They got fallen. Hello and welcome to Goompod.
I am joined by another podcaster who is all about the world of
Vicarys and Bob Mortimer. He's 1/2 of the Quite a Boast
podcast team. Quite a boast, as Victoria would
pronounce it. Absolutely, and he is MJ Price.
Hello. We we got in contact only very
recently because you discovered the podcast through another
podcast that I was a lot of we're just podcast whores,
aren't we? Another podcast that I was
guesting on, which was the Royal Ramble podcast.
I think that's right, isn't it? Yeah, correct.
Yeah, and. Yeah, and, and you said that
you're a big fan of the Goons. So there's, there's obviously
the crossover there. And we thought it would be a
good idea for, for you to join me and trace the sort of the,
the lineage from the goons to Reeves and Mortimer.
And I'm a big fan. I, you know, I, I was there at
the beginning, well, more or less the beginning with Big
Night out. And I've watched most of their
stuff, I suppose, but I'm certainly no expert.
So I'm looking forward to discussing them with you.
But first of all, yeah, so I guess you're similar age to me,
Matt. I'm I'm in my very early 50s,
very early 50s. I'm as early as 50s in 50s as
you can get. Yeah, as I'm I'm, I'm 50 there
you. Go.
Oh, right, OK, OK. How did Someone Like You
discover the goons? Well, I mean, I'm trying to
think of it's someone like Spike and Peter and Harry when I was a
kid, as as yourself, they were already celebrities and for
doing different things if even if I didn't know the goons
existed, they were just omnipresent.
Spike Milliken was this this Mad Cap guy on the TV and Harry
Secan was the guy on highway and Peter Sellers was Clueso when
you were a little kid. And so they were always there.
And the goons themselves, I think they probably knew them
via Python. I'm going to guess.
I suspect I've got into Monty Python's Flying Flying Circus
first. You know the records as well as
a lot of people do with the only discover Python And cassette and
cassettes very important in my story with comedy because that
was I didn't grow up on vinyl. I was the tape the Walkman
generation me too. So and I moved into CDs quite
late. I kept going with tapes for
quite a while. So yeah, that's I've got a a
love of the cassette and they used to be the BBC collection
Lagoon shows. Now the first one, you'll
probably tell me what year it came out with like the maroon
cover, and I see it now. I know the one you mean I think
that had best pudding on it. Did it?
Yeah, that would have been the first episode I ever heard, I
think. Yeah.
Do I hear a Christmas one? There was one on Christmas Day
once. I think I might be in the first
I heard some reason. I decided it was going to
disappear from the family one Christmas lunchtime.
Must be late 80s to listen to the Was it the Robin Hood one?
Was it on? Christmas Day?
Yeah, that's right. That would have been about 8788
maybe somewhere. Yeah, God, yeah, it would have
been. So I remember listening to that.
I'm thinking this is fantastic. And yeah.
So bought that double cassette in in Ledbury, which is near me.
How can the shop is still there and they used to have one of
those displays that revolve with all the.
Carousels the carousel and it would have had the.
Beyond that Ken on there around the horn and I think I had the
the not the nightlot News 1 as well.
Do you know? You know, you know those, those
cassette, those supposed double cassette cases that, that, that
are lying to you that when you actually open them up, there's
like a plastic inlay thing. There's only one cassette have.
You seen those? Yes.
Yeah, what's all that about it? Was there one with the Goon Sing
or something like that And he had the Ying Tong song etcetera,
etcetera, all the the releases on it.
Wasn't that one of those? I think that came as like a
single cassette in a in a devil pack, and I remember then being
cheated and Michael Benteen on the front cover.
But of course it was nothing to do with it by then.
Something's going to be some some gold in here.
I remember getting a Barry Cryer cassette when I thought it was
going to be two and no no just the one, just the one of Barry
doing as a one man show. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anyway, sorry I I that was out of.
Order. Yeah, yeah.
So I bought this, yeah, the double cassette.
And because we have relatives over there, so we should go over
there quite a lot. And this one shop, I'm sure they
sold them closer than that, but every time we went there to see
my auntie, I used to head to that shop and try and buy a new
one. Yes.
So the dreaded batter pudding hurler would have been the first
one I ever heard. And this I still, it's like, you
know, the songs from your youth when you hit, when you're in in
your teens, do you think it's the best thing ever?
And even now, looking back, you you look at them with a certain
glow and it's the same with that episode of the of the Gucci
show. I think that's still one of the
best. And a lot of people would agree.
I think that's what you probably why they put it on the first,
first release. Yeah, yeah.
It really resonated with me that that that episode, because with
goon show episodes, I can never you you reel them off.
I can never remember the names of the actual episodes.
I saw the one where so and so happened, but that one always
sticks in my mind. Yeah.
Well, the, the, the first one I ever heard was the last one,
which not the, not the last goon show of all the, the last
Smoking Sea goon, which is the last episode of in 1960.
And that was the first one I heard.
And a lot of people think it's not very good and it's not very
good, but I love it. It was the first one I heard,
you know. That's the last of them.
Yeah, that's it. Yeah.
Because that came out quite early.
It was like volume 5 or 6 or something.
But then the. Yeah.
Was that on the? That was on the flip side of
Call of the West, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that's when I got into them. And yeah, then I got obsessed
and I got the script books and I got Swipe Milligan's novels and
the war memoirs and etcetera, etcetera, and all that various
autobiographies they did between them and yeah.
And it took hold from there, really.
And it's it's one of these where you have dipped in and out of
over the years. You know, you not you don't fall
out of love with the goons, but you just sort of take it for
granted and you don't listen to them for a while.
And then suddenly you think I must listen to a Goon show
episode, then you're back in it again.
And which happened when I, when I heard your podcast, I thought
I'd rather let me listen to some of those again as Laura, every
dog walk I go on now, I'm taking the taking the goons with me as
I did last night. Yeah, I kind of I, I had like
this white heat of obsession with the show from the age of
about 14 till about 18. And then other stuff got in the
way and then it was still always there in the background, the
Goon show. But yeah, there's there was
probably a good 20 years or more.
Well, yeah, I'd say probably 25 years that that I kind of the
the Goon Show was kind of latent in my life, but it was it was
So, you know, I'd listened to the show so many times that
there was instant recall when I started listening to them again
for the purpose of doing this podcast.
I was always a huge comedy fan from, you know, from being a
very young child. I'm guessing you were too.
Were you? Yeah, Yeah.
You grew up in New Zealand, is that right?
Yes, I did, but we, we got a hell of a lot of British stuff
where I when I was growing up and a lot of it was introduced
to me via my dad. Stuff like Open All Hours,
Faulty Towers, Fallen Rise, original pair and stuff like
that. I came a little bit late to what
we might now call the alternative comedy stuff.
I, I, I remember seeing the young ones for the first time.
I saw the episode of the Young Ones called Sick.
But it all got a cold, yeah. Yeah, I saw that probably when I
was about, it was repeated when I was about 12 or something.
Everyone at school was going on about it and on and on and on
about it. And it was like the coolest
thing to watch. And I thought, and I was kind of
resistant and I remember watching 1 episode and to this
day I don't like that episode. I don't know why, but it didn't.
It really didn't do anything for me.
But I persevered and now I got into it.
So I was a little bit late to to that sort of thing.
What about you? Yeah, exactly.
The, the again in the 1980s in, in England, Britain.
Anyway, it can, it's been rewritten now, I think because
alternative comedy came along, wiped everyone else off the map.
The, the, the traditional working men's club comedians
with the Freddy shirts and the bow ties and everyone and, and
they, they just disappeared. But it wasn't really the case
because yes, there was Young Ones and the Comic Strip
Presents, but they were late at night on BBC Two or Channel 4.
