Let's let's look back on the kind of the 18 months of the
bunker show that that on night network who who are your faves
that you had on Mel Brooks was good and Stephen Fry was good
because I just used to say hello and then he would just talk for
half an hour and say goodbye, drink and fall asleep.
People that were a bit verbose, they were always interesting.
I thought one of my favourites was the guy used to be in oh, I
forgot his name. Yeah, Yeah.
You know the. No, No.
I must think of a name. Hold on.
Used to be in Prince Charles's
favorite mode. What they called the goons.
The goons. Spike Milligan.
Yeah.
He was good, wasn't he So good? No, he was a prat.
That was he. Yeah.
He's mad. He's completely off his head.
He'd say hello, Spike, and he's off.
You know, it's like you can't get through to him.
It's a shame. Start live with him now.
Really. Yeah.
So you're all happy? Yeah.
No, he was. He was one of my favourites.
I remember that. Hello and welcome to Goon Pod.
Now overseas listeners may not be familiar with my guest this
week, A difficult guide to pitch and hole.
Roland Riveron is a musician, comedian, presenter, a
personality, I guess you'd call them, seen on British television
screens for 40 years now and or never at the forefront of what
we might now call the alternative comedy scene.
He was certainly on the Subs bench and often given moments to
shine. As many of you will know, I'm
not one to stick rigidly to the confines of this podcast remit,
but while we do sometimes stray away, there is always some
connecting tissue. Roland is someone very
instrumental behind what I consider to be one of the finest
examples of comedy achievement to come out of Britain in the
80s. That is the comic strip film Mr.
Jolly Lives Next Door starring Rick Mail and Adrian Edmondson,
and this was a topic I wanted to cover with Roland in some depth
as it was we we did talk about that, but also other interesting
curious in a career which seems largely built on happy accidents
and being in the right place at the right time.
This is not to underestimate or undermine his talents, of
course, but as he himself says, he was always at heart a jazz
drummer who was asked to do comedy.
He did interview Spike Milligan rather disastrously, and we
talked about that in a conversation which paints a
portrait of a man very much in the thick of the British comedy
scene in the 1980s, which is not a period we talk about a lot on
Goon Pod. I thought it made for an
interesting chat and I hope you think so too.
By the way, the day we recorded this was an absolute scorcher in
early May and part of the interview was conducted outside
in my garden. So you may hear some sounds of
nature here and there. The honey, be it play with the
Sparrow, plus the occasional distant hedge strimmer and my
cat at one point, but nothing which will particularly
interrupt your listening pleasure.
I used to. I used to do the holiday show
for the BBC. Yes.
One of the jaunts that they lined up was me taking my family
from a caravan in holiday. And we'd never, ever done.
We'd never, I don't think we'd ever used the word caravan in
conversation. And they said, would you, would
you take your wife and kids to northern France, you know, for a
holiday show for the bee? But.
And I said, all right, I ran it past the wife.
She wasn't too impressed. It's usually it's Marbella or,
you know, Sri Lanka or somewhere like that.
But no, we were in a caravan on the northern coast of France.
But we did it and my kids absolutely loved it and my wife
fell in love with it, having been very sceptical beforehand.
And ever since that day all we've done when we've gone on
holiday is go on a caravan holiday.
So that's how it came about. And I think the the show went
out on the BBC, the Holiday show and the Caravan Club, as it was
called back then, the Caravan Club of Great Britain,
membership increased by a third or something like that.
People just signed in and signed up.
Blimey. So I momentarily became patron
St. of Caravaning. Yeah, I think they'd call you an
influencer today. My word, yes, I exactly thinking
about it, yeah. Do do you not find it a little
bit restricting? This is sort of everything sort
of crammed into a fairly limited space.
Do you not find that? Do you know troublesome?
My wife likened it to a Wendy house.
That's what why she warmed to it so much.
My kids just loved it because it was like a Playhouse.
And to an extent I liked it because they liked it and it was
it was a completely different and unique thing.
Up until then, we'd we'd go twice a year courtesy of Virgin
Atlantic. I used to do the in flight
destination guides. We'd go, I'd drag my kids off to
Disneyland in Florida and we'd I'd filmed for five days and
we'd have five days there. So when they were growing up,
that's all they knew was the Disney dollar.
And then we are doing this caravan stuff and they just
absolutely loved it. I don't know what it is.
It's like the freedom that you, you know, the kids hang out with
each other. The sites are fantastic.
We sort of tentatively every year went further and further
down the West Coast of France. And then we eventually bumped
into Biarritz, right on the South southwest coast of France,
about 810 miles inside from Spain.
And we've been going there for 30 years, ever since.
Yeah, you said they're about you're doing the the in flight.
What was the in flight announcements for?
No, I used to do the destination guides on the Virgin Atlantic
flights. They used to have destination
guides and if you didn't want to watch a film or 40 Towers or
something, you could watch me telling people what they're in
for when they get to their destination.
Because most of the people on this on the flights were going
to Disney Florida. So I used to go twice a year,
Easter and then just before Christmas and do make new
destination guide videos about sort of 1820 minutes were.
You one of those? Because somebody told me and I
can't remember who and I might, I might have got this wrong.
But did you? Did you used to hang about the
Groucho Club back in the 80s and wait for for voice over gigs to
come in? Yeah, yeah, because they were
all in Wardell St. and Dean St. That's where all voice over
studios were. So I'd just, I'd, I'd roll up to
the grouch at about 10:00 and just wait for the phone to ring.
And literally I could, I could tell him I'll be there in like
10 minutes. So, so that worked, that all
worked very well. And I was doing loads of voice
overs and ads and that all went very well.
And I was doing up until I did, I used to do the Guardian Colour
supplements. So we'd record it on Friday and
it'd go out on Saturday ready for, you know, people buying it
on Sunday. So I went and did the, the, the,
the Guardian read, you know, it said in this, in this week's
Guardian colour supplement. And then I'd read, read all the
stuff. And then I said great, fine,
good, that's lovely. Cheers.
So back to the grouch. Troy went, started drinking, got
absolutely pissed. Then they rang and said can you
come back? The lawyers a bit worried about
some of the word. And it was like, Oh no, they're
going to be more worried about the wording after I turn up.
So that was that. There was a long, some sort of
technical word that I was, I had to read.
And they said, no, that's not the right word.
So I had to go back really drunk and try and pronounce this sort
of four syllable word. God, it was a nightmare.
