ALTHOUGH I LOVE doing TV shows my appearances have not always gone smoothly. There are many fine examples of this apart from the Mastermind debacle. The next one that springs to mind is a TV quiz programme called That’s My Dog, an absolutely appalling show made in Plymouth at TSW back in the 1980s. It was only really shown in a couple of regions outside of Devon and Cornwall. Border and HTV were the other two, if I recall. I’m surprised it was ever shown anywhere at all, to be honest with you. Whoever thought the concept up and then somehow got it on air . . . well, it’s beyond belief, really.
There were two teams for each show, plus a live studio audience. The presenter, Derek Hobson, would come on and stand in front of a giant kennel. Then out of this fake kennel would walk a canine handler and a dog on a lead. Then each team had to ask questions and try to deduce from the answers who the celebrity dog-owner was. It was like Through The Keyhole only nowhere near as good. Or as popular.
They would literally look at the dog and say, ‘Is Lassie’s owner in the music business?’ and the crowd would clap or not, depending on the mystery celebrity. And so on. Eventually they’d hazard a guess and once they had got the answer right the celeb would reveal all by walking through the giant kennel themselves. The dog would invariably jump all over its owner who would be licked to death, the crowd would applaud and that was that. Quite appalling.
There were two dogs and two celebrity owners per show. During the ad break between the two dogs appearing, they would invariably have to clean up the little (or large) gifts that the first dog had kindly deposited on the floor. It was generally considered best to be on first if possible as the smell didn’t usually quite set in until the second half.
So one day ‘my people’ got a call from the That’s My Dog ‘people’. Then they phoned up my office on the Isle of Man and said they really wanted me to go on with my German Shepherd dog Chloe. (‘Because we’ve never had a German Shepherd on before’ – no mention of any interest in me.)
I spoke to them on the phone. ‘Okay. Well, she’s a very well behaved ex-police dog that didn’t quite come up to the required standard during training as a puppy, so I bought her. She has quite a history,’ I explained, and I could hear the TV researcher getting rather excited. ‘Yes, as I said, she didn’t quite make the grade for active police service so we took her home and she’s a lovely family pet and wonderfully obedient and has the most beautiful nature.’
About two days before I was due to set off for Plymouth from the Isle of Man, a journey that would require a four-hour boat trip and then an eight-hour drive with stops, the same researcher rang me back and said, ‘Rick, we’ve got a big problem. We have to work closely with the RSPCA and they say there’s no way they can sanction a dog travelling by car from the Isle of Man to Plymouth.’
‘But Chloe comes with me everywhere – she drives miles all the time. Plus I always stop off and give her a walk.’
‘Sorry, Rick, they won’t allow it. The problem is, the programme is ready to be made and we’ve put so much work into it that we still want you to come on.’
‘Me too? So what are we going to do?’
‘Well, do you know anyone who lives near Plymouth who owns a German Shepherd that they can lend you?’
‘What?’
‘We were thinking, if you get a replacement dog that lives closer to the studio it’ll all be sorted.’
This was nuts but it seemed the only way forward. As it happened, I had a mate called Ray who lived in Camberley and who had a German Shepherd that was the security dog for his builder’s yard. However, whereas Chloe was a real softie, Ray’s dog was a beast, a vicious attacking machine trained to bite and never release. No one could get anywhere near it except for Ray himself.
‘Well, I do know someone with a German Shepherd who lives in Surrey, but his dog eats people,’ I warned. ‘He’d have to bring him.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be okay, Rick. Let’s go with that.’
On the day of the filming I arrived at the TV station to find Ray there with his dog.
‘We’ve got a problem, Rick.’
‘What’s that, Ray?’
‘Well, your dog’s a bitch and my dog, err, isn’t. Anyone watching this is going to notice that your lady dog’s managed to grow a dick.’
‘You can’t see a dog’s dick normally,’ I countered. ‘So it should be okay.’
‘What about his balls then? Are you going to pass them off as earrings that have slipped off his head?’
He had a point but we were too far down the road to do anything about it.
‘We haven’t got any choice, Ray.’