But everyone was watching Cannon and Ball and Russ Ablets, Les
Dennis and Little and Large. And these were the the main.
Of course you had your two runners Still and Morton and
Wise in the very early 80s. So I grew up on those.
You know what? Those are things you can watch
through the family. So you have never been snobbish
about comedy. If it's funny, it's funny.
And some of those were and some of those weren't so much.
But yeah, when the. I remember the Young Ones coming
along and similar to you, I remember people talking about
it. I can see myself in my friend's
car now with his mum saying are we going to watch The Young
Ones? But you better check with your
mum and dad if you're allowed to watch it first because it can be
a bit rude. And I just assumed in my head it
was going to. I guess I heard the Cliff
Richard song, The Young Ones. It was going to be like, yeah,
like some holiday or Happy days or something.
But it wasn't. Yeah, I became obsessed with
that. And when, you know, I was the
the right age for the when the living Dole single came out.
And then a bit later that 88, probably that series 3, the
comic strip started getting into that, which is slightly
different, obviously more Peter Richardson style of comedy.
But you still had you still had Rick and eight hitting each
other over the head in in Mr. Jolie and you had bad news.
So there's the one that really stood out to me at that age.
And then the more subtle ones got into it a bit later.
Then that's the we say about the lineage.
That's it To me, every 10 years approx.
You seemed perhaps not now we'll get to to now a bit later on.
You seem to get something revolutionary that would come
along. People say it changed the face
of comedy, but as I just said, it didn't really because you
still have the traditional stuff as well, which the masses liked
because this was more of an acquired taste.
So the goons before the goons, I guess it would have been the
crazy gang made Monsieur Eddie grave.
This clips of Monsieur Eddie grave on off on a tangent on
YouTube, which I think is taken from the last crazy gang
performance that they built it as, which is I think the full
thing is on YouTube where he's doing it a bit with the dog.
I don't know if you've seen that.
And there's a guy who's supposed to be is it this is the wife's
son, I think. And he's like a a doppelganger
of Eddie Gray. He just stands there in a sailor
suit with an Eddie with an Eddie Gray mustache.
And it's so Victoria and Bob. It's like something out of
Novelty Island. It's so weird, but hilarious.
I remember seeing that saying wow, I wonder if Victoria and
Bob ever watched this because it's this is definitely in their
in their wheelhouse. Now, first of all, I would like
to introduce you to my assistant.
That is the wife's son. Very, very intelligent.
Speaks beautiful French.
Regardie. Regardie that's foreign forever.
Butcher's oak. That's without thinking.
And what comes after Funk For now.
Excuse me, I want to cough. Victoria knew his comedy
history, didn't he? He was very respectful of, yeah,
history. I mean, just look at Eric
Morgan. He was obsessed with Eric
Morgan. Yeah, yeah, big fans of Morgan
and Wise. I mean this Victoria can
sometimes or Jim can sometimes try and play that down.
And so I was never, never watched telly as a kid.
I was into art, obviously, and was into music and and nature
and we, I didn't really watch comedy, but I yeah, to take that
with a pinch of salt because even other interviews he's given
his influences and it's obvious what they were.
But yeah, so the goons. And then ten years after that, I
think of course you have to, you know, the establishment crowd
and Peter Cook and Dudley more etcetera with the the satire
boom. But I think the next sort of
more surreal comedy would have been Python.
Then ten years after that approx.
You know, the The Young Ones and then Victoria and Bob, and then
after that maybe Mighty Boosh, League of Gentlemen.
But then of course the Internet comes in and we're in a whole
different world from there on because people aren't watching
TV together. Yeah, I'd include the the
Iannucci crowd. Yeah, Chris Morris Coogan, of
course. Yeah.
Especially into the 90s, you've got a real mesh, similar to to
the Goons era when they all seem to work together and appear in
each other's films and things. Because you've got the fire show
crowd, the and Harry Enfield and yeah, Steve Coogan and Chris
Morris, Amanda Iannucci and Victoria and Bob's, they all
seem to appear in each other's shows.
Apart from really Victoria and Bob themselves, they didn't do
many appearances. Anyone else's shows, even though
all those people seem to turn up in theirs, they seem to be, you
know, I don't know, in a different realm.
Than the others, well, I mean getting back the goons,
obviously they a lot of that the comedians, the comics from that
that era knew each other from the Windmill and from Jimmy
Grafton's pub. And you'd get, you know, Harry
Secombe deputising for Hancock for three weeks.
You get Sellers turning up replacing Kenneth Williams one
week on Hancock's Half Hour. Alfred Marks, people of that
were coming and Graham Stark obviously and David Lodge were
coming in out in and out of that world as well, wouldn't they?
So they'll be overlapping and appearing in like running,
jumping, standing still film and things like that.
Different. Yeah.
The similarity between the the goons and Victoria and Bob.
There's a there's a few, but one is the there wasn't really the
university background, which there was with the with the
Pythons and a lot of, even though a lot of the comic comedy
store, alternative comedy crowd would like to see themselves, as
you know, from the street and and whatnot.
There was a lot of university educated guys involved in that
as well. You know, people like Alexi
Sayle who were the real thing, but like Ben Elton, Rick Mayo,
and so they went to Manchester University together.
Perhaps the Oxford crowd would have been prize and lorries and
Emma Thompson etcetera. There's with the when the Young
Ones episode, Bambi where they it's University Challenge
episode where you've got the team, which is Ben Elton, who's
of course one of the writers of the show and Fry and Laurie and
Emma Thompson as the posh team. And apparently Alexi Sale was
livid with like again to Paul Jackson, the producer, I think,
and said like, what? What are these lot involved?
I thought we were again, I thought they were the enemy.
And he said, no, you thought of that, Alexi.
No one else said that. We're all big, one big happy
family. But anyway.
Go on. I mean, a little bit, I, I like
Alexis Sayles stuff, you know, the, the sketch show we had.
But I, I, I've always been a bit, always struggled a bit with
Alexis Sayles in general. And he will say I invented
alternative comedy. And he will say it quite openly.
Yeah, with a bit of irony to it because there was quite a lot of
people involved. But he's happy to say I'm it
would nothing. None of you will be here without
me. Well, that's exactly what Spike
used to say, not about alternative comedy.
As he was getting older, he would often claim that modern
comedy was invented by him. More or less, he was.
He was behind it. Oh, you know what I mean.
There's something about these guys when they get older, when
this bitterness or you know, it's similar to anyone gets a
certain age when new music comes out, you just say well it's all
rubbish nowadays. It's not the same as it was in
my day. It's mainly because you don't
listen to all of it because it's not meant for you and so why
would you know all the good stuff?
Because there's always good stuff and there's always bad
stuff. Yes, Bike.
When he got older, I think he obviously had his his issues
with the BBC. So anyone else becoming
successful through the BBC must have wrangled if he thought they
were doing his act as such. Or you know, claiming an
influence. And Victoria and Bob have said
similar things. Bob not so much nowadays.
Now he started appearing in a lot of light and not a lot of
entertainment, but a lot more mainstream TV with lots of other
comics. But they always used to say we
don't watch straight comedy. We're not interested in that
lot. You know, stand ups not it's
with it's not our thing. It's so boring.
Seen it all before, but and there's.
That's, that's, that's the punk mentality, isn't it?
Yeah. Everything that's gone before
or, or anything else is, is irrelevant.
And I'm sure I've seen. Someone.
I've been trying to find it knowing that we're going to be
talking to you. So on TV once and someone
mentioned Victoria and Bob to Spike and he just, he just
automatically just dismissed it. And is there is a piece with the
Pythons when they did their reunion shows about 10 years
ago, was it? And they're doing a press
conference and someone asks who do you think today has been
influenced by you? Who's carrying your torch?
