Well, that's what I move on to was Parkour, which is easily the
funniest novel I think I've ever read, which you wrote.
It's about Ireland 7 Island, but you you'd never been to Ireland
when you wrote. No.
I used to listen to my father. Who was that Irish Christ, he
was a Irish. He's so ice.
He's give me example of what he's like.
Yeah, 3:00 in the morning he wakes me up, says wake up.
Yeah, wake up. So, So what is it then?
He said I've never shot a tiger. I said why are you telling me?
And he said I've got to tell somebody.
Hello and welcome to Goonpod doing for comedy podcasts what
the Edsel did for the US automobile industry and I I I
think that may be a bit too modern a reference for some of
my list this live. All right, I'll do.
It's extremely up to date. Where my manners?
My guest. My My super special guest.
Comedy writer, broadcaster, chat show, host, performer, Warm Up
Man Podcast now as well. Have I missed anything out?
Anyway, it's Clive Anderson. Hello, Clive.
Hello, Hello, Tyler. Thank you for having me.
No, thank you. Did I miss anything there?
Was there anything a novelist? Have you written a novel or?
I I haven't written a novel, you know, Obviously there's a novel
in everybody, apparently, but mine says waged within me,
hasn't come out yet, but you never know.
Well, for anyone who's not listening to this podcast before
it, it started off being a podcast very much anchored in
the world of of the Gooniverse or the goons if you like
Milligan Sellers seeking even banting.
And it's it's gradually broadened out over the couple of
years to talk about comedy in general but but always with a
sort of a starting point being the goons.
OK, now Clive, I know you enjoyed listening to the radio
when you're a child, especially comedy.
Was The Goon Show part of your? Upbringing, I would say the Good
Show was a little bit early for me.
I mean I've certainly listened to it, you know, since and in
repeats and reruns and Radio 4 Extra and things like that.
And I I was certainly in, you know, very well aware of the
Good Show early on. But it was kind of that my sort
of era I suppose would have been like Monty Python on on the
television or the radio by then was something like I have sorry,
I haven't a clue. Oh, I'm sorry, I'll say that
again. Sorry, which is the.
I'm sorry, I'll read that again, which was the the big comedy
show for for my sort of generation.
So I came across the Goons themselves, Spike Milligan,
Harry Seekum and so forth a bit later because by the time I was
doing interviewing people on television, we we had a lot of
comedians on. I did eventually get to
interview Spike Milligan but he was quite senior by then.
Yeah. And towards the end of his life
and but he was he was a good challenging interviewee.
I, you know most interviews I can think back.
I can remember you know a few salient points from it.
The the main thing I remember from interviewing him was he
sort of told a joke and it sort of occurred to him and he sort
of laugh played on his lips and he said, oh I said it out loud.
And it was though he just thought of it.
I can't remember what the joke was, but I know that it was a
joke I'd seen him do on previous yes, but he.
But he did it. He presented it as though it had
just occurred to him, which was I I put down to elegant, stylish
professionalism rather than just the fact that he was.
He hadn't really forgotten that he said it before, but I I I'd
already gotten on. He was a sort of hero because if
you're so innovative in comedy and I liked, he wrote, I think
it's the only novel he wrote, you'll obviously know because
you were this podcast built around the goons.
He wrote Pakoon, a novel where I think he concentrated quite a
lot of his, his sort of wartime memories, you know, he did those
all those various bits of memoirs where he had lots of
good material, but in that novel, I think he concentrated
down really well. So I was a big fan of that novel
and every now and then Trump somebody tries to film it or to
read it or something. It never quite works.
It just works on the page as a written novel.
So yeah, that's that's my small small claim to have done
anything to do anything to do with Spike Milligan.
Well, the the, the. The.
Interview that you because I rewatched it for the purposes of
this. Was it?
I mean, I I don't know. I don't ask this question and it
was in with Vanity mine. Was the interview any good?
I I don't. I mean a lot.
A lot of my interviews are quite easy to find.
Now what were the, you know, YouTube.
But I don't tend to watch because they will just they
disappoint me one way or the other.
They either think, oh, that was. I remember that was a really
good interview. And I watched it back and I
think actually it wasn't much very special, was it?
Or I thought, oh, I was a disaster, It was so awful.
I went horribly wrong. And I look at it again, it
didn't look much worse than, you know, 100 other interviews.
So they're disappointment to be one way or another.
So I haven't watched that. I don't think bag ever.
So you'll have to. Yeah, it was.
He was you were absolutely fine. You were trying to kind of
because the problem was Spike by that point.
Because it was 1995 and it was just in the wake of groveling
Little Bastard Gate as well. Yes, from the from the Comedy
Awards the year before. In fact, it was only a few
months before. Yes, I'd been at that award, so
I'd seen him do it live, but it were.
Yes. I don't know why.
Can you now tell me why? How?
Why was he on my show other than with?
I was asking him to be on was? Was he promoting something or
did he have something? Not really.
Well the thing was I think he his, his he got his career a
little bit of or his his profile got a bit of a shot in the arm
from those Comedy Awards because of the the the fallout from the
groveling bastard wine. OK and and and I've I've spoken
to his daughter subsequently and and basically he'd been knocking
back the wine because they were sort of encouraging the Comedy
Awards I believe the the organizers sort of encouraged a
lot of drinking I believe. Oh yeah, they were.
It was, it was, it was. The structure was quite right
built around that. So you all sat at the table.
You had to be there early in order to get the, you know, in
and assembled for the cameras and so forth, and that your
table, you might have a bowl of crisps and some nuts and an
almost unlimited amount of drink and you put a lot of comedians,
egos clashing in the room. There was always a lot of
shouting out and Chai arking. I think Jonathan Ross, I think
pretty well always presented them and we were even, you know,
comfortable in those circumstances.
But it was always a noisy affair and I think deliberately getting
people to behave slightly too badly, I would say, but I'm
probably a bit being a bit prissy about it.
I think if there was slightly less people shouting out abuse
at each other, probably been more expected award ceremony.
Yeah, well, he he hadn't, apparently.
He hadn't really eaten that day and he was quite nervous and
he's knocking back the red wine. So he got up on on stage and it
just kind of, it was just sort of spontaneous, apparently.
Here we go. I have a letter to read out here
from His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.
Well, kneel down for this. I mean, enough trouble already.
I'm not going to say a word the. Prince of Wales.
The Prince of Wales. I'm sorry I have to do this for,
but I know it takes a lot of impact out of it.
But here we go. As someone who grew up to the
sounds of the Goon Show on the steam driven wireless, I must
confess that I've been a lifelong fan of the participants
in the show, and particularly of Spike Milligan.
Oh, the little grovelling bastard.
But it did. It did mean that he was, you
know in all the newspapers subsequently and and and whatnot
and then turned up on Clive Anderson.
All talk now the I've only the the clip of his interview on
YouTube. OK, I saw it when it went out
but that was you know 30 years ago Clive.
But so watch that now. I believe that the actual show,
the full show that episode, your other guests were Norman, Tebbit
and Bjork. Oh, wow.
Let's begin to imagine the conversation in the green room
beforehand. That's a good show that I liked
having these combinations of of guests because I don't know why
we're so crazy with our guests. Bjork.
I interviewed a couple of times and I would say I did a bad
interview first. I mean she was great on play for
them. The first one was largely me
making jokes about Iceland and and other related to it.
But then she came back and I loved her on both occasions and
she was very sweet and we got more on to talking about her and
her music and generally so. So I think that in my mind
anyway there's a bad Bjork interview and a good Bjorka
Norman Tebbit he was quite a hard person to lay a glove on
you know in a in a even in the context of an interview in a
with a studio audience would wouldn't have been particularly
sympathetic towards him. He was quite a skilled operator
in those circumstances because he was a bit funnier than people
thought he was going to be And so he rolled with the with the
jibes and came and it wasn't aggressively back but he he was
he was there for chuckling around.
