Titter Ye Not!

On the Road (#ulink_bd8ca9d7-7692-5a5e-bf6d-03799a1bcb40)

In 1942 Bombardier Howard was transferred to Wales, and found himself ensconsed in an Army Experimental Station in a remote coastal area near Swansea. It was while he was there, pushing a pen for Requisitions by day and writing comedy sketches with it by night, that word of an Army concert party called Stars in Battledress reached his ears. It had been formed on the lines of ENSA to boost the morale of the boys at various bases along the Allied Front. It could mean being sent into Europe or North Africa or to the Far East, wherever a war zone was located.

Frankie volunteered the same day he heard about it. In all, he volunteered four times – but on each occasion his audition was given the thumbs-down. If a bad workman blames his tools, and a bad comic is tempted to blame his material, Frankie, who was by now a remarkably good comic, must be unique in this case in being able to blame his audience. Of one.

The lone stranger was the ‘interviewing officer’, who behind the pips and a bored expression sat alone in large empty Nissen huts while the would-be stars in battledress did their best to impress him. Frankie needed a full house, a large audience to tease along. His ‘Oooh, no – now lis-sen!’ had the hollow echo of failure, and he knew it almost before he left the hut to await the verdict a week later.

It was their loss – but in those days, who could know? Frankie tried not to feel disillusioned, but it wasn’t easy. Especially for a performer whose opinion of himself seesawed wildly between adrenalin-fuelled buoyancy and the stricken depths of self-doubt. The station was too small to warrant a regular concert, so he joined a local amateur dramatic society to keep his feet near the footlights.

The war dragged on. The only significant event in Frankie’s life was when he was promoted to Sergeant, and put in charge of a large Army lorry packed with soldiers. With only half a dozen driving lessons behind him – ‘Well, there’s the Army for you, always ready to test new talent’ – Frankie lost control inside a minute, and drove the giant vehicle through a hedge and into a tree. No one was hurt, and Frankie never got behind a driving-wheel again in his life.

His brother Sidney was in the RAF and sister Betty was doing her bit for King and Country in the ATS. Frankie was actually part of the D-Day force that set out for the dawn invasion on 6 June, but neither the Germans nor more than a boat-load of men in his own Royal Artillery battalion were aware of it. The merchant ship that took him across to the beaches was unable to disembark its troops because of heavy seas, and wallowed in the swell until the first wave of the invasion had long passed on its way. Frankie was only dimly aware of what was going on – to boils and pneumonia, add sea-sickness.

He was posted to Lille, then transferred to Brussels as part of the Military Establishment. Frankie would tell a hilarious story of how he personally liberated Holland, simply by being in the first staff car to arrive at The Hague after his convoy became lost in fog. His bewildered uniformed figure was hoisted aloft by cheering crowds, and carried shoulder high through the cobbled streets. ‘I was even asked for my autograph,’ he said. There’s a first time for everything.

Frankie was demobbed three months after VE Day brought the war to its final end. He had served six years and given of his best. And if he had made little obvious dent in the German war machine, those noisy nights in a smoke-filled Mess would prove a useful training ground for his future forays into the front line. Like other wartime entertainers, Frankie had instinctively acquired the special gift of getting through to fighting men in battlegrounds across the world. He would put it to good use.

Meanwhile he had a living to earn. And no real qualifications, apart from a one-page reference from a Major Richard Stone, who later became an agent, in appreciation of his concert party efforts.

So began the daily slog around West End agents. It was tiring, demoralizing and ultimately mind-numbing. Immediately after the war was a period when cinemas and live theatre were on the upswing, reflecting the euphoria of the times. People wanted to laugh, to be entertained. With no television to keep them glued to the flickering screen in their homes, they went out looking for their fun. Music halls were packed. Variety was king, and Frankie was desperate to be one of the courtiers.

But the agents were all powerful. Without their backing, it was almost impossible for a struggling hopeful to get on the boards – although Norman Wisdom, with admirable tenacity, had managed it. He had hounded the owner of Collins Music Hall for three weeks until the poor man finally succumbed to his pleadings and gave him a week’s work – paying him a fiver, which the Scrooge immediately took back as commission.

It was a hard world and you had to have enormous faith in yourself to survive. Frankie grew used to climbing flights of wooden stairs in Soho backstreets, where he’d sit with other hopefuls on hard chairs in a small room waiting for the summons into the inner sanctum. He got to recognize the same faces, thumbing through dog-eared copies of The Stage, the performers’ Bible. And always it was the same. ‘I must have tramped across half London every week,’ he said. ‘They would ask: “What are you working in now?” Honestly! The daftness of it.

