After the War The Story of Variety with Michael Grade

PIANO PLAYS

I owe everything, and I mean everything, to variety,

standing on a stage on your own, trying to make people laugh.

Look at it! There it is over there.

-It's quick, innit?

-No, listen!

Everybody must have been on the stage.

Here on Merseyside, we had about 25 theatres.

So there must have been hundreds and hundreds of theatres doing variety all over Britain.

'You could tell a variety artist

'because of the make-up.'

It was all...

five and nine in those days.

'And it never came off fully.'

They'd have this kind of olive complexion.

'We were the rogues and vagabonds, really.

'I think they all looked at us as strange people'

that come and go in a week.

But that didn't bother any of us, because we were, anyway!

-They're terrific, aren't they?

-I quite agree. Stupendous.

-Like that.

-You couldn't be in variety and be in an elite company.

It just wasn't done. But if you became a very big star, you could actually mix with kings and princes.

Conceived as a more family-friendly and respectable version of music hall, in towns all over the country,

people caught a variety show at least once a week.

I fell in love with variety by...

my dad used to take my mother, Sarah,

and my brother and sister.

Once a week, we'd all go somewhere like mostly over the road

in Fraser Street, called the Shakespeare Theatre.

The Shakespeare Theatre of Varieties.

And there, that was it.

I went to that marvellous, lovely, darkened room you go in,

and there was a lovely smell of oranges and cigars and a lovely rumpty-tumpty theatre that went...

HE IMITATES TRUMPETS ..and then the magic box

on the stage when the curtain went up, all that rosy, cosy glow.

And then on the stage would come these wonderful people.

-Can you remember some of the actors?

-Yeah. These marvellous people.

People who would make you laugh. People who sang.

People who juggled. People who were on trapezes.

All sorts of marvellous, wonderful people.

60 years ago, everybody's town had its variety theatre.

In its heyday, comedians, musicians and jugglers

and the like trod the boards to packed houses twice nightly.

This is the world I grew up in.

My dad Lesley and my uncles Lou and Bernie were variety agents.

Lou and Bernie had even performed as dance acts around the halls.

I joined the family business in 1966, in the last days of variety,

becoming an agent to many of the acts I had revered growing up.

This is the story of a lost world which may be gone,

but isn't quite forgotten.

The first two people I ever remember on there, and this is absolute fact,

because they looked so good when they walked on, one was Max Miller, because he had the fantastic suit.

The other was Bud Flanagan, because he had the fur coat

and the hat on, and it was visual things that you could remember.

As an agent, my job was not only to book the acts, but also to put together the variety bills.

My mentor, Billy Marsh, and I would sit in the office in a haze

of cigarette smoke, planning the running orders,

and I quickly learnt that there was only one way to do it.

Put the acts in the wrong order, and you could destroy a show.

There are lots of black arts in showbusiness. One of them was putting a bill together.

You'd obviously start with your headliner.

-If you had a big crooner, a big singer...

-Yeah, you're top of the bill.

That's who was going to get the people in.

But the audience would expect to see four, five, six, seven, eight different acts.

How did you put a bill together?

You'd always have a dance act to open the show.

Occasionally maybe a fast juggling or acrobatic act.

But technically speaking, a dance act.

Then you'd have the second spot - comedian.

That's the man who welcomes everybody in and gets them in a funny mood, we hope.

Hello, everybody. First of all, I want to tell you how happy I am to be back here in England again.

I haven't been anywhere else, but I'm happy I'm back.

The first comic on many times was Des O'Connor and people of that level.

They used to call them "light comedians".

Light - that meant they didn't need a lot of laughs.

But they could do a bit of singing, a bit of dancing and tell a few jokes. That was a light comedian.

Heavy comedians were the Frankie Howerds of the world, who just did nothing but heavy comedy.

It's the hardest job for a comedian.

They hated it. Some did it all their lives, never progressed.

Others would give you anything to get out of that.

Of course, I didn't come out here to tell you jokes, I came here to play the violin.

As you probably remember, I'm quite a violinist, not just a fiddler of the ordinary tripe - type.

On a Monday night, in places like Attercliffe, Bilston and Scunthorpe,

first house, all you had in were landladies

and people with free passes who displayed the bills for the week.

And the comics used to die on their arses.

Unfortunately, I haven't any violin with me, but I'm sure that

one of you charming boys in the orchestra or somebody around here will be happy to help me out.

Yes...

Death takes a holiday.

Then you'd say "Right, now you do the novelty act there".

Speciality act.

-Nice speciality.

-Acrobats, jugglers...

-That's it.

Then the second half would start again...

with dancing girls. Same as before, but different music.

Then you'd have

the second spot comic again.

This is a very serious number entitled I Don't Have To Look At The World Through Rose-Coloured Glasses,

Because My Eyes Are Naturally Bloodshot.

Then you'd put your big comedy act.

Then another speciality act, and finally the top of the bill.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

If I don't work fast tonight, please forgive me, I'm very tired.

I've been shoplifting.

Some of those shops are very heavy, I tell you.

The full running time was about two hours.

It was family entertainment, and if the comics were a little bit

on the bawdy side, it went over the kids' heads anyway.