When the show’s dog handler came to take Ray’s dog it nearly killed him. So after we’d dragged it off and calmed it down Ray agreed to take the animal on set himself. ‘For God’s sake, keep that monster away from Linda Lusardi’s Yorkshire Terrier!’ the researcher shouted as this vicious dog dragged Ray off towards the studio.
I can’t actually remember this dog’s name, so let’s tell it like it is and christen it Killer. The producer came over, looking a bit annoyed, and said, ‘It’s not a very friendly dog, is it? Everyone is terrified.’
‘Look, I did warn you and I’ve done what you asked. I can’t do any more.’
They miked me up and took me backstage to stand inside this giant kennel ready for the show to start. This was the day I learnt to always switch off and take off your mike when a show is ‘finished’ . . .
But I’ll come to that. Let’s get back to Killer.
The theme tune was playing and Derek Hobson walked out and started his chat. ‘Today we have a beautiful friendly German Shepherd whose mystery owner is waiting backstage. This very special dog has come a long, long way to be with us today, all the way from the Isle of Man, so that’s your first clue. Please welcome Chloe.’ And with that the giant kennel door opened and Killer came out with Ray, tugging at his thick rope lead, snarling, salivating and growling nastily at anything that moved. He just went into killing mode: there were teeth bared everywhere, Ray was being dragged along like a rag doll, people were absolutely terrified – it was total mayhem. Eventually Ray got Killer sort of under control and the dog sat down.
At which point the beast started to have an erection.
So this lovely cuddly female dog, who would be far happier killing someone than appearing on a third-rate quiz programme, is now having a giant erection.
I can’t remember if the two teams guessed it was me or not because that became immaterial. I do remember hearing the presenter saying, ‘And now we will reunite this loyal, loving dog with its celebrity owner!’ I walked through the giant kennel door and immediately realised it had been a mistake to wear a big leather coat – Killer sensed a victim and just went for me. He broke free of Ray’s grasp and launched himself all over me, teeth gnashing wildly as I tried to keep him at bay with my hands around his writhing neck. As I tried to avoid being eaten alive, I actually heard the presenter saying, ‘Ah, look at those two, Chloe’s so pleased to see her owner. Playful little thing, isn’t she?’
The audience were dumbstruck as Killer was eventually pulled off me and finally brought under control. I stood up, my leather coat and trousers were ripped and there was the odd spot of blood on the side of my cheek.
‘So let’s say goodbye to Rick Wakeman and his loving German Shepherd, Chloe.’
As we walked off, one of the audience leant over and said ‘How come your girl dog’s got an erection?’
Without stopping I replied, ‘It’s not an erection, it’s a large wart.’
I did a final wave to at the audience, which Killer took as a signal to attack and once again he had me on the floor as the kennel doors closed behind me.
Ray finally pulled Killer off and I left the studio with my mike still switched on.
Backstage I walked into the green room and there was the lovely Linda Lusardi. ‘Blimey, Rick, what’s happened to you?’
‘Long story.’
‘Your dog didn’t look very pleased to see you. And it didn’t look very much like a girl either.’
Blissfully unaware that my mike was still on, I took Linda to one side and explained the whole sorry saga. To my surprise, she listened to it all then said, ‘Oh, you an’ all, eh?!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Rick, I haven’t even got a dog. They wanted some glamour on the show so they’ve give me this bloody yappy Yorkshire Terrier – he’s horrible.’
Unfortunately, some mischievous spark in the control room was listening in and heard everything. The next day I found myself along with Linda on the front of one of the tabloids with the headline: ‘That’s Not My Dog!’
The programme was never aired.
While I was still living on the Isle of Man I got a call from Kevin Woodford, the television celebrity chef who also lived on the island. He had a new show called The Reluctant Chef which took celebrities with no cooking skills whatsoever and taught them a few tricks. The problem was, I actually loved cooking.
‘Forget about that, Rick – for the purposes of this show you don’t know anything!’ he said, chuckling. ‘All the programmes are filmed except one – we’ve done romantic dinners, we’ve done Sunday roast, breakfasts, picnics, the only thing left is barbecues.’
As you now know, I had form with barbecues but I agreed to do the show undeterred.
‘Do you have a barbecue, Rick?’ he asked.
‘What’s the fee?’ I countered.
‘Three hundred and fifty pounds.’
‘When do you want to start filming?’
