Variety Story of Light Entertainment

What is it? What is it? What is it?

And now it's all joined up again.

-..To see you, to see you...

-Nice!

-What are you gonna do?

-I'll tell you, Piggy.

I'm going to fire you, Piggy, you are fired!

It was a world of wonder, of excitement, thrills and delights.

There were acrobats, puppets and magicians,

men swallowed swords, women were sawn in half.

It was colourful, exotic and bizarre.

Part circus, part freak show, it was the greatest show on earth, all together under one roof.

It was called...variety.

There'd be a juggling act or maybe a singer, and then after that,

there'd be another comic, and that's what it'd be, different acts.

A night at the variety theatre

was the best live entertainment money could buy.

They thought it would last forever,

but out of the blue came rock and roll, and everything changed.

We got booed off. Booed off, for the first time in our lives.

Even the Apes got booed off.

Bill Haley rocked around Britain and the kids went crazy.

All of a sudden, these kids got up and danced in the aisles, you know,

to Rock Around The Clock, and we thought, "Wow!"

Variety would never be the same again. Its theatres closed, but its spirit survived.

It moved on to television and beyond, and never lost its magic.

-It's breaking, it's breaking.

-There's a crack.

You can... Look, it's very.

APPLAUSE

New variety acts found fame on the television talent shows.

Opportunity Knocks was a variety show -

singing dogs and four-year-old kids that could play drums.

You were seeing a little bit of everybody's talent.

You know, only three minutes of it, but everybody's talent was there for you to watch.

Colourful characters came along, each one more bizarre than the one before.

It's like most people who have, you know, a thing on their hand,

whether it be a boxer or a ventriloquist,

or whatever, they actually...

They're slightly mad, basically.

I mean, they're not like you and I.

I love Vince, I actually have a real soft spot for Vince.

I think it's the most bizarre way to earn a living, I really do.

Nobody is too weird for variety -

home of the speciality act or "spesh acts," as they're known in showbiz.

It's the same kind of thing as when you see a woman being cut in half.

You know it's a trick, but you don't know how it's done.

There are highs and lows, and nothing is as it seems.

I made millions, but I was bulimic, I had panic attacks, I had anxiety attacks.

I had everything, but nothing.

Variety, in all its many guises never goes away.

It changes and improves, and comes back just like new.

I think Strictly Come Dancing is entertaining, it's glitzy

and it's fun, and it's glamorous, dressed up Saturday night telly.

Who would've thought that very much a middle-aged form of entertainment, which is dancing,

which most people think had sort of disappeared,

could be brought back into prime time

and turn out to be a show that could appeal to a broad audience?

Variety has come a long way, but the journey's not over yet.

Variety grew out of the rowdy world of the Victorian music hall -

entertainment for the working man.

And the acts shared the limelight with huge quantities of alcohol.

When a chairman banged his gavel, and said, "order, order,"

it wasn't to get the audience to be quiet and listen to the next turn.

"Order, order," was an instruction to the audience to order another round of drinks.

But after the First World War, theatrical entrepreneurs moved in and cleaned up show business.

Drinking was discouraged,

and the now respectable variety theatre became

the number one form of entertainment in the 1920s.

Now, when I pronounce the magic word, ooh-ja-koo-shay, the bird disappears.

Up your sleeve.

The term "variety" became just another word for light entertainment,

but originally, it described the variety of different acts all in the same show

at the local hippodrome or Empire theatre.

The key thing to remember about variety is the word "variety".

The fact if you went for an evening at the Palace of Delights

to see a variety bill, you would get a bit of everything.

There'd be a juggling act, or maybe a singer,

and then after that there'd be another comic,

and after that there'd be the second top of the bill,

who could be anything, a magician, or something like that.

And that's what it'd be - different acts.

You had a programme with all the names of the artists,

and there was a board on the side of the stage

which had lights on, with numbers.

And so whatever number came up, you knew that was the number in the programme.

And your programme would say, "1, the Marie de Vere Dancers, 2, the new-style comedian Max Bygraves,

3, Eddie Calvert and his Golden Trumpet."

And the number would go up, "Oh, it'll be the dancers now.

"Now it's Max, now it's Eddie Calvert."

One of the great favourites on the variety bill has always been magic.

The pioneer of stage magic was the great American illusionist Harry Houdini.

His incredible feats of escapology made him internationally famous.

Magic has always been a great draw on variety bills. It's always been a great draw to the public.

The idea that you think you're seeing something

that can't possibly be done, be done, is very, very attractive.

Magicians shared the variety bill with all kinds of acts.

Some had to be seen to be believed, like Joe Adami, the human billiard table.

One of the biggest variety acts in the '20s and '30s were Wilson Keppel and Betty.

They sprinkled sand on the stage, never spoke a word,

and shuffled around doing a thing they called The Sand Dance.

Audiences couldn't get enough.

One famous story about Wilson Keppel and Betty is that

they went to Las Vegas to perform, and brought their own sand.

And when customs were questioning why they were bringing sand to Vegas, it was in the desert,

they explained that in Vegas they had the wrong sort of sand.

They were artists and they needed this particular sand and this particular sound.

They were perfectionists.

Today you wouldn't see, for example, a contortionist.

You wouldn't see a star playing the xylophone.

You wouldn't see three acrobats on a stage.

And you see, these variety people, the great variety people,

they could go round and round and round, just doing the same act,

year after year in all the same theatres.

