Frank Skinner on George Formby

UKULELE MUSIC

So, here are the clues.

I'm in Blackpool, I'm leaning on a lamppost

and I am carrying a ukulele.

Yes, it's a George Formby documentary.

I told a mate of mine I was making a programme about George Formby

and he said, "Is that the guy with the grilling machines?"

Well, no, it isn't. It's the guy who was one of the biggest

British comedians of all time.

A massive, massive star.

I want to find out why? Why people loved him so much,

and how his memory lives on today.

# Now, I go window cleaning to earn an honest bob

# For a nosey parker it's an interesting job

# Now it's a job that just suits me a window cleaner you will be

# If you could see what I can see

# When I'm cleaning windows

# La-la-lee, La-la-da

# La-la-la-la-do-do-do

# When I'm cleaning windows.#

APPLAUSE

'I've been a George Formby fan for as long as I can remember.'

'Has Formby had an influence on my act?

'Well...'

# What happened to that nasty man so pally with the Taliban?

# Oh, oh, oh, oh, Osama Bin Laden

# He occasionally sends out a videotape

# To say he's doing great and he's full of hate

# Well, if he's doing so great then please tell me

# Why a videotape not a DVD

# Oh, oh, oh, oh, Osama Bin Laden. #

Thank you very much. Good night.

APPLAUSE

I'm starting my journey here in Blackpool,

in many ways George Formby's spiritual home.

It's also the place where hundreds of fans meet up every year

to celebrate the man and his music.

MUSIC: "When I'm Cleaning Windows"

One of the brilliant things about George Formby fans

is they're not like other fans.

If you were a Jimmy Hendrix fan, for example, you wouldn't

go to a convention and take your electric guitar.

If you were a Liberace fan, you wouldn't turn up

with your Steinway Grand Piano.

But almost every George Formby fan plays the ukulele.

It's a completely interactive activity.

The fans never tire of watching George's many comedy films,

and in particular, they love to celebrate

his mastery of the ukulele.

George Formby was quite a massive film star.

He made about 20 movies in-between 1934 and 1946

and used to get about 35 grand a film which, by modern standards,

is about a million and a half quid, so he was big time.

# Bow down, everyone, here I come Bang that cymbal and hit that drum

# Bow down, everyone, yes, sir I'm the Emperor Of Lancashire

# Who's this gentleman flashing dough?

# Is he somebody we should know?

# Is he somebody? Whoa, sir! I'm the Emperor Of Lancashire. #

A George Formby film has a certain formula to it.

George plays a seemingly gormless northern lad who's still got

a working class nouse and a certain amount of resilience

and he meets a nice girl who's way, way out of his league

and then he meets quite a bad person

and the bad person does something bad and George somehow manages

to stop that happening and at the end he gets the girl.

Fancy you knowing all that.

And in-between, there are various things.

George does the occasional cracking one-liner.

Tell me, how long were you in your last situation?

-Three years.

-Yes, and why did you leave?

-I was pardoned.

-Get out!

In Keep Your Seats Please, there's a bit where George has to smuggle

a goat onto a bus.

Apparently you can't take a goat on a bus and, of course,

what he does is he puts a dog mask on it.

So we get George on the bus, manhandling this enormous goat,

but it's disguised as a dog.

What sort of a dog's that?

-A root-haired hipopotopic.

-Oh, yes.

What a peculiar smell.

-Who did that?

-Baa!

'But of course, the highlight of any George Formby film

'is when he picks up the ukulele and starts to sing.'

# It's Auntie Maggie's home-made remedy

# Guaranteed never to fail

# That's the stuff that will do the trick

# It's sold at every chemist for one and a kick

# Now, if you've got lumbago rheumatics or gout

# Or a pain in your Robert E Lee

# Don't kick up a shindy You'll never get windy

# With Auntie Maggie's Remedy. #

'To find out about George's early years,

'I met up with John Walley, founder member of the George Formby Society

'and all-round Formby mastermind.'

-So this is the grave.

-This is it.

"In loving remembrance of George Formby, comedian."

This is not George, is it? It's George's dad.

No, this is George Formby Senior, forgotten now except by Formby

aficionados, but the great George Formby, the first George Formby.

-This is his grave.

-And he gets the portrait.

He get's the portrait.

-And so...

-And there is the famous George Formby Junior.

-He didn't even get top billing.

-He didn't!

40 years top of the bill, but when he dies, he's underneath there.

So George Senior was really quite a big star, wasn't he?

Indeed he was.

But George Senior's northern humour was born out of deprivation

and ill health and I'm afraid he contracted TB

at a very early age but, er...

But his catch phrase... I love his catch phrase. He used to say,

"I'm coughing well tonight." Is that right?

-"I'm coughing BETTER tonight".

-Oh, "I'm coughing better tonight".

I love that a man bases his catch phrase on his illness.

