0:11:30 | 0:11:33 | |
But I didn't want her to feel unhappy. | 0:11:33 | 0:11:37 | |
And then a few weeks after that, I felt something like that. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:41 | |
The same day, I wrote a very funny thing. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:46 | |
And then I started to write other funny things for other people. | 0:11:46 | 0:11:52 | |
And I realised that I could write. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:56 | |
And since then, whenever I've got that thing, | 0:11:56 | 0:12:01 | |
I know I'm going to do something good or something wonderful will happen. And that is my mother - | 0:12:01 | 0:12:08 | |
although we never met. | 0:12:08 | 0:12:11 | |
All I have of my mother is that picture. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:23 | |
He's very orderly... | 0:12:29 | 0:12:31 | |
very punctual. | 0:12:31 | 0:12:33 | |
Likes everything to be exactly as it was. | 0:12:33 | 0:12:38 | |
Hates change. | 0:12:38 | 0:12:40 | |
And it's a lot of fun with Eric. | 0:12:40 | 0:12:44 | |
We've been in the same building since August 1966. | 0:12:49 | 0:12:54 | |
But I didn't start looking after Eric until '84, '85. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:58 | |
I was looking after Spike in 1966, | 0:12:58 | 0:13:01 | |
but it was about '84, '85 with Eric. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:04 | |
How did that come about that you started to work with Eric? | 0:13:04 | 0:13:10 | |
Well, we'd always been in the same building, as I say, | 0:13:10 | 0:13:14 | |
and Eric's manager had a terrible accident. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:18 | |
He died, in fact. | 0:13:18 | 0:13:21 | |
And he asked me to sort him out. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:24 | |
At the time, I said, "I've got enough on my plate with Spike. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:29 | |
"I'll run the office until you get someone." And it just developed from there. | 0:13:29 | 0:13:35 | |
When we had an office in Shepherd's Bush, | 0:13:35 | 0:13:39 | |
I used to go into the Shepherd's Bush market. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:42 | |
They sold everything. | 0:13:42 | 0:13:45 | |
And I saw this photograph and it was all burnt round the edges. | 0:13:45 | 0:13:50 | |
So I had all of that cut off and had it framed. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:53 | |
So when people come into the office and say, "Who's these two?" | 0:13:53 | 0:13:58 | |
I say, "Search me. No idea." | 0:13:58 | 0:14:02 | |
"So why have you got it up there?" I say, "Because aren't they a lovely couple?" | 0:14:02 | 0:14:08 | |
That's how you used to get married - a carpet in the dirt in the back yard so they don't mess their shoes. | 0:14:08 | 0:14:15 | |
That's what we were like. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:18 | |
I got it because I like the people. | 0:14:18 | 0:14:23 | |
So that was the world that you were a child in? | 0:14:23 | 0:14:27 | |
Yes, but they were probably a London couple. | 0:14:27 | 0:14:30 | |
They're still poor. | 0:14:30 | 0:14:34 | |
You were saying something that Hattie once said that you wanted to be a tram driver as a kid. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:41 | |
Well, I used that in a TV show with Hattie Jacques. | 0:14:41 | 0:14:45 | |
She said, "No, you can't come this, Eric, cos your ambition was to be a tram driver." | 0:14:45 | 0:14:53 | |
I said, "No, not just any tram. | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
"It had to be the illuminated tram at Blackpool. Blackpool illuminations." | 0:14:56 | 0:15:01 | |
And I think that sums it up. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:05 | |
OK, off you go. | 0:15:09 | 0:15:12 | |
Have you seen what they've done to 136? | 0:15:12 | 0:15:16 | |
What, the Sykes? Who else? | 0:15:16 | 0:15:19 | |
Oh, no! | 0:15:19 | 0:15:22 | |
Ooh, Mr Parker! | 0:15:26 | 0:15:30 | |
What have you done to it? | 0:15:31 | 0:15:36 | |
Just brightened it up a bit. | 0:15:36 | 0:15:38 | |
Well, get it off. This is a bus, not a mobile nightclub. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:41 | |
Here, look what I've found! | 0:15:41 | 0:15:45 | |
Hello, Inspector. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
Seen any lions? | 0:15:48 | 0:15:50 | |
Upstairs or downstairs, Eric? | 0:15:50 | 0:15:53 | |
-I think that'll go nicely under the picture of Prince Philip. -Very nice. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:58 | |
Ready to roll! | 0:15:58 | 0:16:01 | |
When I was a child, | 0:16:02 | 0:16:05 | |
I used to write doggerel verse, five lines - Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah | 0:16:05 | 0:16:11 | |
nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:15 | |
I was eight years old then. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:17 | |
I can remember sitting on the cold oilcloth at night | 0:16:17 | 0:16:21 | |
and listening to my father reading out the poems to his cronies. | 0:16:21 | 0:16:26 | |
So probably that was when I started being a writer. | 0:16:26 | 0:16:31 | |
I don't know. | 0:16:31 | 0:16:33 | |
I did want to do something, but I didn't know what. | 0:16:38 | 0:16:43 | |
But the world was your oyster, as long as you didn't get rickets. | 0:16:43 | 0:16:48 | |
"International fishing contest. Bogsea is a resort on the South Coast of England. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:07 | |
