Clips From A Life

PLATE THREE

Melvin Frank. Photograph courtesy of Brut Productions/Ronald Grant Archive.

Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell.

A Thurber original.

It’ll Be Alright on the Night.

It’ll Be Alright on the Night cartoon.

The Crazy Gang: Bud Flanagan, Charlie Naughton, Jimmy Gold, Jimmy Nervo and Teddy Knox. Photograph by Houston Rogers courtesy of the Mander & Mitchenson Theatre Collection, © V&A.

‘Monsewer’ Eddie Gray.

Chesney Allen and Bud Flanagan.

DN and the Brylcreem touch. Photograph courtesy of Ronald Grant Archive.

Sanders of the River. Photograph courtesy of London Film Productions/Ronald Grant Archive.

Moore Marriott. Photograph courtesy of BFI Stills.

Countdown: Richard Whiteley, Carol Vorderman and DN. Photograph © ITV/Granada.

The young DN.

FOREWORD (#u0ca8215a-85f8-5b80-be54-39a77f90a90e)

In a long-ago New Yorker cartoon, a publisher is seen advising the anxious author whose slim volume of memoirs he has just tossed aside, ‘Cut out all the insights and beef up the anecdotes.’

And insofar as I have followed any guiding principle for the ensuing ruminative rummage, that injunction would more or less cover it.

No other discipline was observed. For some eighteen months or so, I simply set down each recollection as it arrived, making no attempt to impose any order, merely letting them pile up without regard for chronology or variousness. The process was so similar to the way we used to gather in clips for the TV shows from which I had been earning my bread and non-fat butter-substitute over the past forty-some years, it seemed appropriate to acknowledge the resemblance in the book’s title. At the very least, that gave me an excuse to abandon This is On Me, The Story Thus Far, Innocent Bystanding and Some of the Bits Frank’s Book Left Out.

As might have been expected, the project ended up as a higgledy-piggledy mishmash of moments that had amused or impressed me over the course of my working life, each complete in itself but in aggregate an undisciplined jumble of 250-plus jottings as disconnected and random as the wisps and scraps of memory that delivered them.

‘Do you want me to rearrange them so that they make more of a straight line across the decades?’ I asked Louise Haines, my infinitely patient editor.

‘I’m not averse to a bit of backwards and forwards zig-zagging,’ she replied. ‘We might even make some kind of virtue of it.’

Thankful for this – you only have to Google my screenplay credits to see how small a gift I have for sustained narrative – I was even more grateful when she added, ‘If you could just work out a separate timeline for me, I’ll try to put the bits and pieces into some kind of minimally coherent order, then chop it into chapters.’

This she proceeded to do, with considerable diligence and ingenuity, in the process achieving an agreeable (to me, anyway) reversal of Life’s customary running order by positioning my chronicles of childhood up towards the book’s rear end. Incidentally, that timeline, for those who feel the need of it, can be found on page xvii.

But in addition to Louise, there are several others to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for helping me get the thing finished. Foremost among them is Avril, my wife, who not only painstakingly scrutinised and proofed each paragraph as it was hewn from the living rock, she managed the some would say impossible task of keeping my spirits up throughout.

I’m also indebted to Maggie, my daughter, Nick, my son, and his wife Elspeth, whose unfaltering encouragement, reinforced by offerings from all manner of recherché delis, acted as a constant spur. Nor could I have done without the clear-eyed interventions of Zoe and Katy, my grand-daughters, and the long-distance support of Jamie, the grandson.

My warmest thanks also go to Brenda Talbot, my secretary from way back, who, with her husband, John, performed miracles of delving and digging; to Norma Farnes, my literary agent, and April Young, my everything-else agent, for taking care of the hard-headed stuff; to Doctor Paul Blom, for keeping me near enough seventy per cent road-worthy and Kieran Pascal for performing roughly the same function with my IT equipment.

I would add a further thank-you note to Jamie Muir, for giving me permission to quote one of Frank’s My Word! stories and to Messrs Eyre Methuen for allowing me to reprint bits from Coming To You Live! and the My Word! books.

But enough now of the Opening Titles. Cue Clips.

