Turned Out Nice Again
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Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? was probably the most exciting new innovation in light entertainment [Liddiment recalls]. You can see where its roots are, but as a format it’s near perfect and as a scheduling idea it was revolutionary. It’s a brilliant quiz show, but the money’s important; it’s about creating in close-up real-life drama, and the money, the jeopardy, is what creates the drama. When you’re faced with ‘Get this wrong and I might lose £100,000 but if I get it right I’ll make £250,000’, those are big moments and it’s very exciting television.12
The success of Millionaire was followed by the revival of the talent show, in the form of Popstars, which emanated from the Spice Girls’ creator Simon Fuller’s pop management company. As well as creating the groups Hear’Say, Liberty X and Girls Aloud, the show made a star of Nigel Lythgoe, the show’s executive producer, whose critical comments earned him the press nickname of ‘Nasty Nigel’. Lythgoe had begun his career as a dancer with the Young Generation troupe, before moving into choreography. He had then worked his way through the ranks at ATV, Central and TVS, eventually becoming a producer, before joining LWT. In the mid-nineties, he had been the prime mover behind Gladiators, and when John Kaye Cooper left as controller of entertainment, Lythgoe had been appointed as his successor.
Since then, ITV and Fuller, in combination with record company executive Simon Cowell and Alan Boyd at the production company Fremantle Media, have filled Saturday nights with more variations on the talent show theme: Pop Idol, The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent. These shows, along with Millionaire and the BBC’s Weakest Link, have changed the dynamic of format sales in television worldwide. Traditionally, all formats came from the US, and Britain was a net importer of formats for many years. Now, many of the most successful and lucrative shows are British in origin, and even Goodson-Todman Productions – the home of What’s My Line, The Price Is Right and other major shows – is now under European ownership, as part of Fremantle Media.
Meanwhile, the BBC has not been without success in the new wave of entertainment programmes. Stewart Morris remembers one particular conversation between several veterans: ‘Bill Cotton was here for dinner, and I think Terry Wogan was here too. We were all discussing the non-appearance of variety. Bill said “The day somebody comes up with a good idea, the audience will be enormous.” Shortly after that, Strictly Come Dancing began, and it wiped ITV off the screen.’13 Not only was the combination of celebrities and ballroom dancing a domestic hit, but it also allowed the BBC to move into US TV production, with an American version of the show, titled Dancing With The Stars. Other newer BBC1 Saturday night shows such as How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? have taken the talent initiative, finding new stars for West End musicals.
However, the biggest current stars of Saturday night television are on ITV, even though their career progression mirrors that of a former BBC golden boy almost exactly. Noel Edmonds made his TV reputation hosting a Saturday morning children’s show, BBC1’s Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, while Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly established themselves as presenters on a similar vehicle, SMTV, which ran on ITV from 1998 to 2003. There are other parallels, as Edmonds notes approvingly:
I like what Ant and Dec do. The only time that I’m just incredulous watching television is when people in light entertainment make basic errors. Insult the audience, nick ideas and don’t do them very well. I’ve had the tabloid press trying to wind me up about Ant and Dec, but I won’t, because I think they do it very well. Yes, they’ve taken a number of things from House Party. They admit it, they’ve sat down and watched all the tapes. If people do it well, full marks. Have I ever done that? Too bloody right I have. It’s when people do it badly [that] it’s really irritating.14
Successes like Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, which launched in 2002, must not distract from the fact that smaller audiences mean smaller revenues. A few flagship programmes still get big budgets, but at the expense of other shows, which now have to be made as cheaply as possible. There is no longer the same breadth of entertainment, but while television variety may now be a shadow of what it was twenty years ago, the genre is far from dead. Under the layers of ironic detachment and supposed ‘edginess’ that festoon much modern television are concepts and methods that date back to Alexandra Palace or even earlier. However, those early pioneers and their successors thrived on adrenalin and danger. The world of modern business is risk-averse, and television is no exception. Many of the greatest performers and producers in the history of light entertainment would argue that nothing worthwhile can be achieved without taking a few risks and enjoying your work. Perhaps the last word should go to Sir Bill Cotton:
I’m very careful about talking to people, because what I say can be construed as a bloke who thinks that he’s absolutely marvellous, and nobody knows how to do it now, and all that. You just get yourself kicked to death. ‘Oh, that old fart walking around saying all these things.’ The fact is, not only in television, but in so many things in modern life, things are too serious, or are made out to be too serious. Where there was fun to be had in work, there’s not the same type of fun now.15
Notes
INTRODUCTION
1 Denis Norden, Sybil Harper and Norma Gilbert (eds.), Coming to You Live! (Methuen, London, 1985), p. 7.
CHAPTER ONE
1 Illustrated London News, December 1856, quoted in Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson, British Music Hall (rev. edn, Gentry Books, London, 1974), p. 23.