"It wasn't in the premier league of holiday resorts. In fact, if all the resorts were a set of teeth..." | 0:17:07 | 0:17:15 | |
" ..In fact, if all the resorts were a set of teeth, | 0:17:15 | 0:17:20 | |
"Bogsea would be the one that had to come out." | 0:17:20 | 0:17:24 | |
"By a freak of nature, gales lashed other happy places on the coast, but Bogsea would face a hurricane. | 0:17:43 | 0:17:50 | |
"In fact, it was said in Brighton, some 30 miles away..." | 0:17:50 | 0:17:55 | |
" ..It was said in Brighton, some 30 miles away, | 0:17:55 | 0:17:59 | |
"they had most of Bogsea's beach." | 0:17:59 | 0:18:02 | |
I've got a thing called macular disciform. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:10 | |
Virtually, they thought... Well, it's incurable. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:15 | |
But they said it always happened to the elderly. | 0:18:15 | 0:18:19 | |
It's the back of the eye wears out. | 0:18:19 | 0:18:22 | |
I still do a lot of writing. | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
It might sound odd to you, a man who can't see is doing a lot of writing. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:30 | |
But then again, you close your eyes and start to write and it probably turns out how you visualise it. | 0:18:30 | 0:18:37 | |
I remember once I did four foolscap sheets. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:42 | |
I took them down to Jenny and I said, "Type this." | 0:18:42 | 0:18:46 | |
Apparently, she went to see Norma and said, | 0:18:46 | 0:18:49 | |
"I don't know how to tell him." "What?" "There's nothing on these four sheets." | 0:18:49 | 0:18:56 | |
All there was was the indentation. | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
My pen had ran out of ink, that's all. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:02 | |
A slight mishap. | 0:19:02 | 0:19:04 | |
I went to a very famous optician. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:12 | |
And he looked at my eye and the back of the eye where it had worn out. | 0:19:12 | 0:19:19 | |
I said, "What do you think of the back of the eye?" He said, "It's a bomb site!" | 0:19:19 | 0:19:25 | |
-PHONE BLEEPS -Yes? | 0:19:25 | 0:19:28 | |
Yes. | 0:19:28 | 0:19:29 | |
Yes, all right, Norma. Well, come up right now. | 0:19:29 | 0:19:34 | |
OK. | 0:19:34 | 0:19:36 | |
You are about to meet Norma Farnes, my manager, my mentor, someone who looks after me. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:43 | |
We get on like a house on fire. | 0:19:43 | 0:19:47 | |
Anyway... | 0:19:49 | 0:19:51 | |
Come in! | 0:19:51 | 0:19:53 | |
Hi, darling. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:56 | |
Hello, love. Now, then... | 0:19:56 | 0:19:59 | |
-For you. -Who am I? I'm Eric! | 0:20:00 | 0:20:03 | |
Oh! | 0:20:07 | 0:20:08 | |
Eric! | 0:20:08 | 0:20:11 | |
There's not too much, Eric. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:19 | |
I'm trying to keep some of it away from you. | 0:20:19 | 0:20:22 | |
This is the things I need to know today. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:25 | |
Your Christmas cards have arrived from the Royal and Ancient, the golf club. | 0:20:28 | 0:20:36 | |
Can you see it? | 0:20:36 | 0:20:38 | |
If you like them, I'll order them for you. It's a nice one. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:43 | |
That's the burn running across. Why is it white? | 0:20:43 | 0:20:47 | |
It's a Christmas card. They've got snow there. | 0:20:47 | 0:20:51 | |
How many Christmases is it since we had snow? | 0:20:51 | 0:20:57 | |
-Shall I order them? -Yes, please. | 0:20:57 | 0:20:59 | |
Do you want to go into spotlight again? It's you without any glasses and a hat on - | 0:20:59 | 0:21:07 | |
a little woolly hat. | 0:21:07 | 0:21:09 | |
-All right. Fine. -Do you want to use that picture again? | 0:21:09 | 0:21:14 | |
Yeah, put it in. | 0:21:14 | 0:21:17 | |
We've been out it so long, people'll think I've passed on. | 0:21:17 | 0:21:21 | |
There's a letter here from Talent Television. | 0:21:21 | 0:21:25 | |
They are going to do a thing called It's Your Funeral. | 0:21:25 | 0:21:30 | |
And after the success of the first series, both critically and publicly, | 0:21:30 | 0:21:37 | |
it's been recommissioned and they're doing insight into the lives of popular celebrities, | 0:21:37 | 0:21:43 | |
revealing a side that is rarely seen through an alternative one-on-one discussion. | 0:21:43 | 0:21:50 | |
They have a wide variety. The first guest was Brian Blessed, | 0:21:50 | 0:21:56 | |
who surprised with a reading from his friend, Kenneth Branagh. | 0:21:56 | 0:22:01 | |
They're in the studio from the 25th of November to the 30th of November. | 0:22:01 | 0:22:07 | |
They wondered if you'd like to take part. | 0:22:07 | 0:22:10 | |
I don't quite know what they want. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:13 | |
They say it's "an edgy, thought-provoking and insightful series | 0:22:13 | 0:22:19 | |
"of 13 half-hour shows that give some of Britain's best-loved personalities | 0:22:19 | 0:22:25 | |
"the chance to talk about their lives and love in the context of arranging their own sendoffs." | 0:22:25 | 0:22:32 | |
"It's a kind of This Is Your Life meets Desert Island Discs..." | 0:22:32 | 0:22:38 | |
Sorry to break you up here. | 0:22:38 | 0:22:42 | |
-This is half an hour with me? -Yeah. On a one-to-one basis. | 0:22:42 | 0:22:47 | |
Basically saying, Eric, what you would like to send you off. | 0:22:47 | 0:22:54 | |
No, darling. I'd say no. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:56 | |