And most of them are automatically dismissive.
And so rubbish. Don't know any of them.
I think they say Eddie is old because that's their mate and
they know his name. I think Eric Idle says that.
I think Terry Gilliam might say I quite like Bill Bailey.
But Michael Palin, I mean, you can see in his Diaries he
mentions going to see Victoria and Bob live.
And there's a few mentions of Victoria and Bob.
And he did write the, he did write the foreword to their big
Victoria Rees big night in book. And he says, Oh, I think
Victoria and Bob and you know, there's someone says who, oh,
he's senile. You know, they do that thing
about he's senile. Agreements on my mayor John
Cleese will say all the time, what's he always going mad?
And it's like they just if they don't know who they are because
they live their big Hollywood lifestyles or whatever, they
they, they just completely unattached.
So they didn't didn't even know they were like most of them,
apart from Michael Palin, but completely dismissive over
anyone who's come after them. Well, I I think we can both
agree the nicest Python has always been and always will be
Michael Palin. Oh yeah, he is a national
treasure. Yeah.
Just finished the latest Diaries yesterday.
Actually finished reading that. I I I've worked my way through
the 70s and the 80s. Relatively recently, yeah, yeah,
yeah. And you can tell from that he's
got a big love for for Spike, Yes.
And the goons. And I think Spike actually did
like him. Oh, he did.
He Spike loved ripping yarns like it was a huge fan of
ripping yarns. Yeah, well, you can see that
very Spike Milligan esque and very Goon Jo esque with the when
they sort of parody classic stories that they grew up on,
which is the same of ripping yarns, isn't it?
But yeah, the other similarity I can see between the beginning of
the goons and the beginning of Vickery's big night at is the
goons. Obviously at Graftons, which
they all met up and coned not honed because they're honed on
the radio, started the very early versions of their their
act there. And what would become the Goons
and Victory's big night out had initially there was a wine bar
called Winston's, which the first ever appearance of
Victoria Reeves big night out was or Victory's variety
Palladium. I think he might have called it
then, which then went on to the Goldsmiths Tavern and then
eventually the Albany Empire, which was a big, much bigger
venue, which is very similar to what the TV show became.
So I think my main clay online we went camping last week.
Oh, and she brought the flute with her, and she.
Didn't stop playing. A little monkey.
You plan that anymore? It's going right out the door
and in the bin. And you know, there's a
gentleman. It was just jumping, flying out
the door. In those pubs and clubs you will
have these people could be like Grafton's people coming in and
joining in for a bit and then go in.
You'd have people like there was the his gang who made-up the a
lot of the TV show. Some of them came from
Darlington where where Jim came from and some from the the art
schools. So like Fred Eilwood who played
Les Vickreese Big Nights Out. He was an art student who Jim
met in London. And then you'd have people like
Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson would turn up as well and
other long term friends come and watch it.
Like George Holland would be there as they say.
Jonathan Ross said that they'd all be in the and these shows
used to go on for like 3 hours. There'd be a whole evening of
of. Victoria Reeves and sorry, my my
his, my knowledge of the his the sort of early history of
Victoria is it's patchy to say the least.
So had had Bob got together with Victoria by this?
Bob joined yeah, in the later part of that period, so
obviously before TV, so that literally a year 88 maybe I'd
have to check. And I think when we spoke to
Fred Airwood for the podcast, he plays Les, he said when Bob
turned up, he said to to Jim that you've, you've met your
Earnie wise. And he said, what do you mean?
As you 2 are obviously meant to be a double act together.
And it always amazes me that two people from very similar parts
of the world, the northeast, but not not not Newcastle Northeast,
both from Middlesbrough and Jim from Darlington, they both end
up in London at a similar time. They both got very similar
interests, an outlook on life, slightly different.
Bob's obsessed with football and Jim's got his art, but very a
very unique sense of humour. And they saw how they the chance
of them both bumping into each other in London and, and jailing
like that and, and being so different to everybody else,
even the people other people they're working with who slowly
a lot of them got left by the wayside because but they became
a double act. Rather than Victoria Reeves and
his gang, it was Victoria and Bob.
Didn't he, Didn't Bob take some persuading to go to to the place
that Victoria was performing at? Didn't he?
Was he dragged along by a friend or something?
The. Story is that he was sharing.
I might get this slightly wrong. It's all in.
It was all in Bob's book. You've got to check.
He was sharing a flat, a bedsit even.
I think it was one step above a homeless hostel.
But his girlfriend at the time was with him and he came home
one day from work because he was a solicitor, very successful, I
believe, solicitor. And he came home and found his
then girlfriend with another man, a Hells Angel apparently.
Yeah. And they split up and he was
depressed. And that night a knock on the
door and it was a friend of his from Middlesbrough, I think it
was Alan King. Who was involved with Big Night
Out in the very early days. And he hadn't, he wasn't really
a he was more of an acquaintance from it as I think it was school
acquaintances, but not really friends as such.
And he'd contacted Bob's mum and dad heard that Bob was now in
London to see if he had an address for him.
And he turned up that very night and said do you want to come out
with me tonight? And he said every other night he
would have probably said no, she didn't really.
He was quite shy, Bob and he didn't know this guy that well.
He said he's going to this comedy night.
That was crazy and he'd really like it.
And obviously I never went to a comedy gig in my life.
I never seen stand up. I didn't know anything about it.
So usually, again, I would have said not my cup of tea, But
because he was in that rut of what had happened and he just
wanted to get out, he said, yeah, go on then.
And this was Victory's big night out.
I think the Goldsmiths have. And that would have been.
And. Yeah.
And it changed his life and started going back there week
after week and hanging around afterwards and chatting with the
the crew. And eventually they would say,
do you want to come on stage and just play this character?
Or I think he had to come and present a check to him or
something. Tending from a charity, present
this giant check. And slowly but surely he started
suggesting character ideas and they started writing together
and the rest is history. So if it hadn't been for his
girlfriend checking up with the Hells Angel, he never would have
gone. I was.
Just going to say absolute. Or if he'd, if he'd arrived home
half an hour later. Yeah.
And not caught them, yeah. That's.
The story Isn't it funny how these things, yeah, just turn on
a dime? But yeah, a lot of people assume
they would have been childhood friends, grown up together, come
down to London together because they were so similar.
So I mean, my memory, my first, I was trying to think about when
I first was aware or made aware of Victoria Reeves.
I was at school in Belfast. I was in the lowest sixth form.
And I remember being in the common room and what people used
to do because I was quite good at art.
I'm quite good at art and I'm quite good at writing stuff.
And, and anyway, people used to used to get these blue absent
slips that if you're off for any reason, your parents or guardian
would have to fill in one of these forms.
Yeah, someone had managed to get a load of them, blank ones.
And I would forge absent slips for a price for my school
friends and whatnot. So I remember doing a bunch of
these in the common room. And this lad, I remember his
name, Paddy, he asked me to do him a absent slip.
And while I was doing it, while I was writing it, he was
telling, he was asking me about Because you're like the Goon
Show. And he's asking me if I'd seen
this thing Big Night Out. And I'd never heard of it
before. So it would have been, it would
have been. When did it start?
Was it 1990? Yeah, yeah.
TV 1990. Yeah.
Right. So this would have been 91 and
and I'd never heard of it. And I was, I was intrigued and I
did watch it. It didn't.
Here's the other thing. It didn't grab me straight away
and it wasn't until actually, it wasn't until a couple of years
later with smell of reason Mortimer, which I loved.