By the 1940s, variety's greatest stars came to represent the nation itself.

# I go window cleaning to earn an honest bob... #

George Formby and his ukulele banjo were internationally famous.

# I'd rather have his job than mine when I'm cleaning windows. #

The other great singing star of the era was Gracie Fields,

who was one of the highest paid female stars in the world,

the Madonna of the 1930s.

# Land of hope and glory

# Mother of the free... #

WILD CHEERING

A typical evening of variety entertainment could include stand up comedians, like Max Miller,

as well as performing animals like Nino the Wonder Dog.

Circus acts and adagio, a dangerous acrobatic ballet.

That was an artistic piece of work too.

Ventriloquists also took their place on the variety bill.

The first big puppet star was Charlie McCarthy.

Edgar Bergen was the ventriloquist who made him a huge star in the United States.

The Charlie McCarthy Show ran from 1937 to 1956.

Well, this has really been a wonderful day for us.

Yes, it has.

Lunch at the White House.

Pot luck with the Roosevelts.

Edgar Bergen wasn't a very skilled ventriloquist, but that didn't matter on the radio.

No-one cared, since Charlie McCarthy was such a funny little character,

and the biggest stars in the world appeared on his show, like Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe.

-Charlie.

-Ooh, Marilyn Monroe.

I'm here.

Darling, would you mind if I kept on working?

Well, now Marilyn, let's get this straight.

I wear the pants in this family.

-You're absolutely right.

-Yeah.

It's a shame, because I make around 50,000 a year.

Oh, you do?

Well, now, you might look good in slacks.

Edgar Bergen's daughter, Candice Bergen, would grow up to be a top Hollywood actress,

but as a child, she was forced to share the spotlight with her father's puppet sidekick.

His daughter, Candice, said that it was very worrying when she was

a kiddie, because she had a brother that was a doll.

But she had to treat him like a human being, otherwise her father would be very annoyed.

Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy

earned a fortune through their hit radio shows.

Inspired by this, Peter Brough launched the same act in Britain.

Are you enjoying it?

- Yes, thank you. - You are.

Archie Andrews was the puppet,

and his hit radio show was called Educating Archie.

Hello, who's there?

-Look what's coming round the corner of the potting shed.

-What?

-A big pot

LAUGHTER

This is Archie Andrews,

who was the first really famous ventriloquial doll in Britain,

because he had a ten-year radio series called Educating Archie.

-Andrews, Monica, what are you two doing here at midnight by this lily pond?

-Fishing.

-- Yeah.

-- Don't be ridiculous, there aren't any fish in this pond.

Jolly good job too, we haven't any bait.

Come on, Archie, run for it.

Come back here!

Eric Sykes used to write it.

He had guests on it

like Tony Hancock, Beryl Reed, Max Bygraves, Julie Andrews,

all these people were guests on that show and became stars.

Everyone used to tune into it every week.

Archie Andrews was this naughty schoolboy, and he was a huge star.

-What did Julius Caesar say when he was stabbed by Brutus?

-Ouch.

Ignorant boy.

I was writing a show for the BBC, radio, called Educating Archie.

It was about a dummy, Peter Brough and Archie Andrews.

And we had a tutor, Archie's tutor,

Robert Morton, and unfortunately, after a few months, I think,

I'm not sure, a couple of years, but he died,

and I had the sudden inspiration, this...

Tony Hancock, never been on radio before.

Didn't you say there were seats in all parts?

I'm sorry, sir, there isn't a seat in the 'ouse.

Isn't that rather uncomfortable for your customers?

The customers we get don't know any better, they're used to sitting...

LAUGHTER

Get back in line.

I saw you trying to dodge to the front of the queue.

But we're the only two here.

That's no excuse, you should've come earlier.

By now, variety was everyone's idea of great entertainment,

and when television began to take off in the 1950s,

it was always the variety shows which were top of the TV ratings.

The first and best of these was

Sunday Night At The London Palladium

which was brought to the screen

by ATV's Lew Grade in 1955.

The show with the biggest impact from the beginning of ATV

was Sunday Night At The Palladium.

That was the iconic show that changed the whole tone of television.

It couldn't be more different from the tone of the BBC,

the attitude, the point of view of the BBC.

This was entertainment for the people.

The show had it all and more.

The Tiller Girls' high-kicking dance routines brought West End glamour to all corners of the British Isles.

The glamour of a line of girls, 12, 16 wide,

moving absolutely in synch, high kicking with spangles

and feathers, and skimpy costumes,

and these girls coming up kicking in synch, wonderful stuff, wonderful.

# Da bump, da da da da da da da da da da da. #

Great style.

Well, the Tiller Girls was a thing,

you know, that was so sort of special,

because it wasn't like kids romping around doing jazz steps,

or somebody coming on and doing a tap routine.

These were like ponies on parade, you know,

like drilled, you know, to precision,

and I think the excitement was seeing this amazing accuracy

that you know must've taken hours and hours of rehearsal to perfect.

Very exhausting and exacting routines,

I mean, you could not keep it up.

The Army could not keep it up.

What excited me with the Tiller Girls, of course...

with their legs in the air, and my God,

trying to catch a glimpse of their knickers.

Are you mad? That's what we looked at. Ooh!

Better not let your mother know you were looking at that,

or your mother would go mad, but that's what you looked for.

# We've been of service, with a smile

# We've been of service, with a smile... #

For the first time, millions of British viewers got a taste of real

big-time show business, and they loved it.