On something that's killing him.

My dad collapsed and died in pantomime in Newcastle.

He was a great fellow you know, really.

I wonder how many of you older folks that's watching

or in this theatre tonight remembers this song.

# They put me on a horse's back and sent me out to ride

# When I fell off, the riding master came to me and cried

# "However did you come to be?" "I told you", I replied

# "I was standing at the corner of the parade." #

HE COUGHS

'Bronchitis. I'm a bit tight tonight on t'chest.

'I could do with a strengthening bottle.'

Well, he certainly was a great star.

I don't think I'll ever be as good as him.

This is George Senior's date book which is the book

-in which he kept a record of all his gigs.

-Indeed.

-He starts off in 1906, he's on £35 a week.

-Yeah.

You've worked that out, haven't you?

According to the average wage that works out at about...

It would now be £14,000 a week.

And in 1922, he's on £325 a week

-and that is about £58,000.

-A week?

-Yep.

-Not bad, is it?!

-Yeah.

So the idea that the George Formby that we know,

George Junior, came from poverty...

I think people imagine he was a working class northern lad

-and that's not true.

-No, he wasn't.

The Formby home at Hindley House,

it was luxurious. There was a library...

On the lounge floor were leopard skin tiger rugs

and George never knew poverty.

There's some great footage of George

and his mother, Eliza, at George Senior's graveside.

With our George standing more or less...

I'm afraid he's standing just where I am, looking down.

George was sent away at the age of six to be a jockey

because George Senior didn't want his son to end up in the music hall,

but a trip to the theatre with his mother Eliza changed everything.

They went to London after the funeral to get over the shock

and to visit relatives and they went to the Holborn Empire

and they saw a man come on the stage impersonating Formby Senior

and George said "Oh, all right then, if he can earn a living

"doing my father, I can."

So back up to Warrington they went, and Eliza dressed George

in his dad's clothes, taught him several of his father's songs

from the cylinder records, went into the music room

and after three weeks, she rehearsed him and rehearsed him,

-cos George had never seen his dad on the stage.

-Really?

-Never.

He'd kick him out and say "Get back to the stables!

"One fool in the family is enough!" So he didn't know what to do.

Anyway, I learnt two songs off the record,

two of my dad's songs, and a friend of his called Fred Harrison,

he gave me a week's work at a place called the Hippodrome, Earlstown,

It's a little tin hut near Newton-le-Willows.

Formby Junior's performance was a carbon copy of his father's.

# John Willie, come on!

# It's closing time you see. #

I didn't go as George Formby, I took my mother's maiden name "Hoy"

because my dad's name was always top of the bill and I knew

I wouldn't be top of the bill the first time.

I'd be like that. And I didn't want the name of "Formby" to be small.

I said I'll use "Formby" when I top bills myself.

So George began in show business as his own father's tribute act.

Correct. And for three years, his mother was not only his mum,

but his manager, writing to the managers of the northern music halls

who gave young George work out of sympathy for his father

because they respected him and loved him.

But in 1924, at the Alhambra Theatre in Barnsley,

two things happened to him that completely changed his life.

Sitting in the front row was the feisty young lady called Beryl,

brilliant business woman, brilliant dancer, professional dancer

and in the next dressing room was a man called Sam Paul

who played a ukulele.

Not in the show, but just to wile away the time.

George paid two pounds, ten shillings for it,

learned a few chords and Beryl... George was smitten with her

and six months later, they married

and that's when George Formby changed his life.

She insisted that he dropped his father's clothes.

Insisted that he always wore evening suit

when he came on with the uke at the end.

Insisted he put the ukulele in his act,

so his act was completely different from that of his father

and from 1924 onwards, George went up and up and up with Beryl.

# Although the skies be dreary and grey

# Promise me that you'll never stray away

# My baby, baby, you're my... #

Beryl Ingham was already a successful dancer

when she met George, but after they were married

she sacrificed her career to concentrate

on making her husband into a star.

She was hard as nails and it's difficult now, 70 years on,

to think what it was like, but I mean, in those days

show business was a male-orientated world

and she was one of the very, very few female impresarios

so she had to be very, very tough to get along.

And she really didn't take any prisoners.

She did deals for him that were record-breakers at that time.

She was very, very good.

I realised, even at that stage, she was one of the great managers.

She looked after her husband's career tremendously.

I think maybe a little too strongly in cases,

but all the people that I saw dealing with her

had a fear which was marvellous.

See, I must admit I have a soft spot for Beryl

because I know, as a performer, that one often uses one's manager

as a kind of excuse. So when someone comes up to you and they say,

"Oh, will you do this" and you say, "Yeah, I'll ask my manager"

and you say to your manager "I don't want to do it. Can you tell him?"

So you get your manager to do the dirty work

and I suspect that George used Beryl like that quite a lot.