So now yeah all three together that was that was an interesting
yeah I call I said that was a good combination.
You know not a good combination but a good range of people to
absolutely. Yeah, Spike would have hated
Tebbet, and he probably would have hated Bjork as well.
He didn't. He didn't really like many
people by that point of his life.
No, he might not have followed music closely, but who knows,
they might have. I mean there's even a
possibility and I don't want to shine too much light into the
magic. Sometimes it wasn't quite.
Sometimes we pre recorded one interview and so that people
might not have all been in the same placed together, but I I I
think they probably would have been on that on that occasion.
I can't remember a pre record with any of those, but my memory
is not that reliable on detail anymore.
I think I used to be able to recall almost every moment of
interviews, but now they've I can hardly I'm doing well, if I
can remember they interviewed people at all.
Well, he was. He was, he was a little because
again by the he was well, he was only what, 6-7 years before he
died that you interviewed him and he was quite quite frail and
and by this period of his life he was, he was often quite
bitter. I think he was a bit better
because he'd been, obviously he was a brilliant writer and he
was always a bit under a strain, a bit libel to crack up under
under the effort, but full of benefitive ideas.
And of course he had his heyday having you know been involved in
in the war and and you know, basically unpleasant
circumstances, traumatising circumstances.
They got together, they were flavour of the month for for
years and then time kind of moved on and they, he did all
those shows on the radio. They tried them on the
television with sort of puppets and things for I remember
rightly. And then and then he had those
other TV programmes which were Q this and Q that and the the
freedom to do stuff on radio is not quite there in in
television. So what looked like and I
suppose he was a bit older. So anyway the time moved on so
Monty Python kind of picked up on his on a lot of his ideas
which you're entitled to do in what you can broadly say is an
art form. But so they respected him but
they'd taken on Ford and he was left without without a without a
regular gig And you know that that's painful for well all of
us, you know think things happen and you the the the circus moves
on. So I think he was a bit bitter
about how you know being invited onto a chat show or to play some
music. But to give him, you know, a
studio full of, you know, an audience and A and a slot and
the script to write and he, you know there there were much, many
fewer opportunities but. What he was he was talking about
on when he was talking to you, he was talking about just what
you said there. He was complaining because
because he was such a contradictory character he would
contradict himself from one week to the next and and often he was
very effusive in his praise of the Pythons.
But this this week he was a little bit bitter and he was
saying that they basically copied everything he did in Q,
the Q series. And he also said that he he'd
because he said he wrote he was. He'd written to John Cleese
recently asking for a part in God Forbid, the film Fierce
Creatures. Do you remember that?
Film. Oh, I do, yes.
Well, he was lucky not to get a part of that because Pierce
Gringes wasn't particularly good.
But I think he did crop up in. Was it Life of Brian?
I think he was in the May. They gave him a bit there, which
was good of them. So he was in the better film.
Yeah. Well and of course he he wasn't.
He may, he may have been better. He may have been pretended to be
better. He may.
But he didn't, you know, waste his time because he wrote
several volumes of memoirs, published poetry.
Cooney wrote quite a while before you know, the time
interview, but but you know he he, he still was able to get
published and have interest in him.
But you know, everybody gets better and twisted right?
The end. I just wrote to Cleese, he's
doing his big film and I said I can I have a part of it.
And he wrote back via a secretary.
Dear Mr. Millig, Mr. Millig, and every part is filled up.
So I wrote and said no, can there be a part for a foreign
legionnaire who doesn't do anything in the film but just
keep keep shooting to him in the desert and he's shooting Arabs.
They they never answered that. I've got a a less involved
memory of Harry Seekim because I saw Harry Seekim in a show
called. It was either called The Three
Musketeers or it might have been The Four Musketeers.
Maybe you would know musicals 4 Musketeers, musical version.
I hope this is not disrespectful to him, but I I went, well we
went along to see it and just before the show began so it was
one of those awful announcements you get in the theatre from time
to time. And he said, oh I'm sorry to say
that because Harry Siegem was very much the star of the show.
Sorry to say that Mister Siegem has got a problem with his
voice. A heavy cold and oh and so the
audience said Oh no, now he will nonetheless.
Nonetheless he will be able to perform tonight but but his
voice isn't up to singing so when he's he'll perform but as
it as it comes to the songs it's his pre recorded it's his voice
but he won't be singing. So on we went and he he did a
bit of acting then there's a bit of singing and of course he's a
goon he's a comedian. While the voice is carrying on
singing he doesn't just lip sync he was mucking around and
stopping and starting and making faces.
So we've got a whole lots of extra jokes.
So, oh, that's, well, this is an interesting night to be here.
And then, you know, a few weeks later I was talking to somebody
else and they said, oh, they'd seen the show and said, Oh yeah.
And I said, well, the night I went there, his voice wasn't so
Oh yeah, that happened. We must be there the same night
because that happened the night. And then we worked out we were
completely different weeks. And then I think we found a
third person who'd been another and it what he must have done.
He must have sung it on the first night or maybe the first
week and then thought, oh this is this is hard work number one,
I don't want to have to keep hitting these notes #2 I can go
for run get some extra laughs. Anyway, so I don't think he ever
he sang the sang the the part from some early part on, which
is very clever of him because no point, because you know there
won't be reviewers who wouldn't have been coming in and out and
it wasn't the same as nowadays. It would be obvious on Twitter
and things that people would be saying oh great night with with
Harry Siegem though unluckily his voice wasn't working.
So that's an anecdote about him, and I hope that's not revealing
something awful about Harry Siegem years, years after his.
Day. Well, you see, I if if I had the
choice between watching him singing live or watching him
miming and just asking about, I'd go for the asking about.
Yeah, no, I I agree. I was very happy with it.
But I was. I was young and naive, I suppose
I was. Slightly shocked.
Well, at least he turned up. At least they you know when they
said, oh, unfortunately, Harry C Cubs.
I'll At least they didn't get his understudy, and it turned
out to be Charlie Drake or someone like.
That yeah, it could have been Charlie Drake, I suppose that
was. Can't remember what his singing
voice was like, but oh, yes, you do.
Yes, he did. Yes, he did do some songs.
Yes, it could have been. Here, scrolling right back to
your earliest beginnings, Clive. Yeah, because I just looked.
I'm not going to mention the date, of course, but I'm looking
at when you were born, and it's quite significant in Goon Show
history. OK, so the week you were born.
Right. Was the week getting back to
Spike in, you know, his challenges?
It was the week that Milligan was famously He famously
underwent a significant breakdown.
He was admitted to hospital for about 9 or 10 weeks.
Oh, right. And.
Is this when he was away? And is it Michael Bentine had to
take over from him or or? Well, no, it's.
Somebody else? It was.
It was the third series of the game chase, so Bentine had been
in the first two and left at the end of Series 2.
Series 3 begins towards the end of 52, OK, And Milligan
basically is feeling the pressure, massively having to
write these scripts. And he's he's gone on record and
said that he he wanted a legitimate excuse to stop
writing, stop having to write The Goon Show, OK.
And in his fevered mind he thought, OK, if I kill Peter
Sellers, then I won't have to write The Goon Show anymore.
OK, So what he did because he lived.
He lived. I think he lived in the same
apartment building as Sellers at the time.
I think I'm right in saying that.
So what he did was he, he, he got a potato peeler and he
marched to Sellers flat intending.
So he said to kill him and Sellers at that time Sellers
being Sellers had a had a flash plate glass door and the story
is that the story is that Milligan walked, walked right
through the glass door you know and injured himself.