Then, one day, rock and roll came to town and changed everything.

# One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock rock

# Five, six, seven o'clock, eight o'clock rock

# Nine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock rock

# We're going to rock around the clock tonight... #

I remember seeing Bill Haley And The Comets -

Rock Around The Clock - it changed my life.

# I'm going to rock around the clock... #

All of a sudden, these kids got up and danced in the aisles

to Rock Around The Clock, and we thought, "Wow!"

I mean, that was a big deal to do.

You know, "We're really being naughty here, we are actually

"not sitting in our seats, we're dancing in the aisles."

When Bill Haley And The Comets brought their rock and roll

stage show to Britain in 1957, the world of entertainment was shaken to the core.

-We were a double act going round the theatres.

-Beautiful life.

All we lived for was to get up in the morning, go to the cinema,

go to the theatre, come home,

have our baked beans, go to bed, and so on.

And all of a sudden, my sister wrote us a letter from Wales,

and she said, "Twins, have you seen Bill Haley?"

And I telephoned her up, I said, "Who's this Bill Haley?"

"Who is Bill Haley?"

"Well," she said, "he's caused a riot in Wales."

# One more time, big time, when the big times... #

As Bill Haley and Elvis Presley's music shook up the nation,

a new wave of home-grown rock and roll acts

sprang up and were initially welcomed as variety's latest attraction.

# And I'm ready, ready, ready Ready to rock and roll #

Traditional speciality acts

shared the bill with the likes of Billy Fury, Adam Faith,

Lonnie Donegan, Cliff Richard and later, The Beatles,

but it was a recipe for disaster.

The rock and roll audience only wanted to see rock and roll.

We didn't think like today, like,

"Oh, my God, there's The Beatles AND an old-fashioned act."

When The Beatles first went on tour, the compere with them was a comedian,

and he would introduce them and he'd do his own act.

He had a kilt, and it was funny to lift his kilt up.

You know, "Hey, och aye," and whatever he used to say.

We hated the funny comperes, we wanted what we came to see.

We had to wait to get to see the act.

The great fun was you were allowed to throw things,

and we used to throw chips at the acts.

Really brilliant acts, and I feel so sorry

to think that I actually did that with a lot of kids,

and they were earning their living, and we were throwing chips at them, because that was something to do.

We had so little respect by then.

It was a different type of audience -

they had their feet up on the bandstand rails.

-Murder.

-Throwing orange peel on the stage.

Throwing orange peel at us, and all that. We weren't used to it, you see.

-We got booed off.

-Booed off, for the first time in our lives.

Even the Apes got booed off.

The teenage rock and roll fans and the older variety audience just didn't mix. Something had to give.

For a few years, they struggled on together,

but in the end, rock and roll went off and did its own thing.

Traditional variety theatre was left for dead.

I dunno if rock and roll killed it.

The public decided that that's what they wanted,

and what happened was that it's also the artists.

For instance, when we did shows in those days,

The Shadows and I would close the bill and do about 25 minutes.

I can only do about six songs in 25 minutes, so we started to branch out.

We'd do the whole of the second half, so you used less artists.

So I thought, "I'll do the whole show."

So partly selfishness and partly doing what the public want,

and that's why I guess we can be blamed to a certain extent that variety went.

We played The Alhambra, Bradford,

-number one theatre with a terrific show.

-True.

-And we were playing there and we were half-empty.

-All the time.

All the time, for the week, and we looked out through the window...

-One Friday evening.

-And we saw men on horseback, police on horseback.

-Police.

And there was a queue, miles long, in this cinema.

And Freddie said, "Look at that,"

and we looked through that window,

it was Cliff Richard and the Shadows.

-And they were packing the place.

-And that was when we knew...

-It was on the wane...

-We were going down very badly.

CLIFF: There was a furore about it.

And the music was new then, of course,

and I love the fact that I was right there,

and was screamed at and had my shirts ripped open, fabulous.

Rock and roll took away a large section of the variety audiences.

The variety theatres couldn't survive without them,

and very quickly, they were forced out of business.

Live entertainment was left to the young and rebellious.

Everyone else stayed at home with their new-fangled central heating and watched television.

Television now created its own stars.

The comperes of Sunday Night At The London Palladium -

Jimmy Tarbuck and Bruce Forsyth - became famous overnight.

# Good evening!

# Ladies and Gentlemen

# Welcome to Sunday Night At The London Palladium. #

I was very lucky to get a job that suited me so well,

and you've always got to have that bit of luck that

if you're offered a job and it's the right thing for you,

to be able to take it, grab hold of it and don't let it go.

Sunday Night At The London Palladium was known internationally all around the world, and it was the one show

that international stars wanted to be on in England.

And so it had such kudos that you could easily summon up

a Frank Sinatra or a Shirley Bassey,

and they would always say yes.

In those days, for Aunty Flo in Dundee and Mrs Jones in Wigan,

and they're seeing Shirley Bassey in their house...

Bob Hope... Now, they might not have been able to get down to London

to see them in theatres,

but here they were, in their kitchens and lounges and dining rooms.

There they were, on the telly.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, I'm happy to get on.

I've been made up since breakfast.

I wouldn't even let the waiter see the real me.

TV rescued variety from the jaws of rock and roll

and transmitted its best acts to millions of viewers.

But TV wasn't good news for every variety performer.

