Going Off Alarming: The Autobiography: Vol 2 (21 page)

On the opening night I decided that I would be big about the distressing old groaner that opened my dialogue and give it the best shot I could. At least then Paddy wouldn’t be able to say I buried it on purpose. On I went.
‘Consider
Yourself’
went over well enough, but all the time I was telling the packed house in song that it was clear, we’re going to get along, I was thinking how all this promised bonhomie would soon vanish once they heard my deathly jest about flightless birds. Song over, I embarked on my first ever stab at comic cross-talk, a stab I knew I was attempting with a very blunt blade. The big moment arrived:

SC: Now, question number one. Name me a bird that can’t fly.

IJ: A penguin.

SC: A penguin? Why can’t that fly?

IJ: Because it’s a chocolate biscuit.

Now then. The loudest noise I had ever heard in my life until that moment had been the opening bars of a Deep Purple concert in 1972. But what exploded after I completed the second syllable of the word
‘biscuit’
made those chords seem like the sigh of a far-off dormouse across a fresh-mown field. The joke not only got a Krakatoa of an initial laugh but as the kids savoured the full nuance and invention of the line it seemed it would simply never end. Paddy and I
looked at each other smiling as the guffaws bellowing down from the balcony met the uprising howls from the stalls and rushed over the stage like a whirlwind. Just before the noise began to abate, he leaned in to me and, barely moving his lips, mumbled,

‘Anything
else you wanna fucking
change?’

In wonder and with due deference I shook my head almost imperceptibly. Nurses administered oxygen to many of the toddlers who remained helpless. Once order was restored, Paddy winked at me knowingly and we moved on.

Not all the off-colour stage whispers during the run went so skilfully unheard. The actor playing our Dame was called Terri Gardener. He had once been part of a very successful drag double act and had appeared in many lavish post-war pantos as well as several feature films. Terri was every bit as bawdy in life as the blowsy old washer-women and cooks he specialized in onstage and one night as I stood in the wings waiting for the ingénue, Alice Fitzwarren, to finish the frankly soupy ballad she was required to stop the action with, he came up behind me in the dark and held me round the waist.

‘I
know you think that’s my rolling pin you can feel against your arse, darling, but it’s not
 . . .’
he growled in my ear.

I laughed, but Paddy, standing just beside us, hissed,
‘Terri
, come on now, no time for
that.’

Our Dame, who had a voice identical to the camp coarse rasp of his more famous friend Danny La Rue, momentarily forgot himself and, raising his tone to address Alderman Fitzwarren, remarked,

‘There’s
time enough for a
wank!’

Horrified at his own volume, Terri put his hand over his mouth straight away and we all checked to see if the wee tots and their parents in rows A to F had picked up on this unusual embellishment to the story of London’s first mayor. Remarkably, they didn’t seem to have done, although Alice Fitzwarren, sitting beside her wishing well, mid-song, shot a startled look to her left, clearly alarmed that Dick Whittington might have decided to take their romance to an unexpected new level.

After the performance Terri was given a written warning about his gaffe. Removing his make-up he chuckled with me.

‘I
got into terrible trouble once, doing
that,’
he said.
‘I
was at the Dominion in Tottenham Court Road doing
Sleeping Beauty
with my partner. In them days, for the finale they used to use real horses, enormous drays, to bring on the coach. Nothing like this
 . . .’
He looked despairingly at the modest surroundings and waved toward our stage with its simple painted backdrops.
‘This
was proper no-expense-spared stuff in the fifties and the finale was the big setpiece of the show. So there we all were, stood stock-still, the costumes, the head-dresses, arms up, tits and teeth, everyone awaiting the big finish, which is the arrival of the prince and princess in their golden carriage. All the music is swelling up and on comes the horses. Well, I looked at one of them and I could see it wasn’t only the music that was swelling up. It was
aroused.
How they could have let it come out on to the stage like that I do not know. I looked at this enormous thing hanging beneath this dray horse then turned to my partner who was next to me and said,
‘Oh
my God – if only I could take the
weight!’
Well, I didn’t think anyone could hear me above the orchestra, but they did apparently and quite a lot of people complained. I didn’t get fired, but I didn’t half get a bollocking, that’s for
sure.’