It's quite handy having this very strict wife/manager

because then you've got a good excuse for saying "No".

-Do you care for one night of love?

-Mother!

Beryl also had a reputation for, shall we say, protecting George

from the attentions of other women.

Oh, is that going to come up, too?

There are stories that he was a bit of a lady's man.

The women loved him and all his films,

he was always chased by a lovely lady.

I mean, there was the story that I was told early on

that Beryl wouldn't allow him to kiss any of his leading ladies.

Whenever anybody did a film with George Formby,

it would go around the grapevine with the girls

that if you do a film with George he'll make passes at you.

You know you are a clever young lady.

Let's look again.

Well, let me help you. I'll hold it still.

-I can manage.

-Well, I won't bother then.

-How are we going to stop Mendes broadcasting?

-We're not going to.

And on the very, very last day Beryl had to do some Christmas shopping

and I was in my dressing room in the lunch hour

and a knock came at the door and George stood there,

rather like a little boy, and said, "Eee, I'm crazy about you,"

and that was all! I think Beryl appeared the next minute,

but it was quite extraordinary how he couldn't resist

or couldn't resist TRYING, I suppose,

to make it with all his leading ladies.

Isn't love a very funny thing?

Oh, you're crazy.

I know that.

But it wasn't just Beryl who made George Formby a superstar.

The other magic ingredient was the ukulele.

# Some like to be alone

# It's no-one else's business as far as I can see

# But every time that I go out the people stare at me

# With my little ukulele in my hand. #

Sometimes when I say to people that I like George Formby they say,

"Oh, yeah, George Formby, he's the one with the banjo."

No! He's not the guy with the banjo, right!

George Formby started playing one of these. It's a ukulele.

Four strings, tuned...OK

Not a banjo.

A banjo normally has five strings tuned completely differently.

The reason people think George played a banjo is

if you play one of these in a large theatre...

# With my little ukulele in my hand. #

..it's beautiful but it's a little bit quiet.

There's a thing on a banjo, a round body called the resonator...

One of these. And if you put one of these on the ukulele,

same thing...

# With my little ukulele in my hand. #

Much louder, everyone can hear it even in the cheap seats.

What's that called?

This one? If you don't want the goods, don't maul it.

Oh, I know that, it goes like this.

-Try it on this one first, sir. It's a better instrument.

-All right.

# Now here's a little motto song I'd like to sing to you. #

Now, the ukulele is a bit like backgammon,

in that it's very easy to play but very difficult to play well.

So once I got the rudiments, I used to spend a lot of early hours

of the morning sessions watching Youtube, finding these guys

who show you how to do little George Formby techniques,

little frills and fancy bits,

and they're all mad fans and just want to share what they know.

This guy here is one of my favourites.

This is Peter Nixon who always starts with a lovely "Hello"

which makes me feel very warm-hearted and then he shares

often stuff he's just learnt that week.

'Going down and hitting the top string.

'Going down and hitting the bottom string.

'Coming up and hitting the bottom string.

So at this point, I'm normally sitting at home going...

..which the neighbours love at two o'clock in the morning(!)

'OK, so now what we're going to do is...

'We're going to take...'

Now, this guy is another one of my favourites.

What he does in this one... It's a guy called John.

And what he does is he slows down the solo

in a George Formby song called I Can Tell It By My Horoscope

and not only does he slow it down so we can hear exactly

what George is doing, but he represents it

by a series of sound waves... Really.

'Here we see the first beat that I took from this point

'in the movie clip.'

So you can actually tell the very moment that George's fingernail

is touching each individual string.

UKULELE MUSIC

Steven Sproat is a fantastic ukulele player and teacher.

He's the man to ask about George's technique.

It's relentless, yeah, yeah.

-That's like watching a rottweiler on a postman.

-Yeah!

How good a ukulele player was George Formby?

He was incredible really.

He had a particular right hand technique that he made his own

and there hasn't really been a uke player since Formby,

or even before Formby, that played quite like him.

A very, very good rhythm player.

Because I get quite angry at people. Because he's very genial

and sings silly songs, they kind of underestimate the musicianship.

-Sure, yeah.

-But that is unjust, isn't it?

-It is really, yes.

The trouble is that Formby was such a successful comic performer

that often his lyrics and his songs pigeonholed him,

but when it came to playing the ukulele,

he was a true genius really.

-He's fast, isn't he?

-Very fast, yes.

If you try playing along to Leaning On A Lamppost, it's phenomenal.

You listen and you think, "That's fast", but when you play along to it, it's like, "Woah!"

-Can you give me an example?

-Probably not as fast as Formby, but...

FAST-PACED UKULELE

Cor! I love it!

-I'm going to applaud, I'm sorry.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you. I'll receive your applause.

-That's fabulous, Steven.

# In my little snapshot album. #

# Heaven help me

# When you call my name It's like a little prayer. #

Nowadays the ukulele has become a very cool instrument.

