Backward Thinking

Hello there

I’ve just realised that title sounds wrong.  So here is a cursory “not like that”.

So, do you happen to remember a few weeks ago when I was talking about the interview with David Earl and Joe Wilkinson that I did, where I spoke about not being able to “play the game” in my career? And about my not being able to paint on a face, or ignore when there’s unfairness, rudeness, or misbehaviour around me?

I’ll be honest, I don’t really remember it, or certainly not the details, but I do remember that I said it in the interview and then went on to expand on it a bit here. As you’ll hear on last Monday’s Reboot, podcast I am now at an age where memory clarity is no longer what it was.  This added to the output on here, and I can’t possibly be expected to remember every little thing I said.  Ironically, and irritatingly, I mainly remember when other people around me have been unfair, rude, or misbehaved, and that’s easily enough to keep my memory banks fit to burst.

However, I have been thinking about it probably ever since, and I’ve been piecing it all together.  Not for any reason (barring self-curiosity), but if I can’t utilise my private thoughts into Patreon posts then we’re in trouble.  It could probably have been a little section in a Cabin Fever podcast, but we know how they tend to morph quickly into something different when I start my blabbering.  A bespoke written post is better service.  As we know I never get distracted in those… (that was sarcastic).

Anyway, there are two parts to this, both involving performers from yesteryear.  One of whom has long since left this Earth, and another who is adjusting to the next phase of his career.  Both went through a lot though, just as we all do, and it’s the latter who we shall begin with.

I had a momentary lapse of Twitter silence earlier this week, when I quote tweeted a video of Tommy Cannon at a Robbie Williams concert.  In the video, RW did a shout out to Tommy and dedicated Angels to him.  He then got the audience to “sing it for Tommy” throughout the song.  Notwithstanding that this just proves that Robbie Williams will do anything to get out of singing the chorus of Angels live, I found it particularly classy.

Of course, you may know, that Robbie very much has “clubland” lineage, with his own Dad having been a singer on the circuit, and this is the same circuit where Tommy and Bobby honed their trade before and after their television dominance.  You’ll definitely know the reverence which I’ve also held Cannon & Ball in, as well as countless other performers from yesteryear.  I really wish I could think of a better word than yesteryear, it feels as though that implies their only relevance was in the olden days, and that’s not what I’m meaning to get across.  Again, you’ll probably know that I continued to campaign for the creative work of Cannon & Ball, across many podcasts, interviews with Bobby, and in written stuff, right up to Bob being away.  I’ve only actually met Tommy once, so didn’t have a relationship with him in the same way as I did with Bobby who I worked with a fair bit with over the years, but the point still stands.  I was still championing them long before I got to know Bobby. Indeed, as the tributes to Bobby began to flow in from all manner of celeb folk who had never given him or the double act a mention when he drew breath, there was a private scorning of this grief tourism behind closed doors between myself and others who had banged the drum when there was still time.  A tribute is a tribute though, I guess.  You don’t want to be too churlish about people saying nice things at a sad time.

I have always – I think – afforded a deep respect to performers from before my unspectacular entry into the showbiz world.  I’ve never been comfortable with new generations hammering the generation before.  I understand the sociological aspect of burning down the platform you built on, and I understand the draw to being rebellious or naughty, but I’ve never understood the complete dismissal of pioneers.  I’ve particularly never liked an insistent lack of acknowledgment.  There is an uncomfortable (for me) mood of defiance in the present comedy world, that appears to come with an equally uncomfortable lack of humility.  It’s a longstanding comedy trope to declare your own brilliance, but this has felt – for the most part – to be ladelled with huge dollops of irony and a tacit demonstration of insecurity.

It is quite possible I am missing something, or projecting, or just simply not “getting” it, but the tiny bits of comedy I have seen recently seem to be flat out flexing. I should emphasise, it’s really not a lot that I’ve seen, so I can’t be declaring this definitive. There was a time when, behind closed doors, we would all scorn performers who “win” their stories.  Every now and then we’d make some sort of public allusion or snarky comment about other comedians.  Rarer still we would do an entire podcast “praising” the brilliance of a comedian whilst simultaneous hijacking and reappropriating their garlic-based catchphrases, but you’d hope there was an underlying acknowledgment of their achievements even with that.  I might be stretching it a bit there though.

Point is though, there would appear to be a current trend of the comedian having the upper hand, that is boldly on display.  I don’t know why this sits uncomfortably with me, but I feel it may be to do with when I’ve seen superiority to the past.  So, still using Cannon & Ball as a case in point, regardless of whether one considers it dated, or old school, or not funny or whatever the judgement is, when that comes with a dismissal of the actual skills and achievements of them, it rankles.  When they were dismissed as naff, it rankled.  I remember saying this to Bobby during an interview once, and it was a conversation we’d had several times in real life, that I was sure there would be a posthumous reappraisal when one or both of them were away, and it annoyed me that it wasn’t happening whilst they were around and working.  For his part, he sort of shrugged it off in a philosophical way, but I know for sure that the roots of that upset him.  Not angered him, didn’t make him resentful or bitter, but it was upsetting.  He wasn’t completely zen about it.  Mostly, but not completely, and in less guarded moments would happily get swept away with an entertaining sulk about modern comedy. There’s not a performer in the land who is ever completely not bothered by lack of respect and acknowledgement when they’ve done something great.  No matter what face they put on it, it’s in there somewhere. We can all be drawn into a mood of “who on earth do you think you are?” about new generations that stand on shoulders so they can piss on us more accurately.

