David Jason: My Life (24 page)

Eventually we could get the dog into the sidecar relatively smoothly and trust him to stay there. However, getting the dog out of the sidecar was another matter. We discovered this while filming an episode in which the three of us resolved to go into a haunted house to find out why it was haunted. (Scooby-Doo, eat your cartoon heart out. You too, Shaggy.) Denise, the Dulux dog and I roared up to the front of the haunted house in question, and Denise and I jumped off the bike, full of purpose and ready to go charging through the front door and demystify the place forever – and the Dulux dog just sat there like a lump. Which rather drained the moment of its dramatic intensity.
The cry, as usual at such times, was ‘Cut!’ followed by words which, if my daughter should read them in this book, I would struggle to explain. The director, the props boy, the handler – they tried everything: coaxing, calling, dangling treats, offering a pay rise. Still the dog sat there. Finally, the handler lost his patience and shouted, ‘
Will
you come out?!’

At which point, the dog snapped at him – ‘Rrrough!’ – and nearly had his hand off.

Honestly, if I’d gone to the press with that story at the time, I could have ruined the Dulux dog’s career in show business forever. Think of the headlines: ‘
TOP DOG IS REALLY ANIMAL SHOCK
’, ‘
THE DULUX DOG: THE TRUTH ABOUT HIS DARK UNDERCOAT
’.

Two D’s and a Dog
lasted for one, faltering series, broadcast in 1970, after which, to no public outcry whatsoever, it was cancelled. The show does not appear to feature prominently in the archives under ‘Golden Children’s Television’ – and I have to say I’m quite glad about that. Indeed, I quite hope the tapes have all been scrubbed, Dulux dog and all, so they can’t come back to haunt me.

Didn’t someone once say something important about the perils of becoming professionally associated with children and animals? Indeed, they did. But nobody ever listened to them.

* * *

M
EANWHILE, MY FRIENDSHIP
with Humphrey Barclay, the producer of
Do Not Adjust Your Set
, grew. We spent a lot of time together and became good mates. We were part of a small gang who met up every now and again for meals at the Ark in Notting Hill, where we would quaff wine and have merry interludes. One time Humphrey invited me to join him at a chalet in Switzerland for a skiing holiday. Also there were Suzy Miller, who was Humphrey’s secretary, and Suzy’s boyfriend, who quickly
earned the nickname the ‘Spider of the Piste’ on account of the figure he cut, from a distance, on the slopes in his all-black clothes.

Apart from a holiday in Jersey with my old business partner Bob Bevil, this was the first time I had been abroad and only the second time I had ever been on an aeroplane. I flew into Geneva and then, following the extensive instructions written out for me by Suzy, took a train to Les Diablerets, where Humphrey picked me up. I was wearing, needless to say, my monumental fur coat. I took a few skiing lessons, venturing out onto the piste in my normal clothes, having none of the specialist gear. I absolutely loved it.

Back in London, Humphrey said he wanted me to meet an old friend of his called David Hatch, who was a radio producer at the BBC. The three of us got together in the bar of the Langham in Portland Place, opposite Broadcasting House. When I walked in, David was already at the bar, standing in a pose that would become very familiar to me, holding his beer glass up at his chest, as if it were an extension of his lapel.

Hatchy and Humphrey had been in the Cambridge Footlights together. I liked him immediately. During the course of our conversation he said, ‘Well, David, have you ever done any radio?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Why not?’ he said.

‘Nobody’s ever asked me,’ I said.

To which he replied, ‘Well, I’m asking you now.’

He had taken over a late-night sketch show – one which he felt was a bit linear and not a little boring. He wanted to give it a kick up the backside, and make it a satirical sketch show, sending up Parliament and the powers that be. He put together a collection of young writers, keen to cut their teeth in the comedy business, and a small company of actors, including Bill Wallis, David Tate, Sheila Steafel and me. Together, from 1970
onwards (and, in my case, on and off, all the way through to 1991), we began to make
Week Ending
.

