UNDOUBTEDLY the folk hero of our time is the detective. Whether it is the rumpled Maigret or the suave Bond, there is an inexhaustible audience fascinated by the conflict of a lone figure against the combined forces of crime and evil.

We no longer demand of our private eye or special agent or police inspector that he be a paragon himself. Indeed, corruptibility must now be part of his equipment.

He can be a rake, bribe-able, cowardly, effete, seedy, snobbish, vicious, devious, boastful, dull and ugly, and still retain our sympathy in his struggle against amoral opponents who are sometimes not as amoral as he is.

I suspect it is basically his aloneness that makes him so appealing a figure for contemporary audiences. No matter what help he gets from assistants or scientific paraphernalia, he is always a man pitted physically or mentally against the unknown.

Mass identification with his problems and dilemmas comes naturally to societies like our own where loneliness has become a mass disease.

It follows, then, that in any TV series based upon the activities of a single detective, its success will depend more on the development of the central character rather than on the strength of the plot or the ingenuity of the detection processes.

Wasted

Judging from the work of three detectives seen on TV – Sherlock Holmes, Amos Burke, of Burke’s Law, and Frank Marker, of Public Eye – the Americans are beginning to learn this lesson while out producers are still light years away from it.

Sherlock Holmes on the BBC seems to me to be the saddest example of a wasted opportunity. On a completely undemanding level, the aura of sinister Victoriana is acceptable enough.

Douglas Wilmer has the authentic jaw, the hawk-like nose, the cold, detached stare, the clipped decisiveness that one envisages for Holmes. Nigel Stock, as Watson, is a bumbling appendage that rarely adds much to the action.

But a recent episode “The Beryl Coronet” adapted by Nicholas Palmer, summed up what I feel are all the faults of this series to date.

A valuable piece of a coronet had been stolen from the home of a leading London banker. The banker suspects his son but Holmes, after measuring the imprints of a wooden leg and finding some significant boots, proves that the boy was “inn-oh-cent,” as everybody seemed to pronounce it.

Now trying to stretch this story to an hour has obviously been too much for the imagination of either the writer or the director, Max Varnel.

Lingering on long pans up and down staircases, each clue was stretched out to fill Gargantua and flashbacks were used to repeat events we already knew.

An even worse mistake was not introducing either Holmes or Watson into the story until almost 20 minutes had passed.

With all that padding needed, couldn’t we be told more about Holmes? His cocaine addiction, his Stradivarius, his chemical experiments, his skill at fencing, his university, his brother, Mycroft.

Conan Doyle’s creation, brought up to date with some imaginative scripting and some modern pace to the editing, could still be exciting stuff. But this reverential, orthodox approach merely reduces to the routine a unique treasure of detective fiction material.

Now in Burke’s Law, shown on the Commercial Channel, gimmickery is all. The improbably stories rarely interfere with Burke’s conquest of the sexiest suspects in America. The only clues that really interest him are those found in mattresses.

Who Killed Rosie Sunset? enabled Burke, played with dead-pan aplomb by Gene Barry, to investigate a flamenco dancer, a concertina player, a counterfeiter, and an abstract Russian sculptor. He was mauled by a luscious brunette tax expert, he was cornered by a Slavic beauty whose English vocabulary consisted only of the words “hello” and “yes” and he was stroked by a rich blonde wearing tights that were little more than an epidermal disguise.

Racy

In his Rolls, equipped with telephones and cocktails and driven by an Oriental chauffeur, he raced from bedroom to nightclub to artist’s studio. I cannot tell you who did it or why, but while it lasted it was racy, pacy and alive. With a much better story the Holmes episode was slow, bumbling and dead.

But, by comparison with ABC’s new series, Public Eye, both Holmes and Burke are masterpieces of TV technique. Its private eye, Frank Marker, is supposed to typify the new anti-hero figure.

He has sleazy offices, shady clients, an old sports jacket, stains on his tie, is plagued by income tax demands and when he gets into a fight, he loses.

All of this information came out of the TV Times. None of it was visible in Saturday’s first episode, “The Morning Wasn’t So Hot.”

In technique and subject matter, it brought back memories of “No orchids for Miss Blandish,” which I have always considered on the most tasteless British films ever made.

It concerned the activities of a pimp who picks up unsuspecting girls newly arrived in London and turns them into call-girls and prostitutes.

A little brunette, Jenny, is desired for their brothels by a crime syndicate and the pimp is forced to sell Jenny to them.

When Marker, who through no detection device that was visible to the naked eye, finally finds Jenny – her mother has been worried about her – Jenny decides she wants to stay a prostitute.

“Mr. Marker, last week I earned £300 [£6,500 today, allowing for inflation – Ed]. Did you?” is her decisive answer to his revelation that she has been sold to other brothel keepers. There’s a moral to keep our girls pure and unsullied.

