Great British Comedies Talking Pictures

Charlie Chaplin -

cinema's first truly international star. Born in London.

Stan Laurel, born in Cumbria

and one half of one of comedy's greatest double acts.

Ever since the heyday of this glorious pair,

British comedians have had fans rolling in the aisles with laughter.

In this programme we're looking at some of the funniest

home-grown film stars to make their mark on British cinema audiences.

We start with a man who, armed with only a ukulele and a cheeky grin,

became Britain's biggest box-office star of the 1930s and '40s.

So here is the great George Formby,

explaining how his movie career took off.

People have said to me many, many a time,

"How did you start in pictures?"

Well, have you ever felt that

if you got the chance, you could do a thing really well?

Well, that's the way I felt about pictures.

And many years ago

I came down to London

and I even wrote my own scripts, along with Beryl

and a man called Arthur Mertz, and we went all around the studios.

They'd never heard of George Formby,

the didn't even WANT to hear about him.

I went everywhere, but nobody wanted to know at all,

so back up to the provinces I went, and we worked around for a long time

and I was playing in a place called Warrington, and a man called

John E Blakeley came round

and he said, "I'd like to make pictures with you."

I nearly grabbed his hand off.

Anyway, he said, come up on Sunday and we'll talk it over.

So we went up on the Sunday, and we talked it over and he said,

"Yes, I'd like to make pictures, but I haven't got a story."

I said, "I have."

And we brought out this little story we had written,

called "Boots! Boots!" So the whole thing was settled,

we came to London and we went to the film studios. Studios(!)

One room over a garage in Albany Street!

And when we wanted to start making the picture,

we had to press a button so that they stopped the engines down below.

Well, at the end of 14 days we'd finished the picture,

and it cost the large sum of ?3,000. Then came the time to sell it.

Nobody wanted to buy it.

At it did get a world premiere in a place called Burslem.

LAUGHTER

It did, you know, and I'll never forget because I went up there

and, strange as it may seem, it packed them out.

Oh, and it was a lousy picture.

LAUGHTER

Ooh, it was so dark in places you had to strike matches to see it.

The courting couples liked it, though.

But at that time Basil Dean was making a lot of very big pictures.

He was going round the country

trying to find what the different salesmen wanted.

And they said, "We want George Formby pictures."

He said, "Who's George Formby?" He said, "Look through that window."

And he saw a queue wrapped right round the theatre,

looking at "Boots! Boots!"

So he got them to bring me down to Ealing Studios, I signed

a seven-year contract, and that was the start of me making 22 films.

And strange as it may seem, every one was a success.

George Formby's film persona

was the lovably, innocent cheeky chappie -

territory also mined with great success

by the wonderful Norman Wisdom.

But tickling a different funny bone entirely were Britain's most

critically successful films of the period -

the Ealing Comedies.

Full of dark, satirical humour, they won awards,

were hugely influential, and showcased some wonderful actors,

including, of course,

the incredibly versatile Alec Guinness.

Perhaps the richest vein of your film career,

although you might not agree, was the Ealing comedies.

Well, I was very lucky over that.

Sir Michael Balcon sent me with Robert Hamer, with whom

I became great friends, sent me the script

of Kind Hearts And Coronets,

just as I was going away on holiday, asking me

if I would play four parts in it.

And I read it on a beach in France, and I collapsed with laughter on the

first page, and didn't even bother to get to the end of the script.

I went straight back to the hotel, sent a telegram, saying,

"Why four parts, why not eight?"

The SPCK have provided us with a large number of copies

of the good book, translated into Matabele.

But as none of the natives can read even their own language...

You speak Matabele yourself?

Not as a native.

It would be most interesting to hear a sample of the language.

I'm afraid my Matabele is a little rusty.

Oh, come, my Lord.

Daniel cast into the lions' den, for example.

HE SPEAKS GIBBERISH

..Daniel...

This is a colloquial rendering, of course.

Most interesting.

Another Ealing Comedy - greatly underestimated, I think -

was Man In The White Suit.

Well, I thought that was a marvellous film.

I thought Sandy Mackendrick did a wonderful job on that.

I remember being very angry at a notice coming out

saying it was an ignoble film, because the suit

disintegrated at the end and people jeered and laughed.

I thought they totally missed the point of the whole thing.

That was...

I thought it was very original and amusing to look at,

and a kind of classic of its time.