‘Two weeks’ time.’
‘Then I’ve got a barbecue.’
Immediately after I put the phone down, I called a local builder friend and organised for him to come round and build me a barbecue in the garden. Amazingly it just happened to cost £350 too!
On the first day of filming Kevin sat down with me and explained the order in which he wanted to do everything.
‘Rick, the important thing about barbecues is marination. This takes time and preparation. Therefore, we’ve got to buy the meat first, so the opening bit of filming will be at the butcher’s shop in Ballasala. I’ve spoken to Henry the butcher and he’s waiting for us.’
So off we drove to this small village in the south of the Island where Henry had one of the best local butcher’s shops.
They set the camera up in the shop and Kevin asked me to walk in from around the corner, so off I toddled and waited for the signal to start walking. We waited until there were no cars passing and the signal came for me to set off, which I did. All you could hear was the sound of my shoes on the pavement, the odd bird singing and two very tuneful farts between my third and fourth and ninth and tenth and steps respectively.
Later I found out that the cost of overdubbing street sounds to block out the sound of my prodigious farting cost them quite a bit of money.
Twenty-four hours later, with the meat and other food well and truly marinated, we were ready for the barbecue itself.
Kevin was talking to camera saying, ‘We have top quality local produce, it’s so important for a good barbecue. Don’t fall into the trap of buying cheap cuts.’ As he spoke, I glanced across at the table and there was my German Shepherd dog Chloe just polishing off the last mouthful of the Island’s finest organic, hand-reared meat.
We were running out of time now so we drove like lunatics to the local cheapo supermarket and all they had left were some very dubious cuts of their ‘basics’ range. We had no choice but to buy them, and we even managed to soak them in ‘marinade’ for about three minutes and cooked it all up on this barbecue.
We were then filmed sampling these delicious wares. ‘Oh, Rick, can you tell the marinade has been left overnight? You can really taste the meat’s juices responding to the process, it’s superb.’
‘Yes, Kevin, I see what you mean, ummm, delicious.’
‘Cut!’
‘Rick, what did you really think of it?’ asked Kevin.
‘It tasted like shit,’ I replied, spitting out the last few bits of this foul meal.
Chloe wouldn’t eat it either.
Some time in the early 1990s, I got a call from The Travel Show. They were running a feature where each week a guest presenter was sent on a holiday and reported back. I liked watching the slot myself so when they asked me I was delighted. I knew it was a lottery where you went – it could be Paris, Barbados or Whitley Bay – it was a bit of a lottery. I was convinced I’d be sent to Skegness or somewhere like that. The money was peanuts but I didn’t really care. It was something I really fancied doing, wherever they sent me – I will wade through boiling oil to do TV. I said I’d love to.
‘Great. Well, you are going to India,’ the researcher said.
‘You are kidding! Brilliant! I expect you’ve heard I like curry?’
‘You’re going to Kerala, to follow the spice trail,’ she said.
I couldn’t believe my luck. A free trip to India, as much curry as I could eat (or so I thought) and a TV show to boot. Brilliant. The idea was also to film a few of the colourful religious festivals and sample some authentic local cuisine, plus visit a spiritual area and a school of young students who apparently had yet to actually see a white person in the flesh. It was over a week’s stay. I was just ecstatic – it was a dream, really.
‘The only reservation you might have, Rick, is the internal flight you’ll need to get from Bombay. The only airline that takes you down to the festival in southern India isn’t exactly British Airways. In fact, they are not even accredited with IATA or any recognised safety body. We don’t even know if they have a track record of crashes or incidents because no one’s got any paperwork on them. So we can’t confirm the rumour that they’ve run out of planes because they’ve deposited them all over southern India.’
I actually didn’t care, I was so excited about the trip that wild horses wouldn’t have stopped me going. ‘Don’t worry about that!’ I said and agreed to the whole thing, including the internal flight on ‘Plummet Air’. To be honest, the closest I’d ever got to India was actually on British breakfast TV. It was 6.30 a.m. one morning and I’d found myself sitting in the Breakfast TV studios next to an old woman and a six-foot parrot. I was coming on the show to promote my latest record – they usually ran a book or record feature with guest appearances. The green room at Lime Grove where Breakfast TV used to be filmed, was very small and when I walked in I was delighted to see Graham Chapman and Terry Jones from Monty Python dressed as an old lady and a parrot respectively. We chatted away happily for over an hour or so and were looking forward to our slots when suddenly all hell broke loose. Researchers were running around, presenters were scrabbling through reams of freshly printed news flashes – it was pure chaos.