I I can't see that happening. But anyway he walked into the
glass door and and it basically saved Peter Sellers life
apparently. I don't think, I don't think
Milligan had any real intention of stabbing him.
But that was that's the that's the legend, if you know what I
mean. And as.
All right. Well.
As a result of that, Mulligan was admitted to, was was
sectioned, admitted to, put into hospital and and he was away
from the show for about 9 or 10 weeks and in his absence Graham
Stark and Dick Emery did alternate weeks to cover for his
absence. Well, I think I knew a bit of
that story, but those details either I never knew or I've
forgotten. But that's a that's an
interesting insight into the psychology of of Milligan, or
indeed anybody that that the mind comes up with.
The most ludicrous solution the the simple problem I can't quite
meet this deadline solution would be get somebody else to
write it or I get a doctor's note to say I can't do it.
For the rest of this series, please meet me, see give me,
give me a series off or I resign from showbiz.
All those are better than deciding to kill a colleague,
which is going to have a consequence down the line, which
is bigger than the awkwardness of not being able to complete
the series. But but your mind can go down
odd ways. Can't it?
Well, that's it now and and the the the goons producer for the
first two series. I'm trying to think if he was
still the producer for the third series I should know this.
But anyway. But the producer was Dennis
Mayne Wilson. All right.
Yes. And I know that he he figured in
your early career, didn't he? Quite significantly.
He did we when we're skipping for from my birth time and
you've decorously well. Kind of give it.
Away your name? No, no.
But I'm. I'm grateful for that because I
don't suppose I'll ever get round to it.
But if I were ever to write my memoirs, yeah, it occurs to me.
For me and indeed anybody else writing memoirs nowadays, you
there are a number of things you don't want to actually include
in your memoirs anymore. Normally you just a pump in lots
of bits of information just to just to make it nice and clear
and snappy. And you might ordinarily just
put your date of birth, or the name of your first school.
You'll mention your first dog, you'll mention your mother's
maiden name. None of these you want to
mention anymore because they're all clues to getting access to
your bank account and all the other things.
So you've got to find, and I'd thought of a way of indicating
roughly when I was born but without actually spelling out
the the date of birth because it's it's it's close to what's
allegedly the last great smog in London.
I was in a few days one way or the other of that.
But now I can say I was born during the time when Spike
Milligan was, had been sectioned or or was, you know, in in that
sort of prospect because of attacking A fellow fellow
performer. And this clearly infused my soul
as well. But not that I've ever wanted to
attack anybody. But yes, Dennis Mayne Wilson
comes much. So we skipped forward quite a
few years when I was at Cambridge in the Footlights
doing reviews and things. The the review that we're in in
1974, which was a quite a jolly review.
I wouldn't say it was the best one ever.
It wasn't particularly innovative.
But Dennis Mayne Wilson saw it and he liked it.
He liked us. It was.
There were a couple of good performers in it.
Griffey Stones and and an actor as he still is sort of Jeff
Mcgiven who is a brilliant performer great and and and one
or two. I mean I I'm maybe I caught his
eye. I can't remember him singling me
out in particular, but anyway we so he you could almost say he
latched on to us for a bit and he encouraged us to well, it it
one way or another it meant that that review was on television,
that he and he produced it and also in the West End, neither of
which both of which rather really exposed it for being not
not quite good enough in either situation.
Not helped by the fact that the IT was filmed during a
cameraman's strike which used to happen in those days.
So we were filmed in the West End theatre with sport
cameramen. So there were there's that sort
of action replays of some of the better jokes or was it off
color. Let's look at that again.
And so we. But anyway he was, but he was
very entertained. He was one of the great
producers of radio then television and work with Johnny
Spate and all the and quite a slight man in terms not not very
tall and not very fat and I the expression we you you probably
use about him as he'd like to drink which yes TV producers
like to do. I mean, he wasn't rolling drunk,
but he, you know, of an evening you'd have a few drinks.
And he was an enthusiast and loved encouraging people and he
encouraged encouraged us, but he also encouraged lots of other
people, probably with greater success for his career.
There's other people than than us.
But he was. He was entertaining to have such
a great man around. Yeah, and.
And he'd like to smoke as well, didn't he?
I think he did, but it wasn't. So probably if you saw film of
that you, you know, you look at TV programmes or films from the
olden days, even the bits of the olden days that you're in, you
just go, gosh, everyone's smoking the whole time.
But but everybody did I. Not something I ever did, but it
was just a normal thing, a normal thing of life that you
know, if you spent an hour in a pub or you went to dinner with
some friends in the house, or you went on the upstairs deck of
a bus or even in the underground, you smelled the
smoke the the whole time. Because if you weren't smoking,
50% of the people around you were.
It is, it is. You know, I don't want to go off
in a tangent, but it's amazing because because smoking in
public places was was banned. I think it was 2007.
So let's let's say 15 years ago, Just, just, yes, whatever.
It's amazing. I mean, I used to smoke, I used,
I remember I used to go out with friends on a Saturday afternoon
and smoke a full packet of 20 pegs in the course of an
afternoon in a pub. You know, that's ridiculous.
And I come home. Stinking or but you know,
working in an office, if two or three people smoked, they just
smoked nobody. I mean, it was quite sort of.
And I always felt rather sorry for smokers because it's never
been a thing to worry me one way or the other because I've never
wanted to smoke. So I'm not feeling tempted, but
it never really bothered me that there was a bit of smoke around.
It's only after it's been banned you realise, oh, it is actually
quite pleasant not to smell of smoke after an evening out.
Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely, Yeah.
You started sort of performing at the Comedy Store in its early
days. Yeah.
Now John Lloyd, I think John Lloyd said, did you?
Did you Did you Heckle him at one point?
No, I I I always liked the Well, I I always liked it.
I had it. The Comedy Store, especially in
its early days was quite a challenging crowd because the
audience didn't really know what stand up comedy was in a sort of
weird way. So there was a it was in a a
strip club was something of which is a strip club during the
week and they had this and then it was alternative comedy non
sexist non racist all very all very modern and progressive when
it was a comedy place and it but you know they're usually sort of
drink raise its ugly head as well So it's you know midnight
one in the morning 2:00 in the morning before me but I and you
get a lot of heckling you got a lot it wasn't a it wasn't an
easy environment nobody knew who you were because we were all new
people. But I quite liked the atmosphere
of heckling. I I thrived in it rather than
put off by it. So.
But the only time I can ever remember it going wrong as far
as the audience was concerned was it wasn't that I was
heckling John Lloyd. He was in the audience and I
knew him and he was, you know, the Wizkid producer.
And I made the mistake of trying to sort of refer to him in the
audience and say we got the producer of not 9:00 news.
And I was going on to do some jokes about that program and
about him. But what I hadn't reckoned with
that Keith Allen, who was the one of the top, you know, an
actor now and very, very forceful for me.
He's well, well, no, but he's one of his things.
At the time, he was a very impressive comedian, always
going off in innovative ways. But he was in the audience and
and he was drunk, which wasn't unusual.
And he took against John Lloyd being referred to and he decided
to be, you know, disparaging about not like, I mean, I don't
know why there's no. So I was faced.
I mean, I can claim I think legitimate.
I've never found it impossible to carry on performing, even at
the Comedy Store with even with some hecklers, but I couldn't
quite cope with a member of the audience heckling another member
of the audience. It was the most strange thing,
and the person doing the heckling was the best known of
all the comedians there. But anyway, that's that was a it
was a difficult night for me, but I can't really blame John
Lloyd. It wasn't his fault.
I could blame Keith Allen, but Keith Allen did the funniest,
the funniest performance I've ever seen, I think ever in the
Comedy Store on a different night.