But the parents used to think, "That was a bit near the knuckle".

The running order, the timesheet was important. There was a tyranny.

They all had their time, and if you had an act that was

going over too much, you stopped using them.

# You've got to hurry, hurry, hurry along

# We've no time to sing another song

# The manager is out there watching the clock

# If we go over time, he'll get a shock... #

Some of them used to time themselves.

They used to light a cigarette as they went on, and when they finished

the cigarette, they knew to go into the song.

# Hustle, hustle, and don't make a fuss

# What's the use of glaring at us?

# Now's the time, now we must know

# Oh, by gee, half a minute to go... #

There were acts like Herschel Henlere.

-Just Jizz.

-Just Jizz, piano player.

-Crazy man on the piano.

They said "We're going to drop the curtain down", so he would stand up

and push the piano down so that the curtain wouldn't drop on him.

HE SPEAKS GIBBERISH

And he'd go "Thank you, thank you very much. Want more Jizz?"

And the audience...

So he'd go and play.

Ruined the timing. Stage managers used to say "Please, Herschel,

"please, we've got to get the first house out and the second house in."

"Please stick to your time".

"Sorry, I'll do it". He never did.

While variety brought glamour and excitement to audiences still recovering from the hardships of

World War II, life on the road could be pretty grim for those who made their living treading the boards.

Your history in showbusiness goes back at least one generation.

Can you tell me about the family?

Yeah, Mum and Dad were in the business, and they were jugglers.

-What sort of juggling?

-Comedy, actually.

Comedy juggling. They did quite well.

Well, did well enough to send me to school, let me put it that way.

I toured every week with them. Different school every week.

Where was home for you? Did you have a home?

Never. Never had.

No house?

-Never had. In digs all my life.

-No fixed abode, literally?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

It was just digs.

So you had to travel. Any toys you had, or clothes...?

That's right, and pack your own suitcase. That was the trick.

I'm really good at packing!

I remember once, we were playing the Tivoli in Aberdeen.

Would you believe, the next date was at the Palace, Plymouth! Aberdeen to Plymouth.

You'd travel on Sunday

and get to wherever you were going, find the digs,

go in and meet the landlady, who'd show you your room.

You'd have supper or whatever,

and then the following morning went to the theatre for band call.

Put your books down on the stage.

Top of the bill could always go first if he wanted to.

And you got to know who else was on the bill for that week,

and then two houses Monday night and for the rest of the week.

That's not quite right. Make it nice, bright and bouncy.

One time, I toured a caravan.

I was a gypsy on the road. I'd go from gig to gig, theatre to theatre.

The ideal one would be if the theatre had a car park where they had water facilities.

-So you travelled in your own digs?

-Exactly.

It took you 18 months to go all the way round England, Scotland,

Ireland and Wales and everything.

And then you'd start again. And you were doing the same act.

Comedians were doing the same act. Singers were singing the same songs.

It was amazing that people survived on one act for their whole career.

That's grand.

What was good about was that you were with a bunch of performers

and we made friends, but you didn't see them again for maybe two or three years.

You toured a lot, and it was quite wearying.

You'd meet pros, and everyone says they all met at Crewe,

because that was the big interchange of stations, and you did.

You saw acts with huge great trunks of props and things,

others that would travel light, and animal acts.

You could pass trains and wave to your friends.

-Empire Sunderland going that way?

-Yeah.

Ernie and I, before we got married, would say

"I think we've got half an hour at Crewe!"

We all stopped at Crewe, and it was snowing.

So it was blowing in, as it were.

And again, one of these wonderful improptu things...

I won't stand up, but we got out and we were all huddled in the waiting

room with a terrible little fire on burning nutty slack, awful.

And another train came in, and Jimmy James came out of the thing.

And Renee Houston, who knew him forever, she walked up to Jimmy

and said "Excuse me, could I have this dance?"

And he said "Well, I don't know, really.

"I'll have to see", with a fag.

And they're dancing on the station, these two big stars. Everybody else was just on the floor.

Sometimes you could be lucky and land with a good landlady.

But most of the time, the rooms were damp.

The sheets had been slept in by the previous artists.

You felt compelled to write something nice in the landlady's book,

otherwise she would give you rotten breakfasts.

And it could be pretty dismal.

It is an enclosed world, yes. We live in our own little realm.

In fact, we're rather inclined to look down and be sorry for people outside,

which is a terrible thing to do. But we feel that they don't

seem to understand, because they look at us as if

we're something out of the zoo, and they're not far wrong sometimes.

I'd see a place and think, "That looks quite nice",

and then the taxi would take you to just one beyond it, you know!

-Not quite so posh!

-Not good at all!

'I never know the date.

'I never read a newspaper. The world sort of revolves around theatre.

-'We revolve with it.'

-There was always a landlady.

They were all like mother hens to the pros.

But there were one or two that you wanted to avoid.

I'm never quite sure how everybody - "Oh, don't stay there".

There was a code or intelligence system...

-Yes, in the digs book at the end of the week...

-You'd sign a visitors' book.

You'd sign the visitors' book and say, "Dear Mrs so-and-so, thanks for a most lovely stay".

But if you put underneath it "Quoth the raven",

we all knew then - "Don't go there".