-I don't know why you don't... -I'd rather you ditched that one. -OK. | 0:22:56 | 0:23:01 | |
And I'll go back to my up-the-servants' staircase with a 60-watt bulb. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:07 | |
Any more of those letters and I shall go out the fire escape. | 0:23:07 | 0:23:12 | |
This year, he's done a tour of Charlie's Aunt | 0:23:17 | 0:23:21 | |
and went straight into rehearsals for Caught In The Act. | 0:23:21 | 0:23:25 | |
He can't stop working. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:28 | |
The whole of the summer, he was doing The Others with Nicole Kidman. | 0:23:28 | 0:23:33 | |
Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise had gone to see Eric twice in the West End | 0:23:35 | 0:23:41 | |
when he was doing Moliere, School For Wives, | 0:23:41 | 0:23:45 | |
and also when he did Kafka's Dick. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
And whether it came from there, I do not know. It could. Eric's not sure. | 0:23:48 | 0:23:53 | |
They just liked his performance. | 0:23:53 | 0:23:56 | |
-This is Grace's point of view? -Yeah. -So you don't need to look there? -No. | 0:23:57 | 0:24:03 | |
And action, Eric! | 0:24:05 | 0:24:08 | |
And then there was a phone call out of the blue, wondering if he'd like to take part in it. | 0:24:16 | 0:24:23 | |
At the time, we were going into Charlie's Aunt. | 0:24:23 | 0:24:27 | |
Bill Kenwright was marvellous. He said, "No. Let him go. That's premier division stuff." | 0:24:27 | 0:24:33 | |
He played the part of the gardener. | 0:24:33 | 0:24:36 | |
You will be here. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:38 | |
Eric, you should be this side. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:41 | |
Fiona in the middle. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:44 | |
The lovely director, Alejandro Amenabar, now, what a lovely man. | 0:24:47 | 0:24:52 | |
And I think he was 26 when he started this venture. | 0:24:52 | 0:24:56 | |
He wrote the screenplay, directed it AND wrote the music. | 0:24:56 | 0:25:01 | |
Well done, Alex. | 0:25:01 | 0:25:03 | |
I'm just waiting for a picture of Nicole Kidman. | 0:25:09 | 0:25:13 | |
I really do think she is the best actress, | 0:25:13 | 0:25:17 | |
the best lady... Well, she's on a par with Hattie Jacques for me. | 0:25:17 | 0:25:22 | |
I'd give her all the Oscars in the world for her performance in The Others and Moulin Rouge. | 0:25:22 | 0:25:29 | |
I'd not only give her all the Oscars, | 0:25:29 | 0:25:33 | |
if there's a Nobel Peace Prize, I'd give her that and a baronetcy. | 0:25:33 | 0:25:37 | |
As you can see, the housework has been rather neglected since the servants disappeared a week ago. | 0:25:37 | 0:25:44 | |
- They just vanished? - Into thin air. | 0:25:44 | 0:25:48 | |
OLD LADY: 'Sometimes the world of the dead | 0:25:48 | 0:25:52 | |
'gets mixed up with the world of the living.' | 0:25:52 | 0:25:56 | |
It's very strange, | 0:26:02 | 0:26:04 | |
but when I came down to London after the war, I thought London was ready for me, but I was wrong. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:10 | |
It was the worst winter we'd had for a long time. | 0:26:10 | 0:26:14 | |
And I was walking along the Embankment, Friday night, with a penny in my pocket, | 0:26:14 | 0:26:19 | |
and on Saturday morning, I had to pay for the week's lodgings. I was walking through thick fog. | 0:26:19 | 0:26:25 | |
I saw silent shapes pass, and then I heard, "Eric!" out of the fog. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:31 | |
It was Bill Fraser in a thick-pea souper! | 0:26:31 | 0:26:35 | |
I'll tell you how I know Bill Fraser. When the war was over, we all moved up to Schleswig-Holstein. | 0:26:36 | 0:26:44 | |
There was a notice - "All those with theatrical experience put your name down." | 0:26:44 | 0:26:49 | |
I'd had no theatrical experience, but it was better than the cookhouse. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:55 | |
Remember what it said, Eric? "It is proposed to put on a concert for Christmas. | 0:26:55 | 0:27:01 | |
"Those wishing to take part, report to the skittle alley, Eindhoven." | 0:27:01 | 0:27:06 | |
And the auditioning officer was Bill Fraser. | 0:27:06 | 0:27:11 | |
We were in this rather cold, dirty skittle alley, | 0:27:11 | 0:27:15 | |
and there was a hunched-up little airman sitting in the corner. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:19 | |
I said to him, "What do you do?" He said, "I do drunks," | 0:27:19 | 0:27:24 | |
and fell about all down the skittle alley. And that's how he started. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:30 | |
So I knew him from then. | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
Then to meet him - | 0:27:33 | 0:27:35 | |
that was the first miracle. | 0:27:35 | 0:27:38 | |
A miracle! Not just a coincidence. | 0:27:38 | 0:27:41 | |
He was starring in a play called Between Ourselves at the Playhouse. | 0:27:41 | 0:27:46 | |
He kept me for three weeks. "Would you write for me?" I'd never written for anybody. | 0:27:46 | 0:27:52 | |
And I said, "Certainly." He was just paying me every week because he could see I was on my last legs. | 0:27:52 | 0:28:00 | |
So I went back home. But that was my first miracle. | 0:28:04 | 0:28:08 | |
And all those years that I'd been there, | 0:28:08 | 0:28:12 | |
my mother's still been looking out for me. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:15 | |
And I hadn't realised it. | 0:28:15 | 0:28:18 | |
I think that's another example... of my mother... | 0:28:18 | 0:28:24 | |
