The Fun Factory (38 page)

HISTORICAL NOTE

Although many of the characters in
The Fun Factory
are based on real people, the incidents and relationships depicted contain a measure of speculative invention on my part.

Arthur Dandoe was a real person, a member of the Fred Karno company, and he toured the UK and America with Charlie Chaplin and Stan Jefferson (later Laurel), the three of them performing hundreds of shows together and living virtually in one another’s pockets for several years.

Despite this there is only one reference to Arthur in Chaplin’s massive 528 page house brick of an autobiography - imaginatively entitled
My Autobiography
- and no mention at all of Stan, who was Charlie’s understudy and roommate, and by all accounts (bar Charlie’s own) a close friend.

The single reference to Arthur that you will find, should you be inclined to look, is to an incident on the night Charlie left the Karno company in Kansas City to take up a job offer with Keystone Pictures. He writes: “A member of our troupe, Arthur Dando (sic), who for some reason disliked me…”

Is it just me, or is there a wealth of contempt in that casual mis-spelling of Arthur’s name? Anyway, Charlie goes on to describe a leaving present that Arthur prepared for him:

Charlie seems faintly puzzled by this. According to Stan Laurel’s account he should have taken a closer look. That wasn’t grease paint in that tin, and the clue to the gift’s true nature was in the accompanying card which Arthur had inscribed: “Some shits for a shit.”

Stan suggests that Arthur didn’t actually go through with this gesture after he came across Charlie alone on stage, “cold, unsentimental Charlie”, crying.

Some commentators believe that Stan Laurel was omitted from
My Autobiography
because he was the one genuine threat to Chaplin’s supremacy over the world of comedy, the one performer who could actually hold a candle to the genius. For myself, I was fascinated by the kind of man who could have come up with that leaving present, and the relationship that is somehow defined by it.

I have tried, as far as possible, to stick to known chronology as far as the actual careers of Charlie Chaplin, Syd Chaplin, Stan Jefferson, Fred Karno and Arthur Dandoe are concerned. The one real liberty that I have taken with the Karno company’s productions is that I have brought the
Wontdetainia
forward a year or two, because it sounded so great. Karno genuinely did have that ingenious ocean liner constructed, just as he cannily employed hard-up ex-professional footballers including Messrs Athersmith, Crabtree, Spiksley and Wragg in his spectacular
Football Match
.

When I started writing I was attracted to this period of Chaplin’s career precisely because it was covered so imprecisely and unreliably in his own autobiography and the many various biographies, which naturally rely heavily on his own account. It seemed a dark, shady area that gave me a lot of elbow room. Then AJ Marriott brought out his book
Chaplin: Stage by Stage
, which
shone a great forensic searchlight beam onto the whole period. It not only details where Chaplin was and what he was up to day by day throughout his Karno career, it also pulls the great man up on a surprisingly large number of inaccuracies and deliberate obfuscations, taking him to task in a most entertaining way. I recommend it, it’s a lot of fun.

Charlie Chaplin did tour the UK in
Mumming Birds
and
The Football Match
, and did take over from Harry Weldon as the lead comic in the latter, only to succumb to laryngitis and miss out on what seemed at the time to be his big break. He did play for a month at the Folies Bergère, and did also pull out of
Jimmy the Fearless
, either sulking or in a funk, only to take over after a week when he saw what a success Stan Jefferson, his understudy, had made of it.

Fred Karno was the great comedy entrepreneur of the pre-First World War years, and most of the big names of the time worked either with him or for him at some time. The Fun Factory was his headquarters off Coldharbour Lane in Camberwell, and a spectacular hive of activity it must have been. He was a notorious and not especially subtle user of the casting couch, and his marital situation was pretty much as complicated as I have described, as were his bizarre attempts to resolve it.

Arthur Dandoe worked with both Chaplin and Jefferson on
Jimmy the Fearless
and several other shows. He then went on to share in some of their adventures in the States before their paths diverged. Most of the rest of what Arthur does in the book is fiction.

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of the Arts Council of Great Britain which was invaluable in enabling me to complete this project.

I would also like to thank Ben Yarde-Buller of Old Street for taking a punt, and James Nunn for the splendid cover.

Thanks to Jo Unwin, Rob Dinsdale, Robert Kirby, Charles Walker and Richard Dawes for your enthusiasm and skill. Also to Jo Brand, David Baddiel, Mark Billingham and Al Murray.

And special thanks to David Tyler. The next one’s for you.