"Don't come back here. You're in for a terrible week".

Never found out what it meant, but "quoth the raven" was the trick.

'I charge £2.15 for the land girls, and £3.05

'for girls on the bill and £3.10 for the gents, full board.'

Were they rated?

On what we could afford to pay, there was only one rating - bad.

That's what you'd expect it to be.

Really, they should have been paying us to stay there!

But there were always chorus girls!

-And we were young guys.

-They would always have creaky stairs, so they

could tell who goes up the stairs to the bedroom and who doesn't!

They never fixed those creaky stairs.

One man was caught with a girl on his back, piggy-backing her up

the stairs, so that there was only one sound of footprints.

-Did he get away with it?

-No.

They had eyes in the back on their head.

Or their door to the kitchen or whatever would be slightly ajar.

HE LAUGHS

Some of them are very lonely people,

and if they come into a house where they can get a little bit of...

you know, comfort, they're very glad of it. I think it's very hard.

I think it's a very hard life.

Some landladies were "Variety artists only, no straight people".

Some landladies wouldn't take dancers.

"Don't take any dancers here, you know. They tried to bring jugglers home last week".

And the twain never met.

In Nottingham, where the Theatre Royal

and the Empire shared a common wall, one was what

they called once nightly, which was the legitimate actors and the plays, and the other was variety.

Twice nightly and once nightly. And in the dining room,

the actors who were staying in the digs would have tablecloths and cruets.

And the twice nightly would have no tablecloths,

and they'd have to go and ask for the sauce from the once nightlys.

-There was a hierarchy.

-Well, there was one of those in Manchester.

INDISTINCT COMMENT

It was called Astra House, the digs.

And it was two little sort of...

..houses side by side where you went in the front door and there was one hallway for the two front doors.

And once again, all the actors, Vincent Price would come down that way and I'd come down the other way.

The crazy gang come the other way!

Some of them were strict.

Some of them were quite forward!

They were what you called crumpet digs!

Where the landlady was pliable.

The pianist Semprini - old ones, new ones, neglected ones.

He was notorious for having women everywhere.

And he was in digs with Scott Sanders

one week.

And Scott Sanders got home...

quite late at night and went into the kitchen

to get his supper out of the oven, and...

..Semprini was having the landlady on the kitchen table.

And she looked at him and said "Oh, Mr Sanders, what you must think of me!"

I was playing the Woolwich Empire, and I was staying at 16 Wellington Street.

I'll never forget it. Mrs Sullivan.

Big woman. Always had a cigarette in her mouth with a bit of ash on it.

And...

..they weren't very clean, you know, but there was nowhere else to stay.

And she was in the kitchen on this particular day

and she was mixing up her rice pudding.

And I walked in and she said, "Oh, hello, son",

and as she moved her lips, the ash fell off into the rice pudding!

And she looked down and looked at me and looked back and went "Oh, well.

"We've all got to eat a bit of muck some time or other", and she mixed the ash into the rice pudding!

There's a town that I will not mention, or a city, rather, because the woman involved is still around.

She laid on supper for us every night,

and the supper, as God is my judge,

was baked beans every single night!

Every single night. But she would wait up and do it for us.

So we get there and it's the dress rehearsal and we're there till about 2 o'clock in the morning.

We're walking back from the theatre and I said "Oh, Christ".

It's Christmas Eve, this one.

I said, "If it's bloody baked beans tonight, I'll shove them up her drawers, I promise you."

So we get there and she's still awake, the old girl.

She says hello, and we hear the shuffle of the old carpet slippers coming along the passageway.

Two plates of baked beans.

And I started to get the red mist.

I get the fork and I'm poking about at these baked beans, and there's a chipolata sausage in the middle.

And I went to the corridor and said "Oi!"

She said "What?" I said, "I think you've made a mistake.

"There's a chipolata sausage in my baked beans."

She said "I know. Merry Christmas!"

Jesus! That was the worst time.

There was a hierarchy of theatre circuits, wasn't there?

Moss Empires was the Crown Jewels. You'd arrived.

If you got booked by Moss Empires at the Palladium or Hackney Empire,

-then you had the number two, number three, number four.

-Butterworths.

What were the real dumps that when the agent rang you and said, "I've booked you a week at..."

somewhere, your heart would sink?

-Ashton under Lyne.

-Ashton under Lyne.

-What was horrible about it?

-Well, you made sure all your stuff

was hanging up in the dressing room, including your shoes.

-You put those up, because of the rats.

-The rats.

A number one audience were always good because they'd paid good money and came to be entertained.

A number three audience was...tough.

I remember playing Attercliffe Palace, for example, a place long gone. Attercliffe Palace.

What a strange name that was for the theatre it was. It was a dump.

On a Monday first night, you would get miners coming up

from the pit, and they still had coal dust on their face.

And they'd sit there with their arms folded, and it was "Go on, lad.

"Make me laugh, I dare you."

And if you could get past that, if you could get a chuckle out of them,

it was like winning a gold medal.

Be honest, how do you like the show so far?

I can always tell whether an audience is going to be good or bad.

Good night.

When I started, I played number threes, which was

the Royal, Bilston and the Regent Rotherham and the Royalty, Chester.