As I say, we never met. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:28 | |
But she's been looking after me all my life. There's been too many of these things to be coincidence. | 0:28:28 | 0:28:36 | |
All this body, this cadaver of mine, | 0:28:36 | 0:28:39 | |
is just a carrier of the gift that belongs to us both. | 0:28:39 | 0:28:43 | |
And she sees that I carry it out. | 0:28:43 | 0:28:47 | |
When my time's up, she'll say, "Come on, then." | 0:28:47 | 0:28:52 | |
And I shall be very happy. | 0:28:52 | 0:28:54 | |
# You'll be a little lovelier... # | 0:29:12 | 0:29:15 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:29:15 | 0:29:18 | |
Poor old Pluto. Look at that face. | 0:29:24 | 0:29:28 | |
Looks horrible. It's like Jekyll and Hyde. | 0:29:28 | 0:29:32 | |
-What's the matter now, Eric? -Have you been using my Pluto soap? -No. You left it in the water. | 0:29:32 | 0:29:39 | |
Oh, no, this has been used. | 0:29:39 | 0:29:41 | |
If I'd left it in the water, it'd be shapeless all over. | 0:29:41 | 0:29:45 | |
It's only his face that's gone. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:48 | |
When I came here in 1966, this was the most extraordinary building, | 0:29:50 | 0:29:56 | |
filled with writers and artists. | 0:29:56 | 0:29:59 | |
They all had their own rooms. | 0:29:59 | 0:30:01 | |
Room 6 was always Spike's room. He never changed rooms. | 0:30:01 | 0:30:06 | |
Others changed, he never did. | 0:30:06 | 0:30:08 | |
-What was he doing at the time? -He was starting to do the Q6 series. | 0:30:08 | 0:30:14 | |
And he'd also started opening files - Spike's a great file man - | 0:30:14 | 0:30:19 | |
for his book Adolf Hitler - My Part In His Downfall. | 0:30:19 | 0:30:24 | |
And getting together on the Q series. But he never came out. | 0:30:24 | 0:30:28 | |
The original loner. | 0:30:28 | 0:30:31 | |
-What happened if anyone disturbed him? -I put a note on the door. I won't tell you what it said. | 0:30:31 | 0:30:37 | |
SPIKE MILLIGAN: 'Oh, what a terrible tragedy it all was. | 0:30:37 | 0:30:43 | |
'I love the early morning in the park, don't you? | 0:30:43 | 0:30:46 | |
'What's this? A human leg...followed by a body that hasn't been lived in for a long time. | 0:30:46 | 0:30:52 | |
'It's me. Oh-ho. | 0:30:52 | 0:30:54 | |
'Anyway, I was heading north for the great outdoor parlours - the shaving parlours of Harry Secombe.' | 0:30:54 | 0:31:01 | |
I wrote with Spike. | 0:31:02 | 0:31:05 | |
Some mornings, we'd spend the whole time laughing. | 0:31:05 | 0:31:09 | |
And then we argued one day. | 0:31:09 | 0:31:13 | |
"It should be one word in." I said, "It doesn't need it." | 0:31:13 | 0:31:18 | |
He said it did, so we argued. | 0:31:18 | 0:31:21 | |
He picked up a paperweight and threw it at me. It went through the window and fell five floors. | 0:31:21 | 0:31:28 | |
And I was shocked. | 0:31:28 | 0:31:31 | |
And I went out and it was broken. | 0:31:31 | 0:31:35 | |
And I, stupidly, "Remember what day this was." | 0:31:35 | 0:31:38 | |
And I said, "From now on, YOU write one week and I'll write the other." So we wrote alternate weeks. | 0:31:38 | 0:31:45 | |
We were still great mates. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:48 | |
But he used to get this terrible depression sometimes. | 0:31:48 | 0:31:53 | |
-HATTIE: 'What is it now?! -Can you get Mr Brown? | 0:31:53 | 0:31:59 | |
'Oh, not again!' | 0:31:59 | 0:32:03 | |
Room 5. This is where Ray and Alan used to be - Galton and Simpson. | 0:32:03 | 0:32:07 | |
And I can't remember what they were writing, but it was '66, so they would be doing Steptoe And Son. | 0:32:07 | 0:32:14 | |
Mind you, they had just finished working with Tony...Hancock. | 0:32:14 | 0:32:21 | |
I think he had room 4 when I first came here. | 0:32:21 | 0:32:26 | |
Room 4 downstairs. | 0:32:26 | 0:32:28 | |
So there was Spike there and Ray and Alan here. | 0:32:28 | 0:32:32 | |
Then we went up where Eric was. | 0:32:32 | 0:32:35 | |
' "U, V, W, X, Y, Z." And I said...' | 0:32:35 | 0:32:40 | |
"You're going back in the box!" "I'm not going back in the box...!" | 0:32:40 | 0:32:44 | |
I must stop smoking. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:47 | |
Is that loose... | 0:32:47 | 0:32:49 | |
..or is it my fingers going in and out? | 0:32:50 | 0:32:53 | |
This is where Eric used to be. | 0:33:02 | 0:33:05 | |
As I said, people changed around a bit, but Eric used to be here. | 0:33:05 | 0:33:11 | |
' - What the Dickens is going on? - Mr Brown, it's Eric. - What's the matter with him? ' | 0:33:11 | 0:33:18 | |
His toe... LAUGHTER | 0:33:18 | 0:33:22 | |
It's not stuck in the tap again?! | 0:33:22 | 0:33:25 | |
It's only a little bit stuck. It took two hours to get it out! | 0:33:25 | 0:33:30 | |
It won't take you a minute, now you've got the hang of it. | 0:33:30 | 0:33:35 | |
I don't put a pen to paper until I have it all here. | 0:33:35 | 0:33:39 | |
FRANKIE HOWERD: The boss said to me, "I want you to collect some goods from the depot to deliver to Crewe." | 0:33:39 | 0:33:46 | |
I thought, "Oh, good! Crewe!" Cos I've always wanted to go abroad. | 0:33:46 | 0:33:51 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:33:51 | 0:33:53 | |
I was in repertory in Warminster. | 0:33:53 | 0:33:56 | |
This was in 1947, and I never actually met Frank. One of the lads who was with us phoned me up one day | 0:33:56 | 0:34:04 | |
and said that Frankie Howerd had been trying to get in touch with me. | 0:34:04 | 0:34:09 | |
"Frankie Howerd?" That was like a call from Buckingham Palace. | 0:34:09 | 0:34:13 | |
He said, "Do you think you could write for me?" | 0:34:13 | 0:34:18 | |
