Bob Monkhouse and Jonathan Ross

 

A comedian goes out onto the stage and says to the audience 'I am here to make you laugh. This is funny' and it has to be – or he dies out there in front of everybody; and that's why a lot of us are depressed and have alcohol and drug problems.

from The 2 Sides of Eddie Ramone.

There we are – Bob Monkhouse and Jonathan Ross; Ross at the top then Monkhouse; the sublime to the ridiculous. Which is which, depends on how old you are, of course, or even what you know about comedy and the traditions and history of it. Comedy is really what is funny and what isn't and some of the funniest things happen without people knowing about it; but they're not comedians. Look at the quote from my play above that about sums up what a proper comedian is; in my opinion, of course.

I am grateful that some people read this blog and allow me to vent my opinions and they are only my opinions; I don't pretend to be an expert on anything but here's what prompted me to write this – and at the moment I don't know where it's going, so stick with me.

A comedian – any comedian – goes on stage and does something not many people would like to do; he faces an audience. You will see people telling jokes in the pub, managing directors and CEOs telling a joke at a board meeting and people laughing out of courtesy or embarrassment. So when I criticise comedians in this post I do it out of respect – but you know I don't think I will criticise actual comedians.

But this is what made me write this:

A friend of mine, whom I don't need to identify, met a writer who writes for Jonathan Ross. Jonathan Ross, for people in America who have never heard of him, is a talk show host and general television personality. He has been on TV here since he was a boy doing TV commercials and the like and he is identified by having a lazy 'r' sound. In other words he can't even say his own name properly he has to say Woss as opposed to Ross.

His 'r' sound is Dickensian as opposed to people who simply cannot say it. The 'King' in the movie The King's Speech, for example, just couldn't say his 'r' properly but his was an affliction and he also had the stammer which is what the film was about – I have noticed Prince Harry uses the lazy 'r' to effect too.

But even though Jonathan Ross has this speech impediment he hasn't let it bother him, in fact he has used it to great effect and is very successful – but he is not a comedian. He has a bunch of writers who write his jokes and because he has been doing it for years and years he gets his laughs; and my friend met one of his writers.

My friend told him that he didn't find things funny these days and the writer asked him what he thought was funny; my friend told him and the writer said that what my friend said was 'old fashioned' comedy.

Old fashioned comedy!

Does he mean Tommy Cooper, Morecambe & Wise, Laurel & Hardy, Jack Benny?

Old fashioned comedy!!!

He said he had worked with Bob Monkhouse who was old comedy and was a little critical of him.

Now I admire Jonathan Ross because of his success but I would never watch him on TV; it's a bit like Blankety Blank when it was introduced by Terry Wogan; it was amusing, he got his laughs but when Les Dawson did it, it was really funny – because he was a comedian.

You would never see Terry Wogan or Jonathan Ross in a pantomime – they wouldn't be any good – but Les Dawson was brilliant.

The problem with Bob Monkhouse was that he had a certain smarmy manner, he came from a well to do middle class family and didn't have that hungry street feeling or 'end of the pier' manner.

A lot of comedians in the old days were miserable off stage but I have known a few minor ones who would never stop telling gags; after a while the same gag would be funny!!

MAN ENTERS WEARING A FUNNY HAT AND CARRYING A BUCKET

COMEDIAN: Where you going?

MAN: To milk a cow.

COMEDIAN: In that hat?

MAN: No in this bucket!!

Old joke but if you tell it properly it will get a laugh.

Billy Connelly will come on stage, and not always know what he is going to say so he will start a subject, develop it, improvise which will lead to hilarity – heckle him at that point and you are the idiot!!

His comedy was and is based on observation and he was good at it and the Jonathan Ross writer would be trying the same thing; looking through the paper and trying to be topical but I can't get over his remark.

When the alternative comedians came on the scene in the 80s – was it the 80s? - they kind of put Bob Monkhouse into the same bag as Jim Davidson and Bernard Manning; the latter two were course comedians (Manning is Dead) but they were still comedians. In a programme about comedians a well known expert said that he would take Jim Davidson every time over some of the alternatives because he is a comedian; but I don't like his jokes so I don't watch him.

Nowadays a lot of the comedians who bad mouthed Bob Monkhouse try to take it all back; but it's too late he's dead.

I worked with him once and someone I knew said very sarcastically to me 'only working with the best, Chris' – well, yes; I was.

He was exceptionally clever and filed thousands of jokes in his joke books, studied the history of comedy, wrote thrillers under an assumed name, was a gifted artist and comic book artist too.