That was the circuit I got acquainted with. It was wonderful.

The Rotherham Regent was near my home in Leeds, so I could get home every night.

I always remember standing at the side of the stage there,

and there was a big notice in the wings which you looked at before you went on.

It said, "Jokes about the size of the audience are not appreciated at this theatre."

I can remember working in a club in Manchester, and they had

acts on, and in between each two acts, there was a wrestling bout.

The ring would go up, and they'd have a tag bout.

We'd have two fellows from Accrington...and then they'd come out again

and they'd have a girl go on and sing a song. I mean, follow that.

"Go on, dear, follow these fellows with the blood all over the floor."

In between these wrestling bouts, the fellow said "You're on now, son."

And I had to carry my amplifier in between the ropes and put it on and had a big long wire coming out.

And I went and did this thing.

And as soon as I started,

a voice over the speaker just said,

"They've arrived."

And everybody stood up and went out.

It was the pies in the bar that had just arrived from the people who supplied the food.

-And I went in, and there was nobody listening to me.

-Counter-attraction.

They were all eating pies and having a beer.

So I sang to nothing, and came off to nothing and went back to my room again.

# Isn't it grand to see someone smile?

# A smile is the thing that makes life worthwhile... #

One of the flip sides of doing well in England was that they'd send you to Glasgow. It was a great leveller.

That's right! That shut them up, didn't it?

-You couldn't say no. If Moss Empires said, "You are going..."

-You went.

Max Miller, the great comedian, his agent said "I've got you a booking at Glasgow Empire."

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

# When the things you have have somehow gone astray

# You've got a certain feeling it's not your lucky day... #

Oh! Everybody died there. It was terrible.

Terrible. And if they'd had a few wine gums, you know, during the evening, the audience - terrible.

I went with the only nude revue that was ever booked into Glasgow Empire.

And they unscrewed the balcony rail and threw the balcony rail!

The manager came on stage and said, "Who are the comedians?" And three of us stepped forward.

He said, "No football gags, because we need the seats."

And my first line to a Glasgow audience was,

"I suppose you're all wondering why I've sent for you."

And a man uncoiled himself from the third row with half a bottle of whisky,

and he looked at me and said, "Cripes, what a horrible sight!"

And the audience roared, and that was it.

-I was in.

-Did you come back at him?

No, I wouldn't know what to say.

They used to get paid extra to go up there.

We'd go up the latest thing on Monday, and we would leave

on Saturday night and sleep in a lay-by, anything to get away!

You really know that you're not really wanted there

and you're not really getting all the laughs

you think you could be getting or should be getting.

To still be able to keep your composure and

deliver the lines cleanly, you know, that is very good training indeed.

..Des O'Connor, who was a very good variety act.

But this was in his youth, just coming up the bill?

-That's right. So he goes up there to play Glasgow Empire.

-For the first time.

And it was awful. And he was so petrified.

He'd done a load of his good gags at the front - nothing.

-He was playing to silence?

-Yeah. He pretended to faint.

He had this song called Mother.

"M is for the so and so, O is for something else and T is for this," and then he went, "Uhh...!"

-And fainted?

-They pulled him under the curtain.

# It's a sin to tell a little lie... #

So they get him off, and the stage manager knows exactly what's going on...

-Yeah.

-..and ships him off to Glasgow Infirmary.

And goes with him to Glasgow.

And Des at this point daren't come round, because he's going to get rumbled.

And the stage manager's talking to the nurse, saying "Do you really think they'll have to operate?"

And Des says "I think I'm all right."

And the stage manager goes "Yes, I know you're all right.

-"You're going back on in the second house."

-Did he send him back on?

Yeah, he had to go back on.

# When you say I love you

# It's a sin to tell a lie. #

If you were down the bill, did you get treated differently to if you were top of the bill?

Yes, because the lower you were on the bill, the higher your dressing room was and the more stairs!

There was a hierarchy.

They were called principals and not principals.

I don't know what their word for "not principals" was.

There was a word for it. I can't remember what it was.

"You," I think!

But if you weren't in the top echelon of some kind of star status,

you were very much down among what they used to call the wines and spirits.

And that meant that your dressing rooms were way up high in the clouds.

And if you were a star, you were very near the stage.

So there was definitely a hierarchy there, and you were meant to observe that.

Usually on a Monday morning, when you did the band call,

a jolly top of the bill would come in and say hello to everybody.

"Want to come back in the dressing room for a drink?"

And you knew it was going to be a fun week and he'd chat to you all the week.

But there were some that just didn't talk to anybody, just stayed in the dressing rooms,

came out, did their act and went back in again, and that was it.

So, you know, there was no jollification from the top.

And everything stems from the top, really.

I was at the Theatre in Cleethorpes. I think it was the Empire, Cleethorpes.

Me being who I was, I knew I'd either be on the third floor,

the fourth or the fifth floor, because I was always second bottom of the bill.

So I looked, "Where is it...oh, in the basement?

"That's new, in the basement."

"Bruce Forsyth and Duncan's Collies."

I'm only bloody dressing with a dog act!

I couldn't believe this.