Roger Marshall’s dialogue would best appeal to the paperback literati of Shaftesbury Avenue with sentences like “The nearest he gets to power is in your bed” and “He’s in town getting the lay of the land.”

Alfred Burke, as Marker, had little to do except look hang-dog and disgruntled while this flow of “ugh” poured over the screen.

During the advertisements I switched over to BBC and listened to Quintin Hogg and Malcolm Muggeridge in Not So Much engaging in a fascinating and adult discussion about sexual morality.

It is perhaps typical of our sense of values that Not So Much should be condemned as offensive while puerility like Public Eye will probably survive.

Which, in the end, is more corrupting?

The post Some of the things Burke (of Burke’s Law) can teach Sherlock Holmes appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

But that’s how it is: Miss Judith Durham, girl singer of The Seekers, and I. We outfit to be talking about poetry, blossom and what every young man’s fancy turns to in this sort of setting.

But the subject is Strine (Australian slang). And Judith, pert, articulate, seven subjects at “O” level (including languages) is doing the interpreting.

◉ Charlie Charm Puck: is how a true-drawling outback Aussie says “jolly jum-buck” (you know, the sheep in “Waltzing Matilda”).

◉ Anzac Tiles: are cracker biscuits. This goes back to the trenches of the First World War. Don’t hear it often these days.

◉ Gloria Sarah Titch: hmmm, that’s “glorious heritage.” Read it again quickly. Now you’re getting with it.

Just like I am this lunchtime. It’s break time during rehearsals for Tuesday’s The Des O’Connor Show. Judith (without the rest of The Seekers) is this week’s guest. She has just been rehearsing a song called “Somethin’ Stupid” with Des. And that mood has carried over. It’s that sort of day.

Not that Judith (she hates to be called Judy) goes around talking slang. On the contrary. She retains only a trace of Australian dialect in her speech. Born, bred and educated on the right side of the tracks in staid Melbourne, she has acquired a veneer of sophistication during her three years in England.

But she is still Aussie enough to know that Emma Chisat isn’t a girl but an inquiry about costs. And that Baked Necks hasn’t the slightest connection with sun-stroke, but is how a bushman might order a breakfast of bacon and eggs.

“Actually, there’s a Cockney influence in Strine,” she says. “You can’t live in Australia without coming into contact with it: right from the nursery, Dave. From the day you learn Chair Congeal and Lilma Smarfit…”

Hey, hold on now. Let’s take that slowly. That must be Jack and Jill and Little Miss Muffet?

“Right,” replies Judith. “Yer catching on fast, mite.” And she laughs.

She has fascinating dimples and brown eyes that crinkle happily when she’s smiling. A great sense of humour. I have a suspicion that she’s putting on the Strine strictly for my benefit. Aussie slang is rip-roaring, honky-tonk and Judith is neither. She is very, very feminine.

Judith is 23, and 5ft. 3in. tall and trim. She has lost 1st. in weight recently. Writes shorthand at 100 words per minute, types at 70 w.p.m., and writes long letters home to Mum two or three times a week, just like any other girl 12,000 miles from home. Courting… an English boy.

A big star with a sensational voice. But she prefers simplicity to glitter; sincerity rather than glamour. Her favourite piece of jewellery is a single pearl, set in marcasite, on a thin gold chain. A parental present and it is rarely missing from the Durham neck.

If Judith likes something or someone, it’s for keeps. She cares little for high fashion. If she likes a dress she wears it, regardless of whether it is “in” or not.

There’s no nonsense about the girl. She’s a bright conversationalist, but a good listener. Brainy, too. Won a prize at school for biology. Put it to practical use while dieting. “You know, all the facts about digestion,” she adds.

We stroll together through the trees to a shaded, typically English pub for refreshment. Like any Australian worth the name, petite Judith will go a beer, and “front up” when it’s her round. But today she is working. So it’s only orange juice. I order a classic Australian lunchtime dish — Hoppine Saws. Rough translation: hot pie and sauce.

She admits to getting nerves before shows. Judges herself harshly. “If I know I’m not singing well, I can’t understand why people are clapping,” she says, very earnestly. “And I know I can’t be singing well if I’m not enjoying myself.”

In March, The Seekers wowed an incredible audience of over 200,000 at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl during a triumphant homecoming in Melbourne.

That must have been quite a moment? “Yes, but I didn’t start enjoying my singing until our last number,” she says. “I don’t think that Melbourne concert can compare with The London Palladium Show we did recently. That was terrific: the audience, the orchestra, the atmosphere. That was show business magic all right. That was a sense of achievement.”

Now you would have expected an Aussie to have slipped in the expression “it was a real beaut.” But Judith doesn’t slip into the vernacular very often. You’ve got to melt the exterior to get through to these delightful Strine expressions. And then you’re never sure when she’s coming the raw prawn (pulling your leg).