He was a messenger boy and he had to take two elephants to Crewe. | 0:34:18 | 0:34:22 | |
'But the way people stared! | 0:34:22 | 0:34:25 | |
'You'd think they'd never seen two elephants go down the underground! | 0:34:25 | 0:34:30 | |
'Here, listen! | 0:34:30 | 0:34:33 | |
'Titter, ye may!' | 0:34:33 | 0:34:36 | |
'Why does he want to put his toe there in the first place? | 0:34:38 | 0:34:42 | |
'He doesn't get much fun out of life.' | 0:34:42 | 0:34:46 | |
It was like a co-operative - the writers writing for the artists. | 0:34:49 | 0:34:54 | |
And they all put in 10%, so if a writer or artist wasn't working, they had something to draw on. | 0:34:54 | 0:35:01 | |
At least they could pay their rent. | 0:35:01 | 0:35:04 | |
Room 8, there were quite a lot of writers in this room - | 0:35:04 | 0:35:08 | |
not all comedy writers. | 0:35:08 | 0:35:10 | |
DR WHO THEME | 0:35:10 | 0:35:13 | |
Terry Nation was one of the writers here. | 0:35:19 | 0:35:25 | |
And he wrote the Daleks. | 0:35:25 | 0:35:27 | |
I'd forgotten how much children's stuff has come from this building. | 0:35:29 | 0:35:34 | |
You tend to think it's just comedy. | 0:35:34 | 0:35:37 | |
Of course, Spike did BadJelly The Witch and Eric did the voice-over for the Teletubbies. | 0:35:37 | 0:35:43 | |
-One... -One...! -..two... -..two..! | 0:35:43 | 0:35:48 | |
-..three... -..three..! | 0:35:48 | 0:35:51 | |
-..four! -..four! | 0:35:52 | 0:35:55 | |
Teletubbies! | 0:35:55 | 0:35:57 | |
Back in a couple of hours. | 0:36:04 | 0:36:07 | |
-OK. -I'm late now! | 0:36:07 | 0:36:09 | |
Who was that? | 0:36:16 | 0:36:19 | |
Janet! Was that Eric? | 0:36:19 | 0:36:21 | |
-Yeah. -He's gone without me! | 0:36:21 | 0:36:24 | |
Honestly! He really is the end! | 0:36:24 | 0:36:27 | |
Right, let's go. John Ballantyne will be there, won't he? | 0:36:35 | 0:36:39 | |
I first met him in 1962, maybe 1963. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:03 | |
At that time, he was doing his show regularly at Television Centre. | 0:37:03 | 0:37:09 | |
I used to go to the Centre three or four times a week, | 0:37:09 | 0:37:13 | |
just to mop out the ear and make it suitable for him to put the hearing aid in. | 0:37:13 | 0:37:19 | |
# Rolling down to Rio! | 0:37:28 | 0:37:31 | |
-# With a.. # -QUACK! | 0:37:31 | 0:37:33 | |
# With a bounce! # | 0:37:33 | 0:37:35 | |
Thank you. | 0:37:35 | 0:37:38 | |
Woo-woo! | 0:37:38 | 0:37:40 | |
He'd already had major surgery on his right ear. But when the trouble flared up in his left ear, | 0:37:47 | 0:37:53 | |
there was a complication of this very long-standing | 0:37:53 | 0:37:57 | |
chronic middle-ear disease, dating back to his early childhood. | 0:37:57 | 0:38:03 | |
And it's known as the silent disease because it produces so few symptoms. | 0:38:03 | 0:38:08 | |
It's like a volcano which can sometimes erupt. | 0:38:08 | 0:38:13 | |
And it erupted in a big way. | 0:38:13 | 0:38:15 | |
And it's erupted because the disease started to penetrate the middle ear, | 0:38:15 | 0:38:20 | |
which is the basic source of the trouble, into the inner ear, | 0:38:20 | 0:38:25 | |
which is the basic organ of hearing and balance. | 0:38:25 | 0:38:29 | |
And this necessitated urgent surgery. | 0:38:29 | 0:38:34 | |
It was a life-saving operation that had to be done to prevent further complications | 0:38:34 | 0:38:40 | |
such as meningitis, brain abscess, | 0:38:40 | 0:38:43 | |
even death. | 0:38:43 | 0:38:45 | |
I wouldn't say I was religious, | 0:38:55 | 0:38:58 | |
but I did pray once. | 0:38:58 | 0:39:00 | |
In 1960, I went into the hospital for an operation. | 0:39:00 | 0:39:05 | |
And I came out of the anaesthetic and I was stone deaf. | 0:39:06 | 0:39:13 | |
And I prayed, not that I thought it was going to be cured, | 0:39:13 | 0:39:18 | |
I thought I'd never hear the birds singing or my children's voices. | 0:39:18 | 0:39:22 | |
I just prayed for the strength to live with it. | 0:39:22 | 0:39:26 | |
And I woke up in the morning, and the nurse asked, "How are you?" | 0:39:26 | 0:39:31 | |
I said, "I'm very well." She said, "You could hear me!" | 0:39:31 | 0:39:35 | |
He managed to get over it | 0:39:43 | 0:39:45 | |
with the help of the hearing aid. | 0:39:45 | 0:39:48 | |
And in the end, many years later, | 0:39:48 | 0:39:52 | |
he finished up with the bone-conducted spectacle hearing aid, | 0:39:52 | 0:39:57 | |
which he now wears, though it has no lens and he has no vision, virtually, to see through. | 0:39:57 | 0:40:04 | |
I brought you the Radio Times covers that I promised to look out for you. | 0:40:07 | 0:40:12 | |
Lovely. | 0:40:12 | 0:40:14 | |
This is my favourite. | 0:40:14 | 0:40:16 | |
-I was just saying to Eric the other day, didn't Hattie have the most wonderful smile? -Lovely. | 0:40:16 | 0:40:23 | |
She not only lit up the screen, she lit my life up. | 0:40:23 | 0:40:29 | |
When you think that was almost a third of my life. | 0:40:29 | 0:40:32 | |
-Chin-chin. -Chin-chin. -Chin-chin! | 0:40:32 | 0:40:35 | |
To the next show, whenever that is. | 0:40:35 | 0:40:38 | |
Hopefully. Cheers! | 0:40:38 | 0:40:40 | |
I saw Hattie very frequently and got to know her quite well. | 0:40:40 | 0:40:45 | |
And she was always great company. She was a great actress. | 0:40:45 | 0:40:49 | |
Johnny Speight, he wrote this thing for Hat and me, this comedy we were doing. | 0:40:52 | 0:40:58 | |
And we were husband and wife. | 0:40:58 | 0:41:01 | |
I said, "I've only one stipulation, John, | 0:41:01 | 0:41:04 | |
"we're not husband and wife. | 0:41:04 | 0:41:07 | |
"We are brother and sister. | 0:41:07 | 0:41:10 | |