The fact that he was clever maybe stood against him; when I worked with him I found he had to wear make up because he had some kind of mark on his face but he was quick and clever - and actually lacked confidence.

The guy that writes for Jonathan Ross does just that – writes for Jonathan Ross.

I mean I could have written for Tommy Cooper – here we go: Enter Tommy Cooper. And that's all I would have to do!!

Michael Winner

Michael Winner.

It was sad to sad to see that Michael Winner has died; for those who didn't know who he was he was a British film director. A flamboyant character who sent himself up and usually rubbed people up the wrong way - particularly if he felt they were somehow beneath him.

      Once he was offered the OBE (Order of the British Empire) and turned it down; Danny Boyle turned down a knighthood because he didn't want to be Sir Danny and so did Albert Finney, many times, but it seems the that the OBE wasn't good enough for Mister Winner. He said the lavatory cleaners at King's Cross Station are offered the OBE so didn't want to be put in the same class. I have to say I'm grateful for the lavatory cleaners at King's Cross and all the other stations and at times when the pipes are blocked and the place smells of the soft and smelly the last person I want to see coming through that door to help is a film director.

But a lot of people really loved him. He lived with a few women over the years but didn't get married till about two years ago and the wife he left behind described him as a wonderful man.

I never met him let alone work with him but I remember hearing a story that he was being awkward on a film set one day and Oliver Reed threw himself into the river in full medieval costume which caused everybody a problem.

Lately he was known for sending himself up in some TV commercials for an insurance company and he was a food critic for one of the Sunday Newspapers.

He said he didn't know anything about food but he knew how to eat it. The editor of the newspaper gave him the job as he was fed up paying food critics who were in the pockets of the 'celebratory chefs' and Winner just spoke the truth and his columns were, apparently, very controversial.

Restaurants in the west end would put notices in the window saying things like 'Winner Free' and the newspaper would receive many letters of complaint; which were published.

When asked why the letters were published the editor said that Michael Winner insisted upon it.

I didn't have a lot of time for him or his films but I saw him recently being interviewed on television in a one to one interview – rather like a psychiatrist – and the psychiatrist asked him at one point if he cried at his parents' funerals and he said no. He said that there was only one funeral he ever cried at and that was Oliver Reed's.

He said Oliver Reed was buried in Ireland and there was nobody from the film business there apart from himself. He said he looked at the coffin holding Reed and thought of the wonderful times they had had together and when he was saying this you could see the glint of a tear in his eye; I kind of warmed to him after that.

Trust in Constaninople and elsewhere.

Sledging in St Albans, Hertfordshire.

Snow covers Britain with big freeze to continue into next week

That's what it says in the papers here so I thought I'd put a picture to cheer up all my friends in Los Angeles.

Constantinople is a very long word; if you can't spell it you're a dunce. This is the first question kids ask each other in the playground but what they are really asking is - Constantinople is a very long word; if you can't spell it you're a dunce. Because that's the answer – IT!

I heard something strange the other day about this great city, which is now Istanbul of course, a woman there wanted to lock herself away and not see anybody at all for a while – she didn't want to see friends or relations, tradesmen or anybody else, whilst she concentrated on writing a book.

The first thing you ask yourself is how would she get her supplies? The answer, in this city of thirteen and half million, surprised me: she hung a basket out of her window, put some money in to it and a note of what she required. Tradesmen came along and put what she ordered into her basket, took the money and left the change. Then the girl pulled the basket up with the rope. In this way she could cut herself off completely from the outside world but I am amazed that in this day and age this could be done.

Many years ago we lived in a flat in Erdington which was really part of a large house – rooms, my mother called it. We didn't have a telephone so when we needed to use one we would go to the telephone box around the corner or use the one in a neighbour's flat – and we would pay for it.

It was a strange phenomenon in those days paying cash for the call – people would sometimes leave a little money box next to the phone with a slot in it for donations to the phone bill. 

When we moved to Shropshire, we had a telephone installed, and friends would come and use it if they had to make a long distance call; I was determined not to charge them as I thought it so petty. But they would insist and I could sometimes hear them say things like “I'll have to go – I'm paying for this call!” as if I was standing next to them with a stop watch.

In those days people would put their telephones in the hallway of their houses right next to the draughty front door – another thing we wouldn't do.

When we were leaving the flat I owed the neighbour ten shillings for phone calls – God knows where I must have called – so I left a ten shilling note in an envelope and pinned it to the wall near his door. I wrote a note on the envelope to say that ten shillings was inside - but somebody else took it. Ten shillings was half a pound, by the way.