Something in Welsh or something? Yeah, it was just, you know.
But though they, they were, they were heady gorgeous days.
Just sitting at the grouch, slowly getting drunk, going and
doing one or two, maybe 3 voice overs in a day and just
existing. It was bizarre.
Was it good money or was it just?
It was, that was the other thing that was in a way it started to
affect me a bit because the money was too good.
It really was money for old rope because I'd go and read and
after a while it felt like I haven't actually earned this
money, but they've given it to me because I wasn't doing
anything. All I was doing was reading and
and they, they people loved it. I was doing the McDonald's ad, I
was doing Citroen. I was doing some cleaning stuff,
Ziff or something, just loads of different ads and the money back
then was great. It got sort of deregularised or
whatever and people started just using unknown people for ads and
and sort of the the the bottoms ripped out of of voice overs
apart from the Welsh guy that was does all of them.
Were you being employed because people would recognise that it
was Roland Rivron or were you just being employed because you
were good at doing voice over work?
I. Think I might have been quite
good at doing voice over work, but they, I had, I, I went
through a period of my voice was the voice that people wanted by
choice, You know, when they did, when they did audience.
The thing is, you know, where they, the people, they, people
would pick out my voice. So now that's, I like that
voice. So I, I kept getting books to do
gigs because my voice was, you know, because if you, if you
listen to ads now there's probably about four voices,
different voices, you know, and it's because people have got
used to those voices and they're reassuring and, you know,
people, it's easy on the ear, but that, that'll only last so
long. I lasted about four years.
Then they wanted fresh blood. I've, I was just being bombarded
with money and that's not good because there's, there's
something about earning money and feeling like you've actually
earned it rather than, you know, acquiring money.
It was very strange. It sounds like I'm being very
decadent, but honestly, that was how it that's how it came
across. That attitude does you credit, I
would say, I would say absolutely.
And and look, Roland, I've not really properly explained about
the the the podcast. I mean, it's it's it's very
freewheeling and loose, OK. It started out very much focused
on on a sort of a salute to the members of the Goon show and the
Goon show itself. OK, But I'm a I'm a huge fan of
Peter Sellers and and Spike Milligan, of course, but also
Perry and, and even Michael Benteen and, and, and, but it's,
it's gradually evolved over the the years where it's loose
enough that we can we can just talk about people within comedy.
But I'm a huge fan. I mean, look, I consider
something that you were very much involved with, I consider
to be up there as one of the greatest examples of comedy from
the 1980s, which is Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door.
Oh, right. Yeah.
Yeah, this is another traditional Old English pub
which is very close to closing time if you don't mind, right?
I've told you 4 times already, we're closed, you 2 out now.
Look, Buster, Brenda, stay out. Oh look, a traditional Old
English illegal drinking establishment.
Right squat. Squat over here.
I think you're going to like it here, mate.
We're regulars, you know. Hey, Monica, get home.
All right. The other morning are you
talking about? What do you want?
Well, I think we'll indulge in two massive gins.
Please, Monica. Nothing for the French geezer.
Sorry, mate. You have to be a member.
Well, I think we're going to have a very nice time here.
I think we're here. So I was keen to talk to you a
little bit about that, but also I wanted to talk to you about
your comedy influences, who you like.
The thing is, with you, you're a little bit difficult to
categorize, I suppose, but do you consider it 'cause you're a
musician? Are you a musician or presenter
or or a comedian or how, what what?
What do you claim yourself to be?
This is the problem. Can I tell you how what
happened? Right.
So when I was at secondary school, all I wanted to do was
play the drums, jazz drums. The school I went to,
Abbotsfield Secondary Comprehensive in Hillingdon,
didn't have a school classical orchestra, they had a school
jazz orchestra. So what used to happen
periodically, people going through the school, once they'd
finished the school, they'd, you know, finished sixth form,
they'd leave and which meant they left the orchestra, the
jazz orchestra. So there was a constant sort of
turn around of fresh musicians needed.
And I got sort of hired or persuaded to play the drums when
I was 12/13 Start learning drums because the drummer was going to
be leaving in a couple of years and they needed a replacement
drummer. One of the drummers that was in
this orchestra is Ian, or Ian Pace I think it is, who plays in
a very successful band that used to have Fish as the lead singer.
What's that band? Oh, Merillion.
Merillion, yeah, he play. He's.
He's oh, Ian, Ian Moseley. Ian Moseley Not Ian Pace.
Ian Moseley Yes, right. I took over from him.
Oh wow. OK, he was.
The drummer in the jazz orchestra.
And then as I, you know, became proficient enough, I became the
drummer. Now this by and by, I thought,
oh, I like drumming, in fact much more than I like school.
So I started playing jazz drums sort of professionally when I
was about 17, while I was still doing my O level A levels in a
pub in Shepherd's Bush that no longer exists.
It's a roundabout now, sadly, The Duke of Wellington.
It was cool and all I wanted to do was play the drums.
And by the time I was 20, I was a professional jazz drummer in
London gigging 345 nights a week.
That was all I wanted to do. So much so that when I got back
into, well, not back when I moved into doing TV and I was
doing a program called A Set of 6 where I played 6 technical
brothers and they said you we we're going to Iceland, we need,
you need a passport. I had to look at my passport and
my passport was 15 years out of date.
Such was the contentment that I've had in London, just playing
drums. It was just phenomenal,
unbelievable. Didn't go on holiday for 15
years, didn't need a holiday, you know, every day was a
holiday. It was just.
Fantastic. But then suddenly a drummer
colleague of mine who was playing drums for The Secret
Diary of Adrian Mole at the Wyndham's Theatre in the West
End, and he said, I'm going on holiday for two weeks, can you
dab? Can you sit in?
And I said, oh, Blimey, I don't know about that because it was
just a, a trio, a massive drum kit, the the MD playing about
four different keyboards and a guitarist with about 12
different guitars. So anyway, I said, oh, fuck it,
yeah, all right, come on, let's do it.
So did that. You sent me all the songs, about
23 songs I had to learn and there was no rehearsal.
I just turned up on the Monday, went in, sat at the kit.
The the keyboard player was to my left behind baffle boards.
So I couldn't actually see him. But there was a little square,
probably 2 inch, 2 inch square cut in this baffle board and his
finger would poke through it and he'd go 121224.