# We'll be educating Archie

# Oh, what a job for anyone... #

When television came along, radio's puppet superstar Archie Andrews

got his own TV show, Here's Archie, but it wasn't a great success.

Archie was a big, big name.

The trouble was, that was on radio.

The reason it worked on radio was because

people didn't see Peter's mouth.

Peter Brough had never needed to be a technically good ventriloquist on the radio,

but on TV, the illusion that Archie Andrews spoke for himself was no longer believable.

Every trick in the book was employed to hide Brough's moving lips.

The Archie Andrews puppet even had its own chair,

so that Brough could be out of sight.

But nothing worked, and Brough's poor ventriloquism proved difficult to avoid.

Well, nice morning, isn't it? Now, have you had your breakfast?

Ooh, yes, Brough, I had eight sausages and three eggs.

What, you ate all that alone?

-Ooh, no, I had some salt and mustard with them.

-Oh, did you?

Of course, as a ventriloquist, he wasn't very good.

Mind you, he knew it.

He said to me one day, he said, "Do you realise, Ray,

"I'm probably the highest paid ventriloquist in Britain,

"and probably the worst?"

You know, listening to that story...

Your mouth's getting worse! >

I'll put this cigar in.

-Yeah, I'd like to see you do it.

-That's enough, Archie.

Television exposed a whole generation of ventriloquists

whose technique was good enough for radio and the variety theatre,

but couldn't survive the scrutiny of the close-up shot.

Bad ventriloquists became an easy target for jokes,

and were mercilessly taken apart by comedians like Sandy Powell.

Now tell me. Tell me, my little man, how are YOU this evening?

HE MUMBLES DELIBERATELY

HE GAGS, CROWD LAUGHS

HE COUGHS

It's just at first, it'll be all right.

When television came along,

a lot of those ventriloquists had been so used to variety,

and worked for so many years in variety,

they were too old to change.

And I don't mean old in age, particularly,

but they'd been doing the same thing for so long, in that way,

that they couldn't change,

they couldn't believe there was a way of moving on

to the new world of television.

What television needed was ventriloquists who could actually talk without moving their lips.

Enter Arthur Worsley.

When he was only three months old, this lad...

-You don't mind me talking about you, do you, son?

-Mmm?

When he was only three months old, he was on a doorstep

for three days and three nights, in a little basket.

And nobody picked him up,

so his mother and father took him in again.

Arthur Worsley was probably the greatest ventriloquist that I ever saw -

with Charlie Brown - and he was fantastic,

and could turn a show around.

When I was boy, I mean, Arthur was considered to be the number one, the top ventriloquist.

In actual fact,

technically, he wasn't really as good as people thought he was.

Ray Alan thought he could do better, and he did.

The whole thing had to change,

and I saw that, and I worked and worked on a technique

that I wanted to be able to have the television camera

come as close as he wanted to

without having to feel that they can't go any closer.

I don't know, they've all gone raving mad here, you know?

-What's the matter?

-Well, I mean, there I am,

with a glass in my hand, this damned fool with

the ear muffs on comes dashing up,

snatches the thing out of my hand and says, "You're on, you're on".

-Didn't even tell me what the bet was, the silly

-BLEEP.

Ray Alan was a fantastic ventriloquist because

the character that he imbued the dummy with was totally believable.

This sort of a tipsy lord, a constantly drunk character, but that could think on his feet.

Have you ever tried to say "hospital" without moving your mouth?

No. I don't really bother.

-Well, go on, do it.

-What, now?

I insist. Say hospital without moving your mouth.

And watch this, watch this.

Go on.

Hoscital.

Television was now the new home of variety,

but magicians were reluctant to get involved,

fearing the camera would reveal the secrets of their tricks.

But for one magician, TV held no fear.

He could see its potential and used the new technology

to create illusions nobody had ever seen before.

In the process, he became the first star of TV magic.

His name was David Nixon.

David Nixon was...

the father of magic on television, without any shadow of doubt.

Can I have a little bit more... That's lovely, thank you.

Now look, all you do, what you do first of all, you take the wire,

like this, or the string, and you take your scissors.

Only one tricky move.

After you've cut it, now this is a little bit more difficult, but...

SILENCE

LAUGHTER

SILENCE

And then, of course, it's all joined up again.

That's how it's done.

He used the new technology of television, which was brand new then,

so people watching a television screen had only ever seen news reels.

They'd never actually seen special effects.

Nixon proved that magic could work on TV, and soon a variety show wasn't

a variety show unless somebody was pulling a rabbit out of a hat, or producing a dove from their pocket.

The explosion of magic on TV led one performer down a strange path to stardom.

It was magic, but not as we know it.

You just get one of the loops - three pieces there like that, see.

One of them there, look, like that, see.

-LAUGHTER

-And what you do then, see...

You put this into...into a loop, like that, a loop there,

then you get that one, you put that into a loop there, like that.

And you get the third one, and you put...

No, I made a mistake, look, you get a long piece of rope.

-Aha, yes!

-'His physical appearance helped.'

I mean, he had this huge great body,

with this enormous head stuck on top of it,

with ridiculous bits of black hair sticking out from this stupid fez.

Add to that the voice, and the looks,

he was a natural clown, a comedy genius.

Gee, he was a funny fella. I mean, if he walked in now -

please God, he could, I'd love it - and he'd just go, "Hello,"

and you'd go...and he'd go, "What are you laughing at?"

He'd take a little bit of offence. "You laughing at me?"

