An Evening with Johnners (9 page)

M
y son Barry has put together a little montage of four things that I did. The first one is when I went to the circus at Harringay. They had an act where a horse went cantering around and people from the audience were invited to try and get up on him. They were helped up, to see if they could kneel and then stand on his back and, if they fell, there was rope they could hold on to.

This went on for about ten minutes and then a clown, who was sitting in the audience disguised as an ordinary member of the public, would always come up and do somersaults and all sorts of things. He ended his act by pretending to fall off. You see, he was an expert rider and,
as he fell, he used to pull a little tape which released his trousers and they always fell off as he landed in the ring.

They said to me, ‘Right. You can do that.’ So I want you to imagine a packed Harringay Circus seeing a BBC man losing his trousers, and this is what happened:

Ringmaster:
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are now “on the air” and tonight we have a distinguished guest with us, Mr Brian Johnston of
In Town Tonight,
and he’s going to have a go.’

Brian:
‘Well, here we go. I am approaching the horse. I’ll just give him a pat. That’s all right. Now, up we go and we are going to try and get up there. Give me a leg up, can you? Whoa! Whoa! No! I’m not up yet!

‘Right. I’m cantering around. I’m just sitting up on the horse now and he’s going very nicely, a nice steady canter. He’s a good horse. And now in a moment I’m going to try and get up on all fours, which is what one has to do, and I’m sitting up … Argh! Steady with that whip!

‘I’m on all fours now, rather like a cat. I think I’m doing pretty well. But now comes the moment in every circus when you have to stand up on a horse. I’m going to hold on to the rope with one hand, which I’m doing. I’m going to stand up with one leg. I can’t get up! I’m standing up … I’m standing up!’

‘Argh! … Oh No!’

‘I’m afraid to say my trousers have come off!’

Well, they
had
fallen off, and imagine the reaction. It had quite a funny sequel. About a week later, some friends of mine went there, and the clown came out and did his usual act and lost his trousers, like I did. They heard someone behind them say, ‘Oh, look at that chap. He’s copying what Brian Johnston did on Saturday night!’

N
ext, I discovered there was a strong lady called Joan Rhodes. She was a smashing blonde, with bristling muscles, but she was very strong. She used to get telephone directories in her stage act and tear them in half – she was huge, with big hands.

I also heard that she could turn someone upside down on the stage and my producer, Peter Duncan, said, ‘Well, you’d better go along and see if she can.’

So I went on the stage at the Chiswick Empire, with this result:

Brian:
‘Now, I challenge you to lift me now in front of all these people. Will you?’

Joan:
‘Here we go then. OK?’

Brian:
‘Well now, she is just putting her hand under my knee and she has got her arm round my waist and she’s lifting me up … Ooh! Ow! … [
thump
] … She’s dropped me! We didn’t do that in rehearsal. What are we going to do about it?’

Joan:
‘Well, as a matter of fact, that one is from Peter Duncan.’

Brian:
‘Oh, is it! Thank you very much, Peter. Well now, I’ll give you one more chance to do it, and do it properly this time. My kidneys aren’t what they were. Right, well now she is doing it again. Her arms are underneath my legs, she’s round my waist and my head is down now. I’m looking right up at the ceiling and …Oh! … [
sound of money falling on the stage
] … All my week’s wages have gone!’

‘I’m in a terrible state here. The blood is rushing to my head. Now, can you hold me a bit longer, Joan? I can see the roof up there, the light is shining in my eyes. I
absolutely agree you can lift a man of fourteen and a half stone. I plead for mercy. Spare me! Get me up! Help!’

T
he things people asked me to do! Someone once said, ‘Why don’t you jump off Nelson’s Column with an umbrella as a parachute?’ which I didn’t think was a good idea.

One man did make me do something, where I was so frightened you could hear my heart beating like a huge drum. He was called Joe Hitchcock and he was the
News of the World
darts champion for three years running. He used to do an act in a pub with six-inch nails – very sharp. He had a stooge who would stand about six feet away with his back to him and he’d have a cigarette sticking out of his ear. Joe would throw a nail and knock the cigarette out.

Then he’d turn sideways and balance a penny on his nose and Joe would hit it with the nail. Luckily it wouldn’t work on my nose! They challenged me to try it and I said I would agree to the cigarette trick. We put the microphone against my heart and it was pounding like mad. Joe missed deliberately once or twice, but he got it in the end. What a mad thing to have done! If he’d missed by just a little, it would have gone through the back of my head. I was absolutely terrified.

A
fter that I found a chap called Mad Johnny Davis. He used to do stunts on motorbikes and he said to me, ‘I do a thing where I charge across a field for about a hundred yards and I go through a pyramid of barrels about eight feet high. It’s quite safe, I do it regularly. You come on the pillion behind me and we’ll broadcast.’

So this is what it sounded like:

Johnny:
‘OK, Brian?’

Brian:
‘Yes, all right, Johnny. I’ve got my head down. I’m leaning forward into Johnny and we are going up about a hundred yards away to have a run at these barrels. We’re going up now and I am clinging on and I can promise you it’s the most frightening of anything I have done.

‘He is just turning round to get into the straight to run at these barrels. I can see them in the distance, a white pyramid, and we’re off! We’re going off now … twenty, thirty miles an hour, I should say. The barrels are coming … about ten yards away. Hang on! Here we go … [
crash
] … Oohwoah! We’re through all right!’

Well, I
was
all right, because I tell you he was an expert. But it was rather frightening.

F
inally, because I think it is interesting, it wasn’t until 1949 that the lights came up in Piccadilly Circus. They had to repair them, I think, and the London County Council said we could broadcast it live on
In Town Tonight
in our Saturday night programme. So I went out on the balcony of the Criterion at Piccadilly Circus and looked down on the crowds all around Eros’s statue, and this is what it sounded like:

Brian:
‘I expect many of us during the war, when we dreamed of this sight, were cheered up by a certain song called “I’m Going to Get Lit Up When the Lights Go Up in London”. Well now, on this balcony with me, not only have we got Hubert Gregg, the chap who wrote it, but on my right, complete in top hat, white tie and tails, we’ve got the girl he wrote it for and who sang it. Zoe Gail.

‘Now Zoe, you’re going to sing the song in a second … [
cheers
] … you can hear the crowd now – but just before, we want one or two more lights to come up. Would you like to try a little bit of magic?’

Zoe:
‘Oh, I always wanted to be a magician. Now let me think of something original. Hey presto! Abracadabra! Let the lights go up in London!’

Brian:
‘And, my goodness, it worked! In front of me now I see some of the signs you all know so well. There’s a clock over there which tells you it’s time for something [the
Guinness
clock]. There’s a big sign there with eight-foot letters – the oldest sign on the buildings in Piccadilly Circus. The stars are shooting up, there are rockets, different coloured lights, white, yellow, it’s marvellous. Well now, Zoe, let’s have the song. What about it?’

Zoe:
‘Oh, this is the moment I’ve been waiting for for years … [
she begins to sing
] … I’m going to get lit up when the lights go up in London …’

Well that was quite an occasion and I hope you noticed the little ‘deliberate mistake’ by the commentator. I said, ‘There’s a clock there which tells you it’s time for something.’ What the …? It’s an interesting point, because that was live and if it had been recorded, they would have said, ‘Do it again.’ But that went out, so these little slips did occur.