We’d get together at the BBC on a Friday morning, and the half-hour show would go out at eleven that night. I played roles in sketches and did voices and impressions. My Jim Callaghan, for example, was unshakeably in office between 1976 and 1979. I also doubled as Tony Benn and a variety of newsreaders. I loved the immediacy of the programme and the way it forced you to apply your skill as an actor so quickly, across so many different parts. I’d find myself playing, for example, the aide to the Minister of Defence (played by David Tate and always, for some reason, portrayed in his bath, with a rubber duck), or perhaps sending up a royal wedding, or maybe reading some of the one-liners that formed ‘Next Week’s News’, the show’s regular sign-off. This was basically an excuse for the writers to show off their punning skills. Thus I found myself musing, in the firm voice of a newsreader: ‘If Evita has got Juan Peron, what has she done with the other pair?’ (This joke requires some Spanish pronunciation. Also some knowledge of Argentine political history. Ask a teacher. If you’re still struggling, try saying ‘one’ for ‘Juan’. If you’re still struggling … oh, let’s move on.)

The atmosphere on
Week Ending
was very egalitarian. We sometimes had to audition among ourselves for parts in sketches. We’d all have a go at doing the necessary political voice and whoever was best at it and made the rest of us laugh hardest got the part.

Hatchy went on to be one of the big cheeses in BBC Radio – although not before he had been hauled up to the BBC’s ivory tower himself on occasions, and given a dressing-down because there had been complaints about a perceived bias against the reigning government. David would point out that it wasn’t bias at all. The fact of the matter was, the ones who happened to be in power were the ones making the decisions, so they
happened to be more available for satire than the ones in opposition. It wasn’t political, then, so much as practical. I don’t think the big people had an answer to that. In any case, the government changed numerous times during my years on the show, without the jokes drying up. We let them all have it, indiscriminately. Funny how politics works: one lot comes in until we get fed up with them, and then we sack them and bring in the other lot. It reminds me of this great verse:

Little fleas have littler fleas

Upon their backs to bite ’em

And littler fleas have smaller fleas

And so on, ad infinitum.

One Friday Hatchy invited along to the recording a young, quiet, bespectacled cub reporter from the
Luton News
who, off his own bat, had been sending in material of a consistently high standard to the show. That was my first meeting with David Renwick, who became a good friend of mine, and went on to write for
The Two Ronnies
and
Not the Nine O’Clock News
and, latterly, to create the sitcom
One Foot in the Grave
and the drama serial
Jonathan Creek
.

In 1977, my work for
Week Ending
resulted in me being given a spin-off solo sketch show,
The Jason Explanation
. It was the beginning of many things for many people, myself included.

One day, early in our acquaintance, Hatchy announced that he had got some tickets to see Alastair Sim performing in
The Magistrate
, by Arthur Wing Pinero, at the Chichester Festival Theatre. We drove down to Sussex – Humphrey at the wheel, Hatchy and me in the back, relentlessly and mercilessly taunting the driver, as I recall. (‘He’s turned left. I would never have turned left there.’ ‘He’s made a mistake, of course.’ ‘We’ll be lucky if we get there before midnight.’) What a thrill to see Alastair Sim, though. I had been a huge fan ever since I saw
him play Scrooge in the 1951 film version of
A Christmas Carol
– the definitive Scrooge, in my humble opinion. In
The Magistrate
, he was Mr Posket, and I will always remember the brilliant routine he did with a pair of braces, in a scene where he was getting ready to go out. These braces were hanging down his back and he had to wriggle to get them up onto his shoulders, one at a time. Every time he got one side up, the other pinged back down. Eventually he got them both under control and stood up – at which point they both flew off at the same time. The amount of business he got out of a simple pair of braces! Years later, I was offered the Mr Posket role and, remembering Alastair Sim and the braces, I thought, ‘Great.’ Then I thumbed through the acting edition of the play, hoping to find a description of the business with the braces. But it wasn’t in there. I would only have had my memory to go on, and I didn’t know exactly how he had constructed it. So I didn’t do it – I turned the role down. I didn’t want to do the play without this thing Sim did. That business would have been the high point for me.

In 1970 Humphrey offered me a piece of work which, it’s no exaggeration to say, changed the course of my professional life. It was just a tiny thing, really, yet it set off a whole chain of reactions – though not before it had cost me my relationship with my agent.