And that was my cue. Every, every number had a four
or eight bar drum solo that I had to perform in order that all
the kids on stage could run and get into position ready to start
singing. So I was just shitting myself
doing this. The first show came in half an
hour early because I was just, you know, shit in my pants.
And the second show was a lot better.
By the 5th show I was smuggling in a litre bottle of screw top
suave white wine which I drink during the show in a mug with
the secret Diary of Adrian Mole written on it, so the audience
thought I was drinking a cup of tea.
Basically what had happened doing this show had rinsed out
any enthusiasm I had for drumming.
It was quite bizarre. I just then I hated it, you
know, within about 5 shows. So consequently when I finished
that I just really didn't want to play drums.
And fortuitously I was sharing a flat with Rick Mail and Lisa
Mayer, they were writing The Young Ones.
So we were going to the pub a lot and I was meeting Paul
Jackson who produced it all corrected it.
He asked me in the pub one night.
He said, Roland, I'm doing this show, Don't Miss Wax, which is a
a chat show with Ruby Wax and a big band and all that.
Will you come and do the warm up?
And I thought, what, what are you talking about?
Do the warm up? I'm a jazz drummer.
He said, yeah, I know, but you always make us laugh when we're
down the pub and I don't want to get a conventional stand up
comedian. So I said, oh, alright, what
what do I do? I said, we just come and talk
and, you know, interact with people like you do in the pub.
You know, you're funny in the pub.
We be funny. So I did that and that's how I
sort of made my way into television because there was a a
woman in the in the audience that was responsible for Night
Network on ITV. They asked me if I'd go on that
and I did the Bunker show, which is just a piss taker of Desert
Island Discs. Desert Island Discs here.
Video Things. Jonathan saw me on that and
said, wait, can you come on the last resort?
Jonathan Ross. Jonathan Ross, Yeah.
Ross Yeah, At the same time Dawn and Jenny were doing a show,
they they were doing a live show at the Hampstead Theatre.
They were employing myself and Simon Brinks to the music.
So we sort of formed out of thin air raw sex in order to
accompany them. They very quickly got onto the
BBC and they were, and they took took us with them.
So I, I suddenly, I've been not wanting to play the drums.
I very quickly was just doing all this stuff on TV and, and
every time somebody asked me to do something, I said I'll, I'll
do it. But could I just, could I just
preface this with I am a jazz drummer.
If it all goes wrong, I am a jazz drummer, OK.
The things you're asking me to do are not jazz drumming.
Not no implication on your talents, but in general being
asked to do comic business. Yeah, for want of a better word.
Did you feel a bit of a fraud? Oh, yeah, totally.
Yeah. I keep saying, look, I'm a jazz
drummer. If this doesn't work, you know,
you've, you've only got yourself to blame.
But it, as I went from thing to thing, it seemed to work.
And it was, you know, people liked it.
So I, I really do not consider myself a comedian.
My first love is jazz drumming. That got rinsed out of me.
Since then, I'm a bit of a, you know, a drifter.
Yes, OK. I always bring things back to
the games. OK.
Because were you aware that Peter Sellers started out as a
jazz drummer? Yes.
Yes, because he's got a lot of references in.
I used to listen to him on the records that my elder brother or
my dad had. And he'd he'd, he'd name drop
very, very good jazz, American jazz drummers.
And you sort of think, you know, if you're, if you're a drummer,
you'd know that person. If you're not a drummer, you
wouldn't know who the hell that was.
He just he sort of came into the war right at the fag end, if you
like, because he was he was old, just old enough to to see active
service. But he before, before he was old
enough to be enlisted. I think I'm right in saying
this. He was in a band called the the
The Jive Bombers. Oh, I see what they've done.
Yeah, yeah. And then he after the war, he
was sort of, I think he was doing bits and pieces here and
there, but then he he essentially packed it in when he
when he started getting work on the radio.
Yeah. And and of course, Milligan was
in a was in a jazz trio as well. Yeah, Were you a fan of either
Milligan or Sellers at all? I think probably Peter Sellers
more than Milligan. Milligan, what was that?
A bit too sorry, a bit too sorry for me.
And I did interview him once and he was really difficult, bless
him. He did bring a bottle of wine,
though. But.
Yeah. Was it red wine?
Because he liked his red wine? Yeah, did Spike.
So you were sat there with your suave, and he was there with
his. Well, I'd moved on from the
suave by then, but yeah, he, he said I'll do it if you buy me
this bottle of wine. So we, you know, the ITV had to
buy him this really nice bottle of wine, though I think we did
drink or maybe just just take it away with him, I can't remember.
Anyway, that was on the Bunker show.
He came and did the Bunker show and I interviewed him.
A prickly character he was. I don't know what you think
about him. Goodbye.
You sure you don't want some of the bread?
Don't believe I've done this program, I think you sure they
haven't got the bomb and this is the real thing?
Do you know something that I don't know?
Yeah. This is this is this is a
simulation of this is this is what it's like after the bomb.
Stop. You just do really bad TV
programs all day. I I've done some programs in my
time. Yeah.
And this has been one of them, I suppose.
Oh, it wasn't that bad. We've had a bit of a joke.
We've had a look. Yes.
When I started with meandered, Yes.
What a terrible way to end a career.
Yeah, well, he, he would have seen you as being it would have
lumped you in with with what he would call waspishly alternative
comedy. Yeah, Yeah.
Which he, which he absolutely hated.
Oh, I see. He he really did not like Rick
Mail. Right.
OK, I don't think he even met Rick, but he he was, he would
often, he was often quite vocal and, and and critical about what
he saw about, you know, like he he class alternative comedy as
as fart jokes and swearing and giving people 2 fingers that
that was his right idea of what it was.
Young ones appalled me for it's bodiness and I mean all this.
Well, listen, hang your Willy out and tell a joke and that's
you're not saying that some of that his resentment was jealousy
and. Absolutely.
Of of the new. Absolutely.
You think about someone like Barry the late, lamented Barry
Cryer. Yeah, right now, the great thing
about Barry was that he didn't have so many comedians.
Yeah, there is that resentment of the younger generation coming
up and and Barry. Embraced him.
Barry embraced, yeah, younger comedians, didn't he?
He loved the fact that there were other people coming through
being as funny as him. Yeah, Spike was bitter.
I mean, he, he, he had ABBC show, the Q series up until the
late 70s and then he had another final BBC show 8283.