This was about a man who'd invented an indestructible...

Material, yes, cloth that wouldn't ever wear out.

THEY ALL LAUGH

Look! It's coming to pieces!

We're saved!

Look! Look!

Sir John, look! Sir John!

LAUGHTER FADES INTO DISTANCE

Look! Look! Look!

Of course, the other Ealing Comedy that everybody remembers is

The Ladykillers. How do you think that one stands out? 1955.

I don't know, I haven't seen that film.

That was Sandy Mackendrick again.

I would have thought all right. I don't know!

Let's have a look at a bit of it anyway.

Mrs Wilberforce? Yes? I understand you have rooms to let.

Oh, the rooms, yes. Won't you come in, please?

Thank you. My name's Marcus.

How do you do, Mr Marcus? Professor Marcus. How do you do, Professor?

Yes, I have two, right up...

Oh, yes, would you excuse me a moment

while I put this away, please?

SINISTER MUSIC PLAYS

I'm afraid it's quite impossible to make it hang evenly,

Professor Marcus. Because of the subsidence. Subsidence?

From the bombing. None of the pictures will.

You have no other lodgers?

No, the other floors are no longer structurally sound.

But the two rooms at the rear are quite all right.

Then, you live here all alone? Yes.

I think I should tell you,

Professor, I am unable to provide breakfast or early morning tea.

This is the sitting room, and the bedroom is just down here.

These rooms do need an airing, don't they?

I'm afraid there is no proper service, and the view is, well...

TRAIN WHISTLES AND SCREECHES

Most exhilarating.

One year before The Ladykillers, British cinema audiences had

been queuing in their hundreds to see a comedy film that was

so successful it would spawn six sequels and a long-running TV series.

It turned Dirk Bogarde,

a relatively unknown actor with serious aspirations,

into one of the biggest stars of the 1950s.

You moved to a very successful series of films,

which were the Doctor films.

When you were working in what many people might consider

unremarkable cinema,

were you striving to do your best within those circumstances,

or were you not all that conscious that it was unremarkable cinema?

Look here, let's get one thing absolutely straight.

All I've ever been in the cinema or in the theatre or in my books

is an entertainer.

Nothing more and nothing less. That's all I am.

And anything I do, I do to the depths of my gut.

I would never, as I said, cheat anyone.

I never considered those films

as crappy or stupid or whatever they were.

They were there to pleasure people,

they were there to pleasure people who came to see us.

You don't betray that faith. You don't betray people who

have staggered miles in a snowstorm to get to the movie to see you.

You do everything you can.

And people met and married in movies that I made.

They dated.

I have four generations of people that I am directly responsible to.

I couldn't possibly say that I did anything more

than do the best thing I COULD do to the highest point of my ability,

and never once looked down on it. I never. I couldn't do.

And I loved the cinema too much anyway, that was another thing.

It was growing and growing and growing.

When I found that a crew was working, and that was working,

and how it worked, and this was working, the boom,

all these wonderful things came in, and I was being taken in again,

into a force, like I had been in the Army,

and producing something at the end of it.

But I was very, very proud of those films.

I mean, some of them were rubbish, I admit,

but people like rubbish, you know.

People don't want always to be educated, illuminating...

DOG WHIMPERS

Hurry along, there.

Come on, hurry along. Hold tight, please.

BELL RINGS

TYRES SCREECH

WOMAN SCREAMS

But in the Doctor films I said, "Whatever I do

"I've got to be a doctor,"

because the one thing you must never do, coming back to it again -

cut it out if you don't want it -

don't cheat an audience, and I never did.

And I was never funny in the Doctor films. They THINK I was funny.

Audiences THINK I was funny, but the people around me were funny,

but I was always real, so that when I had to deliver a baby

or take out a tooth or whatever it was, you believed in it.

It was the hard core of the movie... was Simon Sparrow.

Morning, Sister. Morning, Sir Lancelot. Everything ready?

All ready, Sir. Splendid.

Now, you just lie still, old fellow.

I've just got to discuss your case with these young doctors here.

Take his pyjamas off, Sister. You, examine his abdomen.

Take that grubby fist away!

The first rule of diagnosis, gentlemen -

eyes first and most, hands next and least, and tongue not at all.

Look!

Have you looked? Yes, sir. See anything? No, sir. Very good.

Carry on.

Gently, man! Gently! You're not making bread.