‘“Nothing,” I’d tell them. “If I was working I wouldn’t need you, would I?” That’s common sense, isn’t it? But somehow it still got me nowhere.’

Nowhere, that is, until he chanced on an agent named Harry Lowe. ‘Tell you what,’ said Harry, taking pity on the dejected figure sitting across the desk from him. ‘Why don’t you get yourself a spot on the Stage Door Canteen, and I’ll come to see you.’ That was one option Frankie hadn’t tried, mainly because the Stage Door Canteen didn’t pay any money. It was an ex-Servicemen’s bar in Piccadilly, with an adjoining concert hall where big names entertained the Services, waiving their fees, and the supporting acts came from the ranks. The atmosphere was one of beer mats and nostalgia, and Frankie, putting an inquiring nose round the door, felt instantly at home.

There was one snag. Civilians weren’t allowed on the stage unless they were topping the bill, by invitation.

Undeterred, Frankie hurried back to his bedroom in Eltham, opened the battered suitcase he’d left on top of his wardrobe and pulled out the uniform he had folded neatly away, never really expecting to use it again. And off went Sergeant F.A. Howard that same afternoon, taking the bus to Piccadilly, and all the time in a sweat in case a redcap military policeman tapped him on the shoulder and demanded to see his papers.

He marched into the secretary’s office, snapped to a smart salute, and produced the creased reference from Major Stone. And to his astonishment was told: ‘All right. You’re on next week. Friday, seven o’clock sharp.’

Frankie raced for the phone in the corner of the bar, and called up the agent. ‘I’ll be there,’ Harry promised.

Butterflies once again, having a field day. But looking out at a familiar sea of faces in uniform, Frankie felt the nerves dissipate, to be replaced by a feeling of sudden elation. There was no sign of Harry Lowe, but he presumed the agent was somewhere at the back, watching from the shadows. And Frankie gave it all he’d got, the big butcher’s hands flying about as he patrolled the stage, pressing the palms together, squeezing his nose, pulling at his chin, regaling the audience with his Army adventures until they were dissolved into helpless laughter. Especially D-Day. That was the one, he recalled later, that went down best. ‘There I was, rolling about in the scuppers … yes, the scuppers, well and truly scuppered I was… And pea-green … don’t laugh if you haven’t tried it, sir … Oh, I see by your shirt that you ’ave … Never mind, it’ll wash out …’

And the cowardly approach. As a raw sentry, he told them, he jumped out of his skin when the sergeant crept up on him. ‘What would you ’ave done if I’d really been a German?’ bellowed the sarge.

‘I’ve already done it!’ was the anguished reply.

That night was a riotous success, apart from one slight drawback – Harry Lowe never turned up.

‘I went out, flogged myself to death, and thought: “This is it, Francis. You’re in!” But when I looked for him afterwards – no sign. I was sickened. I’d put so much into it, built up all my hopes. What a let-down.’

Not entirely. By luck, another agent had dropped by for a drink in the bar that night. Attracted by the gusts of laughter from the hall, Stanley Dale walked over and slipped inside the door to stand quietly at the back. Stanley, then with the powerful Jack Payne agency, would later carve his own niche as the man reputed to have the biggest private collection of music hall posters in Britain. He would also become Frankie’s manager. Right then, he was just starting out.

He didn’t waste time or mince his words. As the downcast comic trudged towards the exit, Stanley grabbed him by the sleeve. ‘Would you like us to represent you?’

Frankie gaped at him. Ex-bandleader Jack Payne was one of the most influential agents in the business and an impresario who could put on his own shows too. Forgetting all about the danger of being run in for impersonating a member of the armed forces, Frankie said yes on the spot – and went home to tell his mum. Edith Howard was thrilled for her son.

But first there was one more hurdle to overcome. Frank Barnard was the agency’s general manager and vetted all the applicants wanting to be taken on the books. Florid, stocky and intimidating, Barnard put the fear of God into any newcomer who passed nervously within the portals of his office. But his reasoning was simple. If the hopeful could survive the first ten minutes with him, he could win over an audience.

Frankie had his first taste of it when he faced the formidable presence over a large glass-topped desk and a haze of cigar smoke two floors above Mayfair. A piano stood in one corner of the office. Barnard glowered at him. ‘Well,’ he barked. ‘Have you got your band parts?’