And after that the work kind of dried up.
You know, he was just getting chat show work and stuff like
that and he was very bitter because he felt he still had a
lot to give. But but you've seen some, I
mean, he the key series is great in in places there's a lot of
great stuff, but you watch if you watch it in its entirety
today, a lot of it is is. Is difficult.
Oh yeah. A lot of what he was doing, it
was not a million miles away from AID and Rick, you know.
Yeah. It's very similar sort absurdist
stuff. Yeah, he said.
He can be. He can.
He couldn't be. He was a prickly, stickly
character. He was so so who were your?
I mean, do you, did you have any particular comedy heroes when
you were growing up? I used to use, I used to watch a
lot of those real book standard classic sitcoms, you know?
Yeah. So, but not to the point that
I'd hero worship them, but I sort of appreciated them and
understood them from, you know, are you being served to the good
life? And you know, there's real sort
of down the middle shows. I mean, Morecambe and Wise were
were when you're when you're sort of 9/10/11 12:00 and you're
just sort of understanding about comedy.
Those, those sort of people are the I think are the ones that
you notice first. I used to love the Marx
brothers. That was that was all good And a
much like aid Rick and aid. I used to love Wiley Cote, the
cartoon characters, you know the.
I do. Is that where they got the name?
Yeah, 20th century. That's it.
Because they were massive fans and there was a series that I
used to watch because it was only in the afternoon and I
wasn't doing anything in the afternoon, called Ed.
Ed and Eddie. Do you know that?
I do know. That yeah, there's a guy in that
called Richie or, or or something who's just the exact
sort of replica of how Rick used to be.
It was weird. So I love that that they they,
they were fantastic Those those cartoon shows.
So how, how did you, how did you actually end up living or
sharing a flat, I should say with with Rick, with.
Rick and we I there was the The comic strip was used to perform
Friday and Saturday, 2 shows a night at the Boulevard Theatre
above the Raymond Review Bar and in Soho and every double act
invariably had a song. So there there was a a trio was
required piano, bass and drums. So I got asked to go and play
drums with Rod. Melvin was the pianist he used
to be. I think he wrote What a waste he
used to be in Kilburn in the high roads with Ian Dury.
Ian Dury, yeah. OK, Rod, Rod Melvin, he still
plays piano at the Groucho Club, you know, OK, One twice, 3 * a
night, three times a week. So Rod was on piano, Simon Brint
was playing bass. And they knew me somehow.
I don't know. And they wanted a drummer.
So I used to go and drum. So every Friday and Saturday
night, 2 shows a night, we'd be there supplying music.
The girls during the journey used to do a song Rick used to
do. If you're looking for trouble
it's Kevin Turvy and Lexi I think used to do Doctor Martin's
on stage. I'm not sure whether that's true
or not, but I seem to remember. But all, all the acts, all the
comedy acts, they invariably in a weird sort of nod to old
school traditional entertainment where a comedy show's got a song
in it. They would do a number.
So we were required to play, supply the music, which we did.
Rick and Lisa were looking for somewhere to live when we came
back to London, as was I, So we both the pair, well the pair of
them and me went and had a look at this flat in Ellington Road
off of Liverpool Road in Islington and we liked it.
So we just moved in and it was there.
It was about 4-4 months, weeks, I don't know, Later they started
writing the the Young Ones, and we used to just, you know, go to
the pub every lunchtime, play pool.
When the pub shut at 3:00, we'd go to a restaurant and just buy
a kebab and a bottle of wine. Then the pub opened at 5:30, so
we'd go back and carry on playing pool.
It was that sort of a existence. Aid actually talks about it
lovingly, he says. That was the most favorite time
of my life, just hanging out in pubs, playing pool and writing.
It was just an idyllic environment.
And that's how I got to meet Paul Jackson, and you know that
and all that developed. So they were writing The Young
Ones. Yeah, so were you.
Did you ever throw ideas into the into the ring, or were you
ever? Down again, yeah, yeah,
obviously bats home that was one of mine just because they'd be
talking about it when we'd be out in the pub and, you know,
threads and and and storylines were just, you know, thrown
around but we were making ourselves laugh in the pub so
yeah, so there's that. I wouldn't put my hand up and
say, yeah, I've got, you know, there's no writing credit
involved. But you know, that was the odd,
the odd thing with Mr. Jolly. That's exactly how that
happened. Because Wick and Aid were not
going to write Mr. Jolly or they were going to write a comic
strip film. And I was hanging out very heavy
closely with them because we were just drinking partners.
And they said, right, What we'll do is we're if you come up with
we're, we're going to be writing this.
If you chip in with 1010 jokes, we'll give you 10 funny things.
We'll give you a tenner for each one.
So I thought, oh, great, this, this is good.
So we're hanging out, we're drinking here.
And two days later they said, all right, OK, you've come up
with the, the title. You've come up with the Mr.
Jolly person. You've, you know, you said,
well, they said, right, we'll just split it three ways.
You know, we'll have an equal writing credit.
So that's how I sort of again drifted into getting an an equal
writing, taking credit on that film.
But that was just fantastic fun to do because we see it was all
written in the pub. It was unbelievable.
Well, most of it takes place in the pub, Yeah, Yeah.
So. So where did the idea of calling
in Mr. Jolly come from? I because this guy was a
murderer, was a contract killer, it just seemed obvious that he
should be called Mr. Jolly and absolutely, you know, and they
lived next door to him. Did you?
Did you Did you think of Peter Cook?
I think we all did because we all loved Peter Cook.
That's another person who I could put my hand up and say
Pete and Dad, they, they were I, I, I very much identified with
their humour. But Peter Cook was very, very,
very, very high up in our, in our combined estimations of, of
what is funny. So yes, he was our first, our
first choice and it was just fantastic to get in.
Escorts mascots come in if you're saucy can.
I borrow some fairy liquid. What?
Again? Shut up.
Of course you can, Ralphie. Oh, you're right, Ralph.
If you cut yourself shaving, I'll bring it back.
I guess you're a lot of fairy liquid, doesn't he?
Why must you always be so rude to Mr. Jolly?
You are jeopardizing our relationship with him.
I'm what? I said.
You're jeopardizing our relationship with Mr. Jolly.
I'm. Stop squeaking.
What about Nicholas Parsons in Mr. Jolly Loves Next time?