Don't forget, to be a successful surgeon, you need

the eye of a hawk, the heart of a lion and the hands of a lady.

You found it?

Yes, sir. Well, what is it? A lump. Well? What do you make of it?

Is it kidney? Is it spleen? Is it liver?

Is it dangerous? Don't worry, my good man.

You won't understand our medical talk... Um, you.

What are we going to do about it? Erm...

Cut it out, man, cut it out! Where shall we make the incision?

Nothing like large enough. Keyhole surgery, damnable.

Couldn't see anything. Like this.

Now, don't worry, this is nothing whatever to do with you. Now, you.

When we cut through the skin, what's the first substance we shall find?

Subcutaneous fat, Sir. Quite right.

Then we come across the surgeon's worst enemy, which is what?

Speak up, man!

Blood, you numbskull!

You cut a patient,

he bleeds until the processes of nature form a clot and stop it.

This interval is known scientifically as the bleeding time.

You, what's the bleeding time?

Ten past ten, Sir.

A classic line! And James Robertson Justice proved to be so popular

playing the demanding surgeon Sir Lancelot Spratt,

he ended up appearing in all seven of the Doctor film series.

Now, it has been said of you you're an actor who doesn't need to...

play a part, because the parts you're cast for

you very often resemble, um, physically

and that in fact you play along with your own personality.

Now, how much is that true? Well...

I would like to suggest that...

the answer is that if one behaves absolutely

as one does in private life in front of the screen,

it would come over...far too vague, in other words,

there must be a conscious effort to UNDERPLAY a part.

Even if you are more or less doing it as you would,

er, do it yourself.

It still must be brought down a bit, otherwise it would be a firing.

So that you're really underplaying your own personality?

I hope so.

Even if a character like Sir Lancelot Pratt,

the doctor of the doctor series...

Sir Lancelot Spratt, if you don't mind. Spratt. Er...

Well, yes, he was of course founded on somebody that I knew very well.

Er, who was also a great ornithologist

and a great surgeon

and used to...

he had a wonderful team

in the operating theatre

at the hospital...

of which he was a very senior surgeon.

And they were all quite used to him, but he had a nervous habit

of using the most terrible language all the time he was operating.

Everybody was quite used to this, and knew that it meant nothing, it was just a nervous thing.

And, er...

I know a lot of people will remember him

if I say, use the word 'snorker'.

INTERVIEWER LAUGHS And I won't mention his real name,

but that will bring back memories to a great number of people.

Of course, nurses, doctors, and matrons

were also exploited to comic effect

in Britain's most enduring comedy series....

the Carry On films.

With a popular cast

delivering more than double the normal share of double entendres,

their saucy postcard humour lasted for a total of 31 films.

And in 1970,

the BBC turned up on the set of number 19,

Carry On Up The Jungle.

Well, our films really started, as you say, by accident.

We had a script given to us of an army comedy

which nobody else seemed to want

and Peter Rogers and myself decided it would make a funny picture.

So, we knocked it into shape

and the distributors liked the picture, but didn't like the title,

so they changed it, in confidence, to Carry On Sergeant.

All right, turn around.

Now, breathe deeply.

In, out. HE EXHALES DEEPLY

Say 99. Ninety...nine. HE COUGHS

Overheat.

Something's wrong, eh?

Congratulations, you have a perfect heart and lungs. Wha...

No, Doctor. My heart hangs by a thread.

By a rope, my boy.

Rope? What do you mean?

He doesn't understand, my heart... Lie down.

Ooh!

HE STRAINS

Good. How's that?

HE STRAINS

Remarkable. Stand up.

Uh... Stand still.

HE GIGGLES Cough.

HE COUGHS

A-ha. A-ha. You see?

Fantastic.

What is? Stomach's a model.

You've got a digestive system like an incinerator.

I went and saw Carry On Camping in Blackpool one afternoon,

I was up there for a summer season. I've never heard anything like it.

First of all, you couldn't get into the cinema.

You just couldn't.

I just happened to know the manager and I went and stood at the back.

I'd never heard such laughter.

Are you the owner of this site? Nah.

Where is he? Gone for a P. Oh.

Here he comes now.

BIRDS TWEET

Well, we've basically tried to make...broad,

bawdy, if you like, even vulgar humour,

which has a family appeal and which at the same time

never actually takes the mickey out of the institution,

but only the people in it.