2 Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson, British Music Hall (rev. edn, Gentry Books, London, 1974), p. 23.
3 Classified advertisement, The Times, 24 August 1835, p. 1.
4 Douglas Jerrold, Mrs Caudle’s Curtain Lectures (Prion Books, London, 2000), pp. 13–17.
5 Gavin Weightman, Bright Lights, Big City: London Entertained 1830–1950 (Collins & Brown, London, 1992), p. 20.
6 The Times, 26 November 1912, p. 15.
7 The Times, 10 January 1942, p. 6.
8 Author’s interview with Peter Prichard, 18 November 2004.
9 In 1970, Dad’s Army co-creator Jimmy Perry collaborated with BBC Head of Comedy Michael Mills to stage an authentic nineteenth century music hall night for BBC2. Transmitted on 26 December, Wilton’s – The Handsomest Hall in Town featured Spike Milligan as Mackney and Peter Sellers as Ross. Happily, this tribute by now-dead legends to artists who died long before they were born still exists, and while Milligan acquits himself well enough in bringing the Robinson’s marmalade jar golliwog to life, Sellers’ performance of ‘Sam Hall’ is mesmerizing, sinister and superb.
10 Known on their bill matter, respectively, as ‘the Dandy Coloured Coon’, ‘the White-Eyed Kaffir’ and ‘the Chocolate Coloured Coon’.
11 ‘The Beefeater’ by Dan Leno, recorded circa November 1901, as reissued on the LP Music Hall: Top of the Bill (World Records SHB22).
12 One of the brothers, George Ganjou, became an agent when he retired from performing, and represented the young Cliff Richard.
13 I am indebted to Roy Holliday, Burnand’s great-nephew, who dropped this information casually into conversation one day. Roy’s father also worked the halls as a comedian under the name Charlie Kenny, with his bill matter – ‘Fit for your front room’ – indicating that his act contained no dubious material.
14 Author’s interview with Jack Parnell, 24 January 2004.
15 Quoted in Mander and Mitchenson, British Music Hall (1974), p. 107.
16 Quoted in Midge Gillies, Marie Lloyd: The One and Only (Victor Gollancz, London, 1999), p. 119.
17 The Times, 1 November 1904, p. 6.
18 Quoted in Peter Honri, Music Hall Warriors (Greenwich Exchange, London, 1997), p. 7.
19 Ibid., p. 49.
20 Cited in Weightman, Bright Lights, Big City (1992), p. 81.
21 Mrs Laura Ormiston Chant’s testimony to the LCC licensing committee, 10 October 1894, reported in The Times, 11 October 1894, p. 7.
22 The Times, 22 October 1894, p. 7.
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br /> 23 Author’s interview with Peter Prichard, 18 November 2004.
24 According to listings in The Times, Naughton and Gold were doubling up at the Holborn Empire that week too.
25 Roy Hudd, with Philip Hindin, Roy Hudd’s Cavalcade of Variety Acts (Robson Books, London, 1997), p. 133.
26 From Naughton and Gold in Search of the Loch Ness Monster (Decca F3843) [78 rpm disc].
27 Naughton was born in 1887, Gold in 1886. Nervo was born in 1897, Knox in 1896.
28 Maureen Owen, The Crazy Gang: A Personal Reminiscence (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1986), p. 63.
29 Ibid., p. 64.
30 Sid Colin, And the Bands Played On (Elm Tree Books, London, 1977), p. 102.
31 The London and Manchester stations opened on 14 November 1922.
32 Eric Maschwitz, No Chip On My Shoulder (Herbert Jenkins, London, 1957), p. 49.
33 The Footlights influence on show business didn’t begin with Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller. Maschwitz was one of the writers of the 1922 revue, while brothers Jack and Claude Hulbert dominated the society just before and after the First World War, respectively. Davy Burnaby of the Co-Optimists was another Footlighter, performing in the 1901 show The Oriental Trip.