So that's why I am refreshed by what happens in Istanbul. But I got to thinking that near my daughter's house in Suffolk they leave bundles of wood for the fire (kindling) and people leave the money and take the wood.

In Los Angeles at the entrance to Runyan Canyon bottles of water are left on a bench which people pay a dollar for and nobody steals either the water or the dollars They would sooner stick a gun in your face and rob you that way!!

Of course the last bit is a half joke. Strange place Los Angeles – gang members, drug dealers, muggers and the like, stand at the side of the street and will not risk a jay-walking ticket so they wait for the white crossing light to come on before crossing the road.

When the mail man comes to deliver the mail he also has to collect mail and people leave out going mail sticking out of letter boxes at the end of their gardens and nobody takes it – they trust that it will be left there for the mail man to collect.

Not me – I lost ten shillings once.

The Brummy accent, Trigger and who was Chris?

I get responses to my posts in two ways; as comments on the site and as personal emails. I got a few emails about my post on Dreamboats and Petticoats and in particular about Birmingham, and the Hippodrome there.

The most famous thing about Birmingham is its accent; a lot of people like it and a lot of people don't. A lot of the people who live there don't like it and a lot who don't live there like it. So there is no set opinion.

The accent is a guttural one and I think the most famous user of a Birmingham accent is Julie Walters - but the first thing about the Birmingham accent is the way Birmingham is pronounced.

In Alabama they say BirmingHAM; in other words they pronounce that aitch and say the word ham, as Americans do in words that end with ham such as Buckingham. Whereas in Birmingham, England it is pronounced Burrr min gum. The Burr at the beginning defines how much of an accent you have.

I was in Wolverhampton a few years ago at the railway station and a woman at the front of the queue asked for a return ticket to Bar mingum, BARRingham!! The rest of the queue could hear this and started laughing, pulling faces and doing funny walks.

That old lady didn't want to be thought of as being common as muck and must have practised her delivery before asking for her ticket for quite some time – and then made a Hames of it!

Not everybody can do a good Brummy accent (which is what it's called) and I have heard Harry Enfield – whom I love – try one. The character he was playing was very rich and obviously lived in one of the southern suburbs of Birmingham and worshipped money. The trouble was he thought the Brummies would call it 'munay' – I loike munay, he was saying. - No they say 'munny'.

The accent is often confused with the Black Country accent which comes from Wolverhampton, and surrounding area, but the Black Country accent is more rural and is not so guttural as the Birmingham one – they say things like 'bay yow kicka bow agen a wow, 'ed it an bust it!!'

Yes, they do.

Translation: Can you kick a ball against a wall, head it and burst it - bay yow kicka bow agen a wow, 'ed it an bust it!!'

The answer being 'ah' of course – ah being 'yes.'

I mentioned the other day that Birmingham was in Warwickshire – well it is – or was. There is a place in Birmingham called 'The County Ground' where Warwickshire Cricket Club play and yet they say Birmingham is now in the West Midlands; Warwickshire is somewhere else!

The new counties have done nothing but confuse people; I know that there is no such place as Middlesex any more even though there is a Middlesex cricket club and that I live in Middlesex; I officially live in Greater London, of course. Doesn't sound very good does it, bit like giving everybody a number and calling them that. I can't see poets using it for inspiration.

There used to be two questions schoolboys knew the answer to – the biggest and the smallest counties in England. The biggest was Yorkshire and the smallest was Rutland. Now neither of them exist.

Yorkshire used to have three ridings – north, east and west – in fact the word 'riding' means – ha ha, what does it mean? Does it mean a third? Does it mean a third of Yorkshire or does it mean a third of an administrative anywhere?

Well it comes from the word thriding and there you can see how it came about – the thri being similar to a third but the word was lost through assimilation as it just sounded like riding – for example the word grandpah was changed into grandpa eventually due to assimilation – that's why I like to be called granddad; eventually that second 'd' will disappear – betcha.

Now we have West Yorkshire which is a county unto itself – the same with the North and South Yorkshires. And where is South Riding? South Riding is a book.

Of course I received an email from my brother too as he would come with me to the Hippodrome; in his email he said 'what about Roy Rogers and Trigger?'

Well, yes we were taken to see Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and they had Trigger with them, his horse. It was great for us kids and as usual we went to the stage door to see the stars coming out. That was interesting as they would come out and sign autographs (not Trigger). Who knew how close I would be to Roy Rogers later on in life although I didn't actually meet him.

Everybody would gather by that narrow stage door so autographs had to be signed and off the stars would sweep into their cars – not limos – and then . . . and then there was Trigger - when everybody else had gone!

