Episode 1 Morecambe and Wise the Whole Story

'It's 2nd December 1963

'and the Beatles are on The Morecambe & Wise Show.

'It represented the ascendancy of

'popular culture from the North of England, but it was also

'John, Paul, George and Ringo and Eric and Ernie having a laugh.'

Would you like to do a number with us?

-BEATLES:

-Yeah, yeah.

-You think so, lads?

-Ahhh!

LAUGHTER

It's the Gaye Sisters! They've done great!

Fabulous!

The Gaye Sisters?! This is the Beatles!

Hello, Beatle!

-LAUGHTER

-Where is he?

-Where is he?

-There he is!

Hello, Bongo!

LAUGHTER

-That's Ringo!

-Oh, is he there as well?

# We were strolling along... #

Twist and shout!

# On Moonlight Bay... #

'They were entertainers. They knew where they were from,

'but they couldn't imagine what lay ahead.

'It was just another perfect day

'in the comedy world of Morecambe and Wise.'

# Don't go away... #

-Are the Beatles gone?

-No, they're here!

-Oh.

# With your short, fat, hairy legs on Moonlight Bay

# On Moonlight Bay. #

APPLAUSE

It began as a way of entertaining your mates, did it, or...?

-Yeah...

-No, it began as a way of making money, quite honestly, yeah.

But you don't know why you're funny, do you? You just know people laugh.

-You don't know why you're funny.

-Not really.

You just tell jokes and they used to laugh and that was it.

The story of Morecambe and Wise is the story of two men

who mastered the art of entertainment, but it's also

the story of comedy's difficult journey from theatre and radio

to its brand-new home - television.

As children, Eric and Ernie caught the last breath

of the colourful parade that was the Variety Theatre.

Thousands of acts from the ridiculous to the sublime

flashed before their eyes and then they were gone,

but the names, faces, costumes, jokes, routines

and comedy characters stayed with them for the rest of their lives.

Morecambe and Wise reached out for television heaven

and nailed it like nobody had done before.

The 1960s and '70s was their time

and they made it count.

And in the beginning there was dance.

# Yeah, yeah, yeah

LAUGHTER

-# I know why I've waited

-Yeah, yeah, yeah

-# Know that I've been blue

-Yeah, yeah, yeah

-# Wait each night for someone

-Yeah, yeah, yeah

-# Exactly like you

-Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

-# Why should we spend money?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah

-# On a show or two

-Yeah, yeah, yeah

-# No-one plays those love scenes

-Yeah, yeah, yeah

-# Exactly like you

-Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

# Exactly like you, you make me feel so grand

# I wanna give the world to you

# You seem to understand

# Each little foolish dream I'm dreaming

# Every scheme I'm scheming

# Dream I'm dreaming, scheme I'm scheming

# Now, I know our mother

# Taught me to be true

# She meant me for someone

-# Exactly like you

-Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

# Exactly like you

# You make me feel so grand

# I wanna give the world to you

# It's good you understand

# Each little foolish dream I'm dreaming

# Scheme I'm scheming

# Dream I'm dreaming, scheme I'm scheming

-# Now, I know our mother

-Yeah, yeah, yeah

-# Taught me to be true

-Yeah, yeah, yeah

# She meant me for someone

# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

# Yeah, yeah, yeah

-# Exactly like you

-Yeah, yeah, yeah

-# Exactly like you

-Yeah, yeah, yeah

-# Exactly like you

-Yeah, yeah, yeah

-# Yeah, yeah, yeah. #

-LAUGHTER

I started off on amateur concerts.

I started off at Miss Hunter's Dancing Class over the Plaza.

-Oh, yes.

-At Morecambe, and, um...

I used to live at Christie Avenue, you see, at number 43,

and our Peggy, she used to live at 23 Christie Avenue

and, um, she came down, it'd be about 1937, uh, and she said,

"Sadie..." That's me mother's name, Sadie.

Auntie Sadie, she used to call her because, you know, she liked her.

LAUGHTER And she said, "Auntie Sadie,

"I'm going to dancing class." So, my mother said,

"How much is it?" And our Peggy said, "It's a shilling."

So, she said, "Well, do us a favour, take him with you.

"Keep him out the way on Saturday mornings."

And I used to go, I was the only boy there.

-Yes.

-Yeah.

Seriously. Then I had private lessons.

HE SLURPS ON PIPE, LAUGHTER

And I ended up as the only girl there!

LAUGHTER

Eric and Ernie were born into families that knew

just enough about show business to make a difference.

George and Sadie Bartholomew had their one and only child,

Eric, on the 14th of May 1926.

Sadie always said that Eric entered show business at

the age of about three.

When he escaped from the house and he was found directing traffic,

on the road,

and she was furious cos

he could have got run over, of course, even back then.

I absolutely adored Sadie and, of course,

this is my grandmother that we're talking about.

She spotted that Dad could entertain.

I often say now that if my father was a kid now

he'd be labelled with Attention Deficit Disorder Syndrome!

I think she knew that he was a really live wire,

highly intelligent, but not remotely interested in school.

Eric wasn't academic and he was a dreamer.

Sadie always used to say, "He's a dreamer." But from being...

As soon as he could walk, she always reckoned that he always was dancing,

always amusing people, that it was absolutely born in him to entertain.

He'd go down the road, find a group of builders,

and start tap-dancing for pennies and things.

So, he was obviously not shy, let's say!

And loved entertaining from a very early age.

SEAGULLS CALL

The Bartholomew family lived in Morecambe,

a seaside town full of entertainment for the holidaymakers

of the industrial towns of Lancashire.

Coming from Morecambe Bay, particularly in the 1930s, um,

was extraordinary because it was a showbiz town,

it had the Winter Gardens and the pier entertainment

and he would have been hugely influenced by that.

And at that time Morecambe would have been second only

to Blackpool as a big seaside destination,

so he'll have grown up around things like

the Summer Talent contest, which he entered himself.

Um, things like Summer Seasons Fair, so all the big variety stars

would have come through Morecambe as well.

Eric's mother, Sadie, worked as an usherette in Morecambe's

theatres and saw that, if you had what it took, there was a living to

be made from entertainment and she knew her son Eric had what it took.

She used to say he had the attention span of a gnat.

Her nickname for him was Gifflearse.

And, you know, I think she got him lessons in

just about everything and he did everything for ten minutes.

He really was one of those, um... a bit like a butterfly really.

She wanted him to have a freer life and improve his lot.

Um, so she encouraged that and she saw...

as soon as she saw there was a glimmer of talent there,

she did leap onto...