34 Maschwitz, No Chip On My Shoulder (1957), p. 54.
35 Ibid., p. 69.
36 Ibid., pp. 70, 69, 71.
37 It was possible to record the 30-line image on a gramophone record, and, amazingly, a fragment of this show survives in this form. Donald McLean deserves a great deal of respect for retrieving images from these surviving discs: the results can be viewed at his website, http://www.tvdawn.com.
38 Picture Page resumed in 1946, continued until 1952, and a handful of recordings from the tail-end of the run survive.
39 Radio Times Television Supplement, 19 February 1937, p. 4.
40 Fred Barnes was a very interesting performer, as openly gay as it was possible to be in that pre-Wolfenden age. He is commemorated in Paul Bailey, Three Queer Lives (Hamish Hamilton, London, 2001).
41 ‘Television News by “The Scanner”’, Radio Times, 1 September 1939, p. 15.
42 The closedown did not occur, as is popularly believed, in the middle of the Mickey Mouse cartoon.
43 John Watt, Radio Variety (J.M. Dent & Sons, London, 1939), p. ix.
44 From Bandwaggon, broadcast on the BBC Home Service, 30 September 1939.
45 Author’s interview with John Ammonds, 14 April 2005.
46 Ibid.
CHAPTER TWO
1 From the script of V-ITMA (BBC Home Service, tx: 10 May 1945); published in Ted Kavanagh, The ITMA Years (Woburn Press, London, 1974), p. 92.
2 Author’s interview with Sir Bill Cotton, 29 September 2004.
3 In return for their investment, Sid and Phil Hyams received a 50 per cent stake in the new agency. Their cinemas included the Gaumont State, Kilburn.
4 Author’s interview with Peter Prichard, 18 November 2004.
5 Author’s interview with Sir Bill Cotton, 29 September 2004.
6 Author’s interview with John Fisher, 11 May 2006.
7 Take It From Here (BBC Light Programme, tx: 18 April 1958).
8 He can be seen doing this on a grainy excerpt from an unidentified late-sixties ATV variety show, much to the delight of the musicians on the rostrum behind him. The ATV identification is possible because the conductor is obviously Jack Parnell.
9 After retiring from show business, Brough returned to run his family’s textile firm, while Horne was a senior executive with the safety glass manufacturer Triplex.
10 Variety Bandbox (BBC Light Programme, tx: 22 January 1950).
11 Ibid.
12 Author’s interview with John Ammonds, 14 April 2005.
13 D.G. Bridson, Prospero and Ariel: The Rise and Fall of Radio – A Personal Recollection (Gollancz, London, 1971), pp. 178–9.
14 Quoted in Barry Took, Laughter in the Air (Robson Books, London, 1976), p. 87.
15 Ibid., p. 86.
16 Roger Wilmut, The Goon Show Companion (Robson Books, London, 1976), p. 34.
17 Author’s interview with Roger Ordish, 22 October 2004.
18 Bob Monkhouse, Crying with Laughter (Arrow, London, 1994), p. 68.
19 David Bradbury and Joe McGrath, Now That’s Funny: Writers on Writing Comedy (Methuen, London, 1998), p. 31.
20 Eric Sykes, If I Don’t Write It, Nobody Else Will (Fourth Estate, London, 2005), pp. 218–9.
21 Author’s interview with Yvonne Littlewood, 24 February 2005.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 ‘Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me!’ as delivered by Kenneth Williams in Carry On Cleo is remembered as one of the most famous lines that Rothwell ever wrote, so it may be a surprise to learn that it was in fact given to him by his friends Frank Muir and Denis Norden, who had used it in Take It From Here a decade earlier.
25 Author’s interview with Richard Greenough, 8 April 2006.
26 Ibid.
27 Michael Mills, quoted in Denis Norden, Sybil Harper and Norma Gilbert (eds.), Coming To You Live! (Methuen, London, 1985), p. 219.
28 Quoted in ibid., p. 10.
29 Author’s interview with Yvonne Littlewood, 24 February 2005.
30 Ibid.
31 Author’s interview with Brian Tesler, 23 February 2005.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Author’s interview with Ernest Maxin, 9 November 2005.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
38 Attenborough needs no introduction, Peacock will pop up later as the controller of BBC1, BBC2 and managing director of London Weekend.