And I'd say, "Tommy, they love you." "I love them."

Thank you very much.

Tommy Cooper took the traditional magic act and turned it into comedy.

It was an in-joke for the viewers who had become blase

about the small-scale trickery of the TV magician.

Tommy Cooper was a tremendous influence

for comedians and for people on television to...

break from the formality of a performance.

I think he was the first person

on television that looked like he was unrehearsed,

that looked like it wasn't a script, that looked like

he hadn't quite got ready before he came out.

LAUGHTER

Cooper's whole act ridiculed a major part

of variety entertainment,

but in doing so, he created a unique comedy character.

And out of this empty bag, I will produce...

a live dove.

Television showcased all kinds of weird and wonderful characters

into the nation's living rooms,

but ordinary people still wanted a night out.

In Britain, there was still one thing more popular than television, and that was alcohol.

Nightclubs gave people what they wanted -

beer, cigarettes and non-stop entertainment.

HE CROONS

At that time, the working men's clubs were massive.

Every town like Sheffield and Birmingham had a nightclub,

where a magician or a novelty act, or, you know,

somebody on a trapeze or on stilts. There were places for people to work.

We started off, didn't we, Jeanette, as a song and dance act.

-Yeah.

-It was bloody awful.

I couldnae dance and she couldnae sing.

Can you hear me all right down below? Can you hear me all right round the room?

-Yes.

-Can you hear me at the bar?

Good, two pints.

A new generation of variety artistes now had somewhere

to learn their trade, but it was a tough, no-nonsense environment.

I don't know who books the turns here, but sometimes they're good,

and sometimes they're bad.

We were unlucky tonight.

If they liked you, you were great,

but if you died, you had to walk through the club to get your money.

You had to go the bar and be paid over the bar by the steward,

and he would count your money out in full view of all the punters.

One, two... And if you were on 20 quid,

which was a lot of money in those days,

this hush would fall over the bar,

and everyone could see what your money was.

And it was some kind of demeaning ritual, I think,

they devised, to put you in your place.

We did Bernard Manning's club - we did three a night,

seven nights a week - and he gave us 50 quid.

And I saw him a couple of months ago, and I told him that.

He said, "You can come back any time for the same money."

Can I have order, please? I must have order!

ITV's Wheeltappers & Shunters Club captured the atmosphere of this new home of variety.

Every club used to have four or five, six acts on a night,

like Paul Daniels doing his tricks, Cannon and Ball.

Marvellous night. Place heaving.

Seven waiters going out with full trays every two seconds,

coming in and out, white coats on.

Yeah, that was the heydays, I'll tell you.

The accessibility of the nightclub scene encouraged

the public to believe that, with a bit of talent and a lot of luck,

they too, could become stars.

Opportunity Knocks was a TV variety show

which promised to launch newcomers into stardom.

Strong man Tony Holland, the musical muscle man.

Flexing muscle men competed with comedians, while jugglers

tried to outdo singers for a place in the spotlight.

The TV talent show was born.

You were seeing a little bit of everybody's talent.

You know, only three minutes of it,

but everybody's talent was there for you to watch,

and most of the light entertainment stars came from that era,

with your Les Dawsons and your Little and Large,

Paul Daniels, everybody came through.

They were given a chance.

And the people we've met here... Hilda Baker.

"Ooh, you big girl's blouse!"

Eddie Waring, "Well, here we are on Opportunity Knocks!"

Deputy Dawg, "OK there, Muskrat!"

-John Wayne.

-You haven't met John Wayne.

"The hell I have."

We thought we were too good for Opportunity Knocks. How daft is that?

Not realising that you go on Opportunity Knocks,

and 12 million people see you. If you went round the clubs for 80 years,

12 million people wouldn't see you. It was fantastic.

It was one of those times you care to forget.

I remember it was a time of misery and depression,

the wife had ran off with the fella next door and...

Ooh, I did miss him.

The diversity of acts on Opportunity Knocks reflected the belief that variety WAS show business.

Opportunity Knocks was a variety show, but it was of the day.

I mean, in those days people used to juggle for a living

and stand on their hands, and all that, and there was singing dogs.

And now we're going to have a boxing match. Time!

Go on, that's it, that's the idea, go on.

Punch him on the nose, that's the idea, you're winning.

Go on, that's it. You're down, and you're out!

Right, good girl.

Thank you.

New Faces was a TV talent show which came with a brilliant innovation,

a panel of judges to ridicule and humiliate the wannabe stars.

New Faces was bizarre in that you were judging like against unlike,

because you'd have a comedian, maybe a juggler, a singer,

a group, and something else, and so it's very hard to sort of say,

"Is that person more entertaining than that?"

# Nowhere...

# Nowhere... #

APPLAUSE AND WHISTLING

I found it pretty boring.

We're not going to see him in two or three years.

With television hungry for new variety acts,

the TV talent show could deliver stardom.

Les Dawson, Freddie Starr, Little and Large,

Lenny Henry and Victoria Wood, all had the X-factor in the '70s.

# I've heard about marital rights

# It sounds like hell So it's just as well

# It only happens on Saturday nights. #

New Faces was a great stepping stone for people to go on

and have their cabaret act exposed on television,

and then they sort of shot up the ladder.

Variety talent was now coming from all directions, and things were changing fast.

Up to now, puppets had been cute and cheeky,

but from the other side of the world came a puppet

that hated everything and everybody.