"On top of which, we are twins. | 0:41:10 | 0:41:14 | |
"We're not only twins, we're identical twins." | 0:41:14 | 0:41:20 | |
Good afternoon, everybody. | 0:41:24 | 0:41:27 | |
On behalf of Driver Sykes and his crew, we welcome you aboard Route Master 136. | 0:41:27 | 0:41:34 | |
There will be no smoking on the lower decks. | 0:41:34 | 0:41:38 | |
We will be travelling at about 9mph. | 0:41:38 | 0:41:41 | |
Our ETA is ten past eleven, our time. | 0:41:41 | 0:41:45 | |
We trust you will all have a pleasant journey. | 0:41:45 | 0:41:48 | |
The weather in Copshill is fine. | 0:41:48 | 0:41:51 | |
Bonjour, mesdames et messieurs. | 0:41:51 | 0:41:55 | |
Bienvenue, maitre... | 0:41:55 | 0:41:58 | |
TING! TING! Give me a chance to say it! | 0:41:59 | 0:42:03 | |
I didn't refer to her size because she was built beautifully. | 0:42:04 | 0:42:08 | |
To me, she wasn't fat, she was big. | 0:42:08 | 0:42:11 | |
And what she did, she moved so gracefully. | 0:42:11 | 0:42:14 | |
And to get cheap jokes out of something like that | 0:42:14 | 0:42:20 | |
is not my system. I think Hat appreciated that. | 0:42:20 | 0:42:24 | |
And now, ladies and gentlemen, it's record time! | 0:42:24 | 0:42:28 | |
Our first record this evening has been requested by Mr Taylor, | 0:42:28 | 0:42:32 | |
who I believe is making his first trip with us this evening. | 0:42:32 | 0:42:37 | |
-Your first journey from Woodlane to Copshill? -Yes. I've been spending an evening with friends. -Jolly good! | 0:42:37 | 0:42:44 | |
Coffee, anyone? | 0:42:52 | 0:42:55 | |
Simpson and Galton used to say, "All your stuff is candy floss. | 0:42:55 | 0:43:01 | |
"It has no bite." | 0:43:01 | 0:43:04 | |
-Did that annoy you? -No! | 0:43:04 | 0:43:07 | |
I said, "What you fail to recognise | 0:43:07 | 0:43:12 | |
"is that the stuff you do has a social point, a message. | 0:43:12 | 0:43:17 | |
"There's enough messages coming out of TV without you adding to them." | 0:43:17 | 0:43:22 | |
-Six o'clock in the morning, we leave the terminus. It's three o'clock now. -But we haven't got a bus! | 0:43:23 | 0:43:30 | |
Not now, we haven't, but in a week's time, he'll be begging us! | 0:43:30 | 0:43:35 | |
Right, stand there. I don't care. | 0:43:35 | 0:43:38 | |
TING! TING! | 0:43:38 | 0:43:40 | |
The bottom line is are they laughing, are they enjoying it? | 0:43:40 | 0:43:45 | |
If they're not, go back to the cotton mill. | 0:43:45 | 0:43:48 | |
Good morning. Good morning. | 0:44:03 | 0:44:06 | |
Hello! Good morning! | 0:44:06 | 0:44:09 | |
Hello, dear. | 0:44:09 | 0:44:11 | |
I'm so sorry. | 0:44:11 | 0:44:14 | |
I have my own personal views on this and I think everything was secure. Everything was nice. | 0:44:14 | 0:44:21 | |
Eric likes everything secure in his life. | 0:44:21 | 0:44:25 | |
It manifests itself in the writing. | 0:44:25 | 0:44:28 | |
Hence that secure feeling that you have when you see Eric and Hattie. | 0:44:28 | 0:44:33 | |
Oh, I'm so sorry. We're full up. | 0:44:33 | 0:44:37 | |
So sorry. We'll be back in three hours. | 0:44:37 | 0:44:40 | |
That series is like my philosophy - in every dustbin there's a daffodil. | 0:44:53 | 0:44:58 | |
And this was the daffodil in this dustbin | 0:44:58 | 0:45:02 | |
where we lived. | 0:45:02 | 0:45:04 | |
And life is what you make it. | 0:45:04 | 0:45:07 | |
I just had a happy world. | 0:45:09 | 0:45:12 | |
She radiated happiness, I'd say. | 0:45:12 | 0:45:15 | |
The company was... As soon as she came in, you smiled. | 0:45:15 | 0:45:20 | |
I don't know why and I can never explain, | 0:45:20 | 0:45:24 | |
but when we come here, we always walk through the park. | 0:45:24 | 0:45:28 | |
When we're going back, we always walk along the Bayswater Road. | 0:45:28 | 0:45:33 | |
Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes' office. Good afternoon. | 0:45:59 | 0:46:03 | |
This is her office. Norma Farnes manages both of them. | 0:46:03 | 0:46:10 | |
I'm sorry. People say it only takes 20 minutes, but I've got 40 people saying that. It's just not possible. | 0:46:14 | 0:46:22 | |
Now, then, if I don't reply to these, they'll think I'm dead. | 0:46:27 | 0:46:32 | |
I'm sorry... | 0:46:44 | 0:46:47 | |
it...took...me...some weeks... to reply. | 0:46:47 | 0:46:54 | |
Eric's my best pal. No matter where I am, there's hardly a week goes by | 0:46:57 | 0:47:04 | |
when I don't phone him. | 0:47:04 | 0:47:06 | |
He's got a lovely way of writing. You open the letter and it's funny. | 0:47:06 | 0:47:12 | |
Where the address would be - same address but the roof leaks. | 0:47:12 | 0:47:17 | |
And I hope... | 0:47:17 | 0:47:19 | |
this letter... | 0:47:19 | 0:47:22 | |
will make up... | 0:47:22 | 0:47:24 | |
..for it. | 0:47:28 | 0:47:30 | |
The letter...I have in mind... | 0:47:32 | 0:47:37 | |
is... | 0:47:37 | 0:47:40 | |
H. | 0:47:40 | 0:47:43 | |
The Goons learned from Eric, truly. | 0:47:45 | 0:47:49 | |
It doesn't seem possible cos it's all down to Spike and Michael. | 0:47:49 | 0:47:54 | |
But they learned from Eric. | 0:47:54 | 0:47:57 | |
It was such unusual stuff. | 0:47:58 | 0:48:01 | |
He was trying to take an elephant on the tube. | 0:48:01 | 0:48:07 | |
He got so much out of it. | 0:48:07 | 0:48:10 | |
We had the Olympic Games and he did this thing with the pole vault. | 0:48:10 | 0:48:16 | |
And he wanted to get on the bus with his pole. It was screamingly funny. | 0:48:16 | 0:48:21 | |
Very good. | 0:48:21 | 0:48:23 | |
And original thinking. He was doing stuff no-one had thought of before. | 0:48:23 | 0:48:29 | |
He still does it now! | 0:48:29 | 0:48:32 | |