39 Author’s interview with Brian Tesler, 24 February 2005.
40 Ibid.
41 Author’s interview with Ernest Maxin, 9 November 2005.
42 Author’s interview with Brian Tester, 24 February 2005.
43 The Times, 6 January 1948, p. 6.
44 The Times, 4 February 1948, p. 2.
45 Ibid.
46 Roy Castle, Now and Then (Pan, London, 1995), pp. 73–74.
47 Many famous variety routines have disappeared forever. Fortunately, a version of this one survives in the recording of The Big Show, Tyne Tees Television’s opening attraction in 1959, and it is from this that I quote.
48 Vivian Van Damm, Tonight and Every Night (Stanley Paul & Co., London, 1952), p. 86.
CHAPTER THREE
1 Report of Harold Macmillan’s Bedford speech, 20 July 1957, The Times, 22 July 1957, p. 4.
2 Always referred to as Ian, he was known in the Commons at this time as Charles Ian Orr-Ewing, to avoid confusion with his relative Sir Ian Orr-Ewing, MP for Weston-super-Mare. After the elder man’s death in 1958, he reverted to using his middle name.
3 Quoted in H.H. Wilson, Pressure Group: The Campaign for Commercial Television (Secker & Warburg, London, 1961), p. 100.
4 The Times, 25 August 1954, p. 1.
5 Born Gomer Berry in Swansea, much of Lord Kemsley’s success had derived from being the younger brother of William Berry, later Lord Camrose, owner of the Daily Telegraph since 1928.
6 The Times, 27 October 1954, p. 6.
7 Quoted in Bernard Sendall, Independent Television in Britain: Volume 1 – Origin and Foundation, 1946–1962 (Macmillan Press, London, 1982), p. 83.
8 The Times, 6 July 1954, p. 15.
9 Tony Ryan (ed.), Fleet Street Remembered (Heinemann, London, 1990), p. 298.
10 Author’s interview with Richard Greenough, 8 April 2006.
11 Sadly this show seems not to have survived, unlike Hill’s speech.
12 ‘Opinion’, Daily Express, 22 September 1955.
13 ‘Comment’, Daily Mirror, 22 September 1955, p. 4.
14 Daily Mirror, 23 September 1955, p. 1.
15 David Croft, You Have Been Watching . . . (BBC Books, London, 2004), p. 135.
16 All quoted in Pamela W. Logan, Jack Hylton Presents (British Film Institute, London, 1
995), pp. 21, 52, ibid., ibid.
17 Daily Mirror, 30 September 1955, quoted in Logan, Jack Hylton Presents (1995), p. 5.
18 Quoted in Logan, Jack Hylton Presents (1995), pp. 32–3.
19 Eric Sykes, If I Don’t Write It, Nobody Else Will (Fourth Estate, London, 2005), p. 315.
20 Ibid., p. 316.
21 Denis Forman, Persona Granada (Andre Deutsch, London, 1997), p. 91.
22 Ibid., p. 92.
23 Ibid., pp. 97–8.
24 Author’s interview with Stanley Baxter, 31 May 2006.
25 Also reported as ‘Fuck!’ and ‘Oh ma goad’.
26 The characters had been originated by Stanley Baxter and Rikki Fulton, but it was the Milroy and Fulton partnership that is best remembered.
27 Author’s interview with Stanley Baxter, 31 May 2006.
28 Ibid.
29 Author’s interview with Brian Tesler, 23 February 2005.
30 Author’s interview with Ernest Maxin, 9 November 2005.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Author’s interview with Brian Tesler, 23 February 2005.
35 The television Billy Cotton Band Show is very badly served by the BBC archives with a mere five shows remaining from twelve years. The first show was recorded for posterity, but has since disappeared without trace. However, the last survivor, from 10 May 1964, is a corker. Cotton opens the show by announcing that he’s going to Italy on his holidays, a cue for a big production number based around ‘Papa Piccolino’. Grisha Farfel and drummer Kenny Clare rip into ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’, complete with added Beatle quotes, and are followed by Spike Milligan in rare stand-up comedian mode. Russ Conway, Kathie Kay, Ted Rogers and Frankie Vaughan also feature. Rogers overstays his welcome, but it’s all still terrific fun.
36 Jack Good, speaking in A Good Man Is Hard To Find (BBC2, tx: 16 January 2005).
37 ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’ was another Muir and Norden creation, by the way. The English language owes them both a great debt.