I went to this ukulele karaoke club to make sure the new generation

of ukulele players give George the credit he deserves.

I'm regarding you guys as kind of the new wave of ukulele players.

Is that fair?

I think that's a fair summary.

And I think a lot of people probably from the new wave

don't like George Formby very much and don't play George Formby.

Why is that?

Why is that? I think because we worry that that means

we won't get an audience...maybe... if I'm being really honest.

I have every admiration for Mr Formby, but I'm a bit wary

of the cult of George.

I think there's a place for George in the new world of ukulele.

If you listen to some George Formby solos, for example,

he was one hell of a ukulele player.

A phrase that always comes up is "Phenomenal right hand"

because no-one does it like George.

It's a bit like being blood brothers.

He should reach to us across the years.

We're all joined together by the ukulele.

# There's no other girl I would wait for

# But this one I'd break any date for

# I won't have to ask what she's late for

# She wouldn't leave me flat She's not a girl like that

# Oh, she's absolutely wonderful and marvellous and beautiful

# And anyone will understand why

# I'm leaning on a lamppost at the corner of the street

# In case a certain little lady passes by. #

APPLAUSE

'I believe my work here is done.'

It's turned out nice again, hasn't it?

In schools all over the country, children have abandoned

the old traditional recorder and reached for a shiny new ukulele.

Sounds like an opportunity for a bit more indoctrination.

ALL: # In the jungle The mighty jungle

# The lion sleeps tonight. #

Good morning.

ALL: Good morning, Frank Skinner.

I like being called "Frank Skinner." That's nice.

How lovely to see you all.

You all look so fabulous and nice blue tops and happy.

I want to introduce you to a man who was the most famous ukulele player

in the country, right. And he was called George Formby.

This is George and George was very, very famous

and whatever George played, he smiled as well.

So I'm going to play a little George Formby song.

Now, I'm a bit nervous so if I make a mistake be nice to me, OK?

# With my little ukulele in my hand

# People just don't seem to understand

# They say, "Why don't you be a scout? Why don't you read a book?"

# But I get much more pleasure when I'm playing with my uke. #

CHILDREN SING

I was amazed how quickly they picked it up.

ALL: # My heart it jumped with joy I could see it was a boy

# But I kept my ukulele in my hand

# Yes, sir, I kept my ukulele in my hand. #

Fantastic! Well, I really thought that was brilliant.

Well done, everybody and now you know who George Formby is.

And not only do you know who he is, but you can play a George Formby song and that's brilliant.

So go away and tell your friends about George.

ALL: Eh, eh it's turned out nice again.

Pardon me.

Thank you.

Of course, there's always songs in George Formby films.

George somehow acquires a ukulele or has one with him then the song has

to emerge from the normal action and there's lots of ways of doing this.

I think one of my favourites is

when George is strolling through a store and there's a woman

trying to work out exactly what a ukulele is cos she's thinking

of buying one for her child and who should be passing but George Formby?

Nonsense, listen.

No, see, it's not quite right, do you mind? I'll show you.

# Come on and hear my ukulele come on and hear, come on and hear

# I give a demonstration daily right over here, right over here... #

And it goes into a fabulous song sequence

in which... What I love about it is that George

is so persistently George that he does the normal saucy lines

even though he is surrounded by a posse of smiling innocent children.

It's a fabulous juxtaposition.

# When I go out with my little black case, some people get me wrong

# A nice young lady said to me "I'm glad you came along

# "I'd like to see your underwear Please show me all you can"

# I said, "You won't see none of mine, I'm the Ukulele Man".

# He's the Ukulele Man

# He's the Ukulele Man

# I'm not a salesman you can guess but I sell something nonetheless

# So come and buy some happiness from the Ukulele Man. #

What I really like about the ukulele solos in the George Formby movies

is that George, if you watch his face,

it looks like he can hardly believe he is playing this solo either.

So he's banging away and going...

and really it's the joy of the man.

It's like he's been given this gift from God.

Most George Formby films end with a chase

and this could be George in a car, George on a race horse,

George on a motorbike, but the general motif is that George

is terrified, and consequently,

he makes a lot of fabulously high-pitched Lancastrian noises

throughout and the variety that he manages to find in this...

The occasional "Mother!" or "Oh, eck" is really something.

Ooo.

Ooo. Argghh!

Oo-oo. Argh! Yow!

Yak!

Yaa! Oooo!

Ha-ha! Whoah!

Argh!

# Make life go with a swing Laugh at trouble and sing

# Tra-la-la-la-lala-lala

# Count your blessing and smile. #

It was during the war that Formby's cheeky optimism

and relentlessly cheerful songs really captivated the nation.

