The True History of the Blackadder (33 page)
W
ILD
-E
YED
L
ONERS
S
TANDING AT THE
G
ATE OF
O
BLIVION
The spotty quartet had of course burned to death in a bus crash at the end of their last series, but besides surviving in print thanks to the book
Bachelor Boys
,
fn1
the repulsive students had already been squashed by eclairs and stampeded by medieval knights and lived to tell the tale, so they could rise again – and all it would take was a few phone calls. While Curtis’s inherent and oft-praised
niceness
was unquestionably one factor which made (and still makes) so many people give in to his demands for Comic Relief, there clearly needed to be a will of solid iron under that fluffy exterior to turn Tewson’s inspiration into a genuine laughter-and-cash-generating entity. The scheme was launched on Christmas Day 1985 in the unlikely surroundings of Noel Edmonds’
Live Live Christmas Breakfast Show
, and when Cliff and the Young Ones’ rendition of ‘Living Doll’ hit the number-one spot the following March (remaining at the top for
three weeks, and raising three-quarters of a million pounds in the process), it showed that perhaps the whole nation could be tickled into giving, and giving in to a new form of vast rag week led by the young graduate clowns.
In the wider national consciousness, these ‘Alternative comedians’ had largely been seen as foul-mouthed communists, by the kind of conservatives who thought that describing the new blood as ‘the alternative to funny’ was witty. John, Ben and Stephen appeared together on a special
Central Weekend Live
show at this time, however, for a debate pitched as ‘Alternative vs Old School’, up against Barry Cryer, Neil Shand and Michael Bentine, and the production team’s hoped-for grudge match turned out to be a feast of mutual appreciation. Of course, none of the young trio had any involvement in the original creation of the comedy movement which became labelled ‘Alternative’ (a term which was already a meaningless cliché) and their move into the mainstream, typified by Comic Relief, simply widened the gulf between these acceptable young comics and their more politically puritanical brethren. Alexei Sayle was just one comedian who volubly declined to offer support or entertainment for the new cause (and certainly wouldn’t allow himself to be seen emoting on-camera while a Sting song played in the background), when he felt the problems faced by the charity’s beneficiaries ran deeper than just a shortage of cash, and that it should be down to the government to fight suffering in the UK, not a gang of celebrities. Elton himself admitted to
Smash Hits
at the time, ‘I’m ambivalent to charity because I think in the long run you need a change in the system, not just to give people things. On the other hand you can’t just fiddle while Rome burns … As Geldof’s fabulous work last year proved, it helped but it
changed
nothing. People will starve until we believe we are a community on Earth and not out for our own private gain.’ However, Curtis says, ‘I don’t think there are so many cynics. If you expected anyone to be cynical then it would be the comic
community. But they understand it. I’ve only met a few people over the years who said “no” to me and that was because they tended to be hard-core socialists who believe that you have to get the state to pay for change. And I respect them for their opinion.’
The thorny issue of exactly what Comic Relief’s famous supporters were getting out of their involvement was central to Helen Fielding’s first novel
Cause Celeb
, loosely based on her experience as one of the charity’s first documentary producers. As an old flame of both Curtis and Lloyd,
fn2
Fielding was well placed to observe intimately the foibles of the ‘Alternative’ stars, and saw at first hand the disparity between the suffering of refugees in the Sudan and the neuroses of the British media darlings flown out to front the appeal. At the other extreme of seeing charitable celebrities as self-serving egotists, however, was the accusation of being a bleeding-heart liberal. In response, Curtis told the
New Humanist
in 2007, ‘I think “sentimental” is a complicated word. A lost word. What is wrong with being touched by what goes on around you? I am very touched by what is good and true. It’s a family characteristic … But what struck me when I went to Ethiopia was the lack of sentiment. I thought the nurses and the water engineers there would be highly charged, highly emotional, with tears in their eyes. But they weren’t, they were bluff northerners with beards busy drawing maps. They were doing something they did well for other people. And when I came home I decided to use my own skills in the same way, to see what I could achieve.’
The Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book
was already being put together by Douglas Adams and Peter Fincham,
fn3
but the obvious next step was the traditional West End benefit – staged at
the Shaftesbury Theatre in April, broadcast on Yentob’s
Omnibus
strand shortly after, and masterminded, like Nether Wallop, by the industrious Paul Jackson. ‘At that time comedy was so hot hot hot. I mean, they’re all big stars now, but at the time it had a kind of cult, happening feel about it, and you had this, I suspect, un-regroup-able bill of comedy talent.’ The
Comic Relief
show was quite consciously not just about the young ones though, with the
Omnibus
broadcast introduced by comedic PM the Rt Hon. Jim Hacker, and Ronnie Corbett mingling with Atkinson, Billy Connolly, Lenny Henry, the
Spitting Image
puppets and Cliff and his Bachelor Boys. The show provided numerous memorable moments for future clip shows (including Rowan duetting with Kate Bush on ‘Do Bears …?’), but the reception given to Ben Elton was the most electric of the evening. Despite the odd job on Radio 1 and presenting a regional culture show,
South of Watford
, his motormouth style had only had limited exposure to the general public, and yet the white-hot welcome the long-haired farty received at
Comic Relief
is unavoidably reminiscent of Graham Chapman’s Brian Cohen, awaking to a multitude of devoted disciples which he never asked for, ready to hang on his every word.
The main gig to have drummed up this level of Elton fandom was his slot on
Saturday Live
, the first series having staggered to a close a few weeks before
Comic Relief
. A conscious move by Jackson to crib from the successful
Saturday Night Live
format, the one-hour live broadcasts for LWT had been going out on Channel 4 throughout the winter, but the changing host format made for a changeable show. It was a coup for Jackson that he was able to draw on Elton’s scarily appreciative right-on young following every week, alongside the permanent sketch team, which Jackson had asked Fry & Laurie to join during the
Happy Families
filming in Stoke. They were to feature alongside the Dangerous Brothers Rik and Ade, plus less frequently, Mark Arden, Stephen Frost, Lee Cornes and Paul Mark
Elliott, known as ‘The Wow Show’, plus Simon Brint and Rowland Rivron as Raw Sex, and the new boy, Harry Enfield.
fn4
Despite their close friendship, Fry & Laurie had never struck out as a duo before. ‘We conferred nervously with each other in the bar that evening,’ Stephen wrote. ‘Hugh and I wondered if we would stick out like sore and inappropriately tweedy thumbs. Despite our characteristic fears and forebodings we decided that we should do the show … somewhere at the bottom of our churning wells of nonsense we knew that we could and should do comedy together.’ The duo dared to test out their material at the relatively new London club Jongleurs, but however they fared in that boozy atmosphere, it couldn’t prepare them for the ramped-up pressure of those Saturday nights. ‘Transmitted live from the biggest studio in LWT’s South Bank Studios, it featured a large central stage, side stages for the bands, random giant inflatables floating above and a vast arena for the audience of groundlings … Hugh was convinced that they were more interested in how their hair looked on-screen than in anything we might be saying or doing to try and amuse them.’ ‘There was a guillotine hanging over everybody on that series, including the show,’ Elton adds, ‘I mean, series one was in danger of being axed daily, because it wasn’t doing very well.’
I
F
Y
OU
C
AN
’
T
B
E
G
OOD
, B
E
C
AREFUL
The experimental melting-pot atmosphere of Jackson’s venture just added to the stomach-churning high of the live recordings. ‘I always knew Hugh hated it and was always very nervous,’ Ben recalls, ‘but you would never know onstage, you couldn’t believe it. Stephen, Hugh and
Harry always seemed so cool – I imagine I probably did too, I certainly never went around going “Ohmigodohmigod!” Although I always talked
Young Ones
talk then, and DHT –
Deep Humiliating Troub’!
– that was what we’d say: “We’ve got no material, we’re all crap, thank God we’ve got some bands on!”’ But for all the self-confessed toilet-pebble-dashing, it was this core team which would survive to the series’ second outing one year on, with Elton being promoted from regular topical ranter to full-time host. With this rejig, after all his attempts to bring the new wave of comics to the screen in a cabaret style, Jackson had found the right formula, with himself in the control room and Geoff Posner on the show floor.