That was a handbrake turn. I think what who we wanted Max
Bygraves originally and he was too much money and he lived on
the South Coast and he had a massive, great big Saint George
flag in his garden and we didn't want him to get down.
We didn't want to get too close to him, I think.
From what I know of Max Bygraves, OK, Yeah, One thing I
say about Nicholas Parsons, having listened to him over the
years on Just a Minute, Yeah, he's very willing to take the
piss out of himself and other people to do the same.
Max Bygraves, not so much. No, no, not at all.
Also, you know, buying the rights to Oliver, you know, Oh
yes, you know, that was just because the bloke had no money.
It was there was something just you should have bought them and
then giving them back. But anyway.
Somebody something like because we've we've talked about the
film version of Oliver, because Harry Secam's in it, of course.
And is it did he did Lionel Bart sell them to Bygraves or
something like £75? I don't think it was £75 but it
it was an amount of money that Max Bygraves could easily afford
because Lionel Bart was right on his uppers.
Yeah. And it and it got him out of the
situation, but, you know, get him out of the situation, then
give him the money back when he's all right, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway.
OK, so, so, so you decided on Nicholas?
Parsons. Yeah, we're.
Yeah, Nicholas Parsons was mooted and we thought, yeah,
that's good. And he just completely overacted
it. And.
And I think it works very well. But you're my agent.
You've got to do something. Well, they're the strangest Mr.
and Missus Cooper I've ever met. Are you sure they're not Terry
Scott winners? I can't call the police, but
they call me here with these tweeted.
Ruin my reputation. And I'm a family entertainer,
remember? You've no idea.
What? Oh, my God.
It's it's getting worse. You want to watch those stairs,
*** Well, you've got to do something of breaking the place
up. This bottle is empty.
Have you got one that's exactly the same, but unopened?
I haven't got any more bottles. Right.
Good night. Good night.
Oh, good night. Good night, right, Nicholas and
now pissed from Norwich. Nicholas pound games and don't
spare the monkeys. Where's the van?
It is a bit strange working with people that are you know, you
literally grew up watching and then suddenly you're, you know,
hanging out with them. It's it's odd.
It's like, hang on a minute. You shouldn't really exist in
the real world because I only know you through this medium.
And of course, Rick and Abe were playing slight variations of the
characters that they always play.
Yeah, in, in Mr. Jolly, which is the two despicable wretches,
basically. Drunken, despicable wretches,
basically. Yeah, selfish.
Yeah, Ruthless, cowardly failures.
That's it. And and and the idea of
exploding tonic water. Was that one of yours?
I have quite possibly I don't know one of mine was the when
when Mr. Jolly's cleaning the the the glass partition and and
Rico stop squeaking. I remember that that was, that
was a nice one. But there was there was loads of
different things. Yeah, it's difficult to put your
finger on exactly which, you know, because we were sort of
when he said let's, let's write it together.
It would just became we, we would just be in conversation
about it and then some Rick or aid would go to the typewriter
and and type out what we just chatted about, you know?
It's definitely something to be proud of because it's I think
it's really, really up there as being one of the greatest comic
strip episodes. You call it an episode.
Ever. I mean, we did with, you know,
John Rain I. Do know John Rain?
We, we did a tour where we, we put on Mr. Jolly and we did AQ
and A and we did A at A at a Mr. Jolly quiz.
And the people that came to this, the, the gigs to the
screenings, a lot of them actually dressed up as the
characters in the film. And they knew every line.
You know, because there's so many punch lines that escorts to
escorts come in if you're saucy. Yeah, never, ever bloody
anything. Ever.
Yeah, yeah, it was bizarre. And also getting Stephen Frears
to direct it. Rick and I really put their foot
down and said we're not having it.
We're not making it unless we get Stephen Frears.
So. So the comic strip, I got in
touch with Stephen Frears and said, Rick and I would like you
to direct this. And he was it right in the
middle of prepping. What's the John Malkovich film
that he did? Oh, dangerous.
Liaisons, he was right in the middle of prepping that, you
know, so imagine the phone calls coming and going between
Dangerous liaisons and phoning him saying we're going to try
and set up AIDS light in his own farts.
What are your thoughts? And he said, hang on a minute.
I've got John on the other line, you know, and he's he's sort of
juggling these two completely different spheres of
entertainment. It was quite amazing.
For for what it is, it's a very cinematic comic strip for sure.
Yeah. And it's got, it's got some
great supporting cast. It's obviously, I mean you're in
it briefly, aren't? You I've, I've been at about I
play 5 different characters. I'm the barman.
I'm in raw sex. I double as Peter.
Peter next door when he's when you see him chopping somebody
up. I'm one of the people on on the
Mortuary. Yeah, I'm in it a few times and
Simon and I did the music. Just on raw sex, where did the
name come from? I just we just made it up.
It was like what, what what is the complete antithesis of how
we looked And it's like that. So isn't raw sex again that that
was something that just came came came about very, very
naturally. We both slipped in.
Simon very easily became the, you know, hearing aid, the old
man at the keyboard and I very, very easily became a drink
sodden conga player again. You know you there was no method
acting and of course. You you did a lot of work with
French and Saunders, yes, as well it.
Was great. It was perfect timing because
Simon and I, the girls, when they, they, when they peeled off
and did their own two woman show on stage live, they wanted music
because they, they did 3 or 4 numbers.
So the first person people they turned to are the people they've
worked with before. And we obviously, you know, we
got on with them. We didn't upset them, probably
didn't later on, but we, Simon and I found ourselves sitting on
stage all of their gigs, you know, supplying music and and
then we, and then they said, let's create a, a character on
stage persona. And that's how they're all Ken
and Dwayne, Ken and Dwayne Bishop.
That's how that Ken and son Dwayne, that's how that came
about. But at that time as well, maybe
10-15 years before there there was on Opportunity Knox and
things like that. There were father and son duos,
you know, sort of rising star type things.
So subconsciously I probably thought, you know, nicked it
from, you know, that that those those things that I'd watched.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
But. Yeah, we toured with we did a
big free 4 month world of the nationwide tour did did the
first couple of series of French and Saunders.
It was great. And then and then you started to
get your own, I guess becoming more front and centre as a, as a
presenter or performer because you had the groovy fellas with
jewels, of course. Yeah, I used to.