I always remember Benny Lee saying he played the Met, Edgware Road as top of the bill.

He was in Breakfast With Braden, as a singer, and he said,

"I got there and had the number one dressing room.

"I looked in there, and it was diabolical.

"It smelled, it was filthy, the lino was all curling up. Horrible."

They said, "Don't worry, we're redoing it tomorrow."

So he got in the next night and they said, "We have redone it, but you're in the number 2 dressing room."

He said, "Who's in the number one dressing room?" He said "the chimps."

"The RSPCA's gone in and said this dressing room isn't fit for chimps.

"But all right for singers," he said!

It wasn't only the location of your dressing room you had to worry about.

What mattered most to a variety artist was the position of their name on the poster.

-Billing was very important.

-Terribly big.

-It was more than an ego thing.

-It was status.

-And status meant money.

If you moved up the bill, you got more money and you could command more money,

so that was why the billing was important.

I never got it, but you'd often go to a theatre and there'd be a row on a Monday morning.

Two of the top of the bill would be arguing about

why they were first or second or third top.

You know... I never got that. Bottom of the bill, I could argue with you!

We always had to carry a ruler with us, because the times

you would get there and go backstage,

and one of the acts would say "Mr Peter, can we see you a minute?"

"Yes, what's wrong?" "Have you seen my billing outside?

"You see, that box is too small. I should have a bigger box."

I'd say, "That's the same box you had at the other theatre."

"No, it isn't." And I would have to go out and stand like this.

And of course, occasionally it was wrong.

But if I moved my thumb, it'd be, "No, that's OK."

My bill matter was so low that the bills outside the theatre, dogs used to pee on my billing.

It was ridiculous. And I was the first turn on.

In those pre-television days,

the only way to let both audiences and producers know what your act was

would be to slap a description next to your name on the poster.

These ranged from the functional to the downright baffling.

Let's have a look at some of them over here.

"Forsythe, Seamon and Farrell, with a ton of fun."

Here's a good one. "The two Cossacks. Aristocrats of the skates."

-What?

-There was a marvellous act called Bennett and Williams.

Two comics.

Quite good guys. Sorry, I've got an itchy nose.

Could be worse. They were a double act.

They played one-string fiddles.

And their bill matter was very clever -

It was, "Even their relations think they're funny."

That is a cardinal rule of show business. You know this.

You never, never ask a family what they thought of your act, because they'll tell you.

My bill matter was "He's a laugh."

And sometimes the printers got it wrong -

"Here's a laugh."

And underneath my name under "Here's a laugh," somebody had written "Where??"

Nobody asked me about bill matter. I didn't know.

So there I was - "Ken Dodd, the lad of laughter."

So I changed that to "the unpredictable,"

partly because it would confuse people

and also, people wouldn't know what I was going to do, including me.

What was your bill matter in those days?

My bill matter was "Bruce Forsyth, the incredible character."

Best I could think of.

-The best bill matter ever was Spike Milligan.

-Go on.

Spike Milligan's bill matter was "Spike Milligan," and underneath, "the performing man."

See, only Spike could think of bill matter like that.

Bill matter was important, because if you left your card at an agent's office...

-"Max Miller, the cheeky chappie."

-By the way, when I was at the Windmill, doing that, I used to go

round the agents' offices practically three times a week, leaving my card.

And nobody came in to see me. Not one.

Sorry, I know you were in the agency business, but nobody ever bothered to come to see me.

I love the language and imagination that went into creating bill matter.

The "Ganjou Brothers and Juanita - portrait in porcelain." Isn't that wonderful?

The great ones mostly are the speciality acts. There's one here.

"Mito Trio - novelty equilibrists."

I think that's a balancing act to you and me.

Special acts are an important part of a variety bill.

It's all very well having the icing on the cake, the current singer, comedian, whatever.

But it has to be underpinned, like building a house, it has to have some really good acts

-to get the people's interest.

-What were the craziest acts that you saw, the most bizarre?

Of course, there was the great Henry Vadden and Ladies.

He used to have this sort of Austrian helmet on with a spike on the top,

and he'd pick up this wooden cartwheel, throw it in the air...

Up would go the cartwheel, right to where Henry would be standing...

And he'd catch it on his head.

It came down and hit him, he'd go "Cripes!"

You could see his neck go down into his shoulders.

-Twice nightly, he used to do that? 12 shows a week?

-I think it made him round-shouldered eventually.

I said, "Doesn't that hurt?" He said, "Of course it bleeding hurts!"

'Karinga is the young Indian girl who's causing a sensation on the Continent

'by her hypnotic powers over human beings and animals.'

Do you remember a lady called Karinga?

The snake lady?

She had crocodiles and snakes and everything.

She used to put her head in the mouths of crocodiles.

And she had this really fuzzy hair and these alligators,

and she'd lift them and put her head in them.

Frightening.

She used to keep the crocodiles in the bath at the digs!

You'd go in and...they were quiet. She used to drug them.

'In this already to us dangerously unpleasant position, a 200lb block will be broken across her body.

'An uncanny demonstration of Karinga's power.'

We did a matinee, and immediately afterwards, there was an announcement.