Yes, she’s a splendid lunchtime date, and once you get her talking, she admits she misses Australia. The little things. Drive-in movies, Australian beer, cicadas (no, this word isn’t Strine, cicadas are a sort of winged cricket, which make a dreadful, persistent chirping noise). And she adds: “Funny, but you don’t seem to see so many rainbows in Britain, either.”

Maybe that’s because you’re not chasing so many any more, Judith.

The post Lanning at Large… finds a Seeker appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

“Coal,” she replies.

Now I am pouring tea and the thought of the with-it Miss Springfield whacking a bit of nutty slack around her alluring peepers is enough to put any man off target with a teapot.

Coal?

“That’s right,” says Dusty. “K-O-H-L kohl. It’s a metallic powder used in the East for darkening eyelids. Mix it with mascara and it works a treat. Lasts for ages, too… er, Dave, would you mind terribly pouring my tea into the cup, there’s a luv?”

Ahem, yes. I’ll leave the pouring to Mum — Dusty’s Mum — from now on. It’s Sunday, you see. One day of the week Dusty abandons the whirl of the top-pop world and her Knightsbridge flat. And comes home, to Chelsea, for tea.

There are scones, homemade sponge, a cheery fire. Dad — Mr. Gerald O’Brien, a tax consultant (he doesn’t handle the affairs of his family) puffs on a briar.

Mum — Mrs. Catherine O’Brien, puckish, petite, with incredibly twinkling eyes, buzzing about with chocolate biscuits.

They’re a close-knit, but far from overpowering family unit. The kids, Tom — a successful songwriter — and Dusty have gone their own ways. Changed their names to Springfield (Dusty has always been Dusty, it’s a nickname of no known derivation; Springfield originated when they were forming up as a group and actually rehearsed, in a field, in the spring, and put the two together because they couldn’t hit on anything else!)

They have their own flats, their own careers. But still, underneath, they’re the “O’B.s”

I’ve looked in to catch Dusty in a rare off-duty moment. Totally at ease. And maybe slip in a word about her appearance in The London Palladium Show on Sunday, too.

Now Dusty has a reputation for unpredictability. Has been known to throw crockery and cream gateaux about. And to weep openly when upset.

It all seems right out of character now. She’s home. She’s happy. And she says: “Honestly, I’m not nearly so scatty as I’m made out to be. At least, I don’t think I am.”

She’s short-sighted. Doesn’t try to hide it. Has broken three pairs of glasses in the past six weeks. “I keep sitting on them,” she says. “Never see them… um… because I’m not wearing glasses, I guess!”

She does like throwing things. “Cups,” she says, happily. I… er… edge away, taking my piece of the best O’Brien bone china with me.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she says. “I only go nutty once a year. Why? I love the sound effects. You see, I was brought up with a great appreciation of comedy; we always seemed to be laughing in this family. I was brought up on the Marx Brothers and The Goons. I’ve never got over the sound effects of either…”

That husky, smoky voice seems to drift away. “And those beautiful scenes of outrage. You know, the looks from bosomy ladies when a custard pie hit them slap in the face. Tremendous!

“That’s comedy art to me. The bursting of pomposity; the ruination of gentility. I’d love to throw a real custard pie…”

Such Goonish outbursts are rare. “Haven’t got the nerve to try them more than once every year,” adds Dusty.

With Dusty work comes first. She is the dedicated vocalist.

Not so hot at remembering lyrics, so writes out the words of her songs like “50 lines at school” to get them perfect. And actually has singing lessons before each performance — at least 15 minutes’ practising scales.

She’s 26, doesn’t smoke, can only be tempted to drink vodka drowned in cordial. Voted Britain’s top female vocalist in ’65 and ’66, and world top female singer in ’66. In show business, as a group singer and soloist, for 10 years. But still as fancy free as any teenager.

She owns little. A lot of clothes, perhaps. A fur coat (but it’s rabbit, not mink). No car. Did buy a house in Knightsbridge. Decided she wouldn’t spend enough time there to warrant the expense. So sold it almost immediately.

“And anyway, my home will always be here.”

It’s Mary Isobel Catherine O’Brien (her parents still call her Mary) feet up. Could be a Sunday scene anywhere.

I feel so much at home that it isn’t until I catch a glimpse of the television — a modest, 19in. job, tucked away in a corner —
that I recall … the Palladium. What about Sunday?

“Still not sure what I’m going to sing, Dave,” she says. “You know me — never plan ahead. I used to get excited and worked up about a Palladium show weeks beforehand.

“Now I won’t start doing my nut until at least Wednesday!”

Well, we’ve had our second cups. Finished the scones. Reached that quiet, peaceful most Sundayish of afternoon hours. Dusty is curling up on the curved grey settee, those remarkable eyelids drooping.

