No Tears for the Clown

by Les Dawson

  THE COMEDIAN

  ‘He stood alone on the neon-bright platform with a microphone grasped in his hand. His damp face was a mask of strain and there was an appeal for some respect in his posturing. Waiters scurried to and fro between the tables, oblivious to anything other than the shouts from the habitués of the club, as they demanded more drink to be served.

  Tobacco smoke twisted into yellow garlands that then hovered around the man with the microphone, and helped to hide the despair etched in his comic delivery that nobody listened to.

  … Once he had performed before a Queen; once he had shaken hands with people eager to know him, and once he had known theatrical triumphs, but now he stood before an uncaring generation, his victories unheeded. Occasionally wet-lipped faces turned in his direction, only to sullenly return to bury the indifference into a brimming tankard; other faces broke into sneers at the comedy man, and other faces laughed at him … not with him. The sweat glistened on his brow and the heavy stage make-up ran in rills to confuse the colour of his frayed shirt collar. He raised his voice in an effort to be heard, but the microphone system merely whistled and grated and he lost his timing to a howl of obscenities.… Once he had performed before a Queen, and once he had shaken hands with people eager to know him. But that was a long time ago, wasn’t it?

  The three-piece band bludgeoned his play-off music into a dreadful parody of harmony and he mustered one last desperate smile. To his tormentors he bowed in surrender, then walked off the rostrum.

  He shrugged off the loud check jacket in the cramped cubicle that passed as a dressing-room, removed the tarnished make-up of illusion, and in the mirror his eyes reflected his inner sense of failure.

  He would sit in that dressing-room until the club emptied, then he would creep away to the cheap accommodation where he could lie and remember the way it was.… Once he had performed before a Queen, and once he had shaken hands with people who had been eager to know him.…

  Tomorrow he would go and stand on the stage of another club, and perhaps there, somebody would remember him.’

  * * *

  I think that man did more to help me keep my feet on the ground than any other person. During a success, I would recall his aged and wistful face and my heart would go out to his memory, for soon after our drink together in that Soho pub, he gassed himself in his cold, comfortless flat in Notting Hill Gate.

  I found myself remembering him more often as the critics attacked some of my television appearances. The six variety shows, although reviewed warmly in the more august newspapers, received poor notices in the tabloids, and I felt my popularity was on the wane.

  The feeling grew when the advance bookings for the Sunderland pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk, were sent through to my agents’ office – it was a very lukewarm advance, to say the least.

  In fact it wasn’t a bad pantomime, but it lacked the glitter and imagination to draw the public in to see it. I got the feeling that the production had been conceived in a burning desire to see how cheaply it could be staged. Some of the scenery looked as if it had once graced a Second World War ENSA concert. The whole thing smacked of accountancy; in my view that is what went wrong with show business: the takeover of entertainment by accountants. Accountants are good with figures but not with people. Accountants can look after the finances of a company but not run a company. As a result, the Sunderland pantomime season was not a memorable one.

  Along the way I had another brush with the press. I gave interviews quite freely to all the media, and during one such interview, this time with a local newspaper, the journalist asked me what was the most expensive present that I had ever bought Tracy. As we drank a Scotch or two, I said that it was probably her engagement ring. He then asked if Tracy had a fur coat. I said yes, she’d had one for quite some time actually, but I think the writer got the impression that it had been bought recently as a Christmas gift. He asked me if I agreed with women wearing furs. I replied that freedom of choice was the prerequisite of democracy, and in my view man-made fabrics were probably causing more harm to the environment than the use of natural skins.… That did it! Two days later the national press got hold of the story, animal rights demonstrators paraded past the theatre with make-shift banners, and the headlines read: ‘Dawson believes in killing the mink’. Naturally the public had to be reminded that I was married to an ex-barmaid and that my wife had only been dead just under three years before I remarried, so I felt like a cross between a Kenyan poacher and Bluebeard. The nice thing about the people of Sunderland was the fact that in their view I could buy the wife anything I wanted – provided I didn’t abuse whippets and racing pigeons!

