CLIPS FROM A LIFE

DENIS NORDEN

Copyright

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Fourth Estate

Copyright © Denis Norden 2008

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Source ISBN: 9780007277957

Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2008 ISBN:9780007287796

Version: 2017-05-05

For Max and Angus (Latest in series)

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

All photographs are from the author’s private collection, unless otherwise credited.

PLATE ONE

The Gaumont State Kilburn, 1937. Photograph courtesy of Cinema Theatre Association Archive.

The foyer of the State Kilburn. Photograph courtesy of Cinema Theatre Association Archive.

The Hyams Brothers: Mr Phil, Mr Sid and Mr Mick. Photographs courtesy of Ronald Grant Archive.

The Trocadero, Elephant and Castle. Photograph courtesy of Cinema Theatre Association Archive.

The Trocadero auditorium. Photograph courtesy of Cinema Theatre Association Archive.

LAC D. Norden.

Nick and Maggie on a foreign beach.

Post CBE ceremony – Nick, Maggie, DN and Avril.

Wilson, Keppel and Betty.

Ted Kavanagh. Photograph © Topfoto.co.uk.

Frank Muir, Charles Maxwell and DN. Photograph © BBC Photo Library.

Take It From Here: Wallas Eaton, Dick Bentley, Alma Cogan, Jimmy Edwards and June Whitfield. Photograph © BBC Photo Library.

Take It From Here: Frank and DN. Photograph courtesy of Popperfoto/Getty Images.

Bernard Braden. Photography courtesy of The Kobal Collection/Melina Prods.

What’s My Line: Frank, Lady Isobel Barnett, Barbara Kelly and DN. Photograph © BBC Photo Library.

London Laughs.

PLATE TWO

Whack-o!: Jimmy Edwards. Photograph © BBC Photo Library.

My Word!: Frank Muir and Dilys Powell. Photograph © BBC Photo Library.

Inspirational sheet-music for My Music.

My Music: Steve Race, Frank, Ian Wallace and John Amis. Photographs © BBC Photo Library.

Looks Familiar. Courtesy of FremantleMedia Ltd.

Looks Familiar: Dickie Henderson, Diana Dors and Danny La Rue. Photograph courtesy of BFI Stills.

Looks Familiar: Alec McCowen, DN, Pat Phoenix and Eric Sykes. Photograph courtesy of BFI Stills.

Looks Familiar: Alice Faye. Photograph © FremantleMedia Ltd.

Looks Familiar: David Niven. Photograph © FremantleMedia Ltd.

Looks Familiar: Sammy Davis Jr. Photograph courtesy of BFI Stills. Our Kid.

PLATE THREE

Melvin Frank. Photograph courtesy of Brut Productions/Ronald Grant Archive.

Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell.

A Thurber original.

It’ll Be Alright on the Night.

It’ll Be Alright on the Night cartoon.

The Crazy Gang: Bud Flanagan, Charlie Naughton, Jimmy Gold, Jimmy Nervo and Teddy Knox. Photograph by Houston Rogers courtesy of the Mander & Mitchenson Theatre Collection, © V&A.

‘Monsewer’ Eddie Gray.

Chesney Allen and Bud Flanagan.

DN and the Brylcreem touch. Photograph courtesy of Ronald Grant Archive.

Sanders of the River. Photograph courtesy of London Film Productions/Ronald Grant Archive.

Moore Marriott. Photograph courtesy of BFI Stills.

Countdown: Richard Whiteley, Carol Vorderman and DN. Photograph © ITV/Granada.

The young DN.

FOREWORD

In a long-ago New Yorker cartoon, a publisher is seen advising the anxious author whose slim volume of memoirs he has just tossed aside, ‘Cut out all the insights and beef up the anecdotes.’

And insofar as I have followed any guiding principle for the ensuing ruminative rummage, that injunction would more or less cover it.

No other discipline was observed. For some eighteen months or so, I simply set down each recollection as it arrived, making no attempt to impose any order, merely letting them pile up without regard for chronology or variousness. The process was so similar to the way we used to gather in clips for the TV shows from which I had been earning my bread and non-fat butter-substitute over the past forty-some years, it seemed appropriate to acknowledge the resemblance in the book’s title. At the very least, that gave me an excuse to abandon This is On Me, The Story Thus Far, Innocent Bystanding and Some of the Bits Frank’s Book Left Out.

As might have been expected, the project ended up as a higgledy-piggledy mishmash of moments that had amused or impressed me over the course of my working life, each complete in itself but in aggregate an undisciplined jumble of 250-plus jottings as disconnected and random as the wisps and scraps of memory that delivered them.

‘Do you want me to rearrange them so that they make more of a straight line across the decades?’ I asked Louise Haines, my infinitely patient editor.

‘I’m not averse to a bit of backwards and forwards zig-zagging,’ she replied. ‘We might even make some kind of virtue of it.’

Thankful for this – you only have to Google my screenplay credits to see how small a gift I have for sustained narrative – I was even more grateful when she added, ‘If you could just work out a separate timeline for me, I’ll try to put the bits and pieces into some kind of minimally coherent order, then chop it into chapters.’

This she proceeded to do, with considerable diligence and ingenuity, in the process achieving an agreeable (to me, anyway) reversal of Life’s customary running order by positioning my chronicles of childhood up towards the book’s rear end. Incidentally, that timeline, for those who feel the need of it, can be found on page xvii.

But in addition to Louise, there are several others to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for helping me get the thing finished. Foremost among them is Avril, my wife, who not only painstakingly scrutinised and proofed each paragraph as it was hewn from the living rock, she managed the some would say impossible task of keeping my spirits up throughout.

I’m also indebted to Maggie, my daughter, Nick, my son, and his wife Elspeth, whose unfaltering encouragement, reinforced by offerings from all manner of recherché delis, acted as a constant spur. Nor could I have done without the clear-eyed interventions of Zoe and Katy, my grand-daughters, and the long-distance support of Jamie, the grandson.

My warmest thanks also go to Brenda Talbot, my secretary from way back, who, with her husband, John, performed miracles of delving and digging; to Norma Farnes, my literary agent, and April Young, my everything-else agent, for taking care of the hard-headed stuff; to Doctor Paul Blom, for keeping me near enough seventy per cent road-worthy and Kieran Pascal for performing roughly the same function with my IT equipment.

I would add a further thank-you note to Jamie Muir, for giving me permission to quote one of Frank’s My Word! stories and to Messrs Eyre Methuen for allowing me to reprint bits from Coming To You Live! and the My Word! books.

But enough now of the Opening Titles. Cue Clips.

TIMELINE

1922 Born 6 February, Mare Street, Hackney, within the sound of Bow Bells.

1927 Craven Park Elementary School.

1933 City of London School.

1939 Joined Hyams Brothers Gaumont Super Cinemas at State, Kilburn.

1940 Transferred to Trocadero, Elephant & Castle, as Assistant Manager.

1941 Gaumont, Watford, as General Manager (‘Youngest Cinema Manager in the country’).

1942 Also managed Town Hall Music Hall, Watford. Wrote History of the Holborn Empire (radio), six programmes presented by Sidney Caplan, Musical Director at Holborn Empire, then Watford. Left to join RAF.

1943 Married Avril.

1944 To France on D-Day; thence Belgium, Holland, Germany.

1945 Demobbed; joined Hyman Zahl Variety Agency as staff writer.

1946 Joined Ted Kavanagh Associates, a cooperative of writers. Wrote Bentley in London for Australian radio.

1947 Son Nicholas born. Wrote links for Beginners Please (radio), Variety series introducing new performers fresh out of the forces; producer Roy Speer. Met Frank Muir.

1948 Take It From Here (radio), written with Frank for ten years. We collaborated for seventeen years, writing film scripts, stage revues, TV series; appeared together on panel games, including My Music (radio and TV), My Word! (radio), What’s My Line (TV), The Name’s the Same (TV). Wrote Bernard Braden programmes (radio and TV). Wrote links for Show Time (radio), Variety programme showcasing newcomers; presenter Dick Bentley; first broadcasts included Bob Monkhouse; producer Roy Speer. Starlight Hour (radio), sixty-minute series; written with Frank and Sid Colin; starred Alfred Marks, Benny Hill, Geraldo and orchestra.

1949 Third Division (radio), written with Frank, with contributions from Paul Dehn. First comedy show allowed on ‘highbrow’ Third Programme; included Balham: Gateway to the South; with Robert Beatty, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, Michael Bentine, Benny Hill, Robert Moreton; producer Pat Dixon.

1950 Breakfast with Braden (radio), written with Frank; live Saturday mornings; with Bernard Braden, Barbara Kelly, Benny Lee, Pearl