Sshh! I think Miss Springfield is dropping off. It’s all part of her Sunday afternoon at home, after all.

The post Lanning at Large… Tea with DUSTY SPRINGFIELD… not to mention Mum and Dad O’Brien appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

“Latest thing in dressing rooms, my darling,” he says, crinkling a happy grin. “Come in — and have a poppadum!”

Poppadum! It’s the Indian equivalent of a giant-sized potato-crisp. Very highly thought of in old Bombay. Just the sort of phonetic yo-yo that Charlie loves to get his tongue around … er, verbally.

But I am not going to be sidetracked. I’m here to learn about his new series Who is Sylvia? I have long suspected that television comedians have a championship going to see who can lead me farthest up the garden path…

This time. I’m not going to be led. So first, the show.

Charlie takes a deep, deep breath. “Yes, well this time I am not a little man looking for a job like I was in The Worker,” he says, crisply. “I am a little man looking for love; looking for Sylvia, the perfect little lady, haunting marriage bureaux, not employment exchanges and I hain’t ’alf seen a lot of London, lately, mate.”

It’s the filming, you see. Lots of location work. Which accounts for my chase. Except for the maternity hospital. Charlie hasn’t been there. It just happened to be the nearest spot with a phone which I wanted to use …

Charlie giggles. It’s a master giggle; deep, throaty, full of hidden menace. A Drake trademark. He’s a visual comic. He looks. He blinks. And the giggle is the greatest. A sort of custard pie prelude.

“David,” he says, raising his voice an octave or two. “Stop being so big. What with you, lamp-posts and trees, mate, I haven’t got a chance.”

Okay, so I’m 13 inches higher than his 5ft. 1in. So we look like the long and short of any situation. It hasn’t anything to do with Who is Sylvia? But there’s no stopping Charlie now.

“Ah-haaa, big things always gang up on me,” he says. “Trees. They keep whopping my car. And I am a beautiful driver. Beautiful.” Charlie has a primrose-yellow Jaguar E-type, which he calls his “Custard Torpedo.”

“And river trees, too,” he goes on. “Them on the river bank. They keep hitting my launch.” It’s a sleek, blue, 38-footer, which Charlie christened “Goodness Gracious” because that’s exactly what he said when he saw the price!

“Why are big, tall things always picking on me?”

Well, I’m not. Hardly getting a word in edgeways. It’s fun just listening to Charlie. He really has a real-life propensity for getting involved in comic situations. Like when he’s fishing.

Only Charlie could so regularly clump his right earhole with a lure when casting for pike. But then, it’s typical that when he once did hook out a 4lb. trout from the Thames near his home at Weybridge he “felt sorry for the little fishie and threw him back.” Very rare, too, are Thames trout.

Charlie tells his anecdotes with a twinkle in his blue eyes … eyes deeply embedded in laughter crinkles.

He jokes about his hobbies. But I happen to know he is a first-class angler, a crack shot. A golf handicap of six explains this is no rabbit. He paints — “stripped to the waist, mate, and daubing like mad” — but collected a fat four-figure fee for a sale of 38 of his works.

He does nothing by halves. If it’s slapstick, he‘s got to go one step beyond.

But Charlie Drake, despite his small stature, is physically hard as nails. Does no particular exercise to keep fit. Off duty smokes a lot, drinks champagne unashamedly. But works like a Trojan. Writing until three in the morning. Up at 6.45 a.m. Takes the rigours of location filming — pretty chilly this time of year — without a thought.

Filming … that reminds me. The show. Will it mean the end of Charlie in a boiler suit?

“Oh yes,” he replies. “This is my new uniform — topper and tails. Wedding togs. Don’t you think it suits me? Got the figure for it, ain’t I?”

Charlie, who has worked for seven months on the scripts for Who is Sylvia? carries the new “uniform” off with classic clown panache.

He seems in rip-roaring form.

And he’s due on the set. But hey, what about those poppadums? Haven’t had one yet. Wouldn’t mind a nibble now. “Oh them,” says Charlie, looking mischievous. “I’ve finished them, but I thought it would make a lovely word for your interview!”

Okay, okay, I wasn’t going to be side-tracked. So open up the garden gate and let me out. And go to the top of the comedians’ league, Charlie!

The post Lanning at Large with… Charlie Drake… and garden paths appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

It’s all very impressive and I’m beginning to think my hair has let me down. We try combing it. And back-combing it. Even Doddy’s magic fingers — which worked wonders on him — can’t make my hair stand on end. Can’t do a thing with it. And it wasn’t washed last night, either!

“Never mind,” says Doddy, brightly. “Let it settle a mo. We’ll attack it at intervals, when it’s unsuspecting. Maybe that will work.”