That's that's my favorite Victoria and Bob vehicle, if you
like. It wasn't until I I watched that
that I went back because I think you could get the videos and I
and I watched Big Night Out and really, really enjoyed it second
time round. I Matt Lucas, I mean, he's told
this story many times, but he's he's said to us on on the
podcast when we spoke to him, he saw the first episode of
victories big nights out and he was only like a teenager at the
times. He was really young when he side
with them and he was so incensed how bad it was, how bad he
thought it was because they kept promising so and so be coming
out in a minute and they didn't even appear.
He was so incensed. He he rang the Channel 4 duty
log to complain. Oh, jeez.
And then the next week he watched it and thought, oh, I
see. Thirdly, he's into it and he's
obsessed. Obviously he's he's on The Smell
of Reason of Autumn. He's working with them like in
two years time and he's probably a biggest acolyte.
But our first episode he said he'd never done it before and he
never did it since. But he was so incensed by this
program that he complained to Channel 4 about it.
Here we see this one's Radio Times.
You'll see the FOP on the front. Ignore it.
In the future, things could be so different.
We see a representation of Sir Graham Lister there and a free
potato. That was my idea, an inside
completely different scheduling to the sort that spewed up the
FOP. Oh, that's interesting.
Doctor at Large. Doctor in the House, Young
Doctor Howard's Ware Moore. Doctor, I tell you what though,
Alistair, I was watching Right to reply the other day and there
was a gentleman on there who looked quite similar to you and
I video tape recorded. This is on the stereogram and
I've got it on here now. Have a look at that.
Now I'm here to complain about the so-called light
entertainment show. Victoria Raves Big Night Out,
hosted by the workshop of Victoria Raves himself.
Admittedly, there is one bright spot on the show in the form of
a Mr. Graham Lister, whom I believe quite rightly is soon to
be knighted coming Channel 4. Why not give Lister his own
series? And whilst you're at it, why not
more programs such as Doctor Who, Doctor Kildare, Dr. in the
House, Young Doctors, Flying Doctors and so on?
Who on earth brought this pig into this booth?
Just similar views. Doctor.
Similar.
Valid.
But, Lester, it could not have been you, for he had a hat and a
beard. No, I never wear a hat and a
beard. No, I'm a mature man.
Right. Couldn't have been you because
he was a very ugly man. Not so very hideously ugly man.
Almost deformed. Oh, nice.
Nice. So you know it was me, Reeves,
do you? It doesn't make the views any
less valid, does it? A friend I Remember Me and my
one friend were obsessed with it and it was a third friend in our
little group on me. OK, he was probably more into
more traditional comedy, but we kept saying you've got to watch
this. It's, it's the best thing ever.
And he did. And he came back to the next
day, said, well, it's just blokes running in out of doors
with bags over their heads. And we said, yeah, it's great,
isn't it? I remember my group of friends,
so we would have been 17 around this time.
We were more interested. We were obsessed.
I would go so far as to say with Trevor and Simon around.
That time, of course. So Trevor and Simon made much
more of an impact on me at 17 than than Victoria and Bob, but
whatever happened to those guys? Yeah.
Still see them around now and again, so in your pants.
Absolutely don't do do those. Yeah, come.
And sit down and we'll have a little chat.
Come on, come and sit down. What is it you actually want
done next? What I'd like, I would like a
perm in reverse. I want it straightened out.
I'm sorry, we don't do perms, we don't do perms, we don't do
nothing quite as fancy as that. What about?
What about some highlights brighten up a bit?
Highlights like on grandstand, Sir.
What? What?
What do you want me to do? Cut your hair in slow motion,
Sir. No, I'm sorry for your.
I think I'll come back. I think you have to go to
Siegfried Sassoon Saloon. Yeah, it was a bit of an up
star, wasn't he? Was an up star.
Has Victoria or even Bob, has he or Jim, has he talked about
whether I know what you're saying that he, they kind of
deny that anything was an influence on them, I suppose.
But did he ever talk about Milligan or the Goons as an?
Influence Bob has spoken about the Q series how how how we used
to that. He used to love that growing up.
And there's a documentary from 97 I think called the film of
Reeves and Mortimer, which Alan Yento put together narrated by
Sting, who has the big and Bob connections.
And when Jim lived in a big country pile and he's out in
this little Woodlands, just just and aliens, I'm just following
them around and they and he said, so if this little woodland
was comedy, where would in their importance?
Where would Morecambe and Wise be?
Because oh, they'd be this tree here.
And where would the Pythons? And he does mention what about
the goons? Oh, they're over there
somewhere. So I don't know.
Then slightly I'll say they're older than the Pythons, So don't
they wouldn't have grown up with them on the radio.
But whether they had the records or listened to repeats, I don't
know to be honest. But yeah, I do.
I do. Remember Bob mentioned in the Q
series, as well as Python being something that they watched.
Oh, he watched when he was young just to say the smell of reason.
Mortimer was my real in to to them, if you know what I mean.
And I think I I enjoyed most the just the interaction between the
two of them at the beginning of each episode when they meet to
sat behind the desk. And then what's the dog called?
Grant Mitchell. Now it's EastEnders.
Greg Mitchell. Greg Mitchell, my wife's going
to kill. Me, I used to love particularly
obviously when the big frying pan came out or Victoria would
say something and Bob would just pick up some random object and
and play it like a musical instrument.
It's very difficult to convey it verbally.
Yeah, those those little throwaway bits when the other
just pick up a prop and Bob would just say something random
was was just make me laugh as much as the the the the scripted
stuff. The the the lead singer of Go
West, who's lost his top cap video.
Will play by Steve Coogan play. By Steve Coogan will always
stay. That's that's another similarity
to to me is between the goons, obviously the goons and much to
the producers annoyance. Most of the time I think you'd
hear them cracking up and you'd hear Harry laughing in the
background or the the musicians laughing.
And the same went up, especially with the big night out, which
was a lot rawer than the smell, which was a bit more a bit more
higher production values. So it did a bit tighter.
But especially when they played this characters, Donald and Davy
Stott, they would often just make themselves laugh and it
would stay in and they do that right for their careers and
shooting stars and everything they did now and again, they
just go off, they make a mistake.
They wouldn't like cuts and let's start again.
They'd go with it. You know, Victoria would, if Bob
would call Victoria Jim by mistake, they'd just leave it
in. You know, it's I think that the
big nights out shows, which were like half hour shows, they might
have been like 50 minutes recording or something and a bit
of time just to move props around, which would have got
edited out. But they pretty much tried to
leave it as live, which as he went on into the sketch shows
and lost a bit of that, that raw energy and the sense that
anything could happen. No, I I think another
similarity. Catch phrases.
Yeah, Big night out was full of catch phrases.
Judge Nutmeg Terrible man. Terrible, terrible, terrible man
the. Wheel of Justice, What we do
with the Wheel of justice comb its hair.
The the thing with the when the big layout first came to TV as
it, as it appeared to be come in from nowhere and completely
different end house on TV. As I said, they've been doing
that in, in the pubs and clubs for a few years.
And a lot of the people in that first TV audience were the
people who would come and see them live and their mates,
they'd bring them in to come watch it.
So they knew they that audience didn't have to catch up on the
catch phrases. They knew them already.
And so because that audience had so much enthusiasm, the studio
audience, it didn't take long to the for the general public
watching at home to to pick up on it.
They weren't gradual catch phrases like some are, you know,
like assumed the goon show ones where they just sort of evolved
to they became like falling in the water, etcetera.
Oh, well, that and that was that was cynically engineered to to
be a catch phrase. Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, they had those catch phrases.