Have you ever seen his guitar act? | 0:48:32 | 0:48:35 | |
# Without a golden wand | 0:48:35 | 0:48:39 | |
# Or mystic charms... # | 0:48:40 | 0:48:44 | |
I met Eric after the war, when he was writing for Frankie Howerd. | 0:48:44 | 0:48:49 | |
I said to Frank, "Any chance of your writer writing for me?" | 0:48:49 | 0:48:54 | |
There were terrible setbacks. | 0:48:59 | 0:49:02 | |
He was stone deaf. | 0:49:02 | 0:49:05 | |
# ..It's magic... # One. | 0:49:05 | 0:49:09 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:49:09 | 0:49:13 | |
And in that time, he brought up a family of five - | 0:49:13 | 0:49:17 | |
his wife and four kids. | 0:49:17 | 0:49:20 | |
# ..Why do I tell myself...? # | 0:49:20 | 0:49:24 | |
We've lived side by side, and I don't know if you remember the thing they used to do in the Readers' Digest, | 0:49:24 | 0:49:32 | |
they asked about your most unforgettable character. | 0:49:32 | 0:49:37 | |
Mine has got to be Eric. | 0:49:37 | 0:49:39 | |
# ..The magic is my love | 0:49:39 | 0:49:42 | |
# For yo-o-u. # | 0:49:42 | 0:49:51 | |
I'm proud of my OBE. | 0:49:53 | 0:49:56 | |
I'm proud of my honorary fellowship of Lancashire University. | 0:49:56 | 0:50:01 | |
I'm proud of being a member of the Royal and Ancient. | 0:50:01 | 0:50:05 | |
I'm proud of a lot of things. | 0:50:05 | 0:50:08 | |
I'm most proud of my family - | 0:50:08 | 0:50:11 | |
my wife, my four children. I live through them. They're wonderful. | 0:50:11 | 0:50:16 | |
Well, I can show you on my magic machine. | 0:50:16 | 0:50:21 | |
I've got a lovely picture of my family | 0:50:25 | 0:50:29 | |
when two of them were young children. | 0:50:29 | 0:50:33 | |
I don't know who that is. | 0:50:38 | 0:50:41 | |
Oh, yeah, that's my wife! | 0:50:42 | 0:50:44 | |
By jingo, isn't she attractive? | 0:50:44 | 0:50:48 | |
And that's me. I had a child on my back. That's Susan. | 0:50:48 | 0:50:52 | |
She's nearly 50 now. | 0:50:52 | 0:50:55 | |
And Cathy there, who's nearly 50. | 0:50:55 | 0:50:58 | |
How did you meet your wife? | 0:50:58 | 0:51:01 | |
Well, I was in hospital and she was one of the nurses. | 0:51:01 | 0:51:05 | |
And she would do things like post a letter and things like that. | 0:51:05 | 0:51:10 | |
When I got out, I asked her out for a drink. | 0:51:10 | 0:51:16 | |
And she's from Canada, you see. | 0:51:16 | 0:51:19 | |
They all realised, which is lovely, | 0:51:23 | 0:51:25 | |
that to write comedy, to perform comedy, for stage, screen and television, | 0:51:25 | 0:51:32 | |
there are no hours to that job. | 0:51:32 | 0:51:34 | |
It goes on and on. | 0:51:34 | 0:51:36 | |
Maybe I've spent more time on that than helping to bring up the children. | 0:51:36 | 0:51:43 | |
My wife...she brought them up well. | 0:51:47 | 0:51:51 | |
I really just stood back and enjoyed watching them grow. | 0:51:54 | 0:52:00 | |
The absentee landlord. | 0:52:00 | 0:52:02 | |
Cos I was away working all the time, | 0:52:05 | 0:52:08 | |
the children used to think I was something in the City...for years. | 0:52:08 | 0:52:14 | |
When people say, "I made up my mind to be a comic when I was 12," | 0:52:31 | 0:52:36 | |
I think, "No, no, no." | 0:52:36 | 0:52:38 | |
The AUDIENCE makes you a comic, not YOU. | 0:52:38 | 0:52:43 | |
There's people with the funniest material in the world, | 0:52:43 | 0:52:47 | |
but they aren't households names because the audience haven't quite taken to them. | 0:52:47 | 0:52:54 | |
And so it's the audience who make you a comic, not you. | 0:52:54 | 0:52:58 | |
# ..Beautiful dreamer | 0:53:03 | 0:53:07 | |
# Awake unto me-e. # | 0:53:07 | 0:53:16 | |
I've never known a comic yet who thought he was funny. | 0:53:16 | 0:53:21 | |
One thing they have in common is they never wanted to be comedians. | 0:53:21 | 0:53:26 | |
They wanted to do something else. | 0:53:26 | 0:53:29 | |
Frankie Howerd wanted to be a straight actor. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:33 | |
And he went for an audition at RADA, and "to be or not to be" - | 0:53:33 | 0:53:38 | |
HOWERD VOICE: "No, no, listen..." They laughed and he didn't get it. | 0:53:38 | 0:53:43 | |
'Jimmy Edwards wanted to be an MP.' | 0:53:43 | 0:53:46 | |
There's a traffic jam there as well. | 0:53:46 | 0:53:49 | |
'Tommy Cooper wanted to be the best illusionist in the world. | 0:53:49 | 0:53:54 | |
'So he didn't want to be a comedian. | 0:53:54 | 0:53:57 | |
'The money he spent on suits - he was always immaculate. | 0:53:57 | 0:54:04 | |
'But he would walk into the room and do his, "Arr-hrr," and they started to laugh. | 0:54:04 | 0:54:10 | |
'And at first it used to upset him because he thought he was walking in like OO7. | 0:54:10 | 0:54:16 | |
'He only became a comedian when they started to laugh at him.' | 0:54:16 | 0:54:21 | |
Oi, oi! | 0:54:21 | 0:54:23 | |
TOMMY COOPER: Yeah, it's all right. Come on. | 0:54:26 | 0:54:31 | |
Janet! Can you bring me some water, please? | 0:55:00 | 0:55:05 | |
I have to be careful writing to old friends. | 0:55:25 | 0:55:28 | |
Because... in case they died last week. | 0:55:28 | 0:55:33 | |
When you and I made films together - Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines, Monte Carlo Or Bust, | 0:56:22 | 0:56:29 | |
you always played the part of the jolly chap, the cuddly person, | 0:56:29 | 0:56:36 | |
and I always played the dirty rotten bu...dirty rotten chap, cad, I should say. | 0:56:36 | 0:56:43 | |
Whereas in real life, this isn't so, this isn't true, it's quite the reverse. | 0:56:43 | 0:56:49 | |
BELL TOLLS | 0:56:51 | 0:56:54 | |
-Here's your water, Eric. -Thank you. | 0:57:01 | 0:57:04 | |