Now exactly why I should want my hair to stand erect after it has behaved itself like any decent English hair for years is rather a mystery. It’s just that with comedians, I always seem to get so involved. And end up in a whacky situation.

And they don’t come much whackier than sitting high above London’s fashionable Park Lane in an hotel executive suite, attempting … well … high coiffeur with Ken Dodd. But that’s Doddy for you: the most conventional conversation turns into a chuckle, a giggle, or a downright belly laugh.

Right now Doddy’s Music Box master is in London for cabaret. Such sessions, in between television, radio and recordings, mean high pressure living for Ken. You’d think he’d be all on edge. Go, go, go … gag, gag, gag. But no. He’s relaxed. That electric energy that powers his stage act rarely overlaps into his private life.

“It’s the reason I keep going, I suppose,” he says, quietly, with just a whisper of his native Knotty Ash dialect. “I don’t panic. Not any more. I’m able to relax. I’m a placid type.”

And he proceeds to show just how placid by attacking my skull from the back, rummaging like a housewife at a jumble sale! Ahem, I’d forgotten about his hair threat. But not to worry. Mine continues to lie doggo.

“But I have found a couple of little curls here,” says Ken. “And that’s a start.” Well, thank heaven for little curls …

That’s the trouble with Doddy. Just when you think you’ve got him talking seriously … BANG, something daft happens. It’s most discumknockerating.

Gosh, Doddy’s even got me at it now! But with Ken there’s always some little item, some link between the real life Kenneth Arthur Dodd and the man who tickles the fancy of the nation.

Look at his smart, well-tailored, but unobtrusive suit. What every go-ahead young business man is wearing this season.

But you can bet that somewhere in a pocket, there’s a scrap of paper on which Ken has jotted down a new gag, a new comedy routine.

“There’s one now,” he admits, delving deep into his wallet pocket. “On this envelope. It says ‘Knotty Ash Crown Jewels.’ Now that ties up with that silversmiths I passed this afternoon. Never done anything on that, and it lends itself. It’s daft enough.”

The Dodd comedy brain rarely stops working. And he must have quite a brain as hair like his would need something pretty sensational to take root in!

Still reads comics; never stops looking for the opportunity to slip in the quick ad lib.

“I work hard,” he says. “And eat three regular meals a day. Try to get a decent sleep each night, too. When I wake up in the morning, I exercise. Up, down. Up, down. Then the other eyelid!”

He has the master touch of leading into a gag casually, so you are completely unsuspecting. I throw back my head to guffaw and that is a mistake. Gives Ken a perfect chance to try again to get my hair to emulate his tonsorial acrobatics (that’s his explanation, by the way).

No go again. You can’t catch my hair by surprise. “But you’ve got a couple of grey hairs here,” observes Ken. “You’re getting a bit thin on top, too, if you’ll pardon the bald statement!”

H’mmm, back to the interview. Ken doesn’t smoke; thinks it is a “mug’s game.” Lives in a splendid 18th-century Georgian farmhouse in Knotty Ash. It’s packed with all the gear his abounding talents might require; piano, recording equipment, tapes, film, projector, Ken Dodd is the ultimate professional.

Makes a deep, philosophical study of humour; the breakdown of a gag, what exactly makes people laugh at it. Cheerfully admits there is no general rule — or if there is, he hasn’t found it. Says his hobby is “just chatting to ordinary people.” He’s 37, done the lot professionally. Could afford to sit back a bit, but still drives on. Looking forward to a new stage presentation at the Palladium; to a film; to his Doddy’s Music Box each week.

“Great mixing with these pop people,” he says. “They’re such good sports. I’m enjoying the shows greatly: you could call it a nice blend of pop and com.”

Well, it was his line, not mine.

And we’ve been talking almost an hour and his hair is still spiralling upwards. It’s incredible. I never want to see the Indian rope trick now. “Discovered my hair years ago,” he says. “It was on my head! But one night in my dressing room as I heaved off my pullover, my hair just stayed upright.”

And mine won’t. Ken makes a final attack and comes to a (sorry, but it’s catching) hairline decision.

“You haven’t upright hair,” he says, sadly. “You’re a case for the Diddy people.”

Oh yes, diddy people. We haven’t mentioned them. How did they begin? “It was my Uncle Jack,” says Ken, arching an eyebrow. “Years ago. He was a diddy man. Very small, quaint, red-faced, lovable, puckish. All the kids down our way called him diddy.”

Well, the hair doesn’t work. I am a dead loss at that. At my height (6ft. 2in.) I hardly qualify as a diddy man. Haven’t Ken and I something in common?

So what’s the Doddy-word for someone big, large, over six feet?

“Hoozey,” says Ken, quick as a shot.

Well, here goes. This week it’s Lanning At … Hoozey?

It just doesn’t seem me, somehow!