Good to go. So when it came to the big night
at the finish, which was 91, they were already sick of those
because they and some of those characters, they've been doing
them since like, well, Victoria been doing something 86 when he
started it. And so that's when the smell
seems such a they cut a lot of that out and and start start a
blank, blank slate apart and a couple of bits they kept in and
bought back over the years. Yeah.
And that's another difference between that the Goons.
There's so many episodes of the Goons which follow that similar
pattern. You know what what bits are
going to happen where, you know when, when it's just going to
start with Neddy and Grid pipe thin leading him into some new
scheme. Then it's the Masky Aldridge is
going to appear and etcetera, etcetera.
You know when you know when Minnie and Henry are going to
come on. Blue Bottle and Echoes would
come near the end. You knew that the layout and
there's so many episodes of those, whereas the big nights
out, I don't know how many are there.
It's just it's more than 12, it's probably about 15,
something like that. And sat on the TV and then they
were ready to do something new straight away.
So obviously Victoria Reeves big night out was, you know, he was
the star, the star I suppose with with Bob as as as not
second. What second banana is that?
Is that unfair, do you think? Well, yeah, I think the on
screen personas was that the original Victoria Reeves, he was
initially a character played by Jim Moyer and it's the Britain's
top light entertainer and singer that's specifically for the
victories, big nights out. And Bob Mortimer was his
sidekick and played lots of the the other characters he like
Graham Lister and the Man with a stick and judging up Meg that he
interacted with. But it was always on the
credits, much to Jim's credit, as in written and performed by
Victoria Reeves and Bob Mortimer.
So he always gave me equal billing and but it was just the
on screen characters was the one I see Bob Banana.
But Bob himself, I think probably he had low confidence.
Then he says to himself in his book and for the first series he
was still working as a solicit. I think he took a break.
He was still employed. So as to whether he was working
as a different matter, he took a break to do this TV show and he
didn't really tell anyone he was doing it.
And he even uses his own solicitors gown and wig for for
for Judge Nutmegs and come back covered in, you know, beer
stains and fag stains and things when he he was in court on the
Monday morning. So I think he thought this was
just a temporary thing. He didn't see himself as a as a
performer. I think Jim need install that
confidence in him and convince him, yeah, you'll you know, you
can do this and you're good enough to do this.
And so from when they moved to the BBC for whatever amount of
money that was, I think he said, right, I'll take this seriously
now. And yeah, then it became on
screen Bob probably. I mean, neither of them are a
straight man by any stretch of the imagination.
But with time you got the smell. And especially with shooting
stars, Bob was sort of leading it and answering the questions,
asking the question. Sorry, a bit fooled around a bit
next to him and yeah, the whole Victoria Reeves.
Jim Moyer personality seemed to mix it because he used he
carried on using the name Victoria Reeves when he wasn't
playing that character, when he was doing acting roles or being
interviewed and things, he was still known to everybody as
Victoria Reeves, but privately with Jim Moyer and of course, in
recent years he started to say, right, Victoria Reeves was a
character. I am the artist.
Jim Moyer unfair play to him. He can call himself what he
wants. But yeah, Bob sort of developed,
I think into an equal partner on screen anyway.
But because Jim has the confidence, I think to get up
there. And a lot of people said this we
spoke to on the podcast, he doesn't really care what the
audience reaction is. He's going to do it anyway and
he's enjoying himself and where Bob was I think a bit more where
and he tried to craft it a bit more.
And you know, if someone wasn't getting laughs, it was just
weird. He'd try and try and craft it a
bit more into something a bit more palatable.
It's I get the feeling you might disagree here, that in recent
years, you know, I hate to use the phrase national treasure,
but it gets applied to people like Michael Palin, like Alan
Bennett, etcetera. Victoria Wood, God bless her
memory. I get the feeling that Bob is
considered more of a national treasure than Jim.
Yeah, just just like Paul Whitehouse, maybe more than
Harry Enfield. Yeah, I mean, you can.
There's one reason for that. It's the fishing show, which has
just been ridiculously popular, which Paul Whitehouse we didn't.
I don't think anybody really knew what Paul Whitehouse was
like as a person before that show because he didn't do a lot
as himself. He was always in character and
he was either on the Fast Show with Charlie Higson or he was
with Harry and he did stuff with Dick and Bob, as I say about pre
TV. And he did a lot of lot of stuff
with them over the years, appearing in their sketch shows
and sitcoms and things. But yeah, a lot of people who
are fans of Gone Fishing and have also discovered Bob on
Would I Lie To You? And this last one Laughing.
And he's got his novels out, which are extremely popular
would probably know Bob more than they would Victoria and Bob
and they probably think I mean you you can't compare the two.
But the closer I'm coming for goon comparison is people knew
Harry secret from Hwy. They might not know him.
The goons. Yes, it's a Sunday gone
fishing's a Sunday night's show, obviously without the religious
elements and they're a bit you know, Harry didn't goon around
as much on that show. We're we're Paul and Bob too on
the fishing. But Bob has still got his side,
which he, if you check out his podcast, Athletico Mints, that's
where he gets to unleash the other side of the Bob, which is
the weird and wonderful and sometimes really profane and
dark stories that he does on there, which is hilarious.
It was started as like a football podcast with a guy
called Andy Dawson, but the football side of it sort of
drifted off and he does all these weird and wonderful
characters on there. So he's still got an outlet for
that, which if people who watch you just known for gone fishing
will probably be very surprised at this other side of Bob.
Just because of the nature of me problem, I had to strip down,
get on the examination table, you know, and he starts to
listen to like me lungs with a stethoscope, right?
And then suddenly I feel the scope being wrapped really
tightly around me neck. Yeah.
I look up and I'm choking and he's got a large box of
disposable gloves in his free hand.
I just about managed to make out he had 500 gloves.
Yeah, he says, look, bro, spread your legs and start feeding
these disposable gloves into yourself individually and at
great speed. South African Andy.
So what can I do? I'm Naked.
I've got this thing around me neck.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I start removing the the gloves from the box.
You know doing as I was told like it says, faster and more
rhythmically. You fit prick.
So I start to speed up. Now put this tiny clan hat on
and start chanting the words. Gary Monks, Apricot Army.
So just as I start saying it, you know, Gary Monks, Apricot
Army, the door opens. In comes Doctor Graham.
Yeah, the bloke jumps up and dives out of the window.
Yeah, I say, oh, thank God you came in.
Doctor Graham, do you really think he would have made me feed
all 500 gloves inside me and Doctor Graham Scottish, you
know. And he says, OK, listen, if he
can feed 500 gloves, then I can feed 500 more.
Only joking Lolly. When you see him on these panel
shows with other stand ups and you're the stand ups, some of
that stuff, as we know is not a secret.
It's scripted and they know what you're going to say.
Whereas I've said this many times on the on the podcast when
Bob starts on. So there's especially some of
what I lied to you or whenever they attend cats and things and
Jim as well, when he used to do that.
You can see the others sitting back and not trying to compete
because obviously it's quite competitive.
Those arenas. Sometimes they're not trying to
compete. They just sit back and enjoy it
because they could never come up with anything like that because
their minds don't work on the same the same way to get to
those points that Bob is going to get to.
And so yeah, he's naturally hilarious, but so different to
to anyone else in in that field. And but since, like I can
remember reading like a a piece back in prove it when big nights
out was out from the enemy or something.
And someone would say, well, Bob is the funny one, but but he
himself would say that Jim Pick is the funniest person he's ever
met and he owes it all to him. And the most of the especially
early days, the more performance art surreal stuff was was Jim's
background because he was an art student and and he's makes makes
no apologies for calling himself an artist because what you can
do is is completely perfect straight art for a better word
like the pictures, the birds he does, which.
Are phenomenal. Beautiful.