We don't want to make people frightened of hospitals, policeman and fireman.

But we don't mind taking the fun out of the actual policeman themselves.

The lovely thing, really, is that in the Carry Ons

you get a chance to sort of...

play all sorts of roles, you know, which is...great fun.

I played a hell of a lot of different roles,

but they're all me...

with different hats on.

SID LAUGHS

These pictures are so successful. I'm a big hit in Japan.

And they had to queue up in Los Angeles and...

and in India, believe it or not.

The lovely thing with the Carry Ons of course it's like

coming back to school after the holidays, cos...

you know the people that you're working with.

And as you get to know them, of course,

your timing becomes that much tighter...

and there's just a very happy atmosphere.

I always feel sorry for a newcomer because he feels strange,

cos it is really like coming into somebody's family.

But, er, we've never ever had any trouble with newcomers,

really, cos we just belt 'em.

You know, Thomas, our director,

is as responsible as anybody for the success with the films,

he's directed them all,

he keeps us in order,

quite rightly, we have to do what we're told

and we discuss everything together as friends would

and, um...he's got firm hand over the controls.

The competition is murder. You have got to look after yourself.

I just make a habit of playing against the others.

And that... Because I'm not strictly a comic. I'm not a comic at all.

These other blokes are comedians, I'm more of a sort of re-actor.

So I let them do it and then I throw a couple of counterpunches.

It's all I can do.

Our scriptwriter, Talbot Rothwell, has an enormous fund of gags.

I think he has a Victorian gag book at home.

And, you know, basically,

our pictures are of the same format, with the same people.

Different locales and different incidents that happen

but basically it is a formula which the public expect.

Word-play and period costume also featured heavily in the films

of another comedy gang who entered the world of cinema in the 1970s.

But where the Carry On films were dismissed by most critics,

the Monty Python films received rave reviews -

give or take the odd religious controversy.

Their first foray into cinema was The Holy Grail starring Graham Chapman

as King Arthur and co-directed by the Python's two Terrys -

Gilliam and Jones.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

How do two people who have never directed

a film before in their lives, direct a film?

Well... HE LAUGHS

We are learning as we do it. That's what's nice,

we've been given a film to learn how to make films on.

They're pretty good.

They're pretty good. They're both very visually orientated.

Very aware of picture compositions.

Ingmar Bergman is going to be really jealous of this one!

There's a slight joke about us that we make about them, that the jokes

tend to be a bit secondary to whether it looks good, you know.

So we keep sort of...

When they say, "more smoke", "more smoke"

and this kind of thing, because we have hardly had

a shot yet that we haven't had smoke or some such arty visual effect.

We tend to ask them how many laughs there are in smoke, you know,

just to keep them, as it were, thinking of that.

But that's the only criticism.

Up with the cow, as high as you can to start with.

You've got your questions ready.

I know I've got my questions ready.

Which of these questions would you most not like to answer?

The first couple of days, we just sort of leapt into it,

and immediately...

First of all, we had chosen an impossible location,

about a half mile up Glencoe.

So everything have to be humped by Sherpas up the mountain.

We got up there, the very first shot of the film,

the big moment the camera turns, and it jammed!

So we didn't have a sound camera.

And all our great plans were suddenly up in the air.

We panicked and we just had to try to get a film made.

In this incredible location, no camera and no experience,

that's the worst of it.

Where is the other Terry now? He's directing.

He's directing the film.

Charlie, you come to this mark there, to where he is.

We do tag team directing.

Can you give me a brief synopsis of the film,

is that possible in the space of half an hour or so?

Well, I don't think it is, really. I don't think it is.

Try in 30 seconds. Right...

It's about a search for the Holy Grail,

which is a large sort of creature, a bit like a dodo.

With a big beak.

And people are trying to find this Grail.

Do they?

No. No. Isn't that rather a letdown? Don't you feel that the audience...?

It's a big letdown. The whole film is a great anti-climax.

John, apart from being interviewed by Film Night,

what are the real horrors of film-making on location?

Apart from the interviews, well, there is the sheer discomfort.

The sheer... Am I too heavy? No. No, that's fine. No.

Move up a little bit. That's better.

How do you prevent boredom from creeping in?

Well, I don't, really. Boredom creeps in daily.

We sit in our rent-a-van and think what we could be doing

if we weren't making films.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

INAUDIBLE

HE BLOWS A RASPBERRY

After the last of the Python films, John Cleese scored

a huge international hit with his 1988 comedy A Fish Called Wanda.