So I'm, you know, I have plus and minus memories of him in
that particular location. Before we go any further, I'd
like now to take this opportunity to do a tiny little
slice of the ACT for all those grovelling, cretinous, moronic
comics out there in Noddy Land. That was the sound of me earning
£10, the best thing he did. It's the funniest thing I've
ever seen in comedy. And he came on with no clothes
on and did a ventriloquist act and he just stood there.
He started talking to his, his puppet and every now and then he
would readjust his, what we call the law, his person, and he just
carry. And he explained, this may look
like a radical act, but it was just the oldest way of doing
ventriloquism known to man is that the idea of ventriloquism
really is that you can't stop your your lips moving, but the
idea is to stop the audience looking at your lips.
And nobody in the audience has looked at my lips since I came
on. Just on John Lloyd, obviously I
know you you did a bit of writing for not the 9:00 news, I
believe. I did a little bit just when I
was sorry to refer back to university days, but I did a a
couple of what we call May week reviews at Cambridge, which
happened in June and then they're quite, they get a lot of
exposure around different. Places.
Isn't that Clive James memoir? May Week was in June.
Yes, very probably. Yes.
I think you're right. Yeah.
Sorry. So, so when when you come to do
it, you generally get have to have a director to be in charge
who isn't there. So I've done this myself.
After I left I directed a review, but the time I was sort
of normally in charge I I got John Lloyd to direct the not the
one I was talking about with Dennis May Wells in next year's
review. So I like to think that I set
his career on its way by employing him as a director.
But he was already a producer at Radio 4 and was already coming
up with lots of different formats and shows and things and
and had and as you know from having interviewed him or people
might know he's extraordinary produced in a way because he's
gotten several huge highlights in his producing career radio
and television and I I don't think there are there may be no
sort of downlights you know there there.
Everything he's done has been a sort of great success so.
So I think he wouldn't have achieved any of that if I hadn't
allowed him to really work through some of his ideas
directing a a review. So when he's when he had not
liked that news, he he the way he liked to work on that.
And I used to get as many scripts as possible from many as
people as possible and have a huge pile.
And then he would personally stay up all night worrying
himself to a frazzle to reduce it down to a smaller pile, which
they would then they would then film and record and then
sometimes bits and pieces of my work might survive.
But not not a huge amount, but it was.
I was being a lawyer at the time, so I only could.
Contribute. Yes, OK.
Well, small amounts, and only small amounts of those small
amounts we worth doing anyway. Well, I know that you were more
involved with with, with the show that I consider.
I don't think it's criminally, what's the word?
Underappreciated today. Yeah, Smith and Jones the last.
Smith and Jones. Smith and Jones.
I I love that show. And.
And you? Did you did a lot of the the
head to heads didn't you and and what not in that?
Yes, that's what I mainly did. I I because as I I I suspect the
people who listen to your podcast know all this already.
But so so 9 not Nag on news had four stars in it's it's heyday.
You know Rowan Axis and Pamela Stevenson and Mel Smith.
Griffey Jones and they were got got enough together to do their
own show which they eventually were producing with their own
company. But along the way I wrote a
sketch which I thought was a good sketch but they because it
was it would give Mel Smith and it was sort of like a parody of
the Tony Hancock in the blood donor you know the blood donor
episode. I just well I'd update it and he
he, Mel would be a sperm donor. So I set this thing in a in a
going along to a sperm bank and obviously a number of jokes
almost write themselves when you do that but they said Oh no well
they'd you know we want to do it.
But it was a format that they already had which I think they'd
done in adverts and they'd make it a conversation so take my
jokes and make a conversation between Griff and Mel about and
we wrote we rewrote it later and made it rudio.
It was quite mild I think on the first television go through
considering the topic and this were these were these head to
heads which were unusually performed because you had Griff
and Mel just sitting opposite each other.
It was a locked off camera so there's no director deciding
whose reaction shot he would go to or nothing like that.
The studio audience didn't even see them you know in in in the
Flesh. They were behind the screen
because it was all focused on them and their faces and they
were both brilliant and they had different ways of doing it.
So the first few series I wrote those, or there was a sort of
working practice that we had, I would we'd have a conversation
about what we might cover with me and Griff or me, Griffin,
Mel, me Griffin, Mel and a producer or five.
And then I would go away and write it up.
And almost universally Griff would then say, Clive, you've
it's way too long and you've left out all the best jokes.
So you said that virtually every time so so they would get so I
did all the donkey work on it, but then it got reduced down and
eventually they performed it. And the I don't, I can never
work out how they both were so good because Griff, I don't know
how he could remember which version they were now going to
do because he had. He had at least 20 versions in
his head from my epic work, which would have lasted 25
minutes down to the the, you know, my 10 minute version to
his 8 minute version to the producers 6 minute, you know,
whatever whatever it was. And Mel had just got the final
version, glanced at it and then they and then could perform it.
So you get that nervy performance of Griff I think
comes from, which is the next line.
And Mel with that sort of, you know, yeah and just saying it
because he knew roughly where he was going.
So it was it was very much in the performance, but I made my
contribution. But as I said, I did the bit of
the donkey work behind the scenes.
Yeah, if I'm. I'm trying to think the the
sperm donor dialogue, if I'm right, it's got that line that
stuck with me to this day where Mel talks about going to the the
sperm clinic and Griff says something like what?
How's that happened there? How's that happened?
And Mel says, what do you mean? He said, and Griff goes, well,
how come is that the? Yeah, so I think that's that
sounds like the level of yes, you see once you've set see
those? Yeah.
But once you've set the scene, the jokes are there, aren't
they? You don't absolutely work too
hard of them. You don't have to spell them
out. In fact, if you spell them out
too much the the wither and die. But I think it was not too bad
in terms of taste and decency. But later on we they did stage
versions and an A naughty record version of some of their stuff
and I think we added a few more few more in your in your face.
Joking if that's not a a bad way of putting it.
But anyway, yes, so we did. So we had to think of a topic
they were usually to do with something awkward happening in
Mel's life and Griff misunderstanding it.
So it could and and it wasn't always about sex, but it could
have been about incontinence or it could have been about going
to prison. You know any anything they're
they're quite fun to do because in in turn and I used to do the
warm ups on the that show so. So there are a lot of more
complicated sketches which are a nightmare for everybody and but
especially the warm up man because if you, you set a sketch
in, let's send me something simple like you're having a tea
with a vicar and you know, there's Griffin, Mel and there's
plus somebody playing the vicar and there's a woman who's coming
in to to confront one of them. And then they come in and oh,
somebody knocks the teapot over. So.
Oh, I've got a reset. So we now have got an
unspecified amount of time. If it's quick, nothing happens.
Oh, no, we're a bit longer. So.
All right. So.
So as you can see, the sketch is
going well. You have to do this a bit of
linking, blinking and, you know, try and laugh in the same spot
next time. All right.
We're resuming and now and then we finish that and there's
another sketch. Well, Mel's got to go and put a
different wig on for the next thing.
How long is that going to take? But but with at least with the
head to head, they were roughly you know appeared as they were
and they were nothing. They had to get it right.
They could only film it once. We never felt it would work if
you did it again in front of the same audience.
So they had to do it just straight their way through and
the only editing they did was either to cut off the beginning
or the end if it was too long. There's no monkeying around with
it. But so I but I certainly was so
as I was the I was I I was a better warm up person.
I was writer really. So I but I was always made sure
the audience was primed, hyped to hysteria, ready for the head
to head. There was no question.
I'm sorry. No, no, we can't proceed yet.
I've got to do another 5 minutes to make sure we were absolutely
at fever pitch for that one. Because otherwise I I've
achieved nothing. Absolutely.
And you did warm up for Blackadder as well, didn't you?
Did you alternate again or something?
I no, well, Ben was in it obviously.
Oh no, he wasn't in it. I think I do remember one
episode where we had a particularly troubling time.
Ben sort of joined me, which was very kind of him.