# Now he makes raw recruits Just tremble in their boots

# He calls them slackers Who's gone crackers?

# Our Sergeant Major

# His feet fill up the road Knock-kneed and pigeon-toed

# We'd sooner shoot him then salute him

# Our Sergeant Major. #

George, of course, was a highly patriotic comic

and a very big part of the British war effort

and in Let George Do It there is one sequence which apparently always

got a standing ovation and massive cheers and applause from the crowd.

I think you'll probably be able to guess why.

Look out, Adolf, I'm coming after you!

I am determined...

I will wipe Britain's Empire from the face of the earth!

I want you.

Why?

You're my last territorial demand in Europe.

I will knock your head off the block!

Not if I knock your block off first.

Well, I, like everybody else,

I was called up and I went to take me medical.

That was the biggest laugh I ever got in my life...

when I stripped off.

I never knew I had flat feet

and the doctor looked at me and he gave me a shilling

and he gave me a card which said "Grade 4".

I didn't even get in the first three!

And he said, "You better go entertaining troops,"

so I went over every war front.

I took Beryl with me, of course, and we went everywhere.

BERYL: Wherever George had to go, Beryl went too.

I said all the time, "If you want George, you've got to have me"

and they always wanted George, so they had to put up with me.

# It's turned out nice again... #

# Oh, he does look the swank

# Does Frank on his tank

# He does look a swank does Frank

# See him dashing along

# With a clickety clickety clank... #

# Oh Mr Wu, what shall I do?

# I'm feeling kind of Limehouse Chinese Laundry Blues... #

# Bless 'em all, bless 'em all

# The long and the short and the tall... #

# Out in the Middle East You can have a lot of fun

# Out in the Middle East... #

Amazingly, George Formby's songs

are still keeping up morale in the front line,

with a branch of the fan club out in Afghanistan.

I can't believe all these young guys had any interest in it at all.

Can you explain it?

It's catchy.

As you know, it's just a ukulele and the songs,

and it's actually quite funny, some of the lyrics,

like Mr Wu and things like that.

It's just that kind of catchy tune. That's all pop music is,

it's just very catchy stuff.

Were you a George Formby fan before?

Hand on heart, I'd never even heard of George Formby before I went to Afghanistan.

I don't think any of us had, until one of the lads,

Lee Greenhill, came out and he was listening,

and then we were like, "What's that? What is he listening to? What's that all about?"

And all of a sudden, I was writing to the George Formby society, starting the Afghanistan branch.

I mean, do you think he was good for morale in Afghanistan?

Yeah, it certainly was.

When we went back to Camp Bastion,

which is the focal point of Helmand,

to fly home for rest and recuperation,

we would sit there outside and play Formby,

because it was natural for us, because for most of the tour,

we were in the middle of nowhere on top of this hill so we could do as we pleased

and we were sat there, # Mr Wu... # and just singing away

and people would be walking by, going, "What are they on?!"

George was awarded the OBE for his work entertaining the troops,

and after the war, he and Beryl set out on a tour of the Commonwealth.

They were treated like royalty everywhere they went,

like here in South Africa.

They were invited to South Africa, George and Beryl.

They were told they would have to sing to segregated audiences.

Neither of them claimed to know what apartheid was. I think it was just starting then.

Yes, this would be '46,

and I think apartheid started in '48, so it was obviously on the way.

It was on its way.

It hadn't actually started and he didn't know what segregated meant

and, you know, they explained to him, black on one side, white on the other.

His argument was, "Well, when I peel spuds,

"if I peel red spuds and white spuds, they're still the same colour spuds inside".

You know, that kind of thing.

They were on stage in Johannesburg and this little black girl walked on stage with a bunch of flowers

and, as anybody would, Beryl picked her up and gave her a kiss

and they were escorted out of the theatre by armed guards

and told they had to leave the country

and she said, "Well, I'm not going to do that," so what they did...

She cancelled all the concerts

and she sang to black audiences only and they became heroes.

George and Beryl's flouting of the rules

attracted the attention of Daniel Malan, the head of the National Party.

Eventually, they were arrested in the hotel

and they kicked the door down and went in and said to Beryl, "You're leaving"

and he called her all kinds of names and Malan walked in.

She slapped him across the face and said, "Piss off, you horrible little man!"

They were escorted to the airport,

for there were no two ways about it then,

they were escorted to the airport from the hotel

and the man who'd arranged all the gigs in the township was shot dead as they were getting on the plane.

I mean, it was a really horrible experience.

This is the Imperial Hotel, Blackpool,

which is where the George Formby Society has their convention

and if you have any interest in George Formby at all,

this is where you come to worship.

And I am one of those pilgrims,

so I think I am going to find out a great deal about George,

and I'll probably play a little bit of ukulele as well.

I'm looking forward to it.

# They laughed

# When I started to play

# They laughed so hearty... #

In a reckless moment, I'd promised to play on stage tomorrow,

so I thought I'd better go and check out the competition.