The manager said, "Would everybody

"assemble on stage, please?" And we all went on to the stage

and the manager said, "I don't want to alarm you,

"but I feel I should tell you this.

"One of Miss Karinga's snakes is missing." We went on to do our act that evening,

and then one of the lads said to me "Have a look round."

And I turned round, and the snake was hanging from one of the batten rods across the back of the stage.

And he was down like that with his head forward, as if he was counting the house, you know!

And then, next day, onto the stage comes madam, with the cloak.

She said "Sorry, gentlemen, stop, stop," she said.

And we went...my song finished,

and she stood there and said, "I do apologise, gentlemen."

She put him round her neck a couple of times and had his head facing her, and she told him off.

She said, "Naughty boy!"

Can you imagine? You follow that with an impression of the Ink Spots!

One of the funniest dog acts was Nino, the wonder dog.

And the dog used to dance around on its back legs.

I think it was a Czechoslovakian man who had him.

But the band call in the morning was a bit of a hoot, because the dog wasn't there.

He didn't bring the dog on for the band call.

So there would be an empty stage, and this man would be going around

muttering all kinds of Czechoslovakian curses and making this invisible dog pirouette.

TALKS GIBBERISH

And everybody always used to go...

"Look at him. Well, compared to him, we're sane."

Of the odd acts that you saw, are there any that you look back at

and say "How could they think of doing that? How could they make a living doing that?"

Michael, this is true.

It sounds ridiculous.

A fellow comes on in a cowboy outfit, with a bull.

Right?

-A live bull?

-A live bull.

And goes, "Right...

"All right, there?

"How old's yon bull?

"Come on, come on. How old's the bull?"

"Six." "No!"

"12?" "No."

Now the audience are getting the needle. 59? 163?

"No, no. You're all wrong, he's 14."

And that was the act?

That was the act!

God's truth.

"Kardoma - he fills the stage with flags".

This man used to have flags that he rolled up and hid all over the place and all over the stage.

So he'd unswirl a flag of Italy and then take a bow, as though he'd just created it.

Then he'd unswirl the flag of Belgium

and they'd play the Belgian national anthem. And it went on.

Of course during the war, that was wonderful, to see all the nations.

He never had the swastika, thank goodness.

In the end, he'd have his great finale,

which was the backdrop of a huge Union Jack slowly unfolding

to a drum roll, military drum roll.

And he would put a hat on.

He put a kind of sergeant major's hat on and salute as the national anthem played

and the tabs slowly closed in and that was his act.

To this day, I don't know what it was all about.

One of the acts I used to hear on the radio on Workers' Playtime

and the variety show was Leslie Welch, the Memory Man.

He was like a one-man Google of sport.

I'm going to try and entertain you by endeavouring to answer your sporting queries.

I saw his name on a bill in an old-time musical bill at Chelsea Town Hall. I went with a chum.

He went "Ask me anything you like about sport".

Who won the Cup in 1936?

1936 - the Cup was won by the Arsenal.

My chum and I worked out a question. He said "Yes, the gentleman at the back".

I said "Aston Villa, 1832.

"FA Cup semi-final. What was the team and what was the score?"

And he would go "Aston Villa, 1832, the semi-final of the Cup.

"Aston Villa won 3-1 and the team was Hopkins, Smith..."

-Wilson Mayer-Hapgood...

-And he'd reel off the names and get to the last one.

..James and Baskin.

"And Earl!" He'd say it with a flourish.

-1936.

-And the audience went, "Wow!"

And we'd look in the book, and it was nothing like it!

It was completely different. But it was the way he delivered it.

He knew that the questioner would be outnumbered.

Nobody else in the audience would know the answer.

All sorts of marvellous people, but the one that really took my eye were the ventriloquists.

I saw wonderful men like Arthur Worsley.

Just look at this face, eh?

A mean, miserable, moody,

melancholic, emotionless misfit.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Arthur Worsley was the greatest ventriloquist I ever saw.

Not only was he remarkably clever

and you really did not see his lips moving, he was very funny.

The idea of switching personalities, where you have a

ventriloquist who doesn't speak and a dummy that doesn't stop,

to me is just a funny idea.

It makes me smile now.

I think it's monstrous

that I got him to manipulate me.

If only I had a real

master of ventriloquism, a marvellous maestro,

then I could merely meander

through a miscellaneous mixture of mirthful material.

He would play gags.

I would be standing behind him, because I like to watch everybody.

-In the wings?

-Yes. He would be waiting to go on and I would be

behind him and suddenly he'd turn the dummy round

and it would talk to me.

And I didn't know he knew I was there, Arthur.

And he would talk to me.

Very scary, but funny.

You don't have to make a name for yourself, do you?

Hey? He's an inventor, you know. Aren't you?

He's going to make a fortune one of these days. What's your latest, son?

Tell them your latest.

He's crossed a cow with an octopus.

LAUGHTER

It's true. He has a do-it-yourself cow.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I worked with a young ventriloquist when I was starting.

I think that was the Royal, Bilston.

Sorry to place-drop.

And I shared a dressing room with him.

And I was fascinated by this guy who was a ventriloquist.

He talked to his doll all the way down the stairs.

He talked to the doll and the doll talked back coming back.

The doll would say "You ruined that show.