  Everybody in show business rang me up asking how the hell I managed to get into so much trouble and so often!

  Once before, while on tour with Run For Your Wife, I was interviewed in the Theatre Royal, Bath. A local reporter asked me what I thought of the prizes on Blankety Blank. Casually I had said that they were rubbish, but that was the good thing about the game show … greed wasn’t the motive for taking part in it. Innocent? The national press picked up the remark, and the headlines boomed jovially: ‘Dawson Calls It Blankety Junk’ and ‘Blankety Blank is rubbish, says Dawson’.

  What made me chuckle about the incident was that on every Blankety Blank I told the world at large that the prizes were crap.… Well, how else could you describe them? One chap from Arbroath won a garden ornament.… It turned out to be a peculiar looking tulip in a plastic sort of birdcage.

  However, my stock certainly didn’t go up at the BBC, I’m sad to say.

  The pantomime thankfully limped to its conclusion, and Tracy and I beetled off home. More work followed on my next book, a parody of Raymond Chandler’s famous thriller, Farewell My Lovely. Tracy begged me to relax, then, when I ignored her plea she turned nasty and dragged me off to Tenerife.

  We had delays at Manchester Airport, we had delays at London Heathrow, then more delays at Madrid Airport, closely followed by a longer delay at another airport that turned out to be a sort of Spanish Biggin Hill – they even still had a poster of Franco up in the lounge. The imp had struck again. This time the little sod contrived to lose my luggage and my passport.… But, ha ha! I found the blessed passport in the lavatory, it had dropped out of my pants pocket whilst I was in the throes of straining with a tummy bug.… Oh yes, I had acute diarrhoea. I had time to jot down an impression of an airport.…

  Faces in a hurry everywhere … anxious faces; troubled faces, faces serene with anticipation and faces with a moisture of stress bobbing in confused masses amongst the mountains of leather containers that await destination labels to be affixed on them by robotic employees behind airline plinths.

  Strangled voices from loudspeakers grate forth inaudible instructions to a descant of clattering feet that are making towards the hum of the escalators.

  There are travellers with noses pressed into magazines and newspapers, there are people sitting with hot children loudly mewing for attention, and there are people with vacancies in their eyes, watching the silver mammoths soaring down the runway.…

  Priests in clutches shuffle in piety among the holidaymakers and taut business executives and tone down the colourful parade in black cloths of indifferent humility.

  A cacophony of sound rises towards the high centre dome, and creates a discordant chant against the drumming of mighty engines as the eager crowds surge for the departure lounges.… The rank odour of body heat clashes with pungent perfumes, and the reek of tobaccos, as the shouldering mass scurry sightless to the check-in points … each gripping cards of permission for sonic propulsion to far pavilions.

  A stewardess behind a practised mask, which now lengthens into a smiling line, ushers her charges to cramped confinement, soothing their fears with trim uniformed authority.

  Tardy arrivals with aching lungs edge into the aero tube and promote glares from long-seated passengers.

  Suddenly, the structure shudders and the whine of the mechani
sm stills desultory conversation as the unknown beckons a spectre’d invitation to a nation of cloud and an alien horizon.

  Although I enjoyed the challenge of penning the essay with descriptive language, it still didn’t get rid of the fact that my luggage was missing and that my bowels were in full rebellion.… So much for bloody holidays. Fortunately, the weather in Tenerife was truly magnificent and for ten days and nights Tracy and I slept, swam, and made love, then ate and drank, and slept some more. Two days later my suitcase arrived looking as if it had been sat on by a horse.

  Apart from an odd chap who tried to sell me a villa on a cliff and then ran away when a police car hove into view, it was a relaxing holiday, but looking at my spreading girth and listening to my wheezy chest, I made a mental note to go for a check-up when I got home. Tracy was distressed by the number of cigarettes I was smoking, and I was drinking more than was good for me … and she still couldn’t get me to have an early night. Would I ever learn?

  Uphill and Downhill

  * * *

  People saw the familiar little figure glowing with happiness as he proudly accompanied his beautiful young wife on business and social occasions.

  They saw her laugh at his endless jokes, but when he pattered on about show business.…

  ‘I’m booked here tonight, I have another gig next April and possibly one for late November.… They’re not just engagements – the way things are going, that’s a career.’

  ‘I’m not saying the business was bad at the theatre, but during my act, there were so many empty seats, monks walked through on the way to vespers.’

  ‘People often ask me what is the difference between a Northern audience and a Southern audience when it comes to comedy … I’ve found no difference, they don’t laugh at me in the South either.’

  They couldn’t see the anxiety in his mind, as the engagements started to dry up.…

  Bronzed and rested, we arrived back home with just enough time to unpack the holiday gear, then repack our cases for the trip to London, where I was hosting the new series of Opportunity Knocks. The series was shot at Elstree Studios, and I thought it had a lot of merit.

  We desperately need to promote new talent in this country, and I thought we did one hell of a good job doing just that on Opportunity Knocks. So what went wrong? I’ve asked myself that time and again. The set for the aspiring performers was quite awe-inspiring, and once again John Coleman led a huge orchestra to back the raw artistes. Maybe that was the problem, perhaps it was too overwhelming for a new-to-television performer … I don’t know.

  I worked hard to make the series succeed but when it was shown, the ratings were poor and I began to think that I was past my peak and all washed up.

  The critics were not kind either to me or to the young hopefuls, and it made me angry that these eager newcomers should have to read the cruel things some individuals wrote about them. For myself, I was used to being knocked about by the media. There seems to be an odd quirk in the British character, which is we’re not comfortable with success. Success bothers us somehow, and once somebody has attained a high degree of it, we immediately attempt to destroy it.

  One thing was for sure, whatever part the press had played in the past to give my career a boost, it had now changed direction and appeared to be doing a demolition job on me.… Whatever I did was wrong.

  I felt that I was letting the young hopefuls down, and yet despite the poor ratings for each weekly show, when it came to the live transmission of the grand finale to see who was the outright winner, that particular programme shot up in the ratings and my spirits soared.

  When Opportunity Knocks ended its run – with the promise of another series – Tracy and I had but a short time before setting forth on another tour of Run For Your Wife. We needed a break and we decided to join my agents on a four-day business trip to New York. Tracy was bubbling with excitement and I caught some of her enthusiasm.

  We took an ordinary flight out to Kennedy Airport, seven hours of boredom and fitful dozing, at least for me, but Tracy was a child again, peering through the glass at the cloud formations … it was a joy to see her complete enthusiasm.

  The first thing that struck me about New York was the politeness of everybody! The last time I had visited the States rudeness was the vogue from the airport officials to the hotel staff. This time, however, people smiled at us at Kennedy, a civil porter helped me out with the luggage to a taxi rank, and by all that is holy, the taxi driver was politeness personified. Naturally, like every other cabbie in New York he had absolutely no idea where he was going and his knowledge of New York would have fitted with room to spare in a flea’s truss. However, despite the warfare of the rush hour traffic, he managed to get us to the Halloran Hotel (now the Marriott) on Lexington Avenue.

  I took Tracy to the theatres on Broadway, we lunched at Lindy’s, held hands in Times Square, gasped as we looked down from the top of the Empire State Building, and loved the narrow streets of Greenwich Village. We cantered through Central Park in a horse-drawn surrey and drank cocktails in dimly-lit Fifth Avenue bars.… All too soon, Tracy and I returned home again to face the future and what it held for us.

  Just prior to the Run For Your Wife tour, I had a visit from a very concerned, high-ranking policeman who informed us that it appeared there had been a death threat made against me. As you can imagine, this news caused me to shake like a plate of junket. I’m no hero, but I’ll face an enemy on a one-to-one basis – but when you are seriously told that someone has threatened to shoot you – well, it’s not very nice, I can assure you.

  At first I was tempted to treat the incident as a hoax, but the police insisted that they had proof that the threat was real. That snippet of news sent me straight to the loo for an emergency evacuation.

  For weeks after, I watched out for strangers everywhere; a pheasant cackling to itself on my lawn must have thought the world had come to an end when a sad-faced, portly comedian lunged in its direction brandishing a bread knife and yelling, ‘Face me, you cowardly bastard.’

  I even considered wearing a disguise to fool the would-be assassin, but Tracy said her dresses wouldn’t fit me.… It was quite a while before the sensation of being a hunted animal wore off.

  I did a number of telly shots, guesting on other people’s shows: Bruce Forsyth and Noel Edmonds, Terry Wogan and Gloria Hunniford, and the shots went well but the money was a joke. On Terry’s chat show I said to him that I always took the BBC cheque I got for appearing on Wogan straight to the bank when I received it, mainly because it was too small to go on its own.

  Run For Your Wife opened in Cardiff and bloody near closed there.… The business was disappointing and the cast – Peter Goodwright, Gordon Honeycombe, Maurice Thoroughgood, Brian Godfrey, Jilly Foote and Jan Hunt – battled against indifference, and a heatwave (it was a summer tour).

  Despite glowing reviews in all the local newspapers the business didn’t pick up. I blamed a lot of it on my lack of pulling power these days – in truth, I’d noticed that the volume of fan mail I was sent was beginning to dwindle.

  From Cardiff we played Swansea, only marginally better trade. Wolverhampton turned out better than we had expected, as did Leeds and Nottingham, but Hull wasn’t going to be a record breaker. However, our bacon was retrieved in Newcastle at the Theatre Royal. I like that part of the world – I love the wild Northumbrian coast; the ghosts of Vikings haunt the castles and the dashing cliffs, and the sea on that coast is always turbulent and threatening.…

  My elder daughter, Julie, and her fiancé set the date for their wedding during the tour of the play, which meant that the ceremony had to be held on a Sunday in order for Tracy and me to be able to attend. Once again, father’s hand dipped deep into his linings … ah well! This time I sincerely hoped that the wedding would go ahead; the year before she had nearly made the altar with another young man, but with just a few days to go she had seen the error of her ways and cancelled the whole thing. I need not have concerned
myself: this time she wed her childhood sweetheart, John, the sun shone, and it went off swimmingly. I could have been forgiven, surely, for getting plastered? After all, it’s not every day that you surrender your daughter to another man, is it? Alone together in the house, just before she set off for the church with her proud father, Julie walked down the stairs, and my heart skipped a beat … for it was like looking at her mother on her wedding day.… I held Julie close, and said the things that all fathers say, but I felt a sense of loss. My firstborn.…

  Once more the curtains of time had been drawn back … there she is, lying in the cot next to Meg … is she really part of me, that tiny sleeping bundle? Is that my daughter going to school for the first time? Is that me wiping her tears as she clings to me at the school gate? Why do the years have to rush by so madly.… Stop, let me talk to that young girl just in her tormented teens, it’s Julie, isn’t it? Now she’s a bride and I’m losing her.… Why, oh why, God, couldn’t you have let my Meg see her daughter married before you took her away?

  Julie looked radiant in the church, and a glow surrounded her and her husband as the two of them stood before the altar.…

  After the ceremony I needed to be alone and I took myself off into the old churchyard. It had rained the night before and tendrils of ground mist drifted over the moist soil and the surfaces of long forgotten tombstones. I stood and smoked a cigarette, and thought about all the dreams and desires buried along with the bones of the dead. How pointless is the pursuit of immortality when all must come to this.…

  I threw away the cigarette as I heard my name being called, and retraced my steps through the coarse grass strangling the bases of the burial monoliths, brushed aside the hanging branches of uncared-for trees, and rejoined the happy scene upon the lawn outside the church door.