He was the last one out and quite a few big men tried to squeeze him through that door. They pulled one way and Trigger pulled the other. The men wore brown cow-gowns and were pulling backwards but Trigger liked The Hippodrome and wanted to stay in there.

But the narrow door wasn't for Trigger; he had to come through the big door; the door they used for moving scenery in and out of the theatre but there was always the problem of getting Trigger to that big door and we could hear shouts and neighing and collopping (no I just made that word up) and everybody in the street looked towards that big door; then the van arrived.

We were in the street and, I suppose, it was some kind of horse box and it backed up to the stage door. Trigger took one look at it and wanted to go the other way but the men pulled on his reigns and one of the men was actually pulled a long by the great horse.

They eventually got him (Trigger, not the man) into the box which was Trigger's cue to kick the walls. It sounded like thunder or the hammering of a group of boot repairer trainees as the bloody great beast whinnied and snorted and kicked and kicked. I can still hear the kicks and screeches as he was driven away.

Off went the van in to the distance leaving behind it a neat pile of horse-shit.

The next time I saw Trigger he was stuffed and standing outside the Roy Rogers' museum in Victorville, California.

Of course Trigger was only the name the horse was playing in the movies. I believe he was 15 hands high which is about 65 inches. His real name was Golden Cloud and he lived for about 30 years.

Now here is a bit of family news: I don't usually make these posts personal and very rarely mention the name of a friend or someone in my family, so you will not be familiar with any of my families' names unless you know me personally.

I have a cousin, whom I have never met, who is older than me, I believe, and who likes looking into our family tree. A few years ago he sent me a list of my ancestors and it was very interesting. It went back to County Cork, in Ireland, in the year 1770; that was when Michael O’Leary stole a sheep and was transported to Australia for punishment. He left his wife/woman/partner at the time and she went off and married a Sullivan – or a suilleabhain, more like or even an o'suilleabhain – and that's the line on my father's side where I came from.

I looked at the names of some of them and they are names like Timothy, Patrick, Michael, Daniel, John, Mary and a few Jeremiahs. But there was no Chris and we wondered where it had come from as my dad was Chris as well – Christopher.

Those names, incidentally, have been in the family since the date of 1770. In the last 40 years or so it hasn't been a tradition to keep names in families and we're as guilty of it as any body but my son's middle name is Christopher and it's the same with his son.

My other cousin in Dublin thought that it might have been on our gran's side, maybe a brother. When the elder cousin had been in touch that time he said that very little was known about our grandmother and he wondered what she was doing in Dublin at the time she met our granddad. We knew she was from Kildare but he found no trace of her. This was when I was writing my last novel and I knew that my girl, Gertie, was a mystery to her family as to where she came from too – not a mystery to me as I wrote it!!

Then last year another cousin in Cork died and papers were found last week amongst her effects. It turns out that Chris was one of my grandmother's brothers after all and their parents died when when my grandmother and her siblings were children. It also transpires that the poor fella, Christopher Condron, was killed whilst in the Navy serving as a Leading Seaman on the ship HMS Canopus. He fell headlong into the hold – about 40 feet – whilst loading ammunition. It's very hard for me to find out the exact date of the accident but very proud am I to be named after such a man, even though by proxy through my father, and so on with my son and his son.

Then another startling fact came up – my grandmother's parents – Mr & Mrs Condron – were called Margaret and Chris – just like me and my wife.

Not a great thrill there for you but . . . it thrills me!!

Dreamboats and Petticoats

A long time ago, when God was a little boy and Stephen Fry hadn't even been thought of, I went to a place called The Birmingham Hippodrome – and guess where that place was? Yes you guessed it – Birmingham. Not any of the thousands of Birminghams in America like Michigan but Birmingham, Warwickshire – incidentally there are not thousands in America just 16 not forgetting New Birmingham in Tipperary, Ireland.

You don't believe me?? Okay here we go:

Birmingham Alabama the largest city in Alabama and the largest city named Birmingham in the United States.

Birmingham Connecticut.

Birmingham Kentucky, a sunken town

Birmingham Indiana,

Birmingham Iowa,

Birmingham Michigan,

Birmingham Missouri,

Birmingham New Jersey

Birmingham, Erie County, Ohio

Birmingham, Guernset County, Ohio

Birmingham, Chester County, Pennsylvania

Birmingham Huntington County, Pennsylvania

Birmingham Township, Schuyler County, Illinois

Birmingham (Pittsburgh) a neighborhood in Pittsburgh now known as South Side.