Now what was the problem? I think I in those days they
were quite keen to finish the recording at a let's say it was
10:00 because if they went beyond that time all the you
know everybody got double time or something you know overtime
or there's an extra charge And it was it was important
economically I think to the to the production company and one
particular time when Rowan has a a sort of suppressed stutter
which which lends lends comedy to quite a lot.
You know that thing about calling?
There's a girl, plenty of boys, Bob, and it's funnier because of
that. But I think he got stuck on a
word and it meant that time was going by, so we had to keep
stopping and and me infilling Ben infilled.
And to give me a student, the thing about Rhone is that I
think anybody else would have said we will find another word
to so that I he's not going to stammer or stutter on it.
But he wouldn't because that was the word.
I can't remember what the word was now, but that was the
funniest word. And there was no question of him
doing a slightly less funny word in order to to to get over that
hill. You know, oddly enough probably
he'd have got a huge laugh by putting any other word in
because the steroids would there would be a sort of tension
releaser. But I Yeah, well, maybe.
Yes, you're quite right. Probably Ben did some weeks and
I didn't do it. I don't know.
But I did some early series of that and then my own TV career
took off and I regard probably thought of myself as too haughty
to do other people's warm up. But I don't.
I didn't do that. I don't think I did the last
series, which is, you know, the one set in the First World War,
which is a shame really, because it's it's one of the great,
great shows of all time, really, that series of all time, the The
Blackadder goes forth. Well, you you were busy doing
Whose? Whose Line is it anyway by?
The way I probably was yeah I was doing my own career by then
but on behalf it's a warm up man is a is an UN literally
unheralded position because all those people get credited at the
ends of of now the the forgotten art of sketch shows and sitcoms
on the telly almost never did they anyone give a credit to the
warm up person. It was a sort of a slightly
embarrassed to admit that there was somebody who was actually
jolling jolling the thing on I don't know why but just the same
way that some sort of panelly kind of games they don't really
like to admit that somebody's actually worked on the programme
and written some jokes so they don't like to say writer or
written script written by they say programme associate or
concern. No no.
Nobody knows who the what's that who's who's the associate of the
programme. See somebody who's done the
financial deal or is she somebody who has come in to sort
out the logistics What what could Oh no, it's oh, it's the
writer only. So those those bits when
somebody speaks. So some of them are more honest
these days but it's a sort of it's a euphemism but with the
warm up people, they they even bother to they don't say
programme programme facilitator or something or audience
Wrangler. No audience Wrangler,
uncredited. Felix Felix bonus was was the
was one of the exponents of that.
Wasn't he from high? Yeah, there's some, yeah.
There it's it's a it's a noble art.
I mean you could do it in a variety of different ways.
As I said, I used to do it for shows I'd written jokes for and
then I but I I was more much became in demand as a as a warm
up person. Let's say more than I was in
demand for writing and other people's shows.
Check off and. There's a check off, right?
At least you work though. Come on.
No work. I get up in the morning.
I have. 2 glasses of vodka. No more than that, 2 glasses of
vodka. I go off down the hill.
At the end of that hill, I see her.
You don't have to worry about that.
You're handsome and charming. You don't have TB.
What happened? I don't know.
What's your make? What happened?
I don't know. There's a lot of pain inside.
For a moment I went up to her bedroom and she was there,
actually waiting for me. If I knew that Antioch
telescope, I could wait for more than 5 minutes.
I'd feel like an old grub box has been bounced off a Zebra's
head. Summer in Siberia.
If I'd known this part was going to be so small, I'd never have
taken it. You've you've clearly not worked
with John before. Just on Whose Line is It,
anyway? And appreciate we're barrelling
through topics here, but you know you.
Yeah. No, that's fine.
It's time. Yeah.
So it's good that you're taking it out of, well, we are.
It's probably my fault, taking it out of a chronological order.
So it'll confuse the listeners to this as much as it will.
That's the way this podcast rolls.
Yeah. Now I I, I love certainly the
earlier series on. I've listened to the radio
series but the the TV series, what I would call the.
I don't know. I don't know how many.
The first three or four series I absolutely adored had taped as
many as possible. And with the with what I
consider the the classic sort of lineup, you've got Mert and
Josie Lawrence, John Sessions, Tony Slattery and others of
course. But I know Peter Cook and
Stephen Fry were there occasionally, weren't they?
And I'm. I'm genuinely not saying this.
I'm not trying to make you blush sweetly here, but I I felt your
contribution to that show was kind of again, it was
underappreciated maybe, or overlooked a little bit.
I don't. I don't know.
I suppose. I know.
We we did it on the radio 1st and it was it.
It seemed to work for me personally.
It worked well on the radio because there was plenty of
opportunity for me to interact with the audience.
Everything feels more relaxed in a radio studio and we didn't we
didn't know yet what we were doing anyway.
So I did quite a lot of chit chat with the audience when we
went onto television. I felt we're always under
pressure of time and there was and I thought I would go
completely unnoticed and then I'd be be so just be almost like
a continuity announcer. But I forget I can't really
explain who explained this to me because it's somebody's
reputation is gone now. But so though the main thing if
we're all there every week you will get noticed anyway.
Yeah whatever you do but you become part of the maybe part of
the furniture but you're you're part of the set up.
So I I that's interesting you like those first series because
in a way it was still it was sort of settling down when when
we did the radio series. Dan Patterson, who invented it.
He managed to recruit John Sessions who's a great
improviser who had done lots of different things on stage and
I'd I'd seen him perform and you think, well, I've written for
him in other things as well. But the you know, how could he,
you know, use his talents and he, he was a show that Dan had
come up with improvisation. Well, fine, that's good.
Stephen Fry. So he was going to be a captain
of a two man team every week and Stephen Fry was going to be the
the other captain and of course Stephen Fry can sort of do
anything and you know, certainly just to give it a whirl and
that's what he did. It turned out he didn't really
like doing it, but he seemed to. And I, as in a lot of things,
was completely wrong in my analysis because I thought, oh,
this is going to be very tricky for John and Stephen because
they'll give us their best shots on things.
But then new people be coming in every week, The new people would
all be find it much easier because they'd be bringing their
new stuff and they'll be really struggling.
Well, they're completely wrong. The The more you do it, the more
adept you get at it. And and so that applied on the
radio and the television. When we moved to television,
Stephen just sort of revealed he found it all a bit too much of A
strain and he would only do a few.
And then John was sort of, well, if Steve's not going to do it, I
don't think I want to do it. Which was tough on Dan because
he'd thrown in his job at the BBC Radio in order to start
doing television just for that series.
You know that's the only thing he had to do until his two stars
were sort of deciding or not maybe not doing it but anyway he
persuade John. So for the first few series John
he was he was a very individualistic way of
improvising and and brilliant at it.
But the the the show kind of moved on and he he, I think he'd
had enough as well. So we you know the the the line
UPS changed but you're mentioning all those different
people on it. There were there were all sorts
of people we tried to do it and it turned out we felt anyway
that after a while that there are people who are very good at
improvising and it's no point in trying to force the issue and
getting a star guest in or as somebody else to jolly it along.
It was better to stick to the people who are good at
improvising. So that's how it settled down a
bit in later series to have. I think Dan took it a bit far
because I I would have varied the line UPS a bit more but
yeah, what do I know I've I wasn't producing it so.
Do you do you see Tony Slattery at all these days?
I I have seen him not somebody else has asked me just recently
about this. So we've done whose Line is
Anyway on the stage in a variety of forms some less formally than
others. So we've done it in Edinburgh
two or three times the obviously at the festival and then Dan has
produced it the well the Albert Hall we've done it a couple of
other London theatres and the Palladium Theatre so.