But he can still, he still does his what I call more like
Victoria Reeves art as well, because he's constantly
releasing stuff, which is which is always hilarious.
So yeah, I mean, they're both great.
But when they're both together, they're better, I think.
And it's a, it's, I mean, they can do what the hell they like.
I mean, they're, they're in their 60s now.
They've been around a long time. If they want to do something
else together, they can. But if they want to stay apart,
they never fell out ever. The press likes to make out that
they they'd fall out, but they never did this.
They're still best mates, but it'd be great to see them do at
least one more. They've been talk of a film for
years called The Glove. It was going to be made of so
many times over the last few years, but it's never seen in
the light of day. So where there ever will, I do
not know. But saying that, you'd look at
the last Scoot show of all, you'd look at the Python
reunion, and there's something about capturing that magic when
they're young men and you're keen and you're dangerous and
you're you're just exploding with ideas.
And when you're going to try and replicate that in later life,
it's never going to be. No.
Never going to be what it was. So perhaps it's for the best.
We just remember that what they were like back in in their in
their glory days. I I would agree.
I absolutely would agree. You can imagine, like in in the
90s, if Spike and Harry and Mike Benteen have said we're going to
do a goon show, live show, we'd have all loved it, but it
wouldn't have been the same any stretch.
It's like Fawlty Towers. Yeah.
For years and years and years, please.
Oh, he didn't disassociate himself.
He was proud of it, but there was no question that he would
ever do anything. Faulty Tower was related again,
you know, because he was riding high with fish called Wander and
stuff like that. And then as his career has kind
of declined, he's more and more leaned into the Faulty Tower
stuff And. And has, has have.
I know there's been a stage show not with him, but wasn't he
meant to be doing a remake of Fault?
Or not a remake, but a new series of faults?
Yeah. It was going to be with him and
his daughter Camilla, I think, and we're going to write it and
he was going to be in Florida, maybe in the States, definitely.
And but Basil was going to be obviously the only character
from the original. And there was talk of that.
But I think the state show sort of took over because you've got
so much Flack when he announced that, that perhaps he thought,
oh, well, I can't screw you lot. I'm not doing it there.
I don't know. But yeah, I don't.
I can't see how fair play to John Cleese.
He always wants to be doing something.
He never wants to rest on his laurels and and and retire.
He always want to get something out.
But, you know, he gets. We know how bitter John Cleese
can get. But yeah, I don't think it would
be a good idea to bring back puzzle faulty.
Why? That's the first question.
Why? I mean, some of those, as we
say, Michael Palin the nicest guy and he's grown old more
gracefully than the others. Gilliam obviously got his own
film career. He's he's great.
But Eric Idle seems to be hanging on to anything Python
related. Drags Spamalot out.
He wanted to do like for Brian as a musical as well, but I
think I've got vetoed. He's always touring and singing
the old songs, singing the Rattle songs as well.
Does he need the money that badly?
Well, apparently they're on their uppers on they.
So they keep telling us from the John Cleese in Monte Carlo and
Eric I'd in LA. Now listen, I might, I've got
here, I said to you before we start a recording.
I normally prepare heavily for every recording, but I knew that
we were just going to have a general chat about Victoria and
Bob. So I haven't really got a lot of
notes, but I do have written on my pad here the word characters.
So I want, I want to ask you first of all, just getting back
to the goons is do you have a a particular favorite character
from the goons or characters? I think, yeah, I was thinking
about this earlier actually. I have to listening to there's a
period of the goons, which I'm only really recently discovering
or really studying is that obviously there's not many
recordings of the Ben team period there.
But what there is we it's not what it became.
It's not as funny as what it became.
It's a bit of a mishmash of things.
But that period after he left and before it's set into the the
standard shows like we discussed earlier where you know when
everything's going to happen. When it was still a bit sketchy.
It's sort of like split into two.
There was a little sketch at the beginning with Harry Secombe and
then he became the DC goon for the story, which was what the
goons became. And you've got Peter playing
Moriarty and Blue Bottle was not quite developed yet.
But the one I was into last night with Henry and Minnie,
just, yeah, they just clarified, I think that they're my
favourites. The, the, the, the waste of time
sketches. The one last night with
knocking, Harry knocking on the door, he's not.
He's just knocking non-stop. And Minnie is Henry.
There's somebody knocking at the door because she says about five
times. And that could be a dozen goon
shows, by the way. Yeah, but he's like, I can't
hear. You mean because it's what are
you saying? And this goes on for 5 minutes.
You say I can't hear you because of knocking at the door.
She goes to answer the door. And is Neddy trying to get this
urgent information out to them? Please stop knocking.
I can't hear Miss Bannister. She goes to Miss Bannister.
What did you say? There's someone knocking at the
door, Henry. No, there isn't.
Well, there was. He stopped that.
Well, I'll go and tell him you can start again.
And then it goes back. Henry, there's someone knocking
on the door. This goes round in circles.
I was walking the dog last night listening to that and I had to
stop and compose myself. So, Minnie and Henry, would you
say? Yeah.
I think so, yeah. To answer your question, yes I.
Used to. I used to.
I think men used to. Minnie used to be my favorite
character at one point. Yeah.
Still is to a degree. It's hard for me to say.
I think probably it's predictable, but probably Blue
Bottle for me. Yeah, but yeah.
So that's the goons. But what about the Victoria and
Bob universe? What character or characters?
Do you? Yeah, OK.
From the early days, I mean, I still have Donald and Davy
start, which is the Davy start Victoria was doing on before Bob
came along that. Yeah, that stop starting.
That's pretty Marzipan's private and all of that.
And, well, what's the ladies and gentlemen like?
A little explosion. But later on when they did bang,
bang and into Catterick, they had a couple of characters
there. There was Kinky John.
Oh, yes, yes. The American Compare.
Just going to say sort of Mid-Atlantic accent or was it
meant to be full American or? It's all of a New Jersey cops.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
And he becomes a policeman in Catterick, which is a brilliant
and very underrated sitcom. And they also had the characters
of Chris and Carl Palmer, who were bouncers in the club
sketches on Bang Bang. And then they became the stars
of Catterick, the two brothers. And yeah, there's, I think
they're probably my favourites. I absolutely love them.
But. And there's a smaller character
that Jim did called Chris Bell. He's only in a few sketches in
the smelleries and Mortman, he talks like that.
You like you like looking at my nuts and all you got all these
terrible puns. And then And then He's There was
a a pilot sitcom written by Higson and Whitehouse called The
Honeymoon's Over, which starred Alex Lowe and I've become
Clinton Baptiste and Barry from Watford.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And and say Paul Whitehouse and
Charlie's and wrote it and it's not very good.
To be fair, they it wasn't quite their thing sitcoms, but Paul
plays a cameo in it, as is Mark Williams, who's also in the fast
show and but Victoria plays Chris Belly in that as well as.
So yeah, he was he was a good early favorite, but he never
really went beyond those few sketches.
But yeah, that's another similarity is with with the the
goons and the Victoria and Bob stuff is they had, you knew when
these guys were coming on and they get a big round of applause
and everyone would cheer their catchphrases like they would
with with Blue Bottle and Echoes.
Yes, yes, and some of the. Little theme tunes as well.
Yeah, I. I would say so.
I was thinking about my favorite Victoria and Bob characters.
There's, there's probably three that immediately spring to mind.
Graham Lister, Yes, just because his his contempt.
But you smoke thought breeds. There's a couple of characters
that myself and a friend of mine, when it was on, when it
when it was from Bang Bang, Yeah.
What year was that? What 99?
Yeah, so it was a guy I was working with and we used to, God
help us, we used to do impressions of these characters,
these particular characters, Tom Fun and Derek.