Eric always said, and it's quite true,

even as an adult I could see this,

if left to his own devices he was intrinsically lazy

and he needed someone that just motivated him

and that was Sadie for those early years.

She homed in on... almost by accident, on show business.

And that was really down to the dance teacher who,

when he got dragged off to a dance lesson with his cousin, um,

she did tell my grandmother that, you know, he's a very talented...

um...

performer. She said, "He's got that itch you can't teach."

Now, that was all Sadie needed to hear. She's heard that,

she's then thought, "Right. This is something he can do."

Sadie set the young Eric Bartholomew on the path to a life

in show business by entering him into local talent contests.

He had a character, a costume and a song.

Can you remember any part of it?

Oh, yeah. # I'm not all there

# There's something missing

# I'm not all there, so the folks declare

# They call me loopy

# Loopy

# Nothing but a great big boopy. #

That's all I remember.

When Eric was a teenager, it was already clear to Sadie

that his best chance of a career was on the stage.

He was naturally funny and Sadie knew that performing

was his ticket out of a life of manual labour.

She was so concerned that in the end he would end up just being

a council worker, you know, digging the roads or something like that,

and she wanted him to better himself,

and he had this spark which was always there.

If you can become a successful entertainer, and by successful

they meant earning slightly more than a coal miner, possibly,

um, you could be saved from having to work in a mill,

you could be saved from having to work down a pit.

It was clear from Eric's success in the talent shows that he

could be a professional entertainer, but he was far from stage-struck.

Yes, he hated the "I'm Not All There" stuff

and performing as a solo act, he hated all that,

and having to dress up, he really hated that.

He hated the fact that, while his friends could kick a football around,

he was having to wear these silly clothes, primarily to get laughs.

I don't think he relished the stress that was involved in performing.

These shows were fiercely competitive,

that he got into when he was starting out.

They were like talent shows. It was like footballers competing

for a place in the team, you know?

People got let go the whole time. You know, it was tough stuff.

I don't think he had a lust for the footlights, you know?

It was always Ernie that wanted to go to Hollywood.

Meanwhile, in Leeds, Yorkshire, Harry and Connie Wiseman

could see the talent in their son, Ernest.

He had been born on the 27th of November 1925 and was

soon on stage with his father, an amateur song and dance man.

Well, Ernie's background is very much showbiz because his dad,

Harry, was big on all that sort of thing.

I think there was a bit of a sort of dreamy personality in a way,

he was a born entertainer, born performer,

constantly going round the pubs and clubs

and it wasn't too long before Ernie found himself

travelling around with him, really, as part of the double act.

I used to perform with my father, do a double act in the clubs

-over the country.

-Really?

-It's what we used to do, yes.

-Well, around Leeds, you didn't go all over the country.

-Well...

We used to go in the country and in Leeds as well, yes.

That's what I meant!

-It was like a joke.

-It was, yes.

-Not much.

-Not much like a joke, no!

LAUGHTER

Uh...yeah, Leeds. Leeds.

What were you doing? What kind of double act was it?

-ERIC YAWNS LOUDLY

-I was...

LAUGHTER

It was a very good double act.

It was. I never saw it, but I've heard about it.

It was very nice. Do a bit that you did.

-I used to...

-The act was with his dad, you know.

-This is very sentimental and very dear to me.

-I do apologise!

Well...

My dad and I...

used to go around the clubs.

What was the name? You used to have a name.

We used to be called Bert Carson and Kid.

-Yeah. He was Bert Carson.

-Yeah.

LAUGHTER

And we used to do this...

-I used to do hit numbers...

-They thought I was a midget, you know.

LAUGHTER

I used to do hit numbers like I'm Knee Deep In Daisies.

# I'm knee deep in daisies and head over heels... #

And I used to do a clog dance.

Ernie would perform this clog dance years later

on The Morecambe & Wise Show.

As teenagers, the wider world of entertainment had

a grip on the imaginations of Eric and Ernie.

His biggest influence was going to the local cinema, you know,

every weekend in the morning performances of Flash Gordon or whatever

and thinking, "God, wouldn't it be great to

"be on the big screen?" That was his first idea.

Flash Gordon, he was one of my favourites.

-Remember Flash Gordon?

-Flash Gordon? Yeah.

They used to call my cousin Flash Gordon.

-He got six months.

-LAUGHTER

Their favourite film stars were Laurel and Hardy,

and Abbott and Costello,

but they were American and America was a long way away.

-Where's the bow of the boat?

-That's over there.

-The stern of the boat?

-That's over there.

-And the port?

-That's in the icebox.

-Oh, shut up!

Much nearer home was George Formby,

a Northerner and a film star.

# With my little stick of Blackpool Rock

# Along the promenade I stroll It may be... #

'For Sadie and Eric, the penny dropped.

'If George Formby could do it, so could Eric.'

When Eric was a kid, he said in one of his first ever interviews,

when he won a talent contest up North, he said that George Formby

was his favourite comic and he aspired to be like George Formby.

Well, he aspired to George Formby's success,

but, actually, in private he said he thought George Formby

was about as funny as a cry for help, you know.

He was not a big fan of that stuff.

'In later years, George Formby was just another old-time performer

'they could reference for laughs.'

-Leaning On A Lamppost, you know that one?

-All right.

# I'm leaning on a lamppost

# At the corner of the street

# In case a certain little lady goes by. #

# Oh, Mr Wu

# What shall I do?

# I got those Limehouse Chinese Laundry... #

I'll take it. APPLAUSE

Eric Morecambe did not rate George Formby as a comedian.

Now listen...

'For Eric, the real comedy talent in the North belonged to

'the likes of Sandy Powell,

'Norman Evans, Frank Randle and Jimmy James.'

Two more brandies before the fight starts.

Just a minute, who's going to fight?

You and me, because I've got no money to pay for these drinks!

I feel that, quite seriously, Ernie and I have learnt a tremendous amount

from people like Jimmy James and Frank Randle and people like that.

Absolutely fantastic.

Jimmy James was a comedian who worked best when reacting to other characters around him,

in what has been called the Comedy Triangle.

Three performers in all kinds of trouble.

-Is it you that's putting around that I'm barmy?

-Who, me?!

Yes.

-Good heavens, no. Why should I do that?

-Well, is it him?

-Is it you?

-What?

-Is it you?

-I don't want any.

-He doesn't want any.

Jimmy James is a hub around which fly extremely strange people.

He always had two stooges, so you had a kind of comedy triangle

in which Jimmy James was constantly bouncing jokes off one stooge

then the other, dealing with these two idiots.

Go and get two coffees.

Are you telling him about the lions?

Yes, he's got two lions in that box.

How much are they?