Frankie had come with full hopes but empty pockets. No sheet music. No accompanist. He had had no idea he was on trial and supposed to give an audition.

‘Er – do you have anyone who can play “Three Little Fishes?” he ventured lamely.

Barnard stunned him by launching into a tirade of invective that rocked him back in his seat. The general theme was that the Jack Payne agency was not in the business of bolstering Amateur Night Out for incompetents. Poor Frankie was told to wait outside.

He was allowed to sit and run the gamut of emotions from shivering with fear to simmering with suppressed fury … for four hours. What he didn’t know was that Stanley Dale had given him a huge build up, and that the agency was genuinely interested. It was a serious lapse in communication.

Finally Barnard summoned him back – just when Francis had worked himself into a full head of steam, and didn’t care what he said. In short, he went in and gave his potential mentor an earful.

Through the clouds of anger he was dimly aware that Barnard was now the one to rock back in his seat as Frankie stammered and stuttered, first in a-mazement, then with laughter. Pulling out a handkerchief the agent wiped his eyes and said: ‘OK, you’re in! That was wonderful!’

‘It was?’ said Frankie, totally demoralized. But he was in, and that was all that mattered.

Spring, 1946. The Jack Payne organization was going through its books, preparing to go out on the road for nine long months with a variety show that would encompass every major theatre in the country. It was to be called For the Fun of It, and Frankie felt the excitement mounting as he got ready to embark on his first professional engagement.

This was the moment he decided to change the spelling of his name. There were just too many Howards cluttering up the cast lists, from Trevor to Arthur to Sidney, and he felt he was getting lost in the crush. So ‘Frankie Howerd – The Borderline Case’ was born, and found its way on to billboards up and down the country. ‘At least I’ll be noticed for the misprint,’ he told his agents.

Someone else would be on the tour with him. A brash unknown described by Stanley Dale in a letter to BBC producers when he was giving his new client the big sell as ‘A talented young impressionist who is going to make his mark’. His name was Max Bygraves.

Frankie first set eyes on Max when they found themselves reporting to the Aeolian Hall in Mayfair for an audition to appear on a BBC variety show, prior to the start of their own tour. Both of them were keyed up. Max covered his nervousness with a veneer of ‘Let’s go out and slay ’em’. Frankie merely looked petrified.

Frankie went in first. He did his comedy routine in a bare room with only a table and a microphone for company. Plus a glass panel through which the auditioning producer sat watching with a critical eye. Max followed, and did his impressions to the wall. At the end he felt like climbing it.

‘It was a very depressing experience for both of us,’ Max recalls. ‘Neither of us had a chance to put our personalities across. Frank couldn’t pull faces. My impressions had to be strictly sound only. We could have got away with it, but the atmosphere was all wrong.

‘Frank had gone out and bought a suit specially for the audition. He chose his usual colour – brown, which he felt was warm and relaxing for the audience. He wanted to appear as if he was chatting in a pub, or had just come in off the street for a natter.

‘The sleeves on the suit were too short, but when I pointed it out all Frank said was, “I know. It’s deliberate. I talk with my wrists.” A lot of good that did him on radio!

‘Afterwards he was in a high old state. “I was bloody awful, wasn’t I?” he moaned. “I couldn’t stop myself ooh-ing and aahing …”’

As for Max, he swung valiantly into impressions of Hutch and all five of the Inkspots crooning ‘I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire’.

He didn’t. Nor did Frankie. The impression both of them made on the producer was of the kind that says ‘Don’t call us …’ and they found themselves wandering disconsolately down Bond Street together, wondering if they were in the right business.

Luckily they were both on the books of the bustling Jack Payne agency, and on the variety tour of For the Fun of It. Bottom of the bill, but who cared? They were in, which was what mattered, and a summer of work beckoned.

First stop: the Sheffield Empire. Frankie and Max were billed on the posters in a curious little box announcing ‘They’re Out!’ With them was a third act, a contortionist named Pam Denton. She was a vivacious, attractive girl who tied herself happily into sinuous knots – and captivated Frankie from the moment he set eyes on her.

He had always been fascinated with speciality acts, and the more bizarre they were, the better he liked it. Women who could do strange and exciting things with their bodies or their talent were a turn-on. When he finally was able to command his own show, he always insisted on at least one ‘spesh’ act in his tours around the country. Blonde Joan Rhodes, the ‘world’s strongest woman’ was one he took to Northern Ireland with his troupe. He even discovered his most famous – and long-suffering – lady pianist Sunny Rogers when she was a rope-twirling cowgirl!