The post Lanning at Large… A hair raising experience! appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

On Sunday, though, in The London Palladium Show, the longest or shortest double act of them all (it depends upon which partner you are concentrating) is topping the bill.

Name of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Or Dudley Moore and Peter Cook if Dud happens to be your friend.

There are people who swear that Pete and Dud are the best double of the day — better even than the one on sale at the local pub. What is beyond doubt is that they are probably the best educated.

Pete went to Cambridge with a view to a career in the Foreign Office, while Dud went to Oxford.

Though not, as his partner maintains, with a view to a career in the Foreign Legion. That, in Dud’s opinion, is not even a “beau jest.”

Pete is the long, sauve, debonair one — what Dud calls 6ft. 2½in. of gangling cynicism. While Dud is just debonair and suave — sort of small, cuddly and passionate, to quote shh… you know who.

I talked to both and found it no good asking how they became partners, because they are still asking themselves that. It was just one of those things — and what a song title that would make.

They agree that TV was the marriage broker of their individual careers. Very much a “marriage” of opposites.

Dud’s a talented jazz musician and composer with magic fingers, while Pete doesn’t know his “A’s” from his “E’s.” Pete’s married and has two children, but Dud is a bachelor.

They met when that smash hit revue “Beyond the Fringe” was an idea. A London restaurant was the rendezvous and they sat there eyeing each other suspiciously.

Both thought much the same: “Heck, it’s only for one week so I’ll appear with him.” So far, that one week has lasted six years.

Pete says he couldn’t imagine teaming up with anyone else, although adding with a light laugh that he did meet Ernie Wise on holiday and jokes about a change of partners.

Dud sniffs good-naturedly at the veiled threat. “I shall be only too happy to go into partnership with Kathy Kirby. Pete’s just jealous because they asked me to take over from Roger Moore.”

Pete would like it known that, although appearances would suggest otherwise, he is the younger. “However, I am sure that the more discerning of viewers have already spotted it.”

Dud? “Yes, it’s true Pete’s younger, but the audience know I am the more experienced. Helping a lame dog over the stile and encouraging new talent.”

The banter continues on the subject of billing. Pete says blandly that he is above trite argument and like any other fair man is willing to settle for alphabetical order.

Dud’s Oxonian sophistication is equal to the occasion. He maintains that as alphabetical superiority is the only thing Pete’s got, then let him have his way.

The partners have never had a row — but like all Scouts are prepared should one happen. “If it ever comes to a punch-up,” says Pete, “I fancy my chances. Do remember, though, that he is nippy on his feet.”

“And what is more,” says Older Moore, “I would wear him down with body punching.”

Dud and Pete are the comic’s best friend. They laugh at all comedy acts. Yet the surprising thing is they know only two jokes between them.

“I can’t remember jokes,” says Pete. “But then I hope we’re more humorists than comedians. When we plan our act we think in terms of comedy situations and dialogue. Say Dud as a jockey and me as a racehorse owner.

“We switch on a tape recorder and ad-lib how the sketch might develop. We don’t actually write things down.

“This is because I can’t read my writing and Dud’s got a cramped hand.”

On Sunday afternoon, Dud will start to grow a little nervous and gloomy as transmission time draws near. Pete helps to keep up morale.

But, eventually. Pete gets affected, too, and it’s then that Dud brightens the mood. As a kind of safety valve, they spend the final minutes in the dressing room trying out a host of character parts and voices.

Soon, when Dud moves into his new house at Hampstead, they will be neighbours. Ready for that day Pete has already bought his partner a ping-pong table for a present.

“The reason for my generosity,” he whispers, “is that I haven’t a spare room in my own house. He will have to make room in his and all I have to do is stroll up the road for a game.”

“Huh,” says Dud. “What Pete doesn’t know is that when he goes on holiday I’m going to put a squash court in his bedroom.”

The post DUDLEY and PETER: ‘We’ve only two jokes between us!’ appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

For, en route to the sausage factory, these piggies get some snorting good laughs. From the antics of us humans.

There’s the young master: Mark Rowe. Only 19. They call him the latest “Golden Boy” of British boxing. But every morn before dawn, he’s in with the pigs. Dispensing swill. Then he goes over ploughed fields for a three-mile run.

And the boss. Bill Rowe. Not nearly so energetic. But he ambles about in mid winter in a vest, like some great contented bear. Splendidly hospitable, but rumbles away because his big son is chopping down all the trees on his 200-acre spread.

Oh yes. Strange are the goings-on at Grove Farm. The pigs wouldn’t swop it for the Palladium.

Take today. Photographer Peter Bolton and I arrive to have words with Mark. It’s all to do with the ITV boxing programme, Professional Boxing, on Wednesday, when the piggies’ 11st. 51b., 5ft. 1Oin. young master attempts to … well … bring home the bacon against Jack Powe, of Preston, in a contest that Mark hopes will prepare him eventually for a middleweight title fight.