So now in the ones in Edinburgh though I think he did two years
anyway the the guy producing it there said I've persuaded Tony
Slattery to do it and it was great to see him again and the
audience loved him. You know they're really in
because they were the you know big theatre in the Edinburgh
Festival and we other we've got younger people joining the cast
but yeah certainly having you know Greg Proops or Colin
Mockery Josie Lawrence you know have people that people and Tony
Slattery they they really loved him coming out and he was he was
charming to work with but you know he's had his ups and downs
in life so he's he's you know he was adored for his comedy and
his rudeness on the on the telly but also for his you know he was
he was kind of sexy you know for men and women all fell in love
with him and and they're still in love with him on you know he
comes on stage now but even split his trousers on stage in
the in the theatre and he'd done that on television.
You know, 20 years before. So what?
What it is with him in trousers, I don't know.
Well, he he showed his backside on television in that sitcom.
What's it called? It was a Jimmy Mulville sitcom.
Oh, yes, yeah, but but this is just, this is, this is just not
wearing very, very many clothes and and what you I was wearing
split. So we did it on stage, he said.
Oh, Clive, I've done it again, as though, as though this
happened every night or this happened this afternoon with us
or something. But this is a reference to, you
know, 20 or 30 years before. It just happened to be honest.
I I no, I love. I love him.
I love all of them. You know Merton and Sandy
Toksvig as well. She was great.
Yes, yes. As I say, the people who can do
it, do it. And so there was a time when
well of course as no doubt you know and your listeners know the
the the British people who do improvisation, I wish they're
quite a lot but there's a little a band of them the Comedy Store
players were doing it every, you know once a week in those days
in the in the Comedy Store and they've largely still are.
I mean some of the some of the people have changed around a
bit. But you know Josie Lawrence, she
must have done thousands of performances, thousands of.
And the only differently with her when doing in the huge line
format where I have to sort of, you know, to give me something
to do, I have to sort of take the suggestion and hand it on.
But she only differently with her.
She'll she'll say no, I don't want to do that.
I, you know, I did that last week or that's on YouTube.
But I don't want to do that again.
You've got to get something different because.
So I don't know how she manages to find audiences who can come
up with enough different things to suggest that she does because
she doesn't want just to trot out a song that she's gotten her
head from having improvised it 15 years ago, which a lot of
people will be happy to do. She wants to do a new thing.
Yeah, yeah. Bear that in mind.
If you're ever in the audience with Josie, don't shout out
anything she's ever done before, which since that covers almost
everything, you have to be something that's just been
invented this week and and see if she can cope with it.
OK. I just want to cycle back
briefly. You said about writers on panel
shows and things like that that get called consultants or.
Yeah or whatever. And of course there's there's a
point to this Clive, I'm just thinking I'm sorry, I haven't a
clue for for for years and years and years had a program
consultant called Ian Patterson who basically who wrote all the
rather off color lines for Humph to deliver.
Yes. And of course two of the major
performers in in Clue were Graham Garden of course.
And and and Jeremy. Jeremy Hardy.
Yeah. And a show that you were
involved with, which I loved and it was, I think it only had two
series If I Ruled the World, which yes, Jeremy and Graham as
opposing team captains and it was like a a political comedy
panel show, wasn't it? Yeah, it was.
It was an interesting structure, I think.
I think it may have been Richard Osmond's idea.
He certainly working for Hatcher at the time working on that
show. You know Richard Osman is a
great does everything now but he was young and he was only he was
only 6 foot 8-9 tall at the time so quite quite quite young and
small but anyway it was it was a it was a slightly complicated
idea to get but once you've got it so it was a it was a
fictional world in which Graham and Jeremy were politicians and
again 2:00 we'd have two different people to come on
every week and the and we then do do it like Question Time but
they had to act like politicians and it I'm the the IT was a bit
sad because Jeremy it suited him really well because he didn't
always work that well on television.
He's brilliant on radio, on stage and everything, but I
would say this to him when he was alive, he was, you know, he
had a sort of slightly odd way of looking slightly off camera
when he was on television, which didn't always work in in other
shows. But he's worked perfectly for
this because he just looked like a very shifty politician sort of
looking around thinking of something to say.
And he was very funny doing that.
Graham Garden was very funny, obviously slightly older, but
but again had that sort of the gravitas of somebody who speaks
in a in a conventional establishment, he kind of voice.
And then different people came on.
Some got the idea better than others.
I'm just trying to think of his name.
Who's the the guy who was a political great?
He's called John. He was on Strictly Come Dancing
and John Sargent, he was sorry, forget his name.
But John Sargent was brilliant when he came out because he'd
had years of interviewing politicians, so he knew exactly
their cadences. Anyway, it worked.
You know when you do a show like that you you never know it's
going to work or not. So you do a series and then you
get a second series. That is the only endorsement
that really means anything. It means oh right, it's good
enough. I can't remember now why it then
stopped after 2 two series. I don't.
I don't remember being aggrieved that it was roaring away so
well, or I certainly don't remember it failing or the
audience figures failing, where I think that there was probably
something either very simple that it wasn't good enough or
very complicated and it didn't fit in with you.
You never know somebody who commissions a program then
leaves the leaves the broadcaster and you you lose
your champion. But I think it was I I enjoyed
doing it. It was a slightly different
thing for me to do. We and it was great working with
well Jeremy as well but you know Graham Garden was you know
having we've started this conversation.
I'm sorry I read that again. He was one of the stars of that
one of the writers of that and he's a really great guy he's he
can be quite quiet in on panel games and and things that he's
on. But every now and then whatever
he says it's always brilliant. So we you are raking up an
unhappy memory. It wasn't in my mind but you
think Oh yeah that's a shame that we didn't do.
I think you could have done a few more series, but maybe it
was. Maybe it was just required a
little bit too much imagination on behalf of the audience, so it
would have a niche audience who would get it.
But people stumbling on it might think what as people tend to
these days, you sort of scroll around a bit, don't you?
They might have thought, oh, I don't know, what's this about?
Is that too like? I don't know. 22 opposing team
captains saying I couldn't disagree more, which is which is
what they seem to say every that was one of the the rounds.
That was one of the rounds, wasn't it?
And then we took, we took questions from the audience
which were quite, you know, that was quite fun, you know, and
Graham was always keen to develop a sort of running gag
that could go from one week to another or throughout the
program. And yeah, it was a good way for
Jeremy to be the sort of the light hearted comedian in him
also combined with a, you know, he has that, you know, disdain
for lots of politicians as well. So it it worked well for him.
Yeah, there it is. These things come and go.
I've now come to a realm called I couldn't Disagree More.
This tests out the politicians ability to disagree with the
policies of his opponents, however reasonable they may
sound. This is for you Graham.
So if Jeremy and Richard could come up some policies, see if if
Graham could disagree with them. We think it's important for
young people to practice safe sex.
No, I couldn't disagree more. Don't.
Don't waste condoms practicing. Save them for the real thing.
Jeffrey Archer is notoriously litigious under very, very nice
guy. Well, you're half right.
Bernard Manning is a racist. Bernard who?
Were you annoyed or nonplussed or just surprised by the Brass
Eye sketch in which it claimed that you'd shot dead?
Noel Edmonds. No, no, no, no.
I didn't shoot at him. He killed me.
Oh, did he? Yes.
No. No, no no no no.
The the plot of it is I for some reason having dinner at Doll
Leben's house I think in the country somewhere.
But anyway it doesn't mean that. And at some point he kills me
And then so they interrupt the whatever the you know their
their pretend programme is going on which they interrupt with a
news flash that I have been attacked and then they cut away
to I think, I think I can't remember how much of this you
see but he's on the roof with my head in his hand.
He's jacked my head off. And the yeah, well, I I wrote
not in complaint but acknowledge that it happened.