# Don Pedro The great bull-fighting hero

# The Lancashire Toreador

# They cheer me

# And when the bull gets near me

# To show how far a brave man can go

# With the bull I dance the Tango... #

# I'm leaning on a lamp

# Maybe you think I look a tramp,

# Or you may think I'm hanging round To steal a car... #

So, about three years ago,

I went to a branch meeting of the George Formby Society in Barnsley

and somebody said to me, "Are you going to play a song?"

and I said, "I have a slight problem because I can't play the ukulele"

and they said, "Oh, you should talk to Andy Eastwood."

So this is Andy Eastwood and you said,

"Oh, I'll teach you in about 40 minutes."

We had a little session and I thought you did very well.

So you actually studied music at Oxford.

-I did.

-And your specialist instrument was the ukulele.

I did my recital on the ukulele

and it was the first time anyone had ever done that,

so it was quite an event.

-Presumably, they were used to people playing piano and violin.

-They expected classical recitals, yes.

Which is good, because no-one's studied Formby's music at all seriously.

No, well, it's not taken very seriously, is it?

It's not supposed to be. He was a comedian. He didn't want to be taken seriously.

But he WAS a good player?

He was a brilliant player and one of the things

about the way he did it was he made it look so easy and simple.

As a comic, he didn't want anyone to think he was clever.

It was that character he played, he played off stage as well as on.

I am very grateful to you because without you

I'd never have started playing and I get a lot of joy out of playing.

-Though I'm not very good, I love to play. Thanks, I appreciate it.

-Cheers.

Now, I am quite desperate to improve my ukulele skills,

so this is called an improvers class,

run by a bloke called Andy Little,

and I'm hoping to improve.

-Andy, how are you?

-Come and join us, Frank.

Thank you very much. All right, Charlie.

Most people who pick up a ukulele want to play like George Formby.

He was just an absolute genius, there's no question.

If you look at a George Formby solo,

the split stroke is actually going up continuously throughout the solo.

If you can't do this stroke,

you are never ever going to sound like George Formby.

So it is the absolute bedrock of what we're trying to achieve.

If you go down...

OK, get that sound in your head. OK, just do that.

You're not going to be able to do it now.

It is mind-bogglingly difficult!

I don't know. Am I doing it right?

Now, to me, that sounds like, you know,

three seconds of George Formby.

-Well, that's a start, isn't it?

-Yes, don't you think?

-It's a start.

Frank, do you think you can take all this information with you,

get on the stage and have a go yourself?

I'm now on the verge where I'm going into, I think,

as far as the George Formby Society is concerned,

what you would call class A drugs

of playing the ukulele,

and that is the solo, because everyone I've spoken to here so far,

I think they fast forward through the rest of it.

It's the solos they're after.

You can't wait get to the solo!

And I'm at that point where I'm in the dark labyrinth of the solo.

I need somebody with a torch walking ahead of me, basically.

To guide you. Exactly.

# See me dressed like all the sports

# In me blazer and a pair of shorts

# With me little stick of Blackpool rock

# Along the promenade I stroll

# It may be sticky But I never complain

# It's nice to have a nibble at it now and again... #

George Formby was obviously tuned in to the comic potential of Blackpool rock.

Hold on a minute!

Could this be a way of ingratiating myself with the George Formby Society?

The rock's very simple ingredients.

Sugar, just like you'd put in your tea or coffee.

The other ingredient is glucose syrup. The rock's cooled on these tables.

You have to cool it down before you can start working with it. We put it on another machine which aerates it

and that makes it go white in the centre.

You know you could put that in an art gallery in London and people would pay to watch it.

-Sounds a good idea.

-Yeah.

# With me little stick of Blackpool rock... #

What we're going to do, we're going to put the word "George Formby" through the rock.

Can I just say, one of the great mysteries of my childhood

was how you got the words to go through a stick of rock.

-Are we about to just find that out now?

-You're about to find that out.

Would you like to help us by making the F?

-I'm happy to make the F.

-OK, are you happy to try and make the F?

I see. So hold on, that's what the letter F is?

That's the letter F in the rock, yeah.

Right, so if we put your F into the right place...

Where does the F go? Hurry up, it's getting hot.

You're now the man who put the F in Formby.

Now you can see that's the white rock out of the pummelling machine

and that will be the centre of the rock.

Now, here's your bar of rock being put together.

You'll see we've got the centre core of it,

we've got the word George at the top, Formby at the bottom.

That's going to go in the middle on that red piece.

And the red piece is going to be pulled around it.

And that, sir, is your large bar of George Formby rock.

In a minute, we'll pull it out

into the right thickness for the finished product.

So I am in a rock factory in Blackpool and I've got a ukulele.

It's got to be done.