"You really screwed that one up".

The hours and the years that they spent talking to themselves while rehearsing!

It's not like a double act where you give feedback - "I think you did that wrong".

They're talking to each other.

I know what you're laughing at.

You're laughing because I have this ear here...

Dennis Spicer, who was brilliant, we did a show on Tyne Tees Television, Newcastle.

Ted Ray, the great comedian, was on the show.

We were hanging about waiting for Dennis, and he suddenly erupted

into the room with a case and said "Sorry, traffic".

And he put the case on the table and opened it, and there was a little doll in it.

And there was a hook on the wall of this room, and he hung this doll

on the hook and said, "I've got to have a pee and a cup of tea.

"I'll be back in a minute. Sorry about this". And he left the room.

And Ted Ray said, "We shouldn't do this, we're professionals.

"Let's have a look in his case".

He'd left it off the latch.

So we looked, and there was a snake with funny rolling round eyes and all sorts of stuff in there.

And then Ted said, "No, we shouldn't be doing this", and closed the case.

And Dennis came back in the room with a cup of tea

and the doll on the wall said, "He's had a look in your case, Dennis".

It's quite all right, I don't mind at all.

For every 10 or 20 speciality acts, there could only be one top of the bill.

For me, one of the greatest of them all was Max Miller.

My gran absolutely worshipped Max.

-She thought Max Miller was the greatest.

-She was a good judge.

-She wasn't bad.

She dragged me all over London to the different music halls.

-To see Max.

-My aunt used to say to her, "You're not taking him to see that dirty old sod, are you?"

And she used to say, "He doesn't know what he's talking about.

"He likes all the colours".

My mother, who didn't go to variety theatres much,

but when Max Miller came to Leeds, she took me to see Max Miller.

And I'm looking at my mother thinking "You're getting off on this, aren't you?

"He's the naughty boy on the stage, twinkling away".

I started packing my bag. The wife said "Where are you going?"

I said I'm going to Paris. She said "What will you use for money?" I said "francs".

She said "Frank's not going. What are you talking about?"

What was the magic of Max Miller?

He was the first one to realise that you can contact the audience,

put his foot on the footlights and leaned over and talked to them,

and do the looking off stage all the time.

He's on the side, sitting in the bath chair with a whip.

Don't laugh. Haven't I got a nice figure?

I have, haven't I?

Not while I'm talking. It's rude to interfere.

Ain't I nice? I'm all muscle, honest.

He and I worked together at Golders Green,

and he used to say to me "Hurry up if you can, Janet, because

"I want to catch the last train for Brighton".

So he didn't want you to overrun, because he'd miss his train.

I had to get on and get off so that he could get on, get his done and get his train.

That destroys the illusion, doesn't it?

There you are, I've warmed them up for you.

You don't have to do better than that, just keep them awake.

One of the dates I was playing as a single comedy impressionist was the Grand Theatre, Brighton.

I did my act, it went OK and I was told "Go up to the bar because

"sometimes there are bookers there and you might get a few more dates".

And I went up to the bar, and this old man slid up to me and said, "I saw your act, son. Very good.

"But you talk too fast.

"And your hand movements, you fiddle.

"People get irritated when you do that.

"Slow down. They've paid their money, they like you.

"You've done well, but slow your act down.

"Talk a little slower.

"And stop all that hand stuff".

So I said, "Thank you very much".

He said, "Got any money?"

I said "Yeah". He said, "Buy me a small scotch,

"and then you'll be able to tell your grandchildren that you bought the great Max Miller a drink."

He was well known for that.

They say he's still got the first bob he ever earned.

One of them said, "Just a minute, you.

"Aren't you Max Miller?" I said yes.

He said, "You've got a lot of property in Brighton, haven't you?"

I said, "Yes, I have one or two hotels and half a dozen houses".

He said "Do you want to sell one? I'll buy a round of drinks".

I did a week with a pal of mine at the Finsbury Park Empire, with Max Miller top of the bill.

I was in the wings every night, watching. And he had a great line at the end of his act.

He used to say, "When I'm dead and gone, the game's finished."

And he was absolutely right.

It was one of his standard phrases towards the end, but it got a big round of applause.

It was like saying goodbye to variety.

He was the last great variety comic.

Max Miller was right.

The world was changing.

And the day I think it changed was that day in the early '50s

when an American recording sensation called Johnny Ray arrived here at the London Palladium.

It was the first time in the stalls in the audience in the theatre

that you heard girls screaming, standing up and blowing kisses.

After the show on opening night, we persuaded Johnny to come out of the stage door and up here

onto the balcony and to climb up onto the roof

so that all the fans would get a good view of him.

And the screaming was hysterical and unprecedented.

He went out on variety bills.

You'd get Tommy Steele on a variety bill

and all the variety acts that we are speaking about underneath him.

That was the way for a long time.

Even the Beatles went out on a variety bill with Alma Cogan.

# The old-time cave dweller lived in a cave

# Here's what he did when he wanted to rave... #

The first time I truly remember going to see a variety bill,

of my own accord, rather than being taken to it,

was to see Tommy Steele, which would have been in 1956.

I went to see him at Birmingham Hippodrome.