Rod Hull and Emu arrived from Australia and stole the show everywhere they went.

Rod Hull and Emu were fascinating.

When Emu went onto his arm, it ceased being on his arm

and became a real person, like an alter ego in a sense.

It did the naughty things that Rod would love to have done himself.

I think Rod was an absolute genius in being able,

almost mentally and psychologically,

to separate himself from the emu.

It was almost as if the thing on his arm

was an actual, independent being.

And you looked at it, you looked at it as though it was real, and your fear,

your fear was, "This thing's gonna go for me in a second,"

and you know Rod is going to blame it and say, "Nothing to do with me."

In his legendary 1976 interview on Parkinson,

Hull lost control of Emu in a spectacular way.

Does it take to people, you know, straightaway?

I mean, or do I have to...?

LAUGHTER

Yes, it does, of course it does, yes.

I don't have to make friends with it or try hard?

Yeah. He's quite friendly, if you just stroke him like that.

-Really?

-See, look.

LAUGHTER

I was quite prepared to have a decent conversation with Emu,

but it wasn't prepared to talk to me.

He was the kind of Meg Ryan of birds, basically.

Michael Parkinson wanted a serious interview,

but then that's Michael Parkinson.

You can't have a serious interview with Emu.

LAUGHTER

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

It's like most people who have, you know, a thing on their hand,

whether it be a boxer or a ventriloquist or...

They actually... They're slightly mad, basically.

I mean, they're not like you and I.

This emu had a life of its own.

He's all right once you get to know him, isn't he?

I knew we should never have booked it.

In the age of punk rock, here was a puppet

that was both vicious and rotten to everyone he met.

The attack on Michael Parkinson made Hull and Emu even more famous,

and soon The Emu Show was getting audiences of 11 million.

SCREAMING

Hull made a fortune from Emu,

but unpaid tax bills eventually led to bankruptcy.

In 1999, the man who made a living from knocking other people to the ground

fell off the roof of his house and died while trying to adjust his TV aerial

Although Rod Hull is gone, Emu lives on.

His son Toby is following in his father's footsteps,

giving Emu another chance to create anarchy, with a new series on ITV.

I can never, ever be as good as my father.

What I can hope to be is be different from my father.

Emu will, hopefully, in essence stay the same.

It's quite nice. In a way it feels like he's there, watching.

Whilst Emu was causing mayhem, the king of variety himself, Lew Grade,

had teamed up with a crazy genius

from America's Sesame Street to revolutionise the puppet show.

For Lew Grade, this was a chance to reinvent

Sunday Night At The Palladium,

this time hosted by puppets with big-name human guest stars.

But these weren't just puppets, they were Muppets.

The Muppet Show was a brilliant creation by Jim Henson,

and Lew absolutely fell in love with them.

Now tonight, I'm gonna try and put something new in my act.

Yeah, like comedy, maybe.

The Muppet Show was seen

in something like 105 countries by season three or four,

and I think for a very brief time,

it was the most popular show in the world,

right before Dallas became the most popular show in the world.

But it was huge.

Three, two, one, fire!

It's OK, everything is fine, folks.

Gonzo merely got knocked off stage by the impact,

but I think... Yes, he caught the cannonball!

For some of the Muppets, coping with that success was kind of hard.

I'm a pretty simple frog,

I just go back to the swamp when I'm not working,

hang out with my family,

and I don't really get the opportunity to get a huge ego.

Now there were certain Muppets, whose names I won't mention,

but their initials might be MP,

who had a little trouble with that fame.

I will not stand around while you do dumb things like that, Piggy.

You have done that to me too many times! I will not stand for it.

-What are you gonna do?

-I'll tell you what I'm going to do!

I'm going to fire you. Piggy, you are fired.

You are fired, Piggy! You are fired! Fired!

The Muppets were totally different than anything we'd ever seen before.

They were real characters.

Every one of them almost had a psyche,

every one of them had their own personality, every one of them had their own problems,

and you never really saw that in puppets until then.

The stars of The Muppet Show were the nervous compere,

Kermit the Frog, and the difficult diva, Miss Piggy.

Kermit was already established when The Muppet Show began,

and Piggy came out of the chorus of these background characters,

and during one episode, she turned and said, "I know that frog,"

or something like that, and suddenly it defined her

as being this character who was trying to be one up on everyone else.

-What is that?

-Er, well this is Fozzie's agent, Irving Bizarre,

we're negotiating a contract.

Hey, how you doing baby, kiddo, sweetheart?

Not bad-looking for a pig!

Want me to handle you?

I already have an agent, short stuff.

I don't wanna be your agent, I just wanna handle you.

Well, handle this! Hi-ya!

But whilst it was clear variety entertainment

was dramatically evolving, one show proudly remained unchanged.

The Royal Variety Show began in 1912, and is still going today.

By the '70s, it was one of the highlights of the television calendar.

All the best acts in one long show,

giving it all they'd got in front of the Royal Family.

It's always a total enigma to me.

One of the biggest viewing figures.

Always, it's in the top-ten viewing figures,

The Royal Variety Performance, you know?

Now, if people hate variety so much, and it's not accepted,

why is it ALWAYS in the top-ten of television programmes

of the entire year?

With typical randomness,

the acts could range from the Jackson Five to Alf Garnet.

-Here, who's that with her now?

-Oh, that's Bernard de la Fonte.

LAUGHTER

-He's not a sir.

-No!

-Isn't he?