# With me little stick of Blackpool rock

# Down the promenade I stroll

# It might get sticky But I never complain

# It's nice to have a nibble at it now and again

# Every day wherever I stray

# The kids all round me flock

# One day the band conductor He was up on his stand

# Somehow dropped his baton It out of his hand

# So I jumped in his place and then conducted the band

# With me little stick of Blackpool Rock! #

Hee hee!

Oo-er, Mother!

One thing that it's hard to avoid with George Formby songs

is there are double entendres,

sort of sexual innuendo all over the place,

which you have to try and identify.

Some of them are very clever.

There's a lovely one in one of his early songs

where a woman gives him a pocket watch and when he opens it, it's just an empty shell,

and he said, "What's the good of this?"

and she says, "I'll give you the works tomorrow night."

Ooh!

Then again, in My Little Ukulele, when his child is born, towards the end,

George goes off to the bedroom and there is the child.

# And my heart it jumped with joy I could see it was a boy

# Cos he had his ukulele in his hand, oh baby... #

It's unlikely that a newborn child

would actually have a musical instrument.

Erm...

You can get so innuendo-ed with George that you start seeing them everywhere.

I've got here, for example, In A Little Wigan Garden,

which, on the surface, seems like a song slightly about urban decay,

about being in a garden, but because it's Wigan

it's not as nice as gardens can be.

But after a while, I start seeing

sexuality and strangeness everywhere. So it goes...

# 'Neath the Wigan water lilies

# Where the drainpipe overflows

# There's my girl and me She'll sit on my knee

# And watch how the rhubarb grows... #

Is it George or is it me?

Oh, I'm going to faint!

# When the morning mildew Christens our shallots... #

In the end, I'm just...I'm lost.

Well, it means... You've seen it... They'll know.

# Baby

# Baby

# You're my sweet... #

George and Beryl saw out their final years here at Lytham St Annes,

a couple of miles from Blackpool.

The house, like all their other houses, was called Beryldene.

A couple of very sad events took place at Beryldene.

What were they?

Well, on Christmas Day 1960,

Beryl died in her bedroom at this house,

and she was 59

and she died of cancer

and eight days before that,

she propped herself up in bed,

with George's manservant, Harry Scott, attending her,

put on her makeup and her fur,

because she wanted to look at her best for George,

because he was appearing on BBC television in a one-man show.

Turned out nice again, hasn't it?

Well, it may have done for me, but I don't know about you,

because you've got to stick with me for the next 35 minutes or more,

cos we've no girls, no dancers, no acrobats, no conjurers.

Not even a guest star, only me and the uke.

But I'm going to tell you a few home truths I've never told in public before.

It really was a confession show

in which he confessed that he regretted not having any children,

that Beryl had been responsible for his success.

See, I married Beryl and then she knew a man in Newcastle

called Thomas F Connery.

He used to run revues.

He gave me a week's work up there and he liked my act.

I don't know why, but he liked it and he gave me a revue contract for five years.

Well, I never looked back after that.

And I shall always be grateful to Beryl

for doing all the business for me, you see.

He regretted not being able to read and write properly.

He praised the public for making him into a star,

because he never understood why he was a star.

I mean, what do WE do? We don't do anything.

We don't become stars - you people make us stars.

We wouldn't be any good without you.

And any of our present stars today believe anything different, they're crazy.

I shall always be grateful to the public for what they've done for me.

And then eight days later, she died.

It must have been incredibly difficult for George,

doing that show knowing that Beryl was dying, basically.

Well, she was dying of not only leukaemia

but also of alcohol

and there she was, watching George,

and he must have put on a very brave face.

It's classic showbiz stuff, though, isn't it? The show must go on.

George's fans were shocked when, just six weeks after Beryl died,

he got engaged to school teacher Pat Howson - 20 years his junior.

If we'd have kept it quiet and gone on secretly...

It wouldn't have been nice, though.

To be perfectly honest, I'm going to have somebody to look after me,

I mean, with what I've got...

You've got something on your plate, you know.

But it was never to be.

Two days before their planned wedding, George suffered a heart attack and died.

Over 100,000 people lined the streets of Warrington for his funeral.

And when the will was published, oh, my goodness.

I can see the headlines now, you know,

"Formby cuts out family from will".

"Miss Pat inherits £185,000."

And the only thing that he left was £5,000 to his valet, Harry Scott,

but most of his fortune he left to Pat.

The solicitor, John Crowther, who was the executor of the will,

insisted that all Beryl and George's possessions were to be auctioned

and then they'd deal with the will later.

So for three days, the public were allowed to view all the possessions.

It was horrible. You know, people rummaging around Beryl's underclothes,

and even the number plate off George's Bentley fetched £1,000.

And just look at this for intimate items, on page 34 -

"The deceased's personal clothing, much of which is new and unworn.

"14 various shirts and a box of various coat hangers".

What about this?

"Four shirts, three vests, two pairs of underpants, pair socks and dressing gown, all used or soiled."