It’s bang in the middle of Mark’s punishing training routine. Nothing else for it but to join in. Dad Bill says: “He’ll be back from his run along that bit o’ path over there. Careful where you tread, now.”

The pigs line up to watch the fun. They do not have long to wait.

Photographer Pete, doubtless attempting to obtain the Picture of the Year, disappears knee-deep into a patch where only pigs would feel at home! Ahem, I think I’ll stay here, close by Mark’s private gym. There are concrete paths here.

Mark pants in. Looks in great trim. Doesn’t say much. Doesn’t go much on publicity. He’s shy, insular but not unfriendly. Right now he’s training and that’s the job in hand.

He says: “Hold the punchbag for me, will you, please?” Well, there’s a half-hundredweight of padding to protect me. But the destructive punches of Mark have the power to swing the bag. And I swing with it. This kid packs a wallop!

Mark seems concerned. “I’m not hitting with full power,” he says quietly — it’s almost a whisper. “I daren’t. Without bandages on my hands. I’d split my knuckles.”

Ahem. Jack Powe on Wednesday must face this teakish teenager with bandages and without a punch-bag to hide behind and I for one wish him well.

Mark doesn’t talk about his private life, but from Bill Rowe I learn Mark:

• it owns 100 acres of his own and 13 houses:
• has his own private swimming pool, gymnasium and 40-record juke box;
• spends his holidays in Florida .
• was paid £10,000 to turn pro after a sensational amateur career in which he lost only three of his 100 fights and won an Empire Games Gold Medal:
• drives a blue, two-seater Lotus Elan — and is thinking of switching to a Ferrari with the same nonchalance as I order an oil change!

So why box?

Mark stops throwing punches. Muses deeply. He always uses his head before engaging his mouth. Then replies: “It’s purely ambition. I want to be the greatest boxer in the world.”

Don’t imagine this is a playboy boxer with an oversize ego.

Playboys don’t rise before dawn to clean out a pig-sty. They’re not in bed every night before 10. Nor do they go without smokes and drinks. “Mind, I do go to the pictures in the afternoons about three times a week,” adds Mark, a trifle sheepishly. “I shoot a bit, too. Pheasants, rabbits, you know.”

Girl friends, then? “Yes, I did have a couple once,” says Mark with great disinterest. I do not pursue the subject; right now we’re doing pull-ups on the bars. I am in no mood for talking, because I’ve run out of breath.

Mind, Mark has most of the attributes that girls require from a pin-up. Blue eyes. College-boy style hair. His boyish good looks unmarked after more than 100 amateur scraps and five tough professional encounters. There is a scar on the bridge of his nose. “A childhood accident,” he explains.

He still reckons his most exciting moment was when a fiery old boar got loose and needed rounding up, cowboy style.

That’s the morning training over. Mark must lunch, grab a sleep, then roar up into the East End to another gym for sparring practice.

I’m rather glad I’m not his weight. Otherwise I bet he would have me in there.

And that would have been enough to make a pig laugh

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Still, finding Hugh Manning at the door of his six-room bachelor flat with a cup of coffee is reassuring. Hugh is an early morning man. It’s the best time to talk to him about Mrs. Thursday and the role of Richard Hunter, the lady’s financial adviser which he plays in the series. In a royal blue dressing gown he looks like a man who has been up for some time. “And I have,” he says, running a hand through his hair and slightly ruffling its well-ordered appearance, “since before 7.30, in fact!”

Now this morning I can make the same claim. But for Hugh, it’s the same each day. Up by 7.30 a.m. Doesn’t matter how late he retired. He’s up. Has a sluice. And ambles down for a cup of strong tea, without sugar.

Here, in this lofty-ceiling, airy kitchen, Hugh sits looking rather like a character out of a Noel Coward stage production.

A bath. Then breakfast, which is usually sketchy. “Sometimes just bread and cheese,” he says. “But of course, we’re talking about mornings when I’m not out and playing tennis.”

That’s a relief, anyway. Interviews I can manage at this time of the morning. Tennis is another thing altogether. But regularly Hugh abandons all but his tea and scoots off to a local tennis club (which he co-founded some years ago). After an energetic set or two, he might breakfast frugally on an egg.

At 9.45, he’s off to the television studio. Between breakfast and then, he attends to the “little jobs a wife might do, if I had a wife.” Like laundry and shopping. Hugh relishes shopping. But he doesn’t clean. A cleaner does that for him.

The lounge is comfortable, warm, yet dignified. Lined with books, on subjects from anthropology to Mrs. Beaton’s Book on Cooking and Household Management. “I do a great deal of reading,” he says, lighting his first cigar of three he smokes every day. “And I like to listen to good music, too.”