As the run continued I found myself loving the job more and more. I’d even been given permission to leave the stage when the children of the chorus performed their five-minute dance routine. Previously I’d been asked to stay to one side of their synchronized shuffle and perform a few spontaneous steps of my own.
‘Just
skip and
laugh,’
Paddy had said,
‘as
though you want to join in but they won’t let
you.’
Too wet behind the ears to question this awful prospect I had, in the first few performances done just that, but at best I looked spare and at worst like I couldn’t bear to surrender the spotlight for one second for fear these youngsters would upstage me. I had prepared nothing, hoping, as with the radio, I would just discover inspiration when it was needed. But the first time the band began to play their gentle theme and the children all held hands to begin their sweet presentation, there I was doing a series of meaningless high kicks and rapid arm flaps completely at odds with their delicate gyrations. I even ran around them in a circle a couple of times completely distracting everyone from whatever mood the youngsters were trying
to put across. The audience must have thought I’d lost my mind, and as I pointlessly raced about I thought the only way I might win them back would be to tell them the penguin joke again. The nadir came on the third day when, trying to limit my movements so I wouldn’t appear such a manic limelight hog, I hit upon the idea of whistling along to the song while lightly jumping from foot to foot.

It is important to understand here that I do have a special skill with whistling. I’m very limited in the usual way of doing it, but I learned as a boy that I had a real gift for blowing into my cupped hands and creating a loud noise not unlike an owl hooting. Quite a lot of people can do this to make a single satisfying note, but I discovered that if, while my hands were forming the necessary hollow to produce the tone, I moved my little finger up and down, it altered the pitch. If ever you run into me, ask for a demonstration – it really is quite impressive for somebody who otherwise can barely master a kazoo. What I’d overlooked when deciding on the spot to accompany the kids like this was just how loud a sound it is. As soon as I’d piped up the first couple of blasts I saw the bandleader shoot me a look like I’d thrown up into the saxophones. Suddenly nobody was looking at the dance school toddlers, they were all agog at this deafening Pan figure kicking up his knees for no discernible reason.

Sensing the rising panic in the hall, I carried on with the awful trumpeting but made my way, absurdly skipping sideways, toward the wings where once out of shot I immediately quit the distressing display. The abject horror in my eyes as I pleaded with Paddy to drop me from the segment must have touched him deeply because a new line was added to the show where instead of Fairy Bowbells saying,
‘I’ll
show you all where my magic house is. Idle Jack you stay and look after the
children!’
she now said,
‘I’ll
show you all where my magic house is. The children will be fine. Idle Jack, why don’t you come with
us?’

It was music to my ears.

While the panto went from strength to strength each night the first person to suspect we in the cast were all being taken for a ride was Michael Robbins. I had presumed the theatre was like the other entertainment mediums I moved in and that you would get paid
weeks, often months, later. That was not how the older professionals in the show saw it.

‘I
don’t like it,
darlin’,’
said
‘Arthur’,
agitatedly pacing his dressing room, his gruff voice softened by the showbizzy use of endearments.
‘We
are supposed to get our money at the end of each seven days and I’m getting a shitty feeling about
this.’

Ever the sunbeam, I did what I could to offer reasons why Paddy was being evasive. I simply couldn’t imagine a scenario where Michael’s gloomy anxieties would be borne out. On the day of the final performance it became clearer. Alerted that it was tradition in the theatre for the star turn to buy little gifts for everyone when the run ended – at least I think it is, they may have simply decided,
‘Yonder
comes a
sucker’
– I sank the stiletto of overdraft deeper into Mervyn’s ribs by splashing out wildly along Barking High Street. I knew Paddy Dailey liked a particular brand of whisky and so bought him a rare blend of it in a presentation case. However, between the final matinee and last show he was nowhere to be found. Michael Robbins sat in front of his illuminated make-up table and with a face etched in resigned amusement gave me his
‘I
told you
so’
speech.