How much are they? He doesn't want to sell 'em!

Are you telling him about the giraffe?

Yes, he's got a giraffe in there with the lions.

Is it, er...black or white?

I don't...what colour is the giraffe? He wants to know.

They're coffee, aren't they?

LAUGHTER

Morecambe and Wise worked with Jimmy James in Blackpool in the summer of 1959.

And they took from him the idea of turning their double act into a triple act.

Eric and Ernie would be joined by a guest star.

Eric would be the Jimmy James and you'd have Ernie, one idiot,

followed by this guest star, who would be completely bemused

and perplexed and appear like another idiot.

And Eric would just play off one against the other.

And it was the reprise of Jimmy James.

Eric, say hello to Mr Previn.

Ah! Mr Preview, how are you?

LAUGHTER

A pleasure to be with you and ready when you are...

A one, a one, two, three...

You got me here under false pretences.

-False pretences?

-What does he mean?

I told you it wouldn't work, he's expecting Yehudi Menuhin.

He's a comedian.

And a very funny one too.

LAUGHTER

I must be honest, he makes me laugh when he puts the violin under his chin.

Gets to the last note and shouts, "Aye-aye! That's your lot."

LAUGHTER

Then goes straight to the bar.

I think you could look at Andre Previn on The Morecambe & Wise Show and look at Jimmy James

and see...an absolute parallel between insanity, buffoonery...

Grand Guignol.

You've got Andre Previn, who is the epitome of highbrow entertainment,

being reduced to the level of a clown.

-All right. I'll go and get my baton.

-Please do that.

-It's in Chicago.

-It's in Chicago!

LAUGHTER

Wow! He's in. I like him.

The double act was special but the double act plus one expanded their universe

to a point where anything was possible.

It was precision-engineered chaos, just like Jimmy James.

I don't suppose it matters to you whether it's male or female, the elephant?

I-It wouldn't matter t-to anybody, only another elephant.

LAUGHTER

Before television the comedy stars were all on the radio and a successful radio show

sold tickets at the theatre.

-Where do the motor horns come from?

-China.

-What part of China?

-Honk-honk.

LAUGHTER

Arthur Askey took his radio show Band Waggon onto the West End stage and this would lead

to a first taste of the big time for little Ernie Wise.

On 6th January 1939 Ernie and his father Harry boarded a train to London.

Ernie had an audition with the band leader Jack Hylton,

the producer of Arthur Askey's Band Waggon theatre show.

Jack Hylton was so impressed that he put Ernie into the show that same night.

It was Jack Hylton took him down, got him to London,

and at the age of 13

he became what then was one of the youngest ever stars

of a West End show and appeared in Band Waggon.

Which was a stage version of the very popular

Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch radio show.

He'd been plucked out of nowhere, taken down to the West End,

literally on the West End stage the next night,

brought the house down appearing with Arthur Askey,

written up in the national press, his life had been transformed.

He didn't basically have a childhood

because from the age of six he was working at weekends

and used to get told off at school on a Monday for falling asleep

because he'd been working on a Sunday night in the working men's clubs.

And he basically provided for the family,

because he could earn twice as much as his father's salary for the week.

Ernie became a meal ticket. His parents were very poor, came from a very working-class background

and suddenly they had two or three times the amount of money that they did a few months ago.

It became, in hindsight...

A lot of people have accused his parents of exploiting him.

It was almost child labour in a way.

They used to go on holidays to... I think Scunthorpe they went to,

and they went to a couple of other places.

And Ernie at sort of two o'clock in the afternoon would be dragged up

from the beach and sent to work.

They'd book him in to do shows every day and that would pay for the holiday.

He goes to London and lives in a chaperoned flat

and takes part in Hylton Reviews and the clogs go

and he gets soft shoe shuffle tap shoes, he loses the bowler hat

and gets a straw boater and he becomes a hoofer.

He's a song and dance man.

Already there's an attempt to remove the accent

and create a milder...what in those days was called a mid-Atlantic accent,

whereby, who knows, they may have been from New York or

they may have been from Scunthorpe but we'll never quite know.

The association with Jack Hylton would prove fateful

just a few months later, bringing Ernie Wise face-to-face with

none other than the young kid who would become Eric Morecambe.

Eric and Ernie first met in Manchester when Eric was

auditioning for Jack Hylton and Ernie was already a child star.

Well, I say met, I think they nodded at each other.

Ernie was Jack Hylton's favourite because he'd been so successful

out of all the young stars on the youth tour as it was in those days.

He sat with Jack Hylton watching Eric doing his audition

and Ernie was wonderful because many,

many years later, after my father had died, Ernie said,

"I sat down and really thought, God, I've got some competition here.

"This guy is very good."

So, he did Flanagan and Allen, apparently, Eric,

as part of his ambition, but he played both of them,

but without any obvious change of character,

which Ernie always found fascinating in the later years.

That that was possible to do.

That's right. It was at Manchester. You gave an audition to Jack Hylton.

I won this competition and the first prize was an audition.

No money, just an audition. That was the first prize, which I gave.

And he was with Hylton at the time and he saw my audition.

What did you do? You had the top hat and the baton.

I did a double act in those days.

It was Flanagan and Allen I used to do.

-Flanagan and Allen he did, on his own.

-By yourself?

-Yes.

-How do you do that?

-I have false legs.

I used to put this battered top hat on and sang... # Underneath the arches... #

I used to get that...

I used to do that's a lot. I still do.

A few months later, the Second World War began, but by 1940

Eric and Ernie were booked on the same touring show.

Youth Takes A Bow.

And it was really through touring that they then met each other

and during the war, whilst the tour was still going on,

they were in Oxford and Ernie's digs fell through.

He couldn't find anywhere to stay

and it just happened that he knocked on the door and it was where

Eric and Sadie were, and the rest, as they say, is history.

He's drawn into this B&B theatrical digs and shares the same bed,

which is wonderfully iconic,

when you think years later that they developed this idea.

It's an old comedy idea anyway, two comics sharing...

Laurel and Hardy had done it

and there were never any gay connotations with it.

It was just a device.

It's got me beat. I just can't make it out.

Just can't understand it at all. The market's down four points.

It's got me beat as well.

Desperate Dan's just eaten four cow pies and he's still hungry.

Can I ask you how you teamed up first. Whose idea was it?

-Shall I answer that?

-Please do.

-His mother, actually.

-Yes.

-His mother?

-His mother.

-Could take a long time, this.

They'd travel around the country on the circuit together doing these gigs

and the banter in the train carriage is such that she gets annoyed.

"If you two keep doing this, why don't you do a double act?"

With one simple comment, Sadie Bartholomew had created

a double act that would be together for the next 40 years.

She had as much love, I felt, for Ernie as she did for Eric.

She really did and she always felt Ernie was the sensible one

and that Eric wasn't, that Eric was the one that, you know...

I wouldn't say not reliable, because he was always reliable

with his work, but he was a bit of a dreamer.

He was very easy-going with money,

so in other words he'd never have any money because it would always go

and Ernie was always a bit careful and Sadie felt this was a good

influence on Eric to have someone like Ernie around, you know.

They would perform as a double act for the first time

at the Liverpool Empire on Friday 20th of August 1941,

when the boys walked on stage as Bartholomew and Wise.

Now began the journey that would take them right to the top.

Eric and Ernie, your act began at the Liverpool Empire in 1941

when you were 15 years old,

which didn't give you much time for any other ambitions.

-Were there any?

-In those days?

-Yes.

-Oh, yes.

-The biggest ambition in those days was the Moss Empire, wasn't it?

-Yes.

It was a very mediocre act in those days.

Mind you, we had lots of ego and...

We used to come on, the very first gag we ever did on the stage,

he was singing. How's about a little ramble in the moonlight.

I used to run on with a chair and a long fishing line with

a piece of string down and an apple on the end of the string.

I used to put... Can I get them in?

I used to put the apple in the pit orchestra and then he used to say...

-I used to say, "What are you doing?"

-I would say, "I'm fishing."

"But you don't catch fish with an apple, you catch fish with a worm.

"That's all right, the worm's inside the apple."

That's the first gag we ever worked on the stage

-and we're still doing it.

-15 years on.

The greatest British double act of all time had made their debut

but nobody liked the name, Bartholomew and Wise.

Remember the old days when we first started?

-When we were trying to find a name?

-Yes.

-I thought the name Southport and Stupid.

-Yes.

-I thought that.

-I thought Bridlington and Soppy.

I thought that was a good name, that. Suited you, that name. Yeah.

And then the audience sent in a few suggestions.

-We couldn't use any of them.

-No.

Somebody came up with the name of Morecambe and Leeds

-but it looked like a cheap day return.

-Yes.

A chance meeting with the American singer

Adelaide Hall and her husband Bert Hicks would solve the problem.

My mother said to Bert Hicks,

"I don't like the name Bartholomew for his stage name.

"What do you think I should call him?"

He says, "Well, why does he come from?"

My mother said, "He comes from Morecambe."

He said, "Well, call him Morecambe."

In the summer of 1941, Eric and Ernie became Morecambe and Wise.

They were only 15 years old.

From this point on, Morecambe and Wise absorbed

all the influences that would make their future shows so unique.

Arthur Tolcher, seen here with Eric, was the young harmonica player

on Youth Takes A Bow.

In later years, his unwanted harmonica playing became

a running joke on The Morecambe & Wise Show.

Ladies and gentlemen, the very beautiful, the very talented,

-the very well-known...

-Not now, Arthur. Not now.

Sorry about that. What do you think of it so far? Rubbish!

Never fails.

Not now, Arthur. Not now. Slowly. Take it nice and easy.

-Think of the money, Arthur.

-A bit of dignity. Smile, smile.

Eric and Ernie loved the eccentricity of the speciality acts

of the variety theatre.

The many hapless ventriloquists they encountered

were an easy target in later years.

Hello, Charlie, how are you?

I'm very well, thank you. Oh, I am glad.

Magicians, mind readers and novelty acts were a major

part of the variety world around them and these characters

inspired Morecambe and Wise's Mr Memory sketch from 1973.

-Thank you, thank you, good evening, Mr Memory.

-Good morning.

Mr Memory, I understand you have a brain capable of remembering

every event that ever happened anywhere at any time in the world.

-That is correct.

-Question number one, Mr Memory.

Could you please tell me who won the FA Cup in 1950?

-FA Cup 1950.

-Yes.

Arsenal.

Tranmere Rovers!

Eric's mother, Sadie,

was now guiding the career of Morecambe and Wise

and in 1943 she took them to London to appear in Strike A New Note.

The new double act made a big impression on a young

dancer in the show, Sheila Mathews.

My very, very fond memory of Eric is me coming off the stage

from the Adelphi Theatre one night and in the wings

was Eric Morecambe sitting on a sort of throne which was on a dais,

surrounded by a bevy of ballet girls and chorus girls, rocking with laughter.

Couldn't laugh out loud, of course,

because the show was on, but hysterical with laughter.

It was a wonderful sight and one I shall never forget.

During the war, it was about 1940, we went on Strike A New Note.

-We were on Strike A New Note.

-Beautiful girls in that show.

-Yes.

-Oh, yeah, they used to walk about, you know?

-Yeah.

-Naked.

-Yeah, it's true.

These beautiful showgirls, black shoes and black gloves,

-looked like the five of spades walking...

-Yes, it's true.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Ernie was sort of a stocky boy, but he was very jumpy,

all full of beans and always raring to go

onto the American side of things, if you know what I mean,

in as much as that the number he did do in Strike A New Note

was Yankee Doodle Dandy which couldn't have been better for him.

It was absolutely Ernie.

# I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy. #

40 years later, Ernie could still perform the routine.

# A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam

# Born on the fourth of July. #

Isn't that fabulous?

They were meticulous in every move, every inflection,

where they would look...

Absolutely, they didn't leave a thing to chance.

It was beautifully done, but it was very...

I felt very privileged to be able to stand there in the dressing room

and watch this creation growing.

I mean, they were like sponges, they soaked up everything and used it.

So I knew, I knew they were going to be a success, but I never dreamt

that they'd be the wonderful stars

that they are or they turned out to be.

The glamour and prestige of Strike A New Note

would come to an end in November 1943

when Ernie received his call-up papers to join the Merchant Navy.

The following year, it was Eric's turn to join the war effort,

sending him from the limelight of the West End stage

to the gloom of a coal mine.

You were in fact... Reading your book,

the only time you've been separated in all these 34 years,

in a professional sense, was during the war, wasn't it?

-That's right, yes.

-That's right.

-Cos he was on their side.

LAUGHTER

-Yes, we were.

-You were a Bevin Boy.

-I was down the mines.

And I was in the Merchant Navy.

Good Lord. What was being a miner like?

Dark. LAUGHTER

It's quite frightening, quite honestly. It was terrifying, yeah.

I was 18 and I was in 11 months altogether.

I was 28 when I came out.

LAUGHTER

The years after the war were a hard slog

for the newly-reformed Morecambe and Wise.

They were just one of many performers trying to

make their mark on the treadmill of the variety circuit.

Getting into variety as an actor was our hardest time, wasn't it?

Mm, I used to run across the stage

and slap him very hard across the face. It was just like...SHPOM!

Really hard, you know.

I'd say, "How dare you have the kind of face I dislike," and run off.

Now, the idea of that was to get an impact with the audience, you see.

Because we'd be second spot,

they'd only just opened their eyes in the theatre and...

They'd only just opened the theatre.

..and this was to make them all jump, you know. "My God, that must've hurt."

They didn't laugh, they just said "That must've hurt," you know. But the effect was...

If it wasn't for that gag, he would've been taller.

The most feared venue in Britain was the Glasgow Empire,

known as the graveyard of English comedians.

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

the fireman was in the corner and he said, "They're getting to like you."

-Really?

-They hadn't thrown anything.

They hadn't thrown anything, yes. They sat there.

There was a comic, I won't mention his name,

-but he fainted, Des O'Connor.

-Yes.

LAUGHTER

I won't mention his name.

He actually walked on and went...

BOTH: "Well, lad..."

And he was carried off.

Did they applaud him?

What a fall!

# Any time you're feeling lonely. #

And he was that night.

Morecambe and Wise began to get things right on the variety stage.

At the same time, they started to appear on radio.

ANNOUNCER: This is the North of England Home Service.

Tonight, we want to talk to the young men and women of this country.

To help them if we can over their difficulties and problems

-and here is Mr Morecambe to say a few words.

-Thank you.

Girls, do you feel run down when hit by a truck?

LAUGHTER

Most of their radio appearances

were produced by the Northern Home Service

from the BBC's Manchester studios.

It was entertainment by northerners for northerners

and only broadcast across the North of England.

This was how it was in the early 50s - a cultural North-South divide

and one which Morecambe and Wise needed to overcome.

Morecambe and Wise were forever being knocked back

from broadcasting, because their accents could not be understood

by people in the South.

Or that was the idea of some bigwig at the BBC.

We progressed very slowly.

We developed in the North in the first place

and could never break the barrier with the South,

we were always known as northern comedians and then we...

-Then he changed his shirt one day into that and we've been getting laughs ever since.

-Got trendy.

Yes, I think coming from the North of England back then there was

a huge North-South divide.

You just didn't hit the BBC or whatever with a northern accent,

you couldn't do that.

They were even told at one time to sound less northern

when they were performing.

So, I think that that was very difficult to overcome.

It's some kind of myth about, "It won't work South,"

and it was a myth that I think was maintained by people who

weren't in touch with, let's say, working class tastes.

If it was funny, it was funny, no matter where you were from,

what social grouping you were from,

you would identify what people were talking about.

We'd had a war where people from Yorkshire

and people from Essex had been in the same units

and they didn't actually have to have subtitles,

they could understand one another.

They would talk about Jock or Paddy or whoever

and we won the war without any major problems of communication.

With their many impressive guest appearances, Morecambe and Wise

had made a big leap forward and they were given

a radio show of their own for the first time in November 1953.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise

will spend the next 30 minutes

reminding you that You're Only Young Once.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to YOYO.

In their search for new talent, the BBC have tried many new comedians

and here is the comic who was tried and found guilty, Mr Eric Morecambe.

You're Only Young Once was good. Morecambe and Wise

had come a long way since their debut 12 years earlier.

When we listen to it today,

it more or less stands the test of time.

We know who the characters are, we can identify them,

we can identify the voices and they're not that much changed

from the voices we're going to hear 25 years later.

Now then, my man, tell me how this machine works.

Well, you see, sir, I press this little button

-and it makes that big wheel go round and round.

-Oh, yes.

And that big wheel starts going round,

it makes the little wheel next to it go round and round

and when the big wheel and the little wheel start going round and round,

it automatically makes the wheel on the bench go round and round,

so you have the big wheel going round and the small wheel going round and round and...

Yes, yes, yes. But what does it make?

Makes me dizzy.

LAUGHTER

It's very, very hard to say that northern comedy wasn't just

the comedy of the North. Eric and Ernie weren't

just for the North of England, Eric and Ernie were for everyone.

Whatever class, whatever your geography, wherever you were born

and raised, they were just two funny, funny men

and the fact is that, yes, the northern heritage very definitely

fed into their comedy, but it didn't define them entirely.

There's something else there.

There's something universal about Eric and Ernie which took them

to audiences above and beyond the roots that they actually came from.

You're Only Young Once was good for their reputation

and their bank balance and they felt they were finally getting somewhere.

Their personal lives were also heading in the right direction.

Eric and Joan Bartlett were married in December 1952

and Ernie and Doreen Blythe married a few weeks later.

We got married in 1953.

We got engaged when I was about 18

and it was supposed to be, before that, a Platonic friendship.

But it was on a Sunday, because they never let me forget

they cancelled a broadcast so that we could get married on a Sunday.

Ernie and Doreen chose not to have children,

but Eric and Joan had a baby straightaway.

They were married December 11th, 1952.

And I was born the following September 14th, 1953.

So, yeah, they don't get a rosy glow talking about those days.

I think it was hard, I think it was really hard.

There were no disposable nappies and highchairs and pushchairs

and buggies and so on.

Don't think they even had a car.

Certainly not at first, so I think it was quite hard for Mum.

I think that we did miracles, really,

to have any sort of a normal life when we'd only courted

for such a little time and then to suddenly have a baby and be touring.

Had no home, we didn't even have a flat then, nothing at all.

And it was incredibly difficult, it really was.

I think my father meeting my mother was fantastic

when it happened, which would have been, what, 1952

because she's always been a very grounded, sensible person.

She's a bit like Ernie, the opposite to Eric, and Sadie by then

would have had enough of being the driving force and she virtually

handed it all over to my mother. She said, "It's your problem now."

And it was literally like that and she'll tell you that

and she did take it on.

What she hadn't expected was that then my sister would be born

so soon afterwards and then a couple of years later, me, so...

Which would have made it very difficult

because it was still the touring days, it is still caravans and

all the rest of it and British weather and winters,

so it was difficult.

They would have been hard times, I'm sure.

But she certainly took over the reins from Sadie at that point

and Eric completely needed that.

He needed a stalwart supporter who was always there for him.

1953 was also a landmark year for television.

The Queen's Coronation of that year saw sales of television sets

jump dramatically.

An industry was born and Morecambe and Wise were destined

to make some of its best programmes.

In the early 50s, the BBC was the only television channel

and comedy wasn't high on its agenda,

with entertainment programmes

making up less than a quarter of its output.

One man who knew that things had to change was Ronald Waldman,

the BBC's Head Of Light Entertainment

and he zeroed in on Morecambe and Wise

as having the talent to make a hit comedy show on BBC television.

Of course, he had great faith in us.

Ronnie Waldman said we would be big stars on television.

And obviously he's a very intelligent man.

-You are worriers, though, would you say?

-Yes, basically, we are.

You can't be anything else, it's a serious business.

I'm worried about getting home after this.

Ronald Waldman saw then what others saw later

and asked them to make their first television series.

I think the chance to go into TV was just one you didn't turn down.

If someone comes along as a producer to see your live show on stage

and they say, "Well, we'd like to offer you a TV series."

Just, you know, these are the boys from the North of England,

made good suddenly, what a great opportunity.

Their dreams had come true.

Morecambe and Wise now had a television show of their own

and they called it Running Wild.

ANNOUNCER: Morecambe and Wise.

APPLAUSE

Ernest Maxin, the producer who would one day

take charge of the Morecambe and Wise show at the BBC,

was a young trainee in 1954 and was part

of the Running Wild production team.

Brian Sears was the producer...

..and I can remember getting that script in

and Brian looking at it and...

..pulling kind of not very nice faces, he didn't like the script.

I can remember Brian saying,

"These boys are far too good for this script."

Even at rehearsals, I could see the fun in Eric and Ernie,

in they themselves, but when it came to saying the words

that were in the script, it changed their whole personality.

The producer, Brian Sears,

kept telling them none of their ideas would work down South,

so the northern comedy they had performed on the radio

was not in the script.

Against this background,

the first episode of Running Wild was broadcast on April 1st, 1954.

What could have been their big break turned into a huge setback.

It was absolutely disastrous

That first programme just flopped hideously.

And of course this idea of the BBC at that time,

or certainly the producers making that particular programme,

that Morecambe and Wise's usual northern style of comedy

wouldn't make it down South -

that would prove to be disastrous for them, really.

Essentially, they were having to be who they weren't,

they were having to pretend to be American, pretty much,

and they weren't American. So it was always doomed to failure.

The newspaper reviews for Running Wild were cruel and vicious,

and Eric would feel the sting of this criticism

for the rest of his career.

It was only once a fortnight,

a little half-hour show once a fortnight.

How old were we? 26, or something like that.

And the critics really took you apart?

Oh, yes. I remember all the write-ups, all of them.

Psychologically damaged ever since?

"How dare they put such mediocre talent on television."

"Alma Cogan stands out like a rose in a garden of weeds..."

LAUGHTER

This is true, all true.

First man, "Is that a television in the corner?"

Second man, "No, that's the box they buried Morecambe and Wise in last night."

I think Dad dreaded the fact that people wouldn't want to

watch them any more, wouldn't go to the live shows.

I think that a critic had that brilliant line,

"The definition of a television -

"the box they buried Morecambe and Wise in,"

I think he'd already written that

and thought, too good an opportunity not to use that.

But I think the critics hated it more than the public did.

I think at the time it was devastating that they got such bad reviews,

and my mother claims that the shows weren't really that bad.

They weren't good, but they weren't as bad as they were made out to be.

And for Eric it was devastating.

You know, it wasn't going to be perfect,

but to sort of slate it as they did, it was...

very destroying.

Did you feel like giving up? Have you ever felt like it?

-Are you talking about Running Wild, actually?

-Yeah.

-The series we did for the...

-HE LAUGHS

For the old firm.

Yes, well, of course it was a disaster to us.

We were in television in the early stages and we said, we can't...

We left television completely, that was the finish. It ruined our career.

The trauma of Running Wild toughened up Morecambe and Wise.

They would never again hand complete control to television producers,

and for the rest of his life Eric would put all his energy

into proving the critics wrong.

They're utterly depressed, completely deflated,

they think it's all over, essentially,

so they have to reinvent themselves.

And they go back out onto the stages, onto the boards,

around all the variety theatres,

put themselves quite low-down some bills with people who,

prior to that, they would probably have been above on the bill,

but they do the hard yards again, really.

What they learned very, very quickly -

and this is something he told me afterwards -

that you can't really do bad TV,

all you're doing is reaching a lot more people.

So when they went back to the theatres

they were billed as "Those stars of television, Morecambe and Wise."

So that was the first sign he had of the power of TV,

how it can be used to your advantage.

There wasn't any billboard saying,

"What a shame, they were terrible on TV."

It was just used completely in a positive way to sell them.

They've seen the future, they know it's television,

they've just got to bide their time.

So they go back to what they're doing best,

which is live performance, and honing and honing and honing.

Two years of successful theatre work

put Morecambe and Wise back into the minds of television producers,

this time at the new channel, ITV.

In 1955, ITV went on air.

It was set up and controlled by leading figures

from the world of variety, like theatrical agents Val Parnell

and Lew Grade, who ran the London and Midlands area through ATV.

ATV was particularly strong in the area of bringing

people who had been stars of variety into television format.

The Winifred Atwell Show was a big hit for ATV,

and in April 1956 Morecambe and Wise

landed the job as her regular guests.

This time everything clicked,

and it proved they could work on television.

The association with the Trinidad-born piano player Winifred Atwell

would lead to one of their more unusual bookings a short time later.

1958 was spent touring Australia

as part of the Winifred Atwell stage show.

So that, in a way, was wonderful,

because, you know, people didn't go to Australia very much then.

That was this wonderful opportunity, so they jumped at that.

A six-month tour took them to Sydney and Melbourne.

On the way home they went to Hollywood and Las Vegas.

They were having the time of their lives,

but back in Britain show business was changing fast.

Television had really taken over,

and the variety theatre couldn't compete.

They knew they had to make the breakthrough on the new ITV,

but their agent, Frank Pope, didn't share their vision.

Frank could not move with the times,

he would not recognise that the days of doing the tours

and the stage shows, that they were over, and that the days of television

had arrived, and, moreover, they couldn't even get the work.

Ernie was determined that they were going to conquer the television.

He said, "Oh, well, if we can do it our way,

"have a little bit more input and not take advice from other people

"who think they know us, which they don't..."

And that was it, he was definitely determined

that they were going to conquer television.

Morecambe and Wise went out and found an agent

who could make things happen for them on television.

His name was Billy Marsh.

He was another one of those linchpin people

that really changed everything because,

as soon as they signed on with him -

and they didn't actually sign anything, they never had

a contract between them, just a handshake -

he literally picked up the phone in the office and got them

three spots on TV on other people's shows.

So suddenly things were happening. This guy was a real mover and shaker.

But Billy was also part of a big organisation

and associated with Lew and Leslie Grade, and all of them,

so they were a powerful organisation

and Billy could get for them really what they needed.

Everybody respected Billy, and if you got a call from Billy, you listened.

But the most important thing he did for Eric and Ernie

was to give them the courage to come back to TV

after their disaster at the BBC.

He said to them, "Boys, if you're not on TV, you're nobody.

"You've got to have a go."

Not much survives of their TV appearances from the 1950s,

but one of the few that does is from one of the first bookings

Billy Marsh arranged.

The Good Old Days on the BBC was a programme which recreated

the lost world of the music hall for the new television audience.

Ladies and gentlemen, in all pride, we present Morecambe and Wise!

BAND STRIKES UP

-Thank you, thank you. Who's come on?

-I don't know.

Oh, it's us.

-Good evening...

-Hello, darling. Working?

Oh, you're up there, aren't you?

Don't wave - it's the wife.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

I must say how happy we are to be appearing once again

at the City Varieties Leeds.

It really is wonderful to see all your happy smiling faces.

Happy smiling fa...!

As a matter of fact, the old place hasn't changed one little bit.

Don't you feel there's something missing?

TROMBONE GROANS

That's it.

But it's exciting in the theatre, the lights, the atmosphere!

-Is that what it is?

-Yes.

-I thought it was you.

I'm getting a bit fed up with this stage lark.

-Fed up with it?

-Well, I'd like to do something different, you know,

like go abroad, get a new job.

Where was that woman there when she was doing that dancing?

-I've got it.

-What?

-Spain.

-Is that where she was?

-Yes.

-That's where I'd like to go, where it's hot.

-That's the place for you.

-Why?

Listen, you would make a marvellous bullfighter.

Yeah, you're a natural.

Listen, I'm going to make you the greatest bullfighter in the world.

-You're only saying that.

-No, I'm not.

-Well, somebody just did.

-Eh?

Morecambe and Wise.

APPLAUSE

Morecambe and Wise were now back on television,

and it was ITV shows like Val Parnell's Saturday Spectacular

where they really stood out.

ORCHESTRA PLAYS

# Lady of Spain, I adore you

# Right from the moment I saw you... #

# And ever more I'm singing the blues...

ORCHESTRA STOPS PLAYING

# Without you

# Why do you do me this way?

# Hey. #

-Morecambe...

-And Wise!

APPLAUSE

-SINGING IN A MUSIC HALL STYLE:

-# You ain't nothing but a hound dog

# You ain't nothing but a hound dog... #

Very good.

(I've heard of a square, but this fella's an oblong.)

-Very good, that.

-Now come on!

Keep your eyes on this, sunshine! What do you think of that, eh?

-Eric here. WOMAN'S VOICE:

-'Oh.'

-You know, the good-looking one with the glasses.

-'Yes.'

Yeah. Well, I was just ringing up to find out if, er...

if you'd like to go to Brighton tomorrow

and spend the day there with me.

We could have a drink and a few laughs, one or two things, you know.

Well, what do you say then?

-MAN'S VOICE:

-'Hey, you.'

-Eh?

-'I heard that.'

-You what?

-'Do you know who I am?'

-Do I what?

-'Do you know who I am?'

Well, no. Who are you?

'I'm Elsie's 'usband.'

Oh.

-Do you know who I am?

-'No.'

LAUGHTER

On ITV, the northern accents of Morecambe and Wise seemed fresh,

like the channel itself.

Sunday Night At The London Palladium was ITV's biggest entertainment show

and Morecambe and Wise made several

show-stealing appearances on the programme.

Billy Marsh rang them one day and said, "Boys, we've made it.

"I've got you headline on Sunday Night At The Palladium.

"Lew wants you to top the bill on Sunday Night At The Palladium,"

which was the biggest show on television at the time.

They were thrilled.

So that was, really, "We've arrived."

I'm just like a shadow.

# Me and my Shadow... #

Now you try and get out of that, eh?

Ooh!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

My goodness! What have I done?

APPLAUSE

Excuse me, sir, are you all right?

-Have you anything to say to the viewers before you leave?

-One thing.

-What?

-HE MUMBLES

Audiences loved Morecambe and Wise,

and ATV thought they were ready for a show of their own.

Morecambe and Wise prepared themselves for another stab

at a television series, but they were nervous.

Fearing a repeat of the problems that had sunk Running Wild,

Morecambe and Wise sought out the advice of the era's other

successful northern double act, Jewel and Warris.

Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warris had transferred their double act

onto television with some success, and recommended their writers

and their producer to Morecambe and Wise.

Eric and Ernie informed Lew Grade at ATV

that this was the production team they wanted, and they got their way.

In the summer of 1961, Morecambe and Wise and their new producer,

Colin Clews, and new writers Sid Green and Dick Hills,

started work on the new show.

APPLAUSE

The first episode of Two Of A Kind

was transmitted in October 1961 to a lukewarm reception.

Something wasn't right,

and Eric and Ernie blamed the scriptwriters, Hills and Green.

The sketches that were being written for them by Sid Green and Dick Hills

were populated by quite large casts, and they felt really uneasy with it.

-Welcome to Casablanca...

-Just a moment, just a moment!

The sketches had too many actors on screen.

It was The Morecambe & Wise Show,

but the stars were fighting for attention with the extras.

It was back to the whole Running Wild experience of 1954,

the whole disaster scenario had re-emerged.

Not because Sid and Dick were writing badly - they weren't -

but they were suddenly in a cast of thousands again.

It was back to lots of people on a stage

and then being told to do this, stand there, do this.

So it was heading nowhere, again, very quickly.

A solution presented itself

when the actors' union, Equity, called a strike.

With no actors available, Hills and Green were forced to write

small-scale sketches around the personalities of Morecambe and Wise.

-Nap-nap-nap.

-Nap-nap-nap.

-I say!

-Nap-nap.

Nap-nap-nap-nap. What?

Is that Brigitte Bardot over there?

-Where?

-Snap! I win.

Cunning devil!

-Try it again.

-Again?

-Nap-nap-nap.

I can see the top of your cards.

I won't look. Nap-nap, nap-nap.

-Hey.

-What?

-Is that Brigitte Bardot over there?

-No, she's over there.

-Where?

Snap! I win.

The cast is cut down, the sketches become more intimate

and we're invited into their world.

And the whole of their television performance came down

to a very intimate, face-to-face, nose-to-nose intimate relationship,

and all the clutter on the screen, millions of actors

and extras and props - all that got stripped away

and they suddenly discovered what magic that was

and how that was a television technique.

They were made for television.

A lot of the music hall stars who'd made it on the stage

were too big when they came in front of a camera.

They were sort of eating the camera.

But Eric and Ernie were made for television.

They adapted perfectly, because it was all conversational,

the two of them talking to each other.

In a way, it gave them a break because they found that those

short, concise shows were received amazingly well.

I used to go to the studio and watch when it was a live broadcast

and they used to bring the house down, you couldn't believe it,

couldn't believe that it could go so well. Brought the house down.

Well, first of all, ladies and gentlemen,

I'd like to speak to you about Einstein's theory of astrophysics.

This, of course, is a very, very fascinating subject

and very, very difficult for the ordinary man.

But as you know, we...

Hup, hey!

As you know, we are surrounded by a lot of commonplace things...

Hup! Hey-oh!

..motor cars, aeroplanes and vacuum cleaners,

and very few people seem to want...

LAUGHTER

BAG RUSTLES

LAUGHTER

An unexpected bonus of the strike meant the writers, Dick Hills

and Sid Green, had to stand in for the missing actors.

# Do you miss me tonight?

# Oh, are you sorry

# We drifted apart... #

What are you doing?

-I'm singing, aren't I?

-Singing?

-# Are you... #

You don't sing on your own any more, you know?

Well, Frank Sinatra didn't do bad, did he?

He'd have backing today,

you know, like Cliff Richard has The Shadows.

-Oh, has he?

-It's a very lucky day for you.

-Speak up a bit.

-# Are you... #

-Hey, I'm a group.

-By yourself?

No, no, no. There's a group of us.

-Is it?

-Yeah, Sid and Dick. You haven't met them, have you?

-No.

Well, this is Dick and this is Sid.

-Oh, I see.

-That's Dick and that's Sid. They are going to back you.

-Well, what does Dick... That's Dick?

-Yeah.

-What does he do, then?

-Well, he's a boomer.

-Oh.

-Give him a "boom", Dick.

-Boom.

-LAUGHTER

-Is that all he does?

-That's all he needs to do.

-Does he cop?

-Of course.

Well, what about... What about...Sid then?

-Ah, now, he's the real personality.

-Yeah.

-He's an ooh-er.

-Is he?

-Yes.

-Oh.

Give him an "ooh", Sid.

Ooh!

You didn't want to part with that, did you?

The amateurish acting by Sid and Dick gave the whole show

an accessible charm,

the perfect setting for Eric Morecambe.

I can remember it from watching it.

Suddenly there were the two script writers going,

"Boom! Ooh! Yat-ta-ta-ta. Boom. Ooh..."

when they did a doo-wop number, and it was Sid and Dick, and we went,

"Who are these people?"

We didn't know people had script writers in those days,

but there they were on stage, just four people

instead of 10, 20, or whatever.

A one, a two...

-Boom.

-Ooh!

-Yat-ta-ta-ta.

-Boom.

-Ooh!

-Yat-ta-ta-ta.

# Are you lonesome tonight?

# Do you miss me tonight?

# Are you sorry we drifted apart? #

-J-J-Just a minute.

-No, don't stop.

-Just a minute.

-Boom!

J-Just a minute.

-I'm yat-ta-ta-ta-ing, you see?

-Oh, of course. Well, you shouldn't be.

No, I should be singing Are You Lonesome Tonight?.

You've got the sideboards, you're the star.

-I've got them all down to here, yeah.

-It's probably the start.

Something went wrong with the start. I know, Sid, you start us off.

-Give us the one, two, then you'll be all right.

-Yeah.

-OK. Ready?

-Yeah.

-One, two... # Boom.

-Ooh!

-Yat-ta-ta-ta

-# Boom.

-Ooh!

-Yat-ta-ta-ta... #

Eric and Ernie and Sid and Dick became a comedy gang.

It was unusual but it worked.

Morecambe and Wise finally had a format which would make them

television stars.

-Just a minute, Sid.

-Boom.

-Just a minute, Dick.

LAUGHTER

I'm doing the "ooh" now.

I've yat-ta-ta-ta-ed and now I am doing the "ooh" now.

I've only got the "boom" to go.

Sid Green and Dick Hills had very little in common

with Morecambe and Wise.

Sid and Dick were from the south, well-educated

and had a reputation as talented comedy writers.

They were a bit posher than Eric and Ernie, and in those days,

there were still a lot of deference about.

You deferred to people who were posher than you.

In many ways, Sid and Dick were in control of Two Of A Kind,

which was sometimes a problem for Eric and Ernie.

I think they tried to take too much credit for it.

I think they were very critical after a show, and Eric would come off

and be in the dressing room, and Hills and Green would come in,

"Well, you got that wrong and you got that wrong,"

and Eric would swallow it and then they'd go out

and Eric would go... and Ernie would go...

HE GROWLS ..like that.

Sid and Dick were really running The Morecambe & Wise Show

to begin with. Without a doubt, it was their project.

Eric and Ernie were the employed comedians, really.

I think my father always found that Sid was very negative about them,

always brought things down, like,

"Oh, you could've done that better or that better."

There was never any sense of praise.

And they were not easy, they were quite chippy.

Sid and Dick were brilliant but very chippy and difficult

and critical, and it wasn't a happy working environment

and they used to have to bite their lip

when they went to rehearsals, and I think that took its toll.

The creative differences between writers

and performers were kept under control by the producer Colin Clews.

Colin Clews was... Essentially, he had come up the ranks of television.

He hadn't been in variety or any of those things, to my knowledge, and

he was a great television technician, he had a good sense of comedy.

He was very collaborative, easy to work with and very, very talented.

Knew how to shoot them and knew how to get the best out of them,

and knew when to say, "No, guys, that won't work,"

and they respected that in the same way that he would respect them

when they said, "No, Colin, we need to do it this way because...

"Even if it doesn't work for the cameras, you'll have to find

"a way to make it work because that is where the laugh is."

It was wonderfully collaborative.

I think Colin Clews was massive in the history of Morecambe and Wise

on TV, because of his experience and what he brought to the production.

I remember my father saying that every now and then

he'd even throw in a gag, or something like that,

and I think on one or two occasions you see

Eric say, "Colin was right." Like if a gag fell flat,

Colin Clews probably said on the quiet, "That one won't work tonight."

And Eric kept it in and it fell flat, so he was right.

Who was he going to say? That's what I want to know.

-Who is he going to say?

-Who invented this?

-Yes.

-Years ago,

-Sir Humphrey Lyttelton.

-Ah-ha-ha!

You see, it's just a wild guess, that's all.

-No, definitely, he invented it.

-Yes, and Colin was right.

-Yes.

-What?

Two Of A Kind was a modern comedy show.

The set design was stylish, the costumes were fashionable