I used to go and provide script lines for the the tube for Paula
and Jules. I used to go out with them every
week and hang out and just, you know, suggest if this pans on,
why don't you say that? And you know, I was becoming a
bit of a sort of advisor, comedy advisor again, you know,
prefacing it with, by the way, I am a jazz drama.
So if it doesn't work, please don't, you know, don't don't
blame me. So I got to know Jules really
well. And we sort of, we sort of, we
clicked really quite quickly. And I remember when my mum saw
the tube once accidentally on television and she phoned me and
she said, Roman, there's a bloke on the television is, is just
sounding and acting just like you are.
And it was really strange because Jules and I, we sort of
had a, a weird sort of sympatico thing where we could say
something and nothing happened for 20 minutes.
And then you provide the answer. You know, that's sort of how
people get on with each other in a very sort of, you know, it was
weird. We, we, we just gelled and, and
yeah, so and the groovy fellas came about because, because he
got banned from the television for saying that if you want to
be a groovy fucker, watch. And it was a live advert, 4:45.
That wasn't the the bit your mum saw, I hope.
No, that, that's not that. No, but so the the the groovy
fellas, that was a a brilliant series in in as much as nothing
was written down really. It was it was all sort of throw
ideas around and you said all right, yeah, blahdy, blah, blah,
blah, blah. Yeah, we'll do the bloody blah.
And it was, it was just a very natural sort of not forced.
You didn't have to run it past lawyers or anything like that.
It was just all really, we want to, we fancy doing that, so
we're going to go and do it. It's not like that at all.
Now, being from Mars, you won't really have much of A historical
perspective or any perspective on the planet Earth.
Are you up on the street at all? We're in an ideal place.
For instance, just over there, it's Hadrian's Wall.
Have you ever seen Hadron's wall?
It's a wall that was built big, big wall to keep people out.
Have you ever, have you ever seen you have things like that
on Mars? No.
Well, I'll tell you what. Let's just wait for the cars to
get more crossover. You know, there's quite a bit of
blending in you're going to have to get to do, but I'm sure
you're going to be able to manage it.
It's fascinating. Friend of mine is marching.
Thank you. Fascinating thing for you to
see. The very painful thing was the,
the, the aerial on my head and the remote control device that
made it spin round. But Jules and I came up with
this idea of we wanted to go around the country.
Why don't, why don't Jules show me what it's like on Earth?
And particularly in the, you know, in the United Kingdom, in
Britain. So where we again, it just sort
of came about. We, we, we didn't have
scriptwriters or anything like that.
It was just me, Jules and Tim and we just cobbled it together.
You have you've touched on before you you had a series
called Set of 6 in which you played the the the Scrote
brothers. Yep, Yep.
That was probably my finest moment actually in television,
to be honest. If I'm if, if I'm asked, you
know, what's your proudest thing that you've done?
I think set of 6 is, is certainly it again, not written.
No, we, we didn't. There's no, there's no written
dialogue. It was just scenes were mapped
out and I improvised them because I was hopeless.
I'm left-handed, dyslexic and word blind.
I've got the full set. So I couldn't, I couldn't
remember lines to save me life. So we sort of, we Ian Brown, the
guy that I wrote it with, we, we just mapped out scenes and
scenarios of what's going to happen.
And then, and then I'd, I'd sort of improvised the scene because
I didn't want to learn lines. Hello, Cherry.
Hello, Mr. Singles there. So how's it going?
It's not bad. I'll just run backwards here.
Good news is we've got a big one lined up for you.
The big fight, Cherry. Yeah.
Who's it going to be against again?
Well, we're still working on the fine details some, but it's a
big one. But first, what time you be
over? About 4:30.
It's going to definitely be. It's a big one.
Yeah. All right, so things are going
well. And are you looking good?
Yeah. I'm going to run sideways now.
Formerly Terry the Tornado Scrote, he was renamed after his
first few fights and is now known as Terry Scrote.
But that that sprang from a doctor on.
Yeah, Doctor Scroke, that's how that started.
Doctor Scroke, the guy on channel the, the commissioner at
Channel 4 liked what I did. And he said I went into the see
him, the Scottish guy, I've forgotten his name.
That will come to me. He said we'd like to, you know,
expand. We, we like what you're doing
this, this Doctor Scroke character.
I said, oh, good, great. And he said, what about doing
other things? And I said, well, that sounds
like I've got to learn lines. So I said I'll go and think.
And then I, I went away and I thought, right, I, I don't think
I'm a very good actor. So what I'll do is I, I went
back with what I'm going to do, it's going to be 6 brothers,
identical brothers. That means I don't have to do
any acting. I can just be myself, much like
Rick and Aid just be themselves identical brothers and separate,
you know, all went their separate ways.
When they're 18, we catch up with them 20 years later or
whatever. And that we, that's how we,
that's how that came about. And that they, the commissioners
at Channel 4 loved it. And they said, yeah, great.
Again, back then, given so much free rein, we could just, you
know, if we got somewhere and we thought we were going to do one
thing and it, it looked like, oh, there's something better
over there, then we just, we'd, we'd change tack.
It would, it wouldn't be, oh, well, it's going to go back to
the, you know, the, the writers, they've got to sort of sort it.
And, you know, so I've been very lucky in that respect that
pretty much everything I've touched, I've made sure that I
do it exactly on my terms. Yeah, absolutely.
And a good, I guess a good five years before the likes of Chris
Evans and TFI Friday. Yeah, where they would do do
stunts like this, you would do you had your own show, Revron,
where you would, Yeah, you interviewed Tony Blackburn, sort
of nipple deep in the Thames. Yeah, didn't you?
He arrived on a jet ski. Yeah, that was quite that.
Again, that was, I was doing the, the night network, the the
bar for ITV is on about the 5th floor on the South Bank.
And we used to be in the bar drinking with the producers and
all that sort of stuff. And I, I looked out the window
and said look, look at this backdrop.
It's fantastic. Why don't we?
What a waste. If there was some people in the
river there with that as a backdrop, it'd be, it would make
fantastic television. And we, you know, the next thing
I know, they're making inquiries with the river police about, you
know, usage, what it's like with the access to the Thames.
We were told that every month they, they oi count 1 1/2
bodies, which was nice. Nice.
Yeah. But then we went to the East
India big dock, knocked it all up with a boat and everything.
And I, I was in the water and I was in the water for about four
hours because they're just ferry as the, as the guests turn up
and got into a dry suit, they'd do the ferry amount to me.
And again, it was like, let's just suck it and see.