‘He’s
a bastard. He’s got debts all over the shop. Even the dancing kids and the little firm who painted the scenery haven’t seen a penny. None of us will. I’m going to march up to the box office myself in a minute and just grab what I can. If you’ve got any sense, son, you’ll beat me to
it.’

A meal had been arranged for everyone in a nearby restaurant after the closing bows and I said I would confront him there.
‘Arthur’
gave a derisive snort.

‘He
won’t be anywhere near that Chinese, mate. Once that curtain comes down you will not see his arse for dust. We’re going on now because we’ve got to go on, but during the fight with King Rat at the end tonight I plan to let a few of my punches go
astray.’

During that final show the increasing distraction that Paddy had been displaying over the last week came to a head and he refused any attempts at conversation as he stood with various cast member in the wings. Their threats and swearing at him were all delivered in stage
whispers and their twisted faces of hatred dissolved into appropriate expressions of joy and wonderment the second they stepped into the lights. It was a very strange evening. Still not fully believing that I would never be paid, I went to the dressing room and grabbed my gift for him during a spell when we would both be offstage for a few minutes. He was facing directly on to the performance and would not turn around to look at me, even though I was repeatedly tapping his shoulder. In the end I had to reach around and put the wooden box in front of his face.

‘Paddy,’
I whispered as loud as I dare.
‘Have
that, mate. Thanks for
everything.’

He took it, looked at it, and placed it down by the lighting desk to our left. He still didn’t look round.

‘You
are coming to the restaurant after,
eh?’
I asked.

At last he moved his head to look over his shoulder. With tight thin lips curled into a wretched smile, he nodded. Tears were flooding his sorrowful eyes. Even though the money was pretty vital to me, I genuinely wasn’t angry with him – how could I be? I knew too many people who had been
‘at
it’
in various ways and could almost hear the old man’s voice saying,
‘Ne’mend
about dinner, he’s holding the pot. Ask him how you can get in the swim
too.’

Receiving his cue, Paddy marched onstage once more as the boisterous Captain, barking orders at, by now, a genuinely mutinous crew. He didn’t make it to the Chinese.

Later it transpired that he and his wife had ploughed quite a lot of money into various failed ventures. A dancing school – the same one that provided the kids who’d had to put up with my carthorse capers – was the latest of these. Whether Paddy had staged this pantomime hoping for it to result in a huge flop à la
The Producers
or, more likely, had seen it as some quick cash, I cannot say. I met him once more, about three months later, and in the most coincidental of circumstances. Obviously, after the end of the
Six O’Clock Show
there was very little reason for me to be in the LWT building, but one evening I was, probably to meet either Paul Ross or Jeff Pope for a reflective glass of Tio Pepe. As I rounded one of the snaking corridors on the second floor, I ran smack into Paddy Dailey. I remember
he was wearing a soft hat that he removed upon greeting me as if I was his social superior. I was unnerved by that and also by the pitiable speech he immediately launched into of how he had never been in this position before, his reputation in the business was ruined and how he was determined to pay back every last penny he owed me. The tears were welling up in his eyes again and he chewed his bottom lip with wretched emotion. All I had said up to that point was,
‘Paddy
! What are you doing
here?’
Once he’d stopped his torrent of words I asked him again and it turned out the story of the Great Barking Pantomime Scandal had been taken up by the local paper after several members of the show’s cast had contacted them. This item in turn had been spotted by a new
Bottom Line
-style consumer programme on LWT and, having tracked Paddy down, they had now insisted he come to the studio to explain himself in front of the cameras. I don’t think he believed me when I said I knew absolutely nothing about this. In fact, as he continued to babble, I remember thinking that it was a sign of how persona non grata I had become that nobody had asked me to contribute to the spot. I wouldn’t have done it –
‘serious’
shows rarely pay – but at least it would have constituted a job offer. What good would it have done anyway? Poor old Paddy was obviously anguished, his life in show business all but over, and there was plainly zero chance of us all getting paid anyway. And so it proved. All I got from Dick Whittington and his Cat was a bout of virulent flu that kicked in the day after it finished and kept me from appearing on the radio that weekend – so no money there either.