RIB-TICKLERS

Comedy is a notoriously personal taste and I do not want to write a general survey but rather to describe those artistes whose performances made me personally laugh. Some may find my enthusiasms peculiar and I have to confess my tastes are “broad”. Those of a delicate or genteel disposition may be advised to avert your eyes now.

Hailing as I do from Scotland, and as the family biz ran His Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen and other summer show venues there, I was reared on a rich diet of Variety performers. In the 1960s the undoubted star in Scotland was exuberant Andy Stewart. Andy sang maybe too much, but to see him imitate a Doric-speaking, pawky Buchan “farm loon” was a memorable theatrical experience. Andy himself was brought up in nearby Arbroath and captured the essence of the character in a masterly fashion with his nicky-tams (trouser strings) and tackety boots (hob-nailed boots). He would end his turn with a comic ditty and always brought the house down.

Andy Stewart

Crossing the border into England, I became very fond of Northern comedians with their rich accents and idiosyncratic delivery. An early favourite was gormless and toothy George Formby with his ukulele, often twanging his great hit “I’m leaning on a Lamp Post”. While his heyday was the 1930s and the wartime years, George was still treading the boards in the 1950s. His jokes, related in his giggly Lancastrian accent, were of the lengthy “shaggy dog” variety and often featured a parrot. I recall one concerning a commercial traveller, who found that his usual bedroom, in his usual hotel had been let to a honeymoon couple. He had left some of his necessities in the room and about to enter, he heard voices from within;

Husband: And whose little neck is this?
Bride: It’s mine, Darling
Husband: And whose little shoulders are these?
Bride: They’re mine, Darling
(Inexorably, the Husband was heading South)
Husband: And whose little belly-button is this?
Traveller (to break the tension) shouts out: When you come to the hot-water bottle. It’s mine!

Yes, well, at least I laughed.

I also admired a rare lady comedienne Hylda Baker, barrel-shaped and vociferously Northern. She was a cherished old trouper with her catchphrase “She knows, you know” addressed to her silent stooge. Her finest role was as Nellie Pledge, co-proprietor with her brother Jimmy Jewel, of Pledge’s Pickle Factory and dropping malapropisms everywhere in the hilarious TV sit-com Nearest and Dearest.

George Formby warbles

Hylda Baker as Nellie Pledge

Everyone’s favourite Northern comedian was lugubrious Les Dawson with his amazing face-pulling, his rasping Mancunian tones and his cod piano-playing. His love of words made him wax poetic:  The other day I was gazing up at the night sky, a purple vault fretted with a myriad points of light twinkling in wondrous formation, while shooting stars streaked across the heavens, and I thought: I really must repair the roof on this toilet! To my mind his funniest character was Ada Shufflebotham, for ever gossiping in curlers with her friend Cissie, nudging her ample falling bosoms back into place and easily confusing hysterectomy as “hysterical rectumy”.

Les Dawson as Ada

   

Ken Dodd

 Ken Dodd, born in Knotty Ash, Liverpool is happily, at 86, still with us. Manic and anarchic, Dodd makes me laugh despite myself, overwhelmed by the quick-fire torrent of fun, clocked at 7 jokes a minute. He is a Liverpudlian National Treasure.

My other English clown is cherubic Benny Hill, whom I first saw in the 1950s, modestly placed towards the bottom of a variety bill. He played both parts in a comic Romeo and Juliet, had many changes of clothing, and had constantly to go up and down a ladder. His audience was in stitches and he still had the energy to sing to the contemporary tune “Remember me, remember for the rest of your life”:

Her teeth were green and yellow, and some were black as jet
And if she had a blue one, she’d have a snooker set!

Benny went on to international stardom, unrivalled master of the visual gag.

Another favourite, coming to me through the late 1940s radio, was Vic Oliver, whose Hi, Gang! show had been very popular. Oliver came to live in Britain but was a Jewish Austro-American. A gifted musician, he made fun of playing the violin badly and told his jokes in a heavily accented gravelly voice (am I right in thinking he disconcertingly clicked his teeth?). Vic Oliver married Winston Churchill’s wayward daughter Sarah in 1935 (divorced in 1946) but he was not a favourite with the great man, who humorously stated that Mussolini’s sole merit was that he had his son-in-law (Ciano) shot! Oliver also has the distinction of being the first ever castaway guest on the BBC’s iconic Desert Island Discs in January 1942.

Benny Hill

Vic Oliver

 

Perhaps under the influence of Vic Oliver, I came to like many mainly Jewish American comedians. I enjoyed laid-back and genial George Burns, dropping wisecracks between puffs from a large cigar. He lived to 100 and starred with Walter Matthau in the movie The Sunshine Boys in 1975 aged 80. A more recent pleasure has been Jackie Mason another lugubrious figure, this time from the upstate New York Borscht Belt, whose often politically incorrect monologues, delivered at high speed, amuse me greatly.
   

George Burns and cigar

Jackie Mason explains

My final comedian is Bob Hope, whose string of one-liners is legendary; his movies made me laugh from the 1940s onwards. Bob Hope’s other distinction is that he is a dead ringer for my esteemed eldest brother, Herbie. Hope died aged 100 and Herbie is a sprightly 76 but otherwise the resemblance is uncanny: I fully expect Crosby and Lamour to materialise too every time I see him.

Bob Hope (or is it my brother Herbie?)

Herbie had a career front-of-house in the theatre business. In about 1965 he kindly invited me to the first night of a new review his company were mounting at the King’s Theatre, Glasgow. The show was pretty dire but redeemed by the performance of one of the two comics and, as is the custom, we “went round” after the show to the dressing room of this talented comic. Herbie, who knew the ropes, constantly muttered “Great show, Great show”. Fool that I was, I felt a more judicious opinion should be expressed and opined “You were great – it was a personal triumph”. I hit the mark for about 10 seconds as the comic preened and swelled; then suddenly he shot back “So you did not like the show?” reducing me to stuttering confusion. I wish I had read Alan Bennett’s hilarious essay Going Round (in Writing Home, 1994) which sets the rules for such visits amid the manifold insecurities of the acting profession. Express no opinions, but use one word and repeat one word only – “Wonderful! Wonderful!”




SMD
12.06.13
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013