He cooks with abounding enthusiasm. But ignores recipes. Pours in what he thinks is right. Tastes as he goes along. And delights in experimenting with sweet and sour contrasts, like sugar and yoghourt. “You could say my cooking speciality is Chicken Marengo,” he says. “But don’t ask me what goes in — it varies every time! I have a great liking for Indonesian food, too. It combines the subtleties of Chinese cooking with the power of Indian.”

Hugh dines out three times a week normally. Usually in a “rather splendid Indian place down the road.” A great curry man. But doesn’t make them himself.

“Can’t master the technique,” he says, furrowing a brow. “And I’d rather go out and get the real thing than make do with a pale imitation.”

He lives alone. But is never lonely. Has a wide circle of friends. Didn’t marry because “I was in love with a girl at 18, it all fell through and that was it as far as I was concerned.”

Once trained as a chartered accountant, gave it up because, typically, “I didn’t like it.” Started acting, aged six “and stopped the show by waving and shouting to my parents in mid-poem.” Now an urbane 47, a contented 14 stone, and “thoroughly enjoying life” in Mrs. Thursday. A series which means him getting, for the first time in his career, fan mail.

“Mostly from elderly ladies,” he says, just a teeny bit embarrassed. “And mostly charming. Mind, I did have one letter from a six-year-old boy who said he thought my face lit up like a headlamp!”

Tries to answer all his fan mail. Personally. Hugh wouldn’t want it any other way.

Finances. Does he care for his own cash with the same polished precision as Richard Hunter shows for Mrs. Thursday’s windfall? “Oh no,” he says. “I have an accountant; never worry about money myself. Never have an inkling how much I’ve got in my pocket. If I have a lot I spend it. I’m dreadfully extravagant. I don’t think money is worth worrying about.”

Which is just the sort of answer I expect from Hugh Manning, a gentleman to his fingertips, and a most interesting early morning companion. It’s not nearly so grey outside now. And what’s this? A taxi lurking right outside. I’ll wager Hugh even organised that.

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Doesn’t seem to have a care in the world. Just grins and explains: “Well, Dave, so much of my time is spent in dressing rooms. Now I make the most of it. And I like to talk to people like you in them.”

I’m here at Frank’s invitation. Subject is the new series of The Frank Ifield Show, which starts this week. Now I was thinking of dropping in on him and young wife Gillian, formerly a Palladium dancer, at their new home, on the outskirts of London.

Frank says “no.” Not that he’s unsociable. Just the opposite. But he hasn’t finished decorating. And he likes to keep his private life … well, private.

And there’s an awful lot of interesting aspects about Frank this side of his front door …

His handshake, for a start. Talk about a grip. Has the sort of power you’d expect only from Popeye! Frank has large, strong hands. Brawny arms. He’s built like a stockman and just doesn’t look right employed exclusively applying stage makeup to his nose right now.

“Always do my own ‘slap,’” he remarks, slipping casually into friendly, slangy tones. “Feel such a Charlie letting anyone else do it.”

Incredible how he dedicates himself to the business. Doesn’t eat a morsel for six hours before any performance. “Must give food time to digest properly,” he says. Doesn’t drink, either. Not that he’s much of a drinker in any circumstances. Just imported Australian beer, as a “swill-down” with a meal.

Smokes a bit; only filters. And cuts right down on these when doing anything athletic in his act. Like sword-fighting, or dancing.

Been in the big time for years and years now. But still gets butterflies in the stomach … and admits it cheerfully now as he starts changing into his blue evening suit. Still likes to sing the old numbers he did back in Australia.

And still prefers to sing in bare feet. “Was always happier wandering about without shoes as a kid,” he says. “And that’s stuck, too. Although I only ever kick off my shoes during recording sessions.”

Sssh. Loudspeaker is crackling. “Fifteen minutes, Mr. Ifield, please.” Still bags of time. But Frank is ready to go now. Looks immaculate. Dozens of artists would start pacing the floor. Not Frank. He’s too much of a professional to let his butterflies show.

Singer-wise, he’s come a long, long way from the nipper singing “Ten Green Bottles” with his brothers in an air raid shelter in Coventry. Done the lot. really. And there’s still a whole lot of his adopted country, Australia, in the Frank underneath.

The slang. It flits unobtrusively and musically into his conversation. I don’t suppose he’s ever said “fair dinkum, sport” or anything as corny as that. But to Frank, carefully going over guitar chords, beer is grog, sixpence is a zack, his suit is his whistle, sausages are snags, and anything he finds remotely agreeable is beauty.

He’s on in five minutes. We stroll to the wings. Out front, a packed, sophisticated audience. We’re still chatting about the series.

“There’s Ted Rogers. Great comedian. Looking forward to working with him,” he says.

Drums roll. Frank strides confidently away. His last words: “See you, Dave. I’ll give you a call next time I land up in a hot dressing room …”

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