Also featuring Michael Palin.

Its director was the then 78-year-old Charles Crichton,

who Cleese chose specifically because decades before he had directed

Ealing Comedies The Man in the White Suit

and The Titfield Thunderbolt.

That's the tradition that I come from. The Ealing Comedies.

Those are the ones I loved when I was a kid.

And to make one in that vein, but with that slightly black edge,

which I really personally prefer in comedy.

I call it wickedness.

It is... Please don't take it seriously, it's all pretend.

But I love that real edge to the comedy.

A Fish Called Wanda turned out to be Britain's

biggest international comedy film for years until 1994, when the world fell

head over heels in love with a floppy-haired posh boy

and his amorous misadventures.

I assumed we had completely fouled it up and certainly...

I mean, I never watched any rushes until the last day

when Mike Newell came up to me at lunchtime

and said, "Come along." We are showing some rough assembly.

"You've got nothing to lose now,

"it's only one afternoon's work left."

So I went along and I sat there with about 50, no,

about 100 cast and crew watching this thing

and there wasn't a laugh in it!

You know, in the months that followed,

I really thought I was going to have to emigrate.

Making a film is less than half of the process.

It's the way that you distribute it that is going to make or break it.

And I was very keen that the film open in America first.

And I thought if it could come into the UK with some good

views from the States, people would sit up and take note.

When we all flew over to America to first screen the movie,

we had absolutely zero expectation that we would get one laugh at all

in the audience.

Good luck.

They were very worried, on both sides of the Atlantic,

that I was their top of the bill. Totally unknown, really.

Hi, we've got 30 seconds to make this commercial

for a new comedy called Four Weddings And A Funeral

starring the absolutely fabulous Andie McDowell. Hi.

We've only got 30 seconds as we spent absolutely every last penny

on making the film as excellent and funny as possible.

I think it is pretty funny, what do you think, Andie? Yes.

So, this is the last 30 seconds of film we have in the camera.

So I'll stop rabbiting on cos I'm just some git with stupid hair who

you've never heard of and Andie's a fabulous goddess, every time she opens her mouth it's heaven,

so I'll shut up - over to Andie to tell you everything

you need to know about Four Weddings And A Funeral.

It's a really funny film. I think. But don't take my word for it.

Take Andie's. Well, it's like...

Well, after Four Weddings, I was in despair

and unemployed for a few months

and suddenly then the film started to do incredibly well in America.

There are British things which export particularly well

and I think humour is one

and I think what they call heritage is another.

Not that this is a period film, but I think they like the flowers

and the quintessential Englishness of it,

that, for some reason, Americans seem to find that very droll.

I've discovered that in my travels in America.

You have only really got to say, "gosh" or "by jiminy" -

to get a huge laugh.

Oh, no. Another wedding invitation...

'I've gone from being semi-failure actor to'

lots and lots of jobs. To the point of absurdity, where now,

even totally unsuitable scripts about 70-year-old Irish nuns.

People say, Hugh Grant could play that.

It's bloody frightening, because you just feel huge pressure.

And I miss very much the old days

when one was just doing a kind of a supporting part and if you

were good it was a bonus and if you weren't, it didn't really matter.

Equally, if the film was a success that was a bonus,

but if it wasn't, it was art, so it didn't matter.

Four Weddings, Bridget Jones, the Full Monty...

these are some of the biggest British hits of recent cinema history -

but we're going back to the '60s for our final film funnyman.

To some, Peter Sellers is the greatest comedian

Britain has ever produced.

He broke new ground in radio with The Goons,

appeared with Alec Guinness in The Ladykillers

and starred in comedy classics like Dr Strangelove

and I'm All Right Jack -

and then, of course, there were the hugely successful

Pink Panther series - and possibly his greatest creation,

Inspector Jacques Clouseau.

Peter, where does the character of Clouseau come from?

Is it observation, or are you digging about inside yourself

to find aspects of him?

No, um...it's difficult to say, Barry, now,

because, you know, I've been doing it so long... Um...

"Come from"...

I think, you know, when I first did The Pink Panther in Rome, years ago,

he was just a straightforward French detective.

As a matter of fact, Peter Ustinov was playing the role at that time -

and I was going to go into Topkapi with Jules Dassin.