But that was that was fantastic. Sadly curtailed by the March and
S disaster where the Pope rammed the the the bridge and all those
people died in the Thames. Suddenly it was like, oh, we
can't because I'm sure I'd like to think we'd be making it
today. Yeah.
I was going to say, but for that, you'd it would be on its
30th series, yeah. Exactly.
You know, we're to speak to people like yourself.
I'd like to bring up maybe some, some more sort of obscure, Yep,
projects that they've been involved with, right, that may
even have forgotten about. There's just a couple of orders
to run past you here. Do you remember The Smiths?
Not the band, but it was a it was a comedy pilot.
Yes, with Kevin on. Granada That's right.
What do you mean? Do you remember much about that?
No, because me and Kevin were absolutely hammered the whole
time that that whole period was a a drunken haze for me.
It's got a bit fair. Is it, is it still or have you,
have you, have you moderated? Oh, I've moderated a lot.
I've yeah, I mean, at the height of it, it was like 4 bottles of
wine a day and and God knows what else.
But that's that's all behind me now.
Much more moderation. What are the shows?
I wanted to mention which I think you turned up on the, if
not the pilot, certainly the first episode of Shooting Stars.
Do you remember that? Yeah.
Roland. Hello, Lovely, real Roland.
Hello, Sir. The ugly one out of Birds of a
Feather is the niece of Charlie Drag.
Yes, it's true. It's.
No, it's. False.
No, this happened to me with the lottery as.
Well, he's down. He's ugly.
Which? One's the ugly one anyway.
At all. Me.
But that was fun, yeah. That was that was because
everybody involved with that, they were just in the sort of
bloom of, of, of attention and, and freshness and everyone liked
them because they were different.
And it was like they had the television world at their feet.
It was, it was just all really, nothing was a slog.
Nothing was hard work. Every everyone was just giggling
the whole time, you know, no one was aware of any backstabbing or
egos weren't really involved. You know, we just hung out.
We, one of the other shows that I was really, really fond of was
Saturday Zoo that Jonathan presented before, because that's
where a lot of those comedians, we'd come together and we'd
present company ideas to the, the producers of the, of the
program. And they'd, they'd, they'd
formulate a program that, you know, bought together a program
out of all these ideas that we just threw in that was just a
really nice sort of communal comedy environment where
everyone was the same. Everyone, you know, there was,
there wasn't a big star. And we've all got to, you know,
be revered. Apart apart from Steve Coogan of
course, who of course, who who always used to bring a box to
stand on did. He.
No, but he he assumed he was on the box.
But so those shows were were pivotal in in that sort of
comedy making a name for itself with Victoria and Bob, because
they I think they did some stuff on that.
Certainly all the fast show guys, they they cropped up.
I got Hacked Off with the whole sort of TV thing because it got,
it started to get really boring and laborious with having to,
you know, get things cleared by certain people.
Then it would go to another group of people.
Then they'd come back. And twice I had two script ideas
I submitted and, you know, twice I saw them on television.
Six months later, somebody else was doing it, You know, I don't
know. And I thought, this isn't, this
isn't, this isn't how it used to be.
So that's that's why I turned my back on TV, really.
Well, do you think, do you think that the rocks set in really
when cheap, the people realised that they could make cheap TV
by, you know, reality television?
Yeah. Oh yeah.
And and sketch shows stopped being made and and sitcoms.
But in any money, but in any money whatsoever into a show
that that got, you know, that will dried up.
And so so people's imaginative free reign became very sort of
caged. You couldn't, you know, we had
flights of fancies and we'd see it on television.
And then it's just that all that all became a thing of the past,
really. But you've kept busy over the
years and you did you. You won strictly on for Comic
Relief, wasn't it? Doing.
The dance What? What is it?
Let's let's dance for Comic Relief.
Let's dance. Sorry.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because you did. Weapon of Choice by Fat Boys,
then, of course, yeah. I was playing Christopher
Walken, Yes, yeah. I mean, again, this is typical,
the way it works with me. They phoned me up and said,
Broden, we're doing this show, we've got all the contestants,
but will you come and learn a dance just in case one of the
contestants hurts themselves and we haven't got our full show?
So I said, oh, what? So I'm not going to be in the
show. And they said, well, maybe not,
but you know, so I said, oh, all right then.
So I sort of did it a bit half heartedly.
I was sort of, I'm not even in this show, but I went to, you
know, Borehamwood to learn this dance and do all that.
And every week I turn up just in case one of the one of the
people doing the dance in the dress for I know themselves and
they couldn't perform. So I was there ready on standby
to go on and on the last show I did go on and I won it.
And it's just like things that that's that sort of seemed to
happen a lot. It's like I was the substitute.
So that's substitute coming on scoring.
Yes. Yeah, that was quite I, I
honestly couldn't didn't believe that I could do some of the
things that I did on that do it in that dance.
You know, it's a credit to the the dancers and the and the
choreographer who just sort of dragged it out.
I mean, but that was good fun and winning and winning is good
fun and. Winning as well.
It's it's it's proving them, but proving a point somehow, I
think. Do you still?
Oh, I'm I'm sure you don't, but because you were you were a
member of the Idiot Bastard Band with.
With aid and. With aid and and Phil Jupiter's
and the late much missed Neil Innis.
So I guess that's no longer a going concern.
No, no, no, we haven't done anything.
I mean originally Simon Brint was in the back and then he
sadly is no longer with us. So we went, we did a little tour
and then nationwide tour that was went down really well.
You know, there was talk going to Australia.
We were in talks with Radio 4 to do a radio series based on media
Busted band. But nothing, nothing became of
it. Aid AIDS attention moved on.
So we didn't do anything else but that again while it lasted.
That was that was good fun. We did it all on our own terms.
It was. Yeah, I know you.
You've said that your closest, if you like, celebrity friend is
is probably Jules Holland. Yeah.
And, and, and other people that you've worked a lot with over
the years, you know you're still friendly with, but you don't
necessarily keep in touch. No, I became incredibly close as
as as family members as well with Jonathan Ross.
When I was doing the last resort, when we were doing
Saturday Zoo, we'd go on holiday together, You know, we'd sort of
quite literally living inside each other's houses.
But that what's weird with me, if I've become closest and best
friends with whoever I'm working with, and then when I'm working
with them, there's there's no reason for me to come in contact
with them, you know. So it's a, it's to a degree,
it's a bit like that with Jules. We were bosom, bosom buddies for
a long time because I was working with him for a long
time. I still see him now.