And I said, well, I think I thought the only thing that I
could as a lawyer that I could see might be libelous to me in
it. The suggestion I was having
dinner with Noel Edmonds, which is a bit harsh on, not
impossible. And also what was disappointing
to me was that it caused no furority whatsoever.
I mean, it wasn't even, it wasn't even the most shocking
thing on that episode of that programme.
And As for, you know, people were a bit worried.
Some of the people involved was sort of slightly apologetic
that, you know, I might have, you know, members of my family
might have been or friends might have been upset by this, but not
one. I mean, nobody, I had no elderly
relative ever, you know, contacted me.
So are you alright? I saw that nobody either wasn't.
It was sufficiently obviously funny and a comedy or nobody
cares. Nobody cares about me.
I can't believe I got it around the wrong way for some reason I
had it in my head. It was the other way anyway.
Well, look, normally at this point I'd say, well, it's
probably me because I'm my, my, I don't know, my, my own memory,
very reliable. I'm very confident on this
though. Absolutely.
I do come up to come back to me and kick me off if I'm wrong,
Absolutely. The world of show business has
tonight reacted with sadness and horror.
Well, I just heard a rumour about it.
I I don't know what's happened at all.
Apparently Clive Anderson was shot.
Clive Anderson was shot by who? Not by Noel Edmonds.
Yeah, what? I'd say there's no excuse, none
whatsoever. And if Edmonds is still inside
the house? Well, just shoot him.
I mean, people like me, we're supposed to be Rascals, but it's
your Edmonds, your Thomas Hamilton's, your anger for Guy.
Also called Nice People. They ought to shoot him off the
roof as quickly as possible, yes.
And there'll be an update at 11:30 after our next scheduled
program. It seemed to me the obvious
casting or replacement for Angus Dayton on Have I Got News For
You would have been you as permanent host.
Yes, well, I did do it once. I was the host once.
I thought. I did pretty well, I thought.
But they didn't be back on as a guest.
Which Boris hosted. Yes.
My, the the sequence of of how when I did it though that that
was early on he did the one, the one I always say to Angus, he's
he is directly responsible for Boris becoming Prime Minister
because the boost to his career came from when he was hosting
it. And he was quite he was very
Boris like when he was doing it because he was you know reading
out the the auto cue which for those links which is all you
know. And he was stumbling on it and
saying well what's this about? And I asked the producers was is
he coming late As you know then then he's been here all day.
He's had all the preparation that everyone else has had.
He just that's his way of doing things.
He was way of distancing himself from the jokes and having his
own jokes was to pretend he he was just reading for the first
time. But that that obviously appealed
to the public. They thought they wanted a Prime
Minister like that who was stumbling and bumbling his way
through things which is entertaining but not necessarily
what you need in the crisis. But anyway no I've no, I I well,
I think I was I was happy to you know present it on one or two
occasions. But whether I was would be the
right person to replace Angus, I don't know, because you're
always trying to move things along a bit and I am a year or
two older than Angus, so it would be a bit of a retrograde
step. And I am, you know, another
Oxbridge voice from that ear, that type of comedy.
Then probably if they, if they were ever going to have a
permanent host, they probably might.
I don't. I don't.
I'm not. Don't mean they've got to have
to have a, you know, some, you know, the change of gender or
sexuality or whatever. But you you might want somebody
not quite quite so similar to Angus.
So maybe you could get somebody 20 years younger or or from a
different part of the country. Or Charlie Drake.
Well, but whatever the the what they've also discovered, I hope
I'm not being unfair to them. They've discovered that if they
have a role, you know, different hosts every week, they can
probably get away with taking them slightly less than
somebody's been on there every week.
So it's probably an economy measure and but I I liked it
when I thought it was a good structure when they had a host
in command and two sort of, well, certainly Paul Merton is
the sort of not naughty schoolboy exactly, but sort of
bridling against the rules and the structure.
And then you know Ian obviously brings his own level of
knowledge. You know you know intelligence
and and information to it and then you can you can make fun of
or play around with the the guests.
But of course sometimes some weeks I'm I'm not an expert
anymore on the programme but you know some weeks the host is kind
of the butt of the joke and other weeks they're just quite
good. They're good but they still
haven't got the the same command over the show that the permanent
host has and not quite as it's not quite part of the fabric.
But anyway, as I say I'm I've got my own views about how shows
all to work, but I'm never, I'm not really responsible, I'm not
the producer, I'm not in charge. So anything, any show which is
successful, you have to assume the people who are doing it know
what they're doing. Absolutely.
And obviously at the moment you're you're still hosting
loose ends, I believe on the radio, yes, yes, that must be
pleasurable because it's different every week.
It's. Different every week.
It's it's at the moment it's very different every week
because part of BBC policy, a very firm part of BBC policy at
the moment, certainly on Radio 4, is they they don't really
like so many things coming from London anymore.
So there's a very concerted effort to take things out of
London. So for the past at least six
months maybe longer we've been doing a lot of programmes not in
London so we go to we've been all around.
I've just, I've just recorded one in Bristol, but we've done
you know Manchester or Salford as they prefer to call it leads
Vida Hull all over the place, which makes a for a slightly
different show because you you have an audience.
When we go to places like that to establish its locality and in
due course the the production of the programme is going out of
London altogether. So which is a it's an
interesting move for an entertainment chat show who've
been located in London, one of the world's capitals of
entertainment. But anyway, this is BBC policy,
so there are changes afoot as we go ahead from here.
OK, OK. Well, as as as we look to wrap
up, I just wanted to just finish off with a how can I bring this
in? OK.
It it used to be a running joke on this podcast that there's a
handful of of goon related topics or projects which were
strictly consigned to the power marked Do Not Touch.
You know So OK stuff. Which stuff?
Which for various reasons was a questionable taste or quality or
both. You know what I mean?
Is this a program involving Spike and Gilligan?
You're. Yeah, Well, there you go.
I mean Spike had had this mid 70s, it all conceived mid 70s
what would you call interracial sitcom called The Melting Pot.
So we're we're never going to cover that.
OK Harry Secant's calypso album. We we're never going to cover
that. All right.
And and and there's a a pretty dreadful 1970 BBC Two Boxing Day
special called called Cucumber Castle which was a a medieval
comedy in which Spike and Frankie Howard actually, because
you, you wrote for Frankie Howard, didn't you?
Yes, yeah. Yeah, they they they broke.
Both appeared in this this program called Cucumber Castle.
Do you remember Cucumber Castle from Boxing Day 1970?
Clive by any chance? I don't, actually.
I'm writing it down, though. I feel since I've interviewed
Spike Milligan and indeed Frankie Howard, I've worked with
him along with Griffin and others.
I'm ashamed that maybe research was harder in those days because
nowadays you can look up anything.
And Cucumber Castle? It was set in a castle made out
of cucumber. No, I mean no the the the plot
was pretty non existent. It was a it was a program
designed as a showcase for a group actually promoting the
latest LP, and it was built around them and.
Oh, right, like the monkeys, but.
Yeah, basically. Yeah.
Crow. Crow.
It was Crow Barring in like evermore ludicrous opportunities
for them to burst into song. You know you know with with
sketches in between and Spike and Frankie Howard with.
But the problem problem was that the the two, the two principal
members of the group couldn't act for Toffee and clearly
seemed to lack any interest in the whole production.
OK, And as without without them, without those two, without that
group, Cucumber Castle could have been a pretty good 50
minute BBC Two comedy. OK, yeah.
So my question to you, Clive, is why do the Bee Gees always have
to spoil things? It was the Bee Gees.
It was a very clunky way of getting to the of the Bee Gees.
Yeah, the Bee Gees ruined Cucumber Castle.
And of course I was going to avoid talking about the Bee Gees
because you get asked all the time and I don't want you to to
to waste your breath again talking about it.