Birmingham Township, Pennsylvania.

There we are I'm glad I got that out of the way – everybody says that the 'other' Birmingham is in Alabama and now you can see it isn't! There are loads of them. Now I suppose I'm going to get hits from all of those Birminghams.

But back to The Birmingham Hippodrome; I was taken there first by my mother, who loved the theatre. I was also taken to The Alexandra Theatre (just round the corner), with the school, to the Christmas Pantomime one year, which had a lasting impression upon me. I can't remember which panto it was but I remember the set and I remember actors coming on and – acting!!

The Hippodrome was more for variety shows and it had a long auditorium and you needed microphones; the Alex had a wider auditorium so the acoustics must have been better.

I saw loads of pop singers at the Hippodrome, as I used to go every week, and lots of other shows – I even remember seeing a trapeze act where we thought the man on the flying trapeze was going to fly in to the audience but caught the trapeze at the last moment. I saw Norman Wisdom there – he played many instruments including the drums – and some of the pop singers I saw were Charlie Gracie, Slim Whitman and many others including pop packages when I saw Billy Fury, Dickie Pride, Vince Eager and one time one in the pop packages was a certain Mark Wynter.

He was more of a ballad singer than a rock singer and he covered songs, which was common in those days, of American hits. A cover, in those days, was a cover of a major hit in America and they would release the song in the UK before, or at the same time, as the American hit. Sometimes the UK version would start to sell so well that the American original version would be wiped out so great singers like Gene McDaniels never really made it in the UK - although I saw him at the Hippodrome too.

Mark Wynter covered Venus in Blue Jeans which was originally recorded by Jimmy Clanton (but there was a hit by Frankie Avalon); Go Away Little Girl, recorded by Steve Lawrence – which is a better version than Mark Wynter's. It was written by Gerry Goffin and Carol King when they were in the Brill Building in New York and I always thought it should have been recorded by Bobby Vee, as he was Goffin & King's kind of muse. I see he did record it but too many covers meant it didn't get noticed.

The expresion 'cover' has changed over the years – like lol – as it only meant a cover of a current recording. All bands, groups, pop singers sang on stage other people's songs – or numbers (where did that word come from for a song?) - when I saw The Beatles they sang other people's songs – Twist and Shout, Baby It's You, Chains, Till There Was You etc. In fact Elvis never wrote a song in his life (not even Don't Be Cruel), neither did Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby or any of the major stars. If you revived a song it would be called a revival but then someone called it a cover one day – probably some idiotic deejay - and now they call bands who do other people's songs cover bands – or cover groups.

When we saw the pop package at the Hippodrome we went around to the stage door to see the pop stars emerge – it has to be said that most of them emerged as spotty little Herberts and I remember thinking there may be a chance for me – but in those days I didn't have the gall to get up and do that. I won a singing competition at the army cadets Christmas Party one day but – ah we were only messing about, we were on our way to be macho men and . . ..

One of the stars who emerged that day was Mark Wynter – as the girls approached him he said 'Mind my Sunday best!'

So we shoot forward many years in fact to last Saturday night; we went in to the west end because our son bought tickets for us to see the show Dreamboats and Petticoats a rock'n'roll show set in the early sixties. When we approached the theatre the first thing I saw was that Mark Wynter was in it; there was an old photo of him up in the street; in it he looked about 25 and it said that he was starring in the show and that he would be singing his four hits for the first time in 40 years. So the first thing we wanted to see when we went in was what he looked like!

We didn't have to wait long for that as he opened the show. His (character's) grandaughter was up in the attic playing his Dancet Player and he went up to her; what did he look like? Remarkably similar to what he did when he was 20 or 17 or however old he was when I saw him. However when he turned around he was going very thin on top and there was a kind of stoop in his posture – but from the time the show started to the finish he never stopped dancing; however – he did dance like a granddad at a wedding. He had all the steps and the fancy footwork but the stoop gives the age away and make his legs look to be from a different body. But best of luck to him I thought he was great.

The show itself was wonderful – it was announced that all the music and the singing was live which is a great change from the insulting backing tracks. Three guitars, drums and piano plus two young female saxophonists.

I know all the songs they performed and if you are a rocker and you like this stuff trust me they played it just as it was played in the day.

In the first scene he found his fender and his grandaughter said 'Were you in a band?' and he said 'The Coldstream Guards were a band – I was in a group – for five minutes.' Then she said 'Oh look at this (record) Let's Dance'  'Play that one' he said 'that was my audition.'

And the scene shoots back 40 years and away we go with Let's Dance!