TIMELINE (#u0ca8215a-85f8-5b80-be54-39a77f90a90e)

1922 Born 6 February, Mare Street, Hackney, within the sound of Bow Bells.

1927 Craven Park Elementary School.

1933 City of London School.

1939 Joined Hyams Brothers Gaumont Super Cinemas at State, Kilburn.

1940 Transferred to Trocadero, Elephant & Castle, as Assistant Manager.

1941 Gaumont, Watford, as General Manager (‘Youngest Cinema Manager in the country’).

1942 Also managed Town Hall Music Hall, Watford. Wrote History of the Holborn Empire (radio), six programmes presented by Sidney Caplan, Musical Director at Holborn Empire, then Watford. Left to join RAF.

1943 Married Avril.

1944 To France on D-Day; thence Belgium, Holland, Germany.

1945 Demobbed; joined Hyman Zahl Variety Agency as staff writer.

1946 Joined Ted Kavanagh Associates, a cooperative of writers. Wrote Bentley in London for Australian radio.

1947 Son Nicholas born. Wrote links for Beginners Please (radio), Variety series introducing new performers fresh out of the forces; producer Roy Speer. Met Frank Muir.

1948Take It From Here (radio), written with Frank for ten years. We collaborated for seventeen years, writing film scripts, stage revues, TV series; appeared together on panel games, including My Music (radio and TV), My Word! (radio), What’s My Line (TV), The Name’s the Same (TV). Wrote Bernard Braden programmes (radio and TV). Wrote links for ShowTime (radio), Variety programme showcasing newcomers; presenter Dick Bentley; first broadcasts included Bob Monkhouse; producer Roy Speer. Starlight Hour (radio), sixty-minute series; written with Frank and Sid Colin; starred Alfred Marks, Benny Hill, Geraldo and orchestra.

1949Third Division (radio), written with Frank, with contributions from Paul Dehn. First comedy show allowed on ‘highbrow’ Third Programme; included Balham: Gateway to the South; with Robert Beatty, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, Michael Bentine, Benny Hill, Robert Moreton; producer Pat Dixon.

1950Breakfast with Braden (radio), written with Frank; live Saturday mornings; with Bernard Braden, Barbara Kelly, Benny Lee, Pearl Carr, Nat Temple and orchestra. Series became Bedtime with Braden, then Between-times with Braden.

1951Here’s Television (TV), one-off, one-hour sketch show, written with Frank. First programme to send up TV. Maggie born. Gently, Bentley (radio), written with Frank. Performed in Australia on ABC, with Australian cast.

1952In All Directions (radio); the first radio comedy series the BBC allowed to be aired without a script. Frank and I devised and edited it into coherence. Starred Peter Ustinov and Peter Jones, who played all the characters and most of the sound effects. London Laughs (revue), Adelphi Theatre; with Jimmy Edwards, Tony Hancock, Vera Lynn (later Shirley Bassey); ran two years.

1953Barbara with Braden (TV), written with Frank; with Barbara Kelly, Bernard Braden; producer Brian Tesler. The Name’s the Same (radio), panel game; with Frank, myself, Fanny Craddock and Frances Day. In 1954, it won National Radio Award as the Most Promising New Programme. Programme didn’t make it to 1955.

1954And So to Bentley (TV), b/w live; written with Frank; with Dick Bentley, Peter Sellers, Bill Fraser, Jackie Collins. Between-times with Braden (radio); written with Frank.

1955Bath-night with Braden (TV), b/w, live; written with Frank; with Bernard Braden; produced by Brian Tesler. Began writing sketches, with Frank, for George and Alfred Black’s Blackpool Summer Shows, continued until 1963. Arthur Haynes starred in one revue.

1956Whack-o! (TV), written with Frank; 63 episodes to 1972, 47 live and b/w. Set in Chiselbury School. Finkle’s Café (radio), ‘where the posh squash to nosh’, written with Frank. Based on American series, Duffy’s Tavern, ‘where the elite meet to eat’. With Peter Sellers, Sid James, Avril Angers, Kenneth Connor; producer Pat Dixon.