But you you've gone on record and and said that you regret it
a little bit, don't you? Is that is that still the case
or? Well, it's one of those
questions that you in ordinary life, you talk about things
quite happily when there's a journalist with a notepad or a
tape recorder these days and they say, do you regret the
interview with the Bee Gees. You're faced with a choice.
You are the and I could I could go either way on it, really say
no, I don't regret it. It's provided me with endless
chance of telling people about it and it's maybe memorable or
you say Oh yeah, I regret oh I regret it, you know upsetting
them and you know both the true really I I wasn't a the the
awful thing. Anybody's not aware of it.
They the Bee Gees walked out of the interview which is you know
not really the thing you're aiming for in a in a an
entertaining chat show. But at the time I used to try
and make things absolutely as funny as possible and and the
material you're using is the person you're interviewing.
And I thought they were up for a bit of a laugh.
And I I wasn't really trying to be harsh to them.
I was just trying to get a lot of rapid fire laughs and jokes.
But I misjudged it on a variety of different levels and they
judged it as Solis. Barry judged it as something up
with which he would not put and he got up and left taking the
other two with him. So it was quite dramatic and
distressing at the time and the time I felt it was possibly they
had hadn't got much of A sense of humour and I think that was
what at least half the people you know watching it all
thinking about it felt possibly as time has gone by the the
percentages have gone against me and I think now it looks it sort
of looks worse from the from the perspective of time and it was
it comes across as just a uppity rude host winding up three of
the most talented music makers the world has ever produced.
But there was there was a number of points that I had I wasn't
really realising how I was stamping on sensibilities and
but but anyway it was it was it was an odd it was an odd
experience and part of the I'm not offering as an excuse but
what was odd about is that I'd already recorded a whole program
and they were a pre record for the next week so the audience
was in a very upstate so was I. They had come.
I hadn't spoken to them beforehand but they I understood
they were fans of shows of mine, So I thought, oh, so I was
probably going up, you know, quicker and fuller speed than I
would have done, expecting it to be fantastic and how wrong I
was. Never meet your heroes, Bee
Gees. I remember watching it on
Transmission. Is that the Yes?
Yeah, And just being open mouthed because you just didn't
see stuff like that on. TV Did you?
No. Did you see it?
Not knowing that it was gonna happen, Did you?
Yeah, right. No no that's good because it's
so difficult to to get. I if I can just allied the
conversation slightly and we we don't have time to over
overburden this podcast with it but I I did a more happier thing
when I did the thing with Peter Cook where Oh yes all different
characters and and I'm very pleased with that because I I
was me because my suggestion that he did it and I got it
organised and and we did it and but then but the other thing
about it is that I don't put it out pre publicity this week
there's a special edition or do you know all the characters can
be played by Peter Cook. No, let people see this judge is
a bit weird. He looks a bit like Peter Cook
and we should write to be like and then the next person who
come. I don't know football manager
wherever the next one was. Oh, he also oh of course it's
Peter Cook. It's Peter Cook all the way
through and what what do you do? For a little I'm a quality
controller in a leading biscuit factory.
It is my job to test biscuits for combustibility, yes?
And I I do this by biting into them.
Yes, tasting them for flavour and texture.
Fair enough. And if the biscuit is
satisfactory, I allow another 4 million to go by.
It's. Yeah, I haven't tested this.
No, no, I'll take that one on trust.
Now this, now, this is, where do you do this biscuit test?
Where do you? Where do you?
Live Ipswich, Ipswich area Environs of Ipswich, right.
It's a popular area, apparently. It's very quiet.
It nestles in a little valley where we live.
We're surrounded by countryside and we have a small garage.
Yes, I didn't want so. And the same with the Bee Gees.
It was already a story in the papers before it had happened.
So it meant that some people come in and say Oh yeah, what's
going to happen? But I think it would be more
objective, sort of looking at the programme.
If you think, oh this is going alright, it's a bit of a laugh
here but Oh no, they're going well hang on, what?
What happened there that that I felt was what it was like.
But of course now people watch and say, oh, I'm going to watch
that programme. I love the I love the Bee Gees.
You rackle through about 22 then who's that black car?
I never liked him and oh look at him, he's awful.
So I don't. I don't think I get quite such a
fair hearing anymore. And I think also the flavour of
how people are interviewed on television has probably
softened. I think we're the bits of the
harsh era when I was doing it. Now it's all softened down
again, so. The, the, the, the, the
president of the global Bee Gees fan club issue of fatwa against.
What I You know, I not that I'm aware of because you never know.
I think the good thing is Bee Gees fans are in the main I
think rather lovely people. So they well the Bee Gees I mean
it's a sad story actually the the family of them because for
you know different reasons you know I think their mother was
alive when the you know the younger brother who died and
yeah yeah and then the I mean and I well I can only imagine
her the her whole life experience is so extraordinary.
You know they've one thing another they go to Australia
from from in this country and the the three of them turn into
the Super singers but also songwriters.
You know there's a you know two kind of separate skills which
they both I'm I'm obviously going over the top in my praise
for the Bee Gees now it's to sort of get get me into bee Gee
heaven in in due course I mean but it but you know it's when
you're interviewing somebody with any luck you are
interviewing people who are big stars who are talented people
and that's if you're going to annoy anybody it's a it's a
talented person you're going to annoy.
But I've I don't think I've annoyed many people quite to the
extent that I annoyed them and nobody's ever walked off again
you know yet if you know what I mean.
So there's always time on loose ends for somebody to to dash
away, Well. The last thing I would say is
that Robin at least had the the good sense not to appear in
Cucumber Castle. Oh, right.
OK Oh, well, well, I yeah, Robin's.
Robin's voice was the most interesting one of all of them.
The extraordinary voice. OK, I'm going to look out
Cucumber Castle then. So I'll be something to be able
to mention if I am waylaid by Bee Gees fans somewhere that.
Yeah. That they've, they, yeah.
It stinks. They stink.
Clive, listen, I've taken up so much of your time.
Thank you so much and. Well, I'm sorry, but I probably
LED you on more of a ramble than most interviews tend to be.
But we, I think we've flown off in different.
Directions Oh if, if if you listen to random episodes of
this. I love to take things off on
tangents and rambling. Oh, good, I'm like that.
Myself, so so I just mentioned at the top of the show that you
you, you have a podcast as well, which is my 7 Wonders.
Yes, I get AI, get a guest on to talk about the they have to
identify the seven wonders of their world.
So sometimes I do that like this, you know, down the line,
sometimes in a little studio, but quite often now in, you
know, with a live audience. So which is, yeah, adds a
different it's very good and flavour to it.
Have you got another series coming up because I think you
last year was the last. Batch we did.
We did some in Edinburgh last year, which is quite an
efficient way of doing it. And I've got a a few dates
coming up arranged, you know throughout the spring and
summer, you know in places around the country.
So we're trying out that. We've done some in the Central
of London but we're doing, you know these various theatre
dates. So there's no point me trying to
just plug the dates now if in course of this conversation.
But they if anybody wants to see them, they can see them live if
it happens to be near them. Or they'll we go out online
eventually in the usual way. Very good.
Well, Clive, listen, thank you so much as I say and and all the
best with, with, with, with the podcast, all the best with loose
ends and every other project that you're engaged with and
thank. You thank you very much.
Yes. So we've got plenty of projects
on the go to keep and the woodland dashing around.
Woodland Trust, of course, because you're involved with
that quite. Yes, I'm president of Woodland
Trust, so you don't have to come and see me perform.
You can just plant a tree in my in my honour and then the planet
may be saved. In addition to anything else.
Yeah, great. Silence.
Silence for his emergency. The King of Cucumber My friend,
my cucumber and I welcome you to Cucumber Castle.
Do you mind speaking louder?