-I know, isn't that sad?

-It's just wrong.

I must say, I like the idea of the father and the son buried together.

It's very sad, though. The father dies aged 45 and the son, 56.

It's nothing, is it?

# I'm following me father's footsteps

# I'm following me dear old dad

# He's up front with a big fine girl

# So I thought I'd have one as well

# I don't know where he's going

# But when he gets there I'll be glad

# I'm following me father's footsteps, yes

# I'm following me dear old dad. #

Just after he died,

a group of fans got together to form the George Formby Society,

to keep the memory of George and his music alive.

The highlight of every George Formby meeting is The Thrash -

when everybody gets up on stage and shares a mass ukulele experience.

THEY PLAY "Leaning On A Lamppost"

ALL: # ..at the corner of the street

# In case a certain little lady passes by! #

I don't think I really understood the George Formby Society

until I did The Thrash, and when I was in the midst of The Thrash,

I think it then came to me, I knew what it was all about.

It's a wonderful feeling, isn't it?

It doesn't matter if you can play

or whether you just get carried along with the enthusiasm.

And you look along the line,

all those arms going at the same time.

It's a real thing of beauty, I thought.

And I love the fact that it's an active thing,

that people play the ukulele, they don't just listen to George playing it.

You see, George was a happy-go-lucky fellow, wasn't he?

His whole manner was joy and fun.

To my mind, you cannot be miserable when you've got a uke in your hand.

I'll be honest.

When I came here, I thought everyone would have white hair, right.

But in fact, there's children, teenagers...

Can you explain why that appeal is still there?

It's an enigma, isn't it?

It is.

It's the attraction of the ukulele. It's that unique sound.

There's no other instrument that sounds like that. That's the attraction of it.

# I'm leaning on a lamppost at the corner of the street

# In case a certain little lady comes by... #

'When I were a child, his songs were so descriptive.'

Everybody else was singing songs about love and moaning Joan,

and George would tell you a story.

It were like reading a comic set to music.

# Oh, Levi's Monkey Mike What a funny creature

# He went into the church one day And bit the local preacher... #

-There's an animation based on the George Formby song Levi's Monkey Mike.

-That's right.

Where did that come from?

That's a young man who were doing a thesis at university,

doing a degree in animation

and he must have been attracted to George Formby,

but when you watch the animation and listen to the words, it really all makes sense.

# Now once we had a parliament But it would never go

# So they filled it up with animals Out of a wild beast show

# The lion was Prime Minister To swank he was disposed

# They wanted a Lord Chancellor So somebody proposed

# Levi's Monkey Mike

# And he proved quite a good un

# He taxed the laces in our boots And taxed our Christmas pudding

# Now working man just give a cheer We're all right now, so never fear

# Who's going to take the tax off beer?

# Levis Monkey Mike. #

We've got a wonderful concert going on this afternoon

and we've got a special guest star that's going to come and entertain you.

That guest star is Mr Frank Skinner!

That's the one you want to turn off. Good afternoon, everyone.

ALL: Good afternoon.

Can I say, I'm absolutely terrified.

So I'm apologising in advance, basically.

I've just bought this in the room next door - 950 quid.

You were robbed! >

I know.

And you're about to see it physically and mentally abused.

If there is a solo, it'll be an accident.

It's about as good as it gets.

# Now I know I'm not handsome I've no good looks or wealth

# And the girls I chase

# Say my plain face will compromise their health

# But I see fellows worse than me

# Bow-legged and boss-eyed

# Walking out with lovely women Clinging to their side

# And if women like them like men like those

# Why don't women like me?

# Look at Empress Josephine

# The most attractive woman that ever was seen

# But Napoleon, short and fat

# Captivates a lovely-looking dame like that

# Well, if women like them like men like those

# Why don't women like me?

# Hey, hey, hey Why don't women like me? #

Nearly a solo!

STRUMMING FALTERS

'Ooh, 'eck!'

# Well, if women like them like men like those

# Why don't women like me?

# Take Lord Nelson with one limb

# Lady William Hamilton She fell for him

# With one eye and one arm gone west

# She ran like the devil and she grabbed the rest

# Oh, if women like them like men like those

# Why don't women like me?

# Hey, hey, hey why don't women like me? #

'Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say it turned out nice again,

'but I think I just about got away with it.'

Come and get your rock here!

I think it's pretty clear that George Formby was a massive star,

because everybody loves what seems to be

an ordinary working-class chap who triumphs over adversity.

The reason I think he'll continue to be popular is because of these...

Everyone I've spoken to, that's what really touches them,

and people want to play like him.

He was a great player and as long as ukuleles exist,

people will come to George Formby conventions and watch those solos,

every little move of the finger, every little twitch of the wrist,

and they want to play like that.

And that will keep George Formby's memory alive forever.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

Email [email protected]

# Oh baby, had me ukulele in his hand! #