Just for the record
Get the lockdown playlist ready as MARION McMULLEN looks back at some old-style easy listening
Time for a little night music. John Lennon and Yoko Ono packed some of their favourite albums when they booked in to their hotel in Amsterdam for their famous ‘bed in’ as a protest against war and violence in the world.
1967
Sand, sea and song. Desert Island Discs
1982
Titter ye not, but comedian Frankie Howerd was one of the
celebrity castaways on Desert Island Discs. Frankie, who attended the show’s 40th anniversary party, chose Cleo Laine’s Send In The Clowns, Nat King Cole’s Autumn Leaves and Jerusalem sung by the
Coventry Cathedral Boys’ Choir as some of his favourite
tracks.
Remember you’re a Womble. Record producer, singer-songwriter and musician Mike Batt was just 24 when he found fame as the man behind the famous furry Wombles group. He wrote and arranged their songs, multi-tracked his voice for the vocals and then put on his Womble outfit to perform. His first song as a solo artist was about Mozart and was called You Would Have Been A Rock ‘N’ Roller and he tried it out on an ancient gramophone.
A hit or a miss? Broadcaster David Jacobs helped get records in the charts as the host of BBC TV show Jukebox Jury, which ran from 1959 until 1967. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones all appeared on the judging panel over the years as did Lulu, Cilla Black and comedian Eric Sykes.
MAGIC tricks that went gloriously wrong, props galore and an infectious laugh helped to make Tommy Cooper a comedy star... just like that.
The fez-wearing comedian was born in Caerphilly in Wales 100 years ago on March 19, 1921, and later moved with his family to Exeter and Southampton.
At 6ft 4in tall, he was a towering stage presence who made use of his gangly frame, but prior to finding fame he served with the Horse Guards.
The star is said to have acquired his trademark hat at a NAAFI concert in Cairo during the Second World War. He could not find his own army issue pith helmet so he borrowed the fez from a passing waiter. It looked so comic that the headgear immediately became part of the act.
Tommy was an accomplished magician and a member of the Magic Circle, but quickly realised he could get more laughs if his tricks went wrong.
He kept a gag file of all his handwritten jokes that included such gems as “This officer stopped me and said ‘Why are you driving with a bucket of water on the passenger’s seat?’ I said ‘So that I can dip my headlights’ and I asked the waiter ‘How long will my spaghetti be?’ He said ‘I don’t know. We never measure it.’” Tommy became one of Britain’s highest-paid and best-loved entertainers, part of a golden age of British comedy that also saw the rise of Sir Ken Dodd.
Knotty Ash’s most famous son was extremely knowledgeable about the art of comedy and had thousands of books on the subject.
He became famous for his tickling stick, the Diddy Men and his marathon live shows. He earned a place in the Guinness Book of
Records for telling 1,500 jokes over three and a half hours at one Liverpool Theatre with the audience attending in shifts. At another show he was still going strong as midnight approached and he told the audience: “You think you can get away, but you can’t. I’ll follow you home and I’ll shout jokes through your letterbox.”
Bob Monkhouse kept books filled with jokes during his career and offered a £10,000 reward when they were stolen in 1995. They were later recovered.
The comedian and game
show host once joked: “When I first said that I wanted to be a comedian, everybody laughed. They’re not laughing now.” Comedy favourite Les Dawson, who presented quiz show Blankety Blank from 1984 to 1990, was also a writer and an accomplished pianist, but could murder a tune on the keyboard to get a laugh.
Les was also the undisputed master of the mother-in-law joke, with such classics as: “The wife’s mother said ‘When you’re dead, I’ll dance on your grave.’ I said: ‘Good. I’m being buried at sea.’”
Double entendres and innuendos served up with a large helping of sauce made Frankie Howerd one of the top names of his era. He originally applied to drama school Rada to train as a serious actor, but switched to comedy when he was turned down.
Radio, TV and film success followed, while his catchphrases like “Titter ye not,” “Shut your face” and “No missus” remain popular to this day.
TV sitcom Up Pompeii saw Frankie playing Roman slave Lurcio and it was followed by a film version in 1971. Lurcio said of the seer Cassandra: “Oh, she’s very embittered, you know. Very embittered. You’ve seen the ring she had on? Well, allegedly, that was given to her by her fiancé when she was 18, and he jilted her, and she hasn’t had it off since.”
Londoner Max Bygraves would say to his audiences “I wanna tell you a story”.
Max was one of nine children and realised he could make money from his talent for music when he won a school talent competition at the age of 13. He was also an altar boy and made his first public appearance singing Handel’s Largo in Westminster Cathedral. As a teenager he made 10 shillings (50p) a night singing in a pub. He volunteered for the RAF during the Second World War. He launched his professional showbusiness career in 1946 and topped the bill at the Royal Variety Performance 17 times. He would joke: “A man was laying in bed at three in the morning and suddenly the phone rang. He picked up and said ‘Hello. You have the wrong number, try the Admiral’. His wife said ‘Who was it?’ He said: ‘Just some fool asking if the coast was clear.’”
Of course, it is only fitting that birthday boy Tommy Cooper has the last laugh: “Two cannibals were eating a clown.
“One said to the other ‘Does he taste funny to you?’”
When I first said that I wanted to be a comedian, everybody laughed...They’re not laughing now. Bob Monkhouse’s self-deprecating jokes were a signature of his act