You've also got the Standard here. There's a lovely advert for the show in the middle. | 0:57:06 | 0:57:13 | |
I thought you might like to see it. | 0:57:13 | 0:57:16 | |
What do you think of that? | 0:57:16 | 0:57:19 | |
-Oh, that's marvellous! -Lovely, isn't it? | 0:57:19 | 0:57:22 | |
I'll read that later, thank you. | 0:57:22 | 0:57:25 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:57:57 | 0:58:01 | |
Eric, what do you do for relaxation? | 0:58:01 | 0:58:04 | |
I play golf. | 0:58:06 | 0:58:08 | |
I know what you're going to say - "How can you play golf if you can't see the ball?" | 0:58:10 | 0:58:16 | |
My daughter, Julie, caddies for me, and SHE keeps her eye on the ball. | 0:58:16 | 0:58:22 | |
# That night I heard the wild goose cry | 0:58:29 | 0:58:33 | |
# He'd got mixed up with the riders in the sky | 0:58:33 | 0:58:36 | |
# Tried to sleep, but it was in vain | 0:58:36 | 0:58:40 | |
# Have you ever tried sleeping on a mule train...? # | 0:58:40 | 0:58:44 | |
CANNED LAUGHTER | 0:59:14 | 0:59:16 | |
I thought I'd hit further than that. | 0:59:20 | 0:59:23 | |
Give me the six-iron. | 0:59:23 | 0:59:25 | |
-How were that? -You're in the bunker. | 0:59:51 | 0:59:55 | |
There aren't any bunkers on this hole! | 0:59:55 | 0:59:58 | |
You're not in this hole. You're in that one. | 0:59:58 | 1:00:02 | |
You know the most amazing thing? | 1:00:14 | 1:00:17 | |
I forget - he's so good at it - | 1:00:17 | 1:00:21 | |
I actually forget that he can't see and can't hear. | 1:00:21 | 1:00:26 | |
Whereas quite a lot of people know that, a lot of people don't know that he had a quadruple bypass | 1:00:26 | 1:00:34 | |
about four or five years ago. | 1:00:34 | 1:00:37 | |
So he's just an amazing man. | 1:00:37 | 1:00:39 | |
Spike said it and he's absolutely right, he has the courage of a lion. | 1:00:39 | 1:00:44 | |
He can't see, can't hear, and he's in the West End now. | 1:00:44 | 1:00:49 | |
It's amazing. | 1:00:49 | 1:00:52 | |
All of these things, I have a feeling... They're hiccups, | 1:00:52 | 1:00:58 | |
no more than hiccups. | 1:00:58 | 1:01:00 | |
Because, again my philosophy, you have two choices - | 1:01:00 | 1:01:04 | |
either walk with your head up or your head down. | 1:01:04 | 1:01:08 | |
If there's a light to go towards, then you go towards it. | 1:01:08 | 1:01:12 | |
My idea of our theatre, stage, screen, | 1:01:20 | 1:01:26 | |
is like going into a wonderful palace where all the people go in. It's lit with chandeliers | 1:01:26 | 1:01:33 | |
and they all stand on the first landing and go, "Hello! Hello!" | 1:01:33 | 1:01:37 | |
And then they go up the second flight, not too many people now, | 1:01:37 | 1:01:42 | |
and then eventually they go upstairs to the ballroom. | 1:01:42 | 1:01:47 | |
Well, in my career, I've gone up through the servants' staircase | 1:01:47 | 1:01:51 | |
under a 40-watt bulb. | 1:01:51 | 1:01:55 | |
Now I'm nearly at the top landing. | 1:01:55 | 1:01:57 | |
I can see a bright light underneath the door of the top landing. | 1:01:57 | 1:02:02 | |
That's the ballroom. | 1:02:02 | 1:02:04 | |
But now that I've enjoyed my walk up the staircase, I'm not sure if I want to dance. | 1:02:04 | 1:02:10 | |
What?! That's the middle of the night! | 1:02:42 | 1:02:46 | |
Well...another day, another dollar. | 1:02:54 | 1:02:58 | |
"Just like that!" | 1:02:58 | 1:03:01 | |
Look at all these cigars. I gave up smoking three years ago. | 1:03:28 | 1:03:32 | |
Look at all those boxes. | 1:03:32 | 1:03:34 | |
I can't bear to throw them away. There's not a cigar in them. | 1:03:34 | 1:03:39 | |
I'll tell you what IS in them. | 1:03:39 | 1:03:42 | |
Well, that's my fix for today. | 1:03:51 | 1:03:54 | |
Arrivederci. | 1:03:54 | 1:03:57 | |
'It's a long road from Eindhoven to Drury Lane, but, my God, you deserve it and good luck!' | 1:04:20 | 1:04:28 | |
'A rare treat. A giant from any age of comedy you wish to talk about. | 1:04:34 | 1:04:39 | |
'He's a prophet, a sage, an angel of the age - Mr Eric Sykes!' | 1:04:39 | 1:04:45 | |
'He's a master of comedy. The king of the visual gag - Eric Sykes!' | 1:04:45 | 1:04:50 | |
'Ladies and gentlemen, | 1:04:50 | 1:04:53 | |
'we gotta get him up here - Eric Sykes!' | 1:04:53 | 1:04:56 | |
'Eric Sykes is one of the funniest men I've ever been in a room with or played golf with.' | 1:04:57 | 1:05:04 | |
'He made his name as a scriptwriter and went on to become one of Britain's best-loved comedians, | 1:05:04 | 1:05:11 | |
'described as having the desperate charm of a con man on the run - Eric Sykes!' | 1:05:11 | 1:05:17 | |
Pet horse initially throwing master. | 1:05:21 | 1:05:25 | |
Seven letters and the third letter is M. | 1:05:25 | 1:05:29 | |
-Third letter is M? -Yes. | 1:05:29 | 1:05:32 | |
-Pet horse... -Initially... | 1:05:32 | 1:05:36 | |
Well, horse, initially - H. | 1:05:36 | 1:05:39 | |
Third letter's M, so it's H blank M. | 1:05:39 | 1:05:43 | |
Pet as in hamster. | 1:05:43 | 1:05:46 | |
Master - an anagram of master. | 1:05:48 | 1:05:51 | |
-OK. And H for horse. -H for horse. | 1:05:51 | 1:05:54 | |
Can't be doing with all this intellect down here. | 1:05:54 | 1:05:58 | |
Norma's going to be going, "Wait a minute! Don't rush away!" | 1:05:58 | 1:06:04 | |
'Mr Sykes, your call to the stage.' | 1:06:30 | 1:06:32 | |
VOICES ECHO FROM STAGE | 1:06:32 | 1:06:36 | |
BELL RINGS I'll open the door. It's safer. | 1:06:48 | 1:06:52 | |
LAUGHTER | 1:06:54 | 1:06:56 | |
APPLAUSE | 1:06:56 | 1:07:00 | |
Subtitles by Graeme Dibble BBC Scotland - 2001 | 1:07:28 | 1:07:34 | |
E-mail us at [email protected] | 1:07:34 | 1:07:38 |