We still have a laugh. But you know, we don't go out of
our way to meet up. It's just that our paths cross
at various things. And it's like, all right, he's
God daughter. He's godfather to my daughter.
So I've got I've. I've put the, I've got the the.
Connection. Yeah, yeah.
Can you remember the last time you saw or spoke with Rick?
I think it must have been when when I was writing my book.
What the fuck did I do last night?
I went what I wanted to do to write this book.
I said, I said to half of Collins.
I said, look, what I'll do is I'll, I'll catch up with a load
of people that I used to hang out with.
We'll go for lunch. I'll have a tape recorder on the
table and we'll just much like we're doing, we'll just chew the
card chat and, and then I'll take that away and sort of
pretty much transcribe it into the book.
And I, I wanted to call the book out to lunch with Roland
Riveron, you know, because these people weren't quite literally.
And also the double dual entendre of he's out to lunch.
He's completely off his face. But the, the, the people at
Harper Collins or wherever did it said people are going to
think it's a food book that it's not right.
So I said, all right, we'll call it.
What the fuck did I do last night?
Sorry, just to interrupt there. Oh, that's my cat.
Didn't Aid. Hasn't Aid put out a podcast
recently along the lines of Out to Lunch where he goes out to
lunch with quite famous people? Quite possibly, yeah.
It wouldn't surprise him again. There you go.
Sorry, but I I interrupted.
But you said that's probably the last time you.
Yeah, that's probably I I invited him to the grouch.
We, we had lunch. I put a tape recorder on the
table. I couldn't really get that much
sense out of him. He by this time he was, he was
on medication. He was off the pop.
He, it was he, he was, he was, it was like I was talking to a
different man. It was quite sad.
I mean an aide, I found this because the BBC wanted them to
do another series of bottom and they went and met up with Rick
and they went to the bee and aide said the the the frame of
mind Rick was in, he couldn't work with him.
It was like this wasn't the person that I was I used to work
with. So I'm working with somebody
completely brand new now and it's it's not going to work.
So it's. Heartbreaking, isn't it?
That, Yeah. I know it's tragic, tragic,
tragic. That was that.
I think that was the last time. Right.
What are you doing at the moment at work wise?
Have you got anything coming up? Are you working?
On anything I've I've been recruited to be in a film that's
funny enough been, I think it's been directed by Kevin McNally
and it's got Griffris Jones in it and me and somebody else.
Well, quite a few other people. I can't say too much about it
because it's, but I think they're going to, I think it's
going to be filmed at the end of the year or the beginning of the
next. I play a showbiz agent, but
apart from that I don't do any stuff.
I've been doing people's houses up because I, I find that
immensely interesting. Just working, you know, at my
own speed, repairing people's houses.
I found that I'm quite good at that.
Wonderful. So that's, that's what gives
you, that's what gives you the most pleasure.
Now that and caravanning. Yeah, yeah.
Well, doing people's houses up, because there's something about,
like I was saying earlier about the how I got disillusioned with
the voice over. You go and do someone's house up
and you do a really good job and you're knackered at the end of
it. They're really happy.
You go home and you think, yeah, I've earned that money, you
know, I deserve, I deserve a pint.
So it's it's very, very fulfilling.
I was yesterday, only yesterday morning and I was sanding some
this lady who's a publicist, I was sanding a a worktop in her
kitchen and re re oiling it and all that, you know, just doing
little things like that. It's great.
Love it. Oh good.
I'm glad that you, you know, you're still working obviously
in the shall we say industry you've still got your hand in,
but also doing something that is personally.
Fulfilling I mean, we've just moved and I've waked out about
200 VHS cassettes from the loft and I thought, oh what I might I
might toy with the idea of setting up a a YouTube channel
and just I'll edit together all the various different things and
I'll talk about of a clip show just about me because.
Do you know I watched you in the other night?
Actually, I watched Jack and Jeremy's real lives.
All right, do. You remember?
Yeah, do. You remember I played a
magician. You had poor Lee Corns.
Yeah, in. Yeah, you it was, you're doing
that thing where he's in the box and you're putting the the the
swords through the box. Yeah, yeah.
But but initially you were playing an acupuncturist.
Right. And then you became a magician.
But yeah, there was a lot of a lot of nice comedy business
going on. Yeah, I mean again, Jeremy no
longer with us. What a shame.
He was. He was.
Absolutely fun to hang out with. So are you feeling any better?
No, not really. So what's next?
Looks like a case for acupuncture.
No, I'll pop your clothes off. I'll be with you in a minute.
Greetings from the dark side. I will amaze and confound you
with a therapy handed down to me from an old Acupunki master in
Peking Town. But first I need an assistant.
Sir, would you mind kindly go behind the screen and my nurse
will prepare you. And now a round of applause,
please, for my beautiful assistant Charmaine.
Thank you, Sir. Would you walk this way?
But no, that would be great if you if yeah, the VHS tapes that
you've got, there'd be loads of people listening to this.
Their ears are all have pricked up because there's there'll be
gold on that, on those tapes that you can't, you know, it's
stuff that that's nowhere else that you can't get anymore.
You can't see anymore. Well, a load of it, a load of it
is the, these destination guides because I, I, I made them funny
rather than just try, you know, this is what you do.
So we'd work out, I'd work out sort of scenarios and sketches.
So there's a lot of those. There's a lot of stuff that I've
done that people haven't seen because it's not been broadcast,
you know. Oh.
Brilliant, yeah, to do that on a when you've got a a couple of
months free, yeah, get that done for sure.
Well. I'm really looking forward to
doing it and just take my time and getting it right and, you
know, just finding all those outtakes that people like, you
know? Thanks again to Roland.
So that's it. Thanks for listening and please
let me know your thoughts and comments on this particular
show. I do like to try and keep the
show fresh and shake things up a bit from time to time as it
keeps me on my toes and stops me from becoming too stale and
repetitive I guess. That said, next week, all being
well, we'll be covering an absolute belter of a goon show
with an antipodean guest, someone new to the show, and my
sainted aunt, someone still in the first flush of youth,
relatively speaking. So join us again for that.
In the meantime, keep telling your friends and enemies about
Goon Pod and encourage them to listen.
Do it now. I'll see you next week.
Bye. The.