Although 20th Century Coyote had morphed into the Dangerous Brothers before
Saturday Live
began, Rik & Ade already had plans for a new sitcom mutation of their personas at Jackson’s behest. They refused to deliver a third series of
The Young Ones
– and besides, in 1985, while Rowan was wooing his future wife, Rik flew to Barbados to wed his own make-up artist, Barbara Robbin. They remain happily married three decades later, but the tabloids homed in on the gossip surrounding the dramatic end of Mayall and Mayer’s relationship, and though Rik and Lise were reconciled as friends, their writing partnership was over. Despite this, Jackson brought together many of the same team for a ‘
Young Ones 2
’, and it was naturally assumed that Ben and Rik would knock the scripts into shape together again. Not that Mayall or Edmondson were averse to writing,
fn5
but Elton, as ever, could be relied on to ‘churn out the gear’. ‘I had this basic idea that I wanted to live in a flat with Ade, so I went to Ben and said, “Let’s write it together.” Ben being the kind of writer that he is wrote 95 per cent of it, so I had my name taken off the front.’
Having been successful TV comedians for a number of years, they were done with mocking students, and now decided that their natural target had to be the tacky world of showbiz, and Light Entertainment, as they experienced it from the inside.
Filthy, Rich & Catflap
would be a flop in comparison with
The Young Ones
, but for all its faults, it would stand as a singularly pungent skewering of old-school celebrity. In time, as the high of youthful arrogance wore off, it became common for Elton and his contemporaries to downplay the extent to which their wave of comedy reviled the less enlightened golfing stars such as Jackson’s old friends the Two Ronnies – to an extent, though far more so Benny Hill, Bernard Manning and ‘Tarby’. But the evidence is all there – these guys did despise the easy laughs which their elders got for rolling their eyes at a huge pair of breasts, and for their new sitcom, the youngsters sharpened their rapiers, and dipped them in effluent. ‘I think it’s the most nihilistic piece of telly we’ve ever done,’ Mayall said at the time, ‘it’s completely anti-television, it’s anti-fame, it’s anti the media generally, and anti-privilege.’
With Rik starring as the talentless TV has-been Richie Rich (a right-wing egotist with no discernible act beyond greasily repeating non-catchphrases like ‘If you can’t be good, be careful’ and ‘Look after Mum, kids, and try and steer clear of the loony left!’), Edmondson playing his mindless minder Eddie Catflap, and Planer as Richie’s despicable free-loading perverted agent Ralph Filthy, the six episodes broadcast on BBC2 at the start of 1987 had carte blanche to rip into every element of seedy showbiz, from desperate quiz show celebs to sexist BBC executives waddling around a BBC bar which resembles the last days of Sodom, to Rik getting his own back on muck-raking tabloid journalists and the union-busting villainy of Rupert Murdoch.
Whether due to the lack of Curtis’s grounding good taste or the tailoring of the scripts to suit Mayall & Edmondson’s combination of Beckettian absurdity and extreme nihilism,
FR&C
remains perhaps the
most savage and relentless comedy ever written by Elton, no matter how much back-pedalling may come with the mellowness of middle age. The show’s gags – be they joyfully infantile, cheap, shocking or even scathingly witty – simply pour out without pause, and are constantly derided by the stars breaking the fourth wall at all times, having their cake and eating it by criticising old-school double entendres while using them at every opportunity, to Eddie’s cries of ‘Oo-er! Sounds a bit rude!’ It’s also tempting to suspect a personal anger running through the series, from the overachieving young writer who had wilted under the gaze of some of his own comic heroes in the BBC bar. Ronnie Barker, then known simply as ‘the Governor’ in BBC comedy circles, had praised Stephen Fry’s comedy warmly at one BBC function, before turning to Elton and frowning, ‘Don’t like you very much, I’m afraid.’ As a fan, this crushed Elton, but Ronnie Corbett would be quick to point out that Barker was to regret the admission, and even befriend Elton.
fn6