It all began one day when Humphrey rang me and said, ‘You’ve seen
Hark at Barker
, haven’t you?’ Of course I had seen it. It was Ronnie Barker’s comedy series for London Weekend Television, with Ronnie playing a bumbling but forthright old aristocrat, Lord Rustless, and delivering pricelessly out-of-touch lectures on life from his ancestral home at Chrome Hall. I loved it. Indeed, I had sat and watched it and thought to myself, ‘Now, that’s a programme I would love to be in.’

‘There have been some references in the show to a character called Dithers,’ Humphrey went on. ‘He’s Lord Rustless’s
gardener. So far we’ve only seen him zip past the window on a lawnmower. Well, Ronnie wants to bring him into the show properly. Ronnie thought about playing the part himself but we all think it would be better if someone else did it. What do you reckon about taking it on?’

‘I’d love to do it,’ I said.

‘Great,’ said Humphrey. ‘We reckon Dithers is about a hundred years old, and the way we see him is, he’s covered in hair and has a floppy hat, and the only thing that sticks out is his nose.’

‘I’d definitely love to do it,’ I said.

I had always wanted to work with Ronnie Barker, ever since I had seen him on
The Frost Report
in the sixties. He was already a legend in the business. This was a dream offer as far as I was concerned.

I told Humphrey to talk to my agent and arrange it all, as per usual, and hung up feeling rather giddy and very pleased with life in general.

A bit later, though, Humphrey phoned back.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to tell you, as a friend: I know you deserve it but your agent is asking far too much money for that part. He’s asking for money I haven’t got. Seriously. I can’t afford you.’

I was shocked to hear that. I expressed to Humphrey again how much I wanted to take this chance to work with him and Ronnie, and I asked him to keep the part open while I had a word with Derek.

I then rang Derek straight away. I said, ‘Look, I really want to do this part.’ He said, very bluntly, in the crisply enunciated manner that Derek had, ‘They’re not offering you enough money.’ I said, ‘But I really,
really
want to do this part.’ He said, again, ‘They’re not offering you enough money.’ I said, ‘Can I come and see you?’

I went straight round to Derek’s office. I can still picture the
scene: me standing rather tremblingly like an errant schoolboy in front of Derek’s desk, Derek seated with, as ever, a cigarette going. Derek smoked for Great Britain at Commonwealth and Olympic levels – and smoked flamboyantly too, holding the fag aloft in his fingers, sucking on it with pursed lips, exhaling tightly. A fag wasn’t just a fag with Derek: it was a five-minute drama.

I explained again that I wanted to do the part. Derek, who clearly felt he was being crossed, said, ‘I advise you not to.’

I said, ‘But I’m not interested in the money. I want to work with Ronnie Barker.’

I was quite choked up about it. Derek looked at me silently for a short while. Then he said, ‘Right.’

He picked up the phone receiver and inserted his finger into the dial. (Rotary dials in those days, my children.) Then he waited while the line connected. And then he said, ‘Give me Humphrey Barclay’s office.’

A pause.

‘… Hello? Is that Humphrey Barclay?’

And with that Derek handed me the receiver and sat back, staring at me.

Rather stunned by this behaviour, I put the receiver to my mouth and spoke to Humphrey. ‘Er … it’s David. I’ve just … well, I’ve spoken to my agent and … I told him to accept and … I want to do the part.’ Humphrey could tell from my voice that I was a bit tremulous. He said, ‘Great. Thank you.’

I handed the receiver back to Derek and he dropped it onto its cradle and said, rather tartly, ‘Anything else?’

And I said, ‘No,’ rather sotto voce, and turned and left.

That was the beginning of the end for me and Derek Marr – and a pretty salutary lesson for me, I guess, about doing the things you want to do. If I had followed the money and not my heart, I wouldn’t have got to work with Ronnie B. I simply couldn’t turn that opportunity down. It didn’t concern me what
I was getting paid. In truth, the way I felt about it, I would have quite happily paid ITV for the privilege. I’m sure Derek thought he was only protecting me from myself, and looking after the interests of his client. But in this case, I knew myself and my interests better than he did. I have never been a naturally assertive or confrontational person. But right then I knew what I wanted and I made sure I stood firm and got it.

I’ll talk about working with Ronnie B. later. Suffice to say for now that I went ahead and did the part of Dithers and had a fantastic time, making a connection with Ronnie that profoundly affected the course of my life thereafter. So I’m quite glad I took the trouble to go round and face up to Derek.