We knew something serious had just taken place and so sat waiting for someone to fill us in.
Finally Frank Bough, who presented the programme, poked his head round the door, looked at me and said, ‘Rick, we’ve got a big problem, Indira Gandhi has just been assassinated.’ He continued, ‘I think it’s very unlikely that we’ll get an opportunity to get you on the programme, Rick, as this morning is now going to be very serious indeed, no light-heartedness at all as you can imagine. I’m awfully sorry.’
‘Fully understood,’ I said in a sombre tone.
At which point the parrot and the old lady looked up and said, ‘So what about us, Frank?’
I know it was a very serious moment in history, but it was bloody funny. Those guys were comic geniuses.
So I was hardly an expert on the Indian subcontinent. Therefore the chance to visit the country in person felt like a lottery win. I woke up on the morning of the departure and I was so looking forward to the trip that even the flight felt like an excursion. Air India to Bombay! They are bound to serve curry on an Air India flight – yes! Sure enough, we took off and after a couple of hours they started to bring the food around. One of the options was curry. I selected the curry and, so it seemed, did most of the other passengers. I tucked in and it was beautiful. Like a high-quality restaurant curry rather than the usual plane fodder.
I polished everything off, had a drink and then settled back into my seat to watch the film and enjoy the rest of the long-haul flight. As I did so, I noticed a steady stream of people walking up and down the aisle. Then I started doing the maths.
Over three hundred passengers on board.
At least two hundred and fifty of them ate the curry.
Ten toilets.
Bombay is a bloody long way from London.
The sums were not stacking up well. Even with the air-conditioning on the plane there was a certain familiar smell that was starting to linger.
I tell you what: the pressure that built up inside that cabin at 35,000 feet was phenomenal. I still maintain to this day that if they’d run out of fuel they could have opened the back up and the plane would have flown the last thousand miles on its own accord. Mental note: do not eat the curry on the flight home. It stank in there although I have to be honest here and say I could probably have single-handedly fuelled the plane from a hundred miles out.
When I got to Bombay in the early hours of the morning I really didn’t know what to expect. Well, the culture shock hit me before we’d even left the airport – the amount of people sleeping on the floor was incredible, it seemed like there were thousands, just a sea of people. By the time you’d recovered your suitcase you then had to pick your way through these prostrate bodies, all asleep, before you hit the outside and the instantly suffocating heat even in the early hours of the morning.
I had instructions to head to a nearby domestic airport to make my transfer for the internal flight. I followed my instructions but couldn’t for the life of me see any taxi or shuttle bus. Worse still, some ancient wrinkly old guy had parked his dilapidated death trap of a van in the space reserved for the shuttle.
This old guy looked over my shoulder and when he saw my paperwork he said, ‘Welcome to Bombay. I take you to the other airport.’ I climbed into this battered old open-backed van and the driver took my case for me. Very good, nice to know my stuff’s being looked after. Then he put my case on an ox-cart which immediately headed off in a totally different direction.
We drove off and I tell you, I’ve never seen roads like it. I say ‘roads’ – they were just massive open spaces of tarmac with enormous potholes everywhere. Even at four in the morning, there were cars everywhere – how nobody hit anyone else I’ll never know. There seemed to be absolutely no legal requirement to drive on any particular side of the road, avoid crashing or hold any regard for other road users or indeed for human life generally. The only road users who seemed to go wherever they wanted were cattle and other wildlife.
Eventually I arrived at the domestic airport, which was really not more than a few tin shacks and a strip of uneven grass and dirt. Amazingly, my case was already there waiting for me. I checked in and was directed to a small room overlooking the ‘runway’. I was really interested because they’d sat me down near the emergency training area, it seemed, as there was a seemingly derelict, very early-model Boeing 737 sitting close to the window I sat by with what appeared to be severe black burn marks down the side, which I presumed was the result of successive fire drills. The tyres also looked very bald to me. I’m sure there were scorch marks around the engines too, so this was obviously where they ran drills and safety exercises. Given the researcher’s concern about the airline, I was immediately impressed.