I successfully talked my way out that in an interview

at the Dorchester, and Peter left the film

because of some problems - we crossed over,

he went into Topkapi as the taxi driver, and I went into this.

And it worked out great for us both.

But getting back to that, let's think, now -

I don't know, we just decided to make him

one of those very serious...

I mean, the size of his moustache is to give him, in his own mind,

some masculinity, you know?

And very serious, but completely hopeless at his job -

very serious detective, but completely bad at it -

useless at it, you know?

But he's kind of vaguely etched in, isn't he?

We don't know very much about him, except that he's a detective

and he lives with this Japanese whom he keeps fighting.

Yes. But presumably you know more about him than that,

in order to portray him.

Well, I know that he goes to this lunatic, um...disguisologist,

who sells him these terrible disguises.

He's a very romantic man - he tries very hard with the women,

but he obviously doesn't make it with them, er...too much.

Although he probably will in the next one.

Um... He's... He believes sincerely, as I was just saying,

that he's probably one of the greatest

living detectives in the world -

and also, on top of it,

the sad thing is that he knows deep down that he isn't.

But he doesn't want anybody else to know, you know?

I believe everything...

..and I believe nothing.

I suspect everyone...

and I suspect no-one.

I gather the facts...

examine the clues...

and before you know it...

the case is solved. Hm!

Oh, yes, there is much here that does not meet the eye.

Mm, that is quite obvious.

Oh...

Ahem... What was that you said?

Nothing, Monsieur. Hm, all right.

You can go now.

Yes, Monsieur.

But do not try to leave.

Everyone in this household is under suspicion.

Yes, Monsieur.

The humour in the Pink Panther films

is rather similar, isn't it, to The Goon Show's zany humour?

Well, it... I think all humour has something in common, but...

MAN SPEAKS IN FRENCH

HE MIMICS FRENCH

I see what you mean!

HE IMITATES ECCLES

HE SINGS "Camptown Races" AS ECCLES

So, how similar is the brand of zany comedy in The Pink Panther?

Er...well, it's pretty wild, you know?

We're doing some mad things in this,

we're telling taxi drivers to follow that car,

and they get out and run after -

things like that, and all kind of other mad things.

Um, I don't think it has a direct affinity with Goon humour, no, um...

but it's pretty wild.

That Clouseau is timeless, because he represents

something in all of us that doesn't change, essentially.

Certain customs may change,

but the essential man doesn't change - Clouseau doesn't.

The fallible, bumbling screw-up, if you will, he...

..he's essential in all of us,

and he provides us with the ability to laugh at ourselves.

Right, here we go. Right, action, Peter.

Talking about Blake Edwards and yourselves,

you seem to have some sort of rapport.

What is it that exists between you?

We're rather like Laurel and Hardy that way.

We seem to...well, we know, you know,

his sense of humour is very much like mine,

he finds the same sort of things as I do funny.

Little dogs and cats and birds... HE SQUAWKS

..and things like that, you know?

Animals from the rear, all kinds of things like that,

situations - he spots them very quickly.

We both see the funny - and he's also a great giggler,

it's great working with him.

What do you think this special rapport is,

that you and Peter Sellers seem to have?

We're both crazy. HE CHUCKLES

Peter Sellers' influence is still clear today,

with stars like Steve Coogan and Sacha Baron Cohen

describing him as a major influence -

and as for Sellers himself -

well, one of his biggest influences was the man we started off with -

George Formby,

proving that good comedy is handed down through the generations.

AS GEORGE FORMBY: Heh, heh - turned out nice again, hasn't it?

One, two, three...heh-four!

MUSIC: When I'm Cleaning Windows by George Formby

# Now I go cleanin' windows to earn an honest bob

# For a nosy parker it's an interestin' job

# Now it's a job that just suits me

# A window cleaner you would be

# If you could see what I can see

# When I'm cleanin' windows

# Honeymooning couples too

# You should see them bill 'n' coo

# You'd be surprised the things they do

# When I'm cleanin' windows

# In my profession I'll work hard

# But I'll never stop... #

BOTH: # I'll climb this blinkin' ladder

# Till I get right to the top

# The blushin' bride she looks divine

# The bridegroom, he is doin' fine

# I'd rather have his job than mine

# When I'm cleanin' windows. #

227 Lears and I cannot remember the first line.

Will he be ready on time?

Will he be well enough? Yes.