Is it gyro? Is it gyro?
Yeah, Tom, yeah. When is in the that?
Oh, that machine with a monk with a monkey?
That's a monkey. It's a tricky chick.
I just found that it's. Such a dark story behind them.
There's gotta be how are these guys related?
You know, what's their what's their story there?
Isn't there a sketch where where Derek has got a cardboard
cutter, life-size cardboard cutter of Bryan Adams, and he's,
yes, dancing with him or something at about 5:00 in the
morning? Yeah, yeah.
Because they've been kicked out of their lodgings again.
He's. Going to have a look in the
skip. That could be a lot of fun.
Couldn't. Well, it's 7:30, which is a fun
time in the morning. It's rather an icy then.
We've been away for two hours now because we were thrown out
of our lodgings last night, well early this morning due to
Derek's rather erratic and excitable behaviour, but you're
excited for the reason about your Derek.
A good reason it's my birthday. It's Derek's 50th fun birthday
and we've come here to the sea. Start to have a fun day out with
our trolley full of snouts and cakes and we're going to have a
lot of fun out with Derek. With you, Tom, it's always fun.
How much money have you got? I've saved up £1. 1 LB.
We can have a lot of fun with that. 1 LB.
What could we do with a pound, Derek?
I'd like to spend it on the machines.
Oh well, what a good idea. Why don't we start with this?
The cheeky chicken? Look at that.
Ain't that fun? It really has a lot of fun that
into It's yellow. It's got jewelry.
I wonder what makes it too cheeky talk.
Do you know? I don't know if we'll ever find
out. Perhaps it uses coarse language.
It passes by that'd. Be fun.
One say that would be bad. OK, so with your podcast, that
is yourself and Paula? Yeah, OK, Well, I listened, Oh,
I listened to a lot of podcasts, a lot of comedy podcasts, and I
thought I would do something. I used to do a radio show for
years, which was a music show, and I used to do my own little
comedy skits in that. And I used to like an online
radio show. And that was a lot of hard work
because I used to put too much effort into everything about
being really listening comedy bits I used to do and choosing
playlists when I probably should be doing my day job.
So that got a bit much And the radio station itself, the on the
radio station folded. I could have gone elsewhere, but
I thought that's a good time for me to do something else.
I've done writing as well in the past.
Some stuff got like a few radio shows and kids TV and things,
but nothing, nothing big. So I want to do something.
I always want to do something and it was a, I'm a big fan of
the fall, the band. And it's a podcast that the
Hanley brothers who were the like 1980s rhythm section for
the fall, they do called Oh Brother, which they interviewed
people who were involved in in the fall or they were fans or
producers. Sometimes they were band
members, sometimes just celebrity fans or say engineers,
people like that. And I thought we were going to
do some that'd be good to actually speak to rather than
just having me talking or me and someone else talking about
comedy. What specific thing could I
think of where I could invite people on who were involved and
talk to get their stories out of them?
And Victoria and Bob just seemed obvious.
Acres are, you know, a bigger fan of them than anything else.
And there's so many, there's so many different shows, there's so
many different people involved over to talk to.
And so I thought I came up with that idea.
And Paula has her own podcast, which I'll plug called Divine
Comedians, which she speaks. She's a bigger, probably as big
a stand up fan than I am. So she'll speak to comics about
their lives and that's worth checking out as well.
So I knew she knew the podcast world and I didn't want to do it
on my own. So got never met Paula in the
flesh, but found her online. We got talking.
She's a big Victoria and Bob fan.
So she does all the technical side of things like getting it
all online and all that stuff. I do most of the finding the
people and Badger and beyond keep poking until they say yes.
And so yes, that's how it came about and.
I could have done as you know yourself.
You got your Goon podcast and there's podcasts on the Marx
Brothers I've heard and Hancock. The difference is obviously a
lot of the people who were involved in those shows are no
longer around to talk to. Absolutely, I thought.
The people from Victoria and Bob era, they're now in their a lot
of them in their 60s. If I wasn't doing this in 15,
even 10 years time, some of them might not be there anymore.
So if you want to get their stories, now is the time they
get their stories and, and obviously we've got your big
names. People have worked on them.
We've been lucky enough to get people like Matt Lucas and
Jonathan Ross and Charlie Higson.
Jackie, how did you get them? How did how did you get them?
Bare means and foul, right? Yeah.
It's usually you'll speak to someone, and so we'd love to
speak to so and so and so. Oh, they'll do it.
I'll get you their number. Which proves hopefully that
we're doing something OK, otherwise they would be
recommending them to other. People, it's funny because
people say to me how you've had, you know, you've had Rory
McGrath, you've had Griff, you've had John Lloyd, all these
great people. How have you got them?
But I look at, I look at some of the people you've had on as
well. Hey, I'm not denigrating my
guests, by the way, but I'm looking at some of your guests.
I've got guest envy. Jack D John Thompson.
Yeah, it's mostly badgering people when when ageing get
involved. It gets tricky.
If you get older than people themselves then it's a lot
easier when someone says how much they get and I'll say the
same as I am. Nothing.
You know we're doing it for. The love for the funnel don't
bother, you know, then they'll usually buckle but the ones that
really interest me, well, they all interest me.
But say, Jonathan Ross, Matt Lucas, when I'm there talking to
me, I think I've heard some of these stories before who you
tell them in slightly different ways elsewhere because you've
and you've sometimes you just don't need to say a word because
they've got their spiel and they'll just tell their stories.
And you said, yeah, you know what you're doing there.
You've done this before. But people like we had the guys
from the band who were on the victories orchestrated dress up
as jockeys on the big night out. And you've got Dan McGrath,
who's a composer, and various producers we've had like Matt
Lipsey and Ian Coyle, people like that, and people like Mike
Watson. You said you can't give a baby
booze. Oh.
Brilliant. I do, mum.
Oh, I loved him. Yeah, but they don't take the
teller stories and they've got different stories to what what
the others have got you haven't heard before.
And they think, well, as they say in 1520 years time, they
might not be around to tell them.
And those stories are gone. Like, you wouldn't be able to
if, say, if you're making a Goon podcast, if such a thing existed
at the time, you could imagine what George Chisholm would have
said, or George Hilton or one of the Stargazers or something.
Come on. But they've had something to.
Say, AE Matthews, he'd just still be around.
Possibly. Well, Andrew?
Timothy, you know. Yeah, I take it Charlie, Chuck's
no longer with us. No, Charlie, Chuck's still going
strong. All right, any chance of getting
him? Fingers crossed he's we'll have
him eventually. He's got an autobiography coming
out, hopefully before the end of the year.
What about? OK, What about?
I know, I know. You've had Ulrika Kaka Kaka on.
Yeah, I know what you're gonna say.
Will. Will Self.
Obviously you thought you're gonna say Will Self or Mark
Lamar. Right.
Now, Mark Lamar has disappeared off the radar completely.
Yeah, I mean, he doesn't, he doesn't do anything anymore.
He's not. He didn't have a social media
presence for a while on Twitter and he's just post music clips.
But obviously I think he stopped doing comedy a while back and
was like doing radio stuff, but that's stopped now.
So what he does for a living, I don't know.
The only time I've heard him on the radio in the last 10 years
is when who was Vanessa Phelps had him on Just Talk About Sean
Locke when Sean Locke died, because they were good friends
and collaborators last year and they did a short interview.
It's just about Sean. They didn't say what are you up
to now? So I don't know what he's doing.
And yeah. And with with Mark, a lot of
people we've spoken to said hopefully he's probably mellowed
over the years, but at the time his on screen persona when he
was the the grumpy one on shooting stars probably wasn't
too far away from his actual persona.