-No.

-The way he's all over the Queen Mum there, I bet he's hoping to be.

The Royal Variety Show is now the only place in town

where this eclectic mix of artistes continues.

In 2005, The Royal Variety Show ranged from trick cyclists to comedian Catherine Tate.

Catherine Tate was difficult. Difficult for me.

I don't think it was difficult for Her Majesty, but it was difficult

for me cos I wasn't sure how far she was prepared to go,

cos she did go beyond where she went in rehearsal.

Am I bovvered?

It was the first time that anybody

had ever spoken directly to the Royal box in such a manner,

and I think I was more nervous and more embarrassed,

in a sense, than Her Majesty was,

who seemed to take it and was amused and not really very bothered by it.

As the new heroes of variety become as cool as the rock stars that once threatened to destroy them,

it is clear that the art of variety entertainment continues to cast its spell on a large audience.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the world capital of light entertainment, Las Vegas.

The interesting thing in Las Vegas, 20 years ago, it was the big lounge singer acts,

your Tom Jones and your kind of Elvis wannabes.

Then the big magic shows took over, your Siegfried and Roys,

and these days, it's a circus thing and all the spesh acts have gone over to...

I mean, Cirque du Soleil currently has five or six shows in Las Vegas, full-time,

so that's the new home of variety.

Cirque du Soleil shows us how dazzling the variety skills of a circus performer can be.

Thanks heavens for Cirque du Soleil, where if you wanna see great variety

done in a rock'n'roll way, it's absolutely stunning.

And what are they? Acrobats, cyclists, mime artists,

and they're there, but it's just wonderful.

In Las Vegas, variety artistes can hit the jackpot,

as the shows now bring in nearly as much money as the casinos.

But every artist secretly wants to end up in Las Vegas,

cos that's where the money is.

Another variety format on the up and up is our old favourite, the talent show.

In 2001, Popstars was the first of many to resurrect the formula of Opportunity Knocks and New Faces.

I'm sure the tune was in there somewhere.

Right now, there's nothing more popular than watching a bitchy panel

tear apart a selection of talentless no-hopers

# Hit me, baby...

-It was completely out of tune.

-Try and give us more of a performance tomorrow.

-We're not gonna invite you back tomorrow.

-OK.

Variety has never gone away,

variety has just dressed up in different outfits.

American Idol, Pop Idol, as we know it in the UK, is a variety show.

You know, all of these reality shows, in some way, are variety shows.

Pop Idol and the X-factor cleverly took the format of Popstars and ran with it.

The winner

of Pop Idol 2002...

is...

..Will!

I remember when we sold it to ITV, we were confident enough at the time

to say, "We genuinely believe that this result will stop the country,"

that's how bullish we were about the show being successful.

But to be fair, we were coming off the back of Popstars, which had been a ratings monster,

so, we were taking a lot of what they did, in terms of the auditions,

-and just saying, "We think we can do it a bit better."

-# ..everything I can

# I'll build your dreams with these two hands

# We'll hang some memories on the wall... #

You couldn't resist the show because it had

the old-fashioned principles of a great variety show.

To an extent, elements of a freak show as well.

# Let me entertain you... #

No.

Girls, individually, you sound horrendous,

together, you sound even worse. I don't think anyone will ever pay to hear you sing.

-What are you actually looking for?

-The absolute opposite of you.

Now, as we're talking today, the buzzword in TV, once again, is light entertainment.

All the people who were put on the scrapheap - Bruce Forsyth, Noel Edmonds -

who were considered past it, are suddenly the hottest presenters on TV again.

Nearly 50 years after the heyday of Sunday Night At The London Palladium,

its young compere, Bruce Forsyth, is back on the dancefloor.

Jane Lush, who was the BBC at the time, asked me, we had lunch,

and she said, "We've got this show that hasn't been commissioned yet,

"but it's called Pro Celebrity Come Dancing."

That was the original name of it.

And my manager and I, Ian Wilson, we started laughing like mad,

we were laughing and laughing and laughing.

And Jane said, "Are you laughing at us or with us?"

"No, we're laughing with you, we think this is the greatest idea we've heard in years."

# Whoa-whoa, she's a lady... #

Strictly Come Dancing brings back the exuberance and sheer fun of dance

that TV audiences first enjoyed when the Tiller Girls high-kicked

into the nation's living rooms back in the '50s.

Who would've thought that very much

a middle-aged form of entertainment, which is dancing,

which most people think had disappeared,

could be brought back into prime time,

and given the benefit of a makeover,

and turn out to be a show that could appeal to a broad audience?

All present and correct, so it looks like we're ready to begin, Bruce.

-Yes, yes.

-Marvellous. And I should explain that tonight...

-Oh.

-..there are two rounds in the competition.

-Yes, yes.

First, the ballroom round and then a Latin round.

I think entertainment was pushed to one side and forgotten.

Which is a shame, we all missed it.

That's why, when Strictly Come Dancing came back,

it hit, it hit that niche, there was a huge gap for it,

there was nothing on Saturday nights at that time.

There was nothing that made you want to stay in, that you could watch with the whole family,

appointment-to-view television, like we all grew up with.

Programmes on a Saturday night you'd make an effort to be in for,

it was part of your week, part of your Saturday.

Strictly Come Dancing discovered that the TV audience still longs to escape

into the unreal world of glitzy entertainment,

and more dance-based shows have waltzed their way onto our screens.