My sycophancy towards old-school comedians comes from a place of wishing to show respect. It’s also wishing the ones I know or knew, to be aware that it isn’t a blanket generational dismissal.  This is especially true when performers from the past weren’t just what they were most well known for.  When they were true creatives, with different strings to their bow, and projects they could adapt within as trends shifted. I personally think that’s a more considered and classy way to be.  Which was the gist of what I tweeted when Robbie Williams dedicated that song to Tommy.  Tommy, for the record, was clearly hugely touched and moved by what happened at that concert.  After the couple of years he’s been through, you’d have to be particularly cold-hearted to take a snidey tone with that.

Speaking of performers who could adapt and shift through popular trends, this brings us on to the other protagonist of this post. I wanted to explain where my reverence came from, but this is really the point of my musing, relating back to my claim of being unable to fix on a grin and be a vacuous host on a stage.  I knew it was a thing in me, I knew it was impossible for me to overcome it, and I also think I perhaps presumed it was just something within my personality that I couldn’t be ‘phoney’, even for cash.  I had a little Eureka moment recently where I realised exactly where that came from.  I pinpointed the influence that permeated my entire creative existence back when I was performing, and still now whenever I am squeezed into a format.  It was Les Dawson.  More specifically, it was Les Dawson hosting Blankety Blank…

Now, Les Dawson was bulletproof for a great many reasons.  Of course, he experienced peaks and troughs of popularity and his star burnt brighter at certain times than others, but he had a lot of things going, and a vast selection of artistic abilities. He never went under during shifting trends.  He was a brilliant stand up, an accomplished writer, had done some bits of acting (which he left way too late), a great presenter, personality, all the above.  Just very, very multi-talented.  I think, when you know you have decent capabilities in lots of areas, it can provoke rather a heated distain for the bland.  Things that you’d consider to be low rent when you are personally reaching for higher things in your creative achievements.  It was a constant of all Les Dawson’s work.  Even his writing, which was genuinely high level, he couldn’t resist undercutting it from time to time.

This could be traced back to the supposed birth of his stand-up persona.  He had been a showbiz performer, fixed grin and telling the audience what lovely people they were all the time, and it hadn’t been bearing fruit. Then he went on stage drunk in Hull, started being dismissive and curmudgeonly, and it got a response.  I say the supposed birth, as I’ve never quite bought this story. I definitely don’t buy the claim that it was this drunkenness that meant he couldn’t play the piano in key.  No way am I having that.  You don’t play the piano off key when you’re that leathered, you can’t play it at all. Still, he was very much one for spinning romantic yarns about his own development, including a claim he went to Paris for months to be a writer when his diary says he went for a weekend, so let’s not labour my point of contention.

When Les Dawson got the gig hosting Blankety Blank he had misgivings about it, mostly because Charlie Williams (one of the comics from The Comedians show) had hosted The Golden Shot on TV (which Bob Monkhouse had previously nailed) and floundered dramatically. Terry Wogan had hosted Blankety Blankbefore Les Dawson, and been very popular too, so he was worried about picking up the mantle.  He decided to do the show but rip it to shreds from the inside.

It's a common misconception that Terry Wogan did Blankety Blank “straight”.  He was slicker than Les Dawson, for sure, but he also gave the occasional withering look as to how rubbish it all was.  So, Les Dawson undermining it was not without precedent at all, but he dialled it right up.  He made fun of the format, the prizes, the guests, and generally gave off an air of not wanting to be there, but being contractually obliged to stay.

Which is a pretty swift description of everything I ever did in performing. It was that influence, I am certain of it.  There was an inherent warmth and charm to Les Dawson, which I was unable to really replicate properly, but the distain?  I can do that.  I’m happy to shake my head at the people who present as showbiz and speak in that awful dumbed-down patronising way to audiences, and there’s not many jobs where you can make a living by being exasperated by the desperation that surrounds you.

Of course, there was no longevity in it for me, in the main by my own hand thankfully, but having that realisation this week has been quite the thing.  It’s not ‘blaming’ Les Dawson, but rather being thankful that the influences of the comedians before me were the right ones for my own personality. My stand up and warm up work were in the spirit of Dawson, and the double act was flat out tributing Cannon & Ball.  There are worse people one could aspire to.

There we go, a short and concise bit of writing there.  I’ll let you roll your eyes before I bid you farewell.

Done it?  Good.  I deserve that.

Hope you’ve had an amazing week and you are all set for Friday and the weekend joys beyond.  Shall see you tomorrow for Cabin Fever.

Lots of love to you

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