So I think it could be hard work.
Will self I'd love to get and I think yeah, because he's got
similar. Obviously he was the antagonist
when Marc Lamar left in the other team opposite Orica and as
Jack Dee replaced him. Now Jack Dee's comedy persona is
quite a bit different to his his himself.
He's a really nice guy that this grumpy old man Jack with your
face likes. An explosion on the ship farm I
think was one of them said. Or like Scooby Doo's Xmas dump.
That's what I remember. Jack with your face like a
moth's prat. But we'll sell.
I think it was somewhere between the two.
It was a stray strange person to choose.
So it was honest. He wasn't did do any light
entertainment stuff. He was known as an an author of
quite in, you know, challenging fiction and a.
Social commentator. I've read some of them, yeah.
Yeah, but he was great. And especially throwing himself
into the sketches, remember as Bernard Breslow on the carry on
campus. And he was like, dressed as a
schoolgirl in like, they did Britney Spears sketch Once Upon
a time. It's like he really threw
himself into them. So, yeah, it'd be interesting to
to get Will's health on, to see how much of his true self was in
that persona or not be scared to approach him.
He's, yeah, quite an intimidated presence.
You've got a big brain on him. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What, in your opinion, is Victoria and Bob's biggest
misstep in terms of career? OK, Randall Hopka.
Yeah. I mean, I mean enjoying it more
at the time than I did when I rewatched it recently.
And then because of other sci since the Doctor Who revival and
the other sci-fi shows that came in since then, which probably up
the game. And Bob himself, when he reads
his book, he said he thought he thought he was awful and he's
not that bad. They're not.
They're not great. And Jim has done better acting
jobs. He's done quite a bit.
He was great in the Eric and Ernie.
Oh yes, as as Rory. Wood did, which he they play
Eric and Ernie. Sorry, Eric's mom and dad.
That's right, yeah. And there's also a sitcom called
Heaven that he did. Oh yeah.
Where where he's plays Chris Ramsay's dad.
And he's really good in that he's the character.
Joe has a stroke and it's really moving and convincing.
So yeah, Jim's become a good actor, but I think Bob himself
said he's no actor. So to be play in the lead and a
romantic lead at that against especially it was against people
like Derek Jacobi and Steven Berkov and people were in it.
I think he felt really out of his comfort zone there.
So yeah. And they did Families at War,
which was a Saturday night quiz show.
I think Bob especially really wanted this to succeed and
become a more mainstream, but it's it's bit like when you see
spike on a a more mainstream show, he's they're so out there
they can't help themselves but be weird and surreal and it's
never going to be lot the joke public want to see.
It's and it's I love it. I love families at war.
There's some great stuff on there.
But for a Saturday night, you know, Strictly Come Dancing,
time of day, it's, it's, it's not really what people wanted to
watch. So it didn't last.
It lasted for the one series. So, and they did a sketch show
called Monkey Trousers with Steve Coogan, which was on ITV.
So again, a more mainstream channel than one they usually
are, which was the BBC 2 Channel 4 back in the in the 90s.
They did this sketch show and they wanted it started off as
the, the pilots were called the All Star comedy show.
And there were lots of lots of their friends and lots of
celebrities involved in it, as you would guess by the name.
And it became monkey trousers. And the bits with Victoria and
Bob in are great. Bob especially.
Just two of his best characters. One is Alice in the Estate
Agent. Have you ever seen those which
are on YouTube? When check them out.
He's showing people around houses and every question is met
with, I don't know, it's that doesn't sound funny, but you've
really got to watch them. They're hilarious.
And he did a a Steve Irwin character as well called the
Crock Botherer. He was like, he just wanted to
fight all these animals. I am a freaking nightmare was
his catch phrase. And that was those two of his
best ever characters. But the rest of it, they tried
to make it a bit more like a mainstream sketch show.
And I've said it before many times when I've spent the people
I don't know how good they are writing for other people or
other people doing their comedy. Let's say that other people
trying to do their sketches. You've got to have Jim and Bob
doing it. When other people try and play
it never quite works. They did a special called It's
Olrika, yes, Oh God, 1997, which again, if you watch it now, it's
at the time it was like watching it through your fingers because
you've come off the back of Shooting Stars.
They were out there. I think it was looking at Bank
Holiday August. Bank Holiday Monday was a really
weird time to be on. I think the BBC tried to bury
it, but some of it's OK. But Orica do it speaking as
Victoria and Bob would speak. It's obviously their scripts.
You can hear them reading it but other people reading it.
It doesn't quite work. Well, I, I used to think that
about Orica on when there was scripted stuff on shooting
stars, when there were sketches and or whatever, you know, I
always found it was, it was a bit and not uncomfortable, just
jarring. I think that's true.
Maybe. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, she's wonderful. We had her on the podcast and
she was absolutely fantastic. I've got a lot of time for
Arika, but yeah, but yeah. And she was obviously the height
of the time with Gladiators as well as Shooting Stars.
So I think the BBC thought let's and Victoria and Bob were their
height with Shooting Stars, so they could pretty much be
allowed to do whatever they wanted.
So they came with it with this idea.
I think they they announced it at a press conference before
they even told Orika. They said, Oh yeah, we're
writing a special and Orika's going to be in it.
And she was like, what? What was that?
Pardon? And so they had to, they had to
go and make it. But yeah, yeah.
So they have you missed when when they're one step removed
from it. It seems to be a bit.
It's not, it's something not quite right, whether someone
else is right in it, like Randall Hopkirk or whether
they're writing for somebody else.
It's something missing. They have that magic.
It's got to be them doing their own thing, which is
indescribable. And The thing is, you can
imagine the same with Q. Sometimes you're a lot of
straight actors on the Q series, and sometimes that's that works.
And sometimes it does, either with Spike, come on and come on
and be Spike, or get Pete and Harry in.
Yeah. And on that note, so the
podcast. Quite a boast is how Victoria
pronounces sort of QE green. Style.
That's it. That's it.
Yeah, quite a boast, ladies and gentlemen.
That's quite a boast. Yeah.
It's it's we've we're nowhere near.
Well, you're not 200 odd episodes now in I guess we're
nowhere near that. I think we've got a few years.
I think we know about 20 odd now.
Yeah. It's all the usual places you
can find it, Spotify and all. Got anything of the name of
that? Other ones?
It's on YouTube as well. Just search for it, you know to
do it. And I've got a Facebook page as
well, which is the Victories and Bob Mortimer depository of
curious stuff where I try and post anything that's Vic and Bob
related. So if people want to join that
group, they more than welcome. Very good.
Well, Matt, thank you. Thank you very much for joining
me. It's been an interesting, a
really interesting chat. It's nice to talk about
something we have touched on the goons of course and Spike and
whatnot, but we've we've focused much more on Victoria and Bob
and it's been nice, a nice change and I enjoy.
It's nice to talk with something with a protagonist is still
alive. Yeah, yes.
Absolutely. All right, mate.
Well, I'm sure that we will speak again at some point in the
future. Yeah, look forward to it.
Thanks so much for having me. Do you know what, Bob?
What? I like aliens.
I thought it was aggregate. I like more than one thing,
Anna. All right, then.
All right then. You like aliens?
An eggnog. Yes, I do.
Fancy pants. All right then, Bob, I'm in the
stationer's shop and I'm going to buy quite a hard piece of
stationery. What is it?
Stationer's hard item. Hard item?
That's easy. That's a franking machine.
Climb you. I don't know how you do it.
Do you want to come in for an eggnog?
I don't like eggnog, but yes, I'll come in.
Jim, what are these two foxes doing in here?
It worked. Auntie and Hunter her back.
It's them. I can't believe it.