The room was slowly beginning to fill up with passengers. And ducks. And chickens. And a small goat. I stuck out like a sore thumb with my blond hair and being so tall. It was all fascinating, though: I was in my element.
Then a group of about thirty people were ushered in, looking around nervously and obviously very anxious. Most of them were clearly quite frightened. Then an announcement was made, first in Indian and then in English, that the plane was ready for boarding and that we should make our way to the gate. Taking one last look at the derelict shell of a 737 that they used for emergency training, I asked a nearby flight attendant where my plane was.
‘Why, it’s that one, sir,’ she said and pointed at the scorched wreck of a plane outside my window. I looked around and there were the captain and the crew boarding this total shambles of a flying horror tube.
Having reassured myself that it couldn’t be as bad as it looked, I stood up to queue for boarding. When they opened the doors to the runway it was like the start of the bloody London Marathon. Men with legs missing, women, children, chickens, ducks, every type of creature known to man seemed to be racing across the tarmac to get to the plane.
It was quite a race and I was quite pleased with myself. I came second behind an elderly lady with one eye. I climbed the rickety staircase and grabbed a seat by the emergency window. If this rust bucket goes down, at least you’re in with a chance, Wakey.
I don’t normally mind flying, but I have to admit that by now I was more than a little worried and the curry from the Air India flight hadn’t entirely left my body either.
I looked around this plane and I have to admit it was terrifying. It smelled – really smelled. There were seats missing – there were entire rows actually missing, luggage compartments were half-hanging off the ceiling, and there were even some loose cases lying on the floor where there should have been seats. I was in a row of two seats. There should have been three but the aisle seat was missing. There were however three of us in this row. Myself, an elderly gentleman and a duck.
At this point, the group of the thirty or so frightened people I had seen in the waiting room boarded the plane. They just stood there, wide-eyed, totally unaware of what they were supposed to do next. Cabin crew ushered them to their seats and had to spend a considerable amount of time reassuring them. I caught the eye of a flight attendant and asked her what was going on with them.
‘They are from a very remote village, sir. They are being relocated near Kerala. They have never seen a plane before, let alone get on one. They live in the deepest parts of rural India. They don’t understand technology at all, they don’t have cars, tellies, nothing. I have explained that they can relax . . .’
I’m glad someone can . . .
‘. . . and that the journey will be perfectly safe. I have told them that by road it would take many days to reach their new homeland, but this special machine can get them there incredibly quickly. In the blink of an eyelid. I’m sure you can see that they are very frightened and confused.’
‘Absolutely. I know how they feel,’ I said.
‘One more thing, sir,’ the attendant said. ‘The captain has asked me to explain to you that we experienced a few problems with the brakes when we landed yesterday.’
Great.
‘Because the runway where we are landing is much shorter than here, the pilot wants to initially do a test here. So he is planning to do an emergency stop first, before he decides if it’s safe to take off for Kerala. Therefore he will make one run down the runway and then brake very hard, as if landing, to see what his stopping distance is. That’s how he decides if it’s safe or not.’
Interestingly the Air India curry was already deciding that for me.
‘Thank you for letting me know,’ I said unconvincingly.
The steward then told the newly boarded terrified passengers that they must put their belongings in the overhead lockers (those parts of the plane that had them). And so they threw all their belongings in these overhead racks and sat down. Those who had seat belts put them on.
Tightly.
I was now absolutely crapping myself.
As I have already mentioned, normally I am a pretty good flyer. After all, I’ve done so many trips over the years. But this was different. As the plane thundered down the runway, which incidentally had more grass and weeds growing on it than my lawn, its engines were screaming and I was gripping my seat for dear life. Even the duck shat itself.
Sure enough, halfway down the runway the captain slammed on the brakes and there was an almighty screeching noise as the bald tyres vainly tried to grip the runway. After what seemed an eternity, the plane shuddered to a halt.
At which point the thirty frightened villagers gave a huge cheer as they unbuckled their belts and proceeded to get their luggage down from the overhead lockers, ready to leave the plane. They’d been told beforehand what a special machine this was and how quick it was, but this must have totally freaked them out. Blink of an eyelid and we’ve arrived. Marvellous. They seemed mightily relieved.
It took nearly half an hour to settle them down in their seats before the captain eventually took off.
After a surprisingly incident-free flight, our plane eventually landed at our destination and we all disembarked somewhat relieved. As I walked across the runway to the terminal I looked back at the plane. Still, to this day, I don’t know how it got off the ground.
I finally met up with the TV crew – it was just myself, a soundman, a cameraman and a director. Every day turned out to be different. Long hours and lots of travelling by road in rickety old vehicles of all shapes and sizes. It was a real adventure. I loved the people too.
Our first day found us on the actual spice trail itself. The director asked me to just walk along past these amazing warehouse full of spices. The mix of aromas was absolutely wonderful. I was loving it, despite my precarious journey down. Next on the agenda was to film a real snake-charmer. We found this really old and wrinkly man who must have weighed about five stone at the most, sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of a wicker basket with a lid on it. He had a long wooden oboe type of wind instrument in has lap. He was straight out of a film, only one tooth in his mouth and with a friendly/deranged grin on his face.
He beckoned me towards him and I bent down by his side and started speaking to camera. As I did so, the old man put the instrument to his lips and started playing. Quite beautiful it was too.
‘Isn’t this remarkable,’ I began, ‘this man here is playing a traditional Indian wind instrument, look at the way he controls his breathing. You can hardly hear a break in the music . . .’
He beckoned with a nod of his head for me to get closer to him. I smiled at the camera and did his bidding. This is good stuff, I was thinking to myself. The Beeb are going to be very pleased with this.
I was really getting into it by now, leaning down towards the old man and his basket, describing the sounds, the colours, his body language – I was loving it.
Then the lid of the basket flew open and a bleeding great Indian cobra lunged out at me, his forked tongue no more than six inches from my face. They had to edit out my next word because this was a family show. I also added my own aroma in the air to that of the various herbs. I don’t remember who reacted the fastest, me or the cameraman, but it’s likely that neither of us will ever move that rapidly again.
‘It was the shock as much as fear,’ I tried to explain to my colleagues, who were desperately trying not to laugh. I found out later they had set me up.
The old snake charmer listened intently.
I continued with my explanation of both sudden movement and air pollution. ‘I am well aware from reading up in books that the tourist snakes, such as the one we’ve just seen, have been treated so they are no longer poisonous . . .’
The old man grinned.
‘No, sir, very poisony, sir, cobra bite you, you bloody deaded.’
We filmed everything from various festivals to princes’ palaces to royal elephants, which was all just fantastic. One afternoon we stopped for a break and as I sat at a beachside café this little Indian boy selling scarves and a few trinkets approached the table. He was only a little kid and he spoke pretty decent English too, considering. He said, ‘You buy? You buy?’ I wanted to get something for my mum as it happened and I always like to buy local tourist stuff because it’s only people trying to make a living. (In my previous literary outing, Grumpy Old . . . oh, you know the one. Well, I nearly ended up doing hard labour in Siberia for buying illicit KGB uniforms – if you still haven’t bought the book by now, perhaps your local library might have a copy?)
I asked him how much for a scarf and then gave him a couple of notes, it was probably worth no more than a couple of quid. His eyes lit up and he ran off. The translator said, ‘You needn’t have paid that much, they expect you to barter.’ I didn’t mind, I felt good about the little episode and settled back into my chair to sip my coffee.
Two minutes later, the boy came back. This time he was carrying a sack full of stuff. He pulled out some hats. ‘You buy? You buy?’ Again we exchanged money and I now owned some hats as well.
Shortly followed by some belts, some T-shirts and a little while later some sunglasses. This kid must have come back about ten times. I tried to explain that I really didn’t need anything else when he vanished once mor, only to return a minute later, slightly out of breath and carrying a plastic chair. ‘You buy? You buy? Quickly please, you buy chair, very cheap!’
Before I had chance to say no, a nearby bar owner came running down the beach shouting, ‘He’s stolen my chair – stop him!’
After my second marriage collapsed, I returned from Switzerland to England with absolutely nothing. I was dossing in the spare room at Toby’s girlfriend’s flat – he was one of my road crew. Janet was really kind to me knowing I had absolutely nowhere to go and said I could stay until I’d sorted something more permanent out for myself. The flat was in Maida Vale in a building called Elgin Mansions.
One night I’d been down the Warwick pub, drunk a skinful and then gone for a curry. What is it about drinking eight pints of beer that makes a neon sign in your brain light up and flash ‘I need a curry!’? There must be some neuro-scientific explanation for that.
Anyway, surprise, surprise, I had a vindaloo. Toby and myself staggered home sometime after midnight, and I walked in and collapsed on the floor. I never even made the bed! Next thing I know, it’s early morning and Toby’s missus is waking me up saying, ‘Rick, there’s a phone call for you.’
I pulled myself up from the carpet and stumbled into the kitchen. As I walked to the phone, I passed a mirror and caught sight of the full horror of my hangover. I looked dreadful and my breath smelled like a Turkish tram driver’s armpit. I swear could have steamed wallpaper off from ten yards. I picked up the phone.
‘Hello, Rick, it’s Barry Norman here.’
Now I’d never met Barry Norman before, or spoken to him and my first thought was, This is a gag, someone’s pulling a fast one, but as he continued talking I realised that it was Barry Norman. How the hell did he get this number?
‘Rick,’ he continued, ‘I’m presenting a new series of Omnibus and I understand you’ve just done a new album called 1984 with an orchestra.’
‘That’s correct, Barry, yes.’
‘Splendid. We thought it would be nice if you came on and played the overture for us to open the new series. Is that something you’d like to do? There’s a three-hundred-pound fee.’
Three hundred quid was very much needed at that particular juncture in my life and so my reply was simple and straightforward.
‘Yes, Barry, it is something I’d like to do.’
‘Great, great. Also, Rick, we also wondered on the off chance if you might have a new piece of piano music that’s not been heard before that we could also have you play, to counter the overture. The problem is the filming is in three days’ time so it’ll have to be a piece you’ve already composed. You don’t happen to have a new piano piece, do you?’
I wasn’t exactly in the best of positions to be writing and recording any music at all, as thanks to the last marriage breakup I no longer even owned a piano, so I was just about to say ‘No’ when Barry continued, ‘There’s another three hundred pounds in it, Rick.’
‘Actually, Barry, there is a piece I wrote just a few days ago that I think would do the trick nicely.’
‘Timing is quite crucial,’ said Barry. ‘How long is the piece?’
‘How long do you actually need?’
‘Three minutes and twenty seconds. Certainly no more than that.’
‘Well, that’s amazing, because this new piano piece of mine is exactly three minutes and twenty seconds long.’
‘That’s splendid, Rick – thank you so much.’
By now I was feeling rather pleased with myself. I had only been back in the country for a few days and already I was back on the television and earning a few quid to boot. My self-satisfaction and growing confidence was shattered by what Barry said next.
‘And what is the name of this piano piece, please, so I can tell the producer?’
I was standing there in my underpants, massively hungover, smelling of a violent curry, head aching, with Barry Norman on the phone and I’d just promised to play a piece on national telly in three days that I hadn’t even written yet. I was a mile away from having thought of the title. As I pondered my fate, I looked down and the morning mail was on the kitchen table. I looked at one of the letters lying there and saw the address written on the front.
Lightbulb moment.
‘It’s called “Elgin Mansions”, Barry.’
‘What a lovely name, Rick. I bet that’s where you live. I can imagine a big mansion out in the countryside. I could see why that would be inspiring: you’ve probably got deer running round the grounds, a small lake, antiques everywhere, Rick, that’s perfect.’
I wrote the piece the next day on a piano in the pub and went on the show and played it. Years later, I bumped into Barry while I was filming Countdown and he asked me if I still played ‘Elgin Mansions’.
I told him the story of what had happened that morning when he called me.
‘So you didn’t live in a country pile called Elgin Mansions then?’
‘No, Barry.’
‘And the beautiful piano piece was not written about this place then?’
‘No, Barry. It was named after the block of flats in Maida Vale where I was dossing on the floor and you can count yourself lucky that it was the envelope with the address on that I first clocked when on the phone to you, because just next to that letter was the receipt from the Indian restaurant . . . so the beautiful piano piece could well have ended up being called ‘Tandoori Mayfair”.’
There used to be two twin brothers who owned a fancy-dress hire and magic shop in the High Street, Slough. One of those brothers was the legendary Tommy Cooper who was, without doubt, one of the funniest people that has ever lived. Tommy had a huge following from the moment he broke into the business in the late 1940s, and his highly successful career spanned five decades until his untimely death in 1984. He was a huge stage and theatre star, his television shows attracted huge audiences and he even appeared in early comics in the 1950s. His shop in Slough was amazing. You’d walk into this big double-fronted shop and there’d be people juggling, doing magic tricks, there’d be a pantomime horse walking through – it was just so, so funny and a great place to go.
Whenever we bumped into each other, which sadly wasn’t very often, Tommy and myself would always have a drink and a great time. They’d recently started a series of programmes called An Audience With . . . that was proving very popular. As you probably know, the audience is mostly filled with other celebrities so I occasionally got asked to go along to watch. They adapted it in later years so that some of the audience actually asked scripted questions, but in the early days it was just a celebrity coming on and doing their act in front of other celebs.
One of the shows I was invited to was to go and see the American comedienne Joan Rivers. She was just beginning to get known over here and was one of the few female American stand-ups enjoying success in the UK, so I was keen to go along and see what she was all about. Now, at any event like this you find yourself walking into the green room beforehand and immediately looking around for anyone you know, some celebrity that you can make a beeline for and start chatting to. I knew some of the faces from TV but not enough to strike up a conversation with, so I went and propped up the bar. Then, about a minute later, Tommy Cooper walked through the door, wearing a huge fake-fur coat. He scanned the room, saw my smiling face at the bar and wandered over.
He was with his lovely wife Gwen, and we chatted a little then Tommy said, ‘This Joan Rivers – she’s American, isn’t she?’
‘She is Tommy, yes.’
‘I’m not going to get her humour, am I?’ he asked, honestly.
‘Err, no,’ I agreed, ‘I think probably not, Tommy. I don’t get it all either, if that’s any consolation.’
‘I won’t know when to laugh, Rick. I don’t know why they invited me – I don’t understand modern American humour. I don’t know who this woman is but they tell me she’s very big in America.’
‘It’ll be fine, Tommy. Just laugh when everyone else does,’ I reassured him. Then the floor manager came in and ushered everyone into the studio at London Weekend Television on the South Bank for the live recording. Tommy, Gwen and myself were on the very back row which suited us just fine. As we sat down, a stagehand asked if Tommy would like to take off his fur coat – although it was a cold winter’s night the studio was baking and Tommy’s coat was just enormous. ‘No, thank you, I’ll keep it on if I may,’ said Tommy, completely straight-faced.
We sat there and Joan started her act. She was very funny. However, Tommy clearly wasn’t getting it at all. People were laughing around him, then stopping, after which there’d be a two-second gap before Tommy Cooper would start his famous ‘huh-huh-huh’ laugh. That made other people laugh, then there’d be another two-second gap and Tommy would think it was time to laugh again, so we just went round in circles. On several occasions Tommy looked at me and said, ‘I don’t get any of this.’
About twenty minutes into the act I could see that Tommy was still not getting it. He leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, ‘Do you fancy a drink?’
‘Oh, Tom, I’d love one but we can’t really leave our seats – it’s being recorded live so we’ll just have to sit it out, we can’t just sneak out,’ I said.
Tommy said, ‘It’s all right, Rick . . .’ and with that he opened the side of his fur coat to reveal a full-size optic sewn into the lining, with a bottle of Scotch attached. Then he leant over to his wife and said, ‘Tumblers please, Gwen.’
Gwen took out two fold–up plastic tumblers from her bag and we had one each.
‘No ice, I’m afraid,’ said Tommy as he handed me my very full tumbler of the finest Scotch whisky.
People all around started to look back to see what was going on and all around us the audience were in stitches.
I learnt so much more about Tommy Cooper and indeed many of the great stars that are no longer with us, from my dear friend Eric Sykes. I could tell the stories now, but I think I’ll save them for the next batch of ‘grumpy’ stories.