Rock'n'roll had just happened, and it was so new and so exciting.

I couldn't believe the bill.

I sat and watched Mike and Bernie Winters, the comperes.

It was an idiot and his friend.

That's what they looked like.

And there was this double act, two girls singing, a Singin' In The Rain routine and a juggler.

And I thought, "This is truly appalling".

So all of us very politely, because most of us were kids at that age and mainly girls too,

we sat and watched all of this,

either in blank amazement or we were very polite, until it got to Tommy.

And then he came up and he was magnificent with the Steelmen. And the world changed.

The man I wrote Kenny Everett's shows with, the late Ray Cameron, father of Mike McIntyre,

how the generations go on,

Ray Cameron was a stand-up comic when he started, and he went on before the Stones,

the Rolling Stones.

You wouldn't wish that on anybody.

Huge audience had come to see the Stones, and there's a young Canadian comic on the stage.

Cries of "get off", or words to that effect.

When rock'n'roll started in the mid-to late '50s,

everybody thought, "This is the answer to the failure of variety".

But again, there weren't enough acts to fill 52 weeks a year.

So what you break is the habit of the people who go every week,

because your mum would not want to go and see Bill Haley and the Comets.

And once you break a habit, it's hard to get the habit back.

My theory is that although in the short term, rock and roll

filled those theatres because it was the only place kids could go and see those stars,

eventually they moved on, and when you wanted to go back to Ronnie Ronalde topping the bill

the next week, the people who were supporting theatre all that time had moved on to something else.

In a desperate bid to keep afloat, the theatres turned to the one thing that always sells.

But if your mum didn't want to go and see Bill Haley and the Comets,

she certainly didn't want to go and see this.

That was the end of variety, those nude shows.

-You knew it was dying then.

-Gone by then, yeah.

I always remember the one at Aston. He advertised in the local paper for strippers.

Striptease and everything killed off the family audience.

People weren't going to go with their kids to see this.

And the old variety theatres had a very rough time.

There were strict censorship rules about a naked woman on the stage.

Very strict. They just couldn't be naked.

They had to have pasties on their nipples.

Now, my job, while the comedian who normally was the MC

was putting people in the mood of the pose,

I would be backstage with this girl.

She would be standing there, and it would be, say, "Autumn".

And I knew this was my cue to put

cotton wool balls, like snowballs, little glue,

on one breast and the other breast, and then one down below.

The comedian would have said something like,

"And now we go to the winter wonderland of Switzerland to St Moritz".

Then his next line would be, "Winter has gone, and spring is here".

So I'd pick up a little animal that looks like a lamb,

put it over this side, covering her nipple, and she'd be holding it like that.

Flowers in this hand, and I'd put a big bouquet here.

All stuck on.

This was a wonderful job for a 15-year-old boy.

However, if the girls weren't very kind to us and nice, I used to put extra glue on.

So when the pose was over, I used to go pop, pop, pop - "Ow!"

In 1957, as people began to turn from the theatre to the television sets

in their living room, the great playwright John Osborne

delivered this elegy on the death of variety.

"Some of the heart of England has gone.

"Something that once belonged to everyone, for this was truly a folk art".

I don't think it helped itself

by carrying on doing things on the cheap.

You can't do things on the cheap, certainly when you're entertaining people.

Let's get some fresh sea air into here.

The theatres got shabby.

Badly needed decoration.

The orchestras were cut down, and eventually, it became rather sad.

And that was the decline.

We were on the bill with Spike Milligan, and the bulldozers

moved in the week before we were there into the car park.

It was the last, last variety bill.

It was really symptomatic of what was happening all around the country, but here they were,

the bulldozers, ready to knock this theatre down when we had finished playing that week.

If they're booking me, they book Arthur Leslie and they get Arthur Leslie.

It was an industry that employed, at its peak, somewhere in the region of 5,000 people.

Think of the word variety. It means a variety of skills.

You see men and women

who have spent a lifetime crafting, polishing one act.

They have spent their lifetime getting it right.

You may have seen this done before, but never better.

All variety shows were little one-man businesses, a bit like greengrocers and hardware salesmen.

They all had their own little way of doing it.

If I can go on and get a laugh, then I will be happy.

Oh, God.

75 years of hard practice.

To see the old pros who had worked for years and years doing a single sketch, maybe...

..to see that their careers were coming to an end, it was very sad to watch.

Some of these second spot comics, people like Archie Glen,

they went on for 40, 45 years

doing the same act.

When it all finished, what did they do? I remember when they had all closed.

I was at the Theatre Royal in Brighton with a play.

I went into the car park to get the car and come back to London,

and who was the car park attendant?

Archie Glenn.

Artists that were booked all-year round were starting to advertise themselves.

Suddenly vacant.

Some of them never had a home.

They just lived in digs all their lives.

And when all the theatres closed,

they hadn't got anywhere to live

because the digs had gone, everything had gone and their work had gone.

The great variety, which is the key word here, that has gone.

That is what you miss.

All these years in our profession, none of us have ever reached the top.

We just keep struggling along, always hoping. It isn't everyone's luck.

No, no, no, no.

I used to look up at these names in big print and say,

"Some day, my name will be there".

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