Strictly Dance Fever has gone back to the essence of the original Come Dancing,

with an all-amateur line-up of contestants.

I think these dance shows are paving the way for big variety shows

where you'll have circus acts coming on to the studio,

and you'll have magicians back doing wonderful conjuring

and, you know, fantastic balance acts.

They're still out there around the world,

and to see somebody being flown in from South America, doing something spectacular,

or the Chinese acrobats - they're all still out there,

they just need a platform. And I think that platform's back.

Up to now, the new talent shows have concentrated on delivering their discoveries into pop stardom -

the next step is a 21st-century take on the true variety talent show.

There was a time here where there were so many derivative shows of Idol, running at the same time,

I thought, "If I hear one more 21-year-old murder Get Here by Olita Adams, that's it."

And at that point, I thought, I would be very, very curious

to see the same principle going beyond just music.

Which is, what if we expanded it to include comics, magicians,

jugglers, dog acts, whatever, along with music?

Would I watch it?

Yes, I would.

If you asked a lot of people if there was, say, a travelling show,

and you asked somebody, would they rather watch a show full of singers,

or would you rather watch a variety show,

I think a lot of people would choose the latter now.

And for me, there's the same level of fascination in the magician who wants to be David Copperfield

as the singer who wants to be Mariah Carey.

With dance, magic and the talent show once again the most popular entertainment on TV,

variety is once again king of the airwaves.

Things might even be looking up for our old friends, the puppets.

Put your hands together, go mad, for Nina Conti.

Nina Conti has discovered that an audience raised on Orville the duck

can't get enough of Monk, her foul-mouthed monkey.

Just before we came to Edinburgh, we flew to Ireland

and I put the monkey in my bag and put my bag in the hold.

And I didn't get to Ireland.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

We don't know where he flew to, but it wasn't Ireland. Where did you go?

-I dunno, I spent 24 hours with a hairbrush up my

-BLEEP.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

Nina Conti is a vent act

and I read in the Independent the other day that vents have had it,

post-modernism had done it in via Harry Hill, it said.

And yet, Nina can take her puppet away, and finally it's her hand,

and you're all watching her hand, so it survives.

-When I click my fingers, you're gonna wake feeling refreshed and happy. Do you understand?

-Yes, Nina.

-OK.

Oh, I feel refreshed and happy.

Good. OK, right.

Now do you think you can get in here?

-Oh, my God.

-What?

-It's gorgeous.

Even ventriloquism has had to move with the times.

After street magic, comes street ventriloquism and Paul Zerdin.

BABY CRIES

Ventriloquism must be funny. To be entertaining, it must be funny.

It doesn't matter if you're not technically... I regard myself as technically, you know, OK.

-Go on, show me.

-What?

Say something without moving your lips.

-What?

-Say something.

Say the word "ventriloquism".

Ventriloquism.

-Did I move my lips?

-I don't know.

Ventriloq...

-Ooh, that's good.

-Thank you.

-You're welcome.

-You do it.

-OK.

Ventriloquism.

Do it again.

-Hmm?

-Say "ventriloquism" without moving your lips.

Ventriloquism.

That felt good.

One new face of street magic is Dynamo, an artful dodger with a pack of cards.

Cool showbiz parties aren't complete without a few of his tricks.

Take one out. Look at it, I'll turn round, show it to the others.

-Have you done that?

-OK, yeah, yeah.

-Cool. What I'm gonna do, I'll place it about halfway down, yeah?

-Yeah.

Watch.

-Oh, my God!

-Jesus Christ.

How the hell are you doing this?

Now and again, they say variety's dead,

but it's all still here and thriving.

The modern TV schedule itself is like a variety bill -

comedy followed by music, magic followed by dancing,

any combination we want, on as many channels as we can handle.

People like Michael Grade arrange their evening like a variety bill.

"That won't clash with this and that will be good following that."

The funny thing about light entertainment is that for probably 12 years,

certainly through the '90s, it was the dirtiest word in television.

Ironically now, everybody wants to make light entertainment shows.

The history of light entertainment is that you have to reinvent things.

I mean what is X-factor, what is Pop Idol, if it's not reinventing the talent show?

It's still Opportunity Knocks.

Wherever we look there's variety. Wherever there's a stage or a screen

it'll be there, changing, improving and entertaining each new generation.

Variety, light entertainment, it's what the people want.

No matter what, the show must go on.

Entertainment is a part of us.

It will come out, flow out of us in one way or another.

People ask me all the time, whatever happened to The Muppet Show?

And the truth is, we're still doing it, you just don't see it.

Every week we go in a little theatre, we dust off the stage, wipe it down and do our show.

Of course, there's nobody in the audience, but we're in good practice.

If we ever wanted to bring the thing back, sure, we can do that. Sure.

We still do variety, we sing, dance, do comedy...

Yeah, but we... It's just, people either laugh or they don't.

If they laugh, it's all right, if they don't, you're history.

The history of variety.

# Ha-ha, funny men are we

# Ha-ha, we're chirpy as can be

# We look alike, we dress alike, and we do everything alike

# Ha-ha, funny men are we. #

# Hello, hello, hello, hello

# Hello, hello, hello

# With the lights out It's less dangerous

# Here we are now Entertain us

# I feel stupid and contagious

# Here we are now Entertain us

# A mulatto

# An albino

# A mosquito

# My libido

# A denial, a denial

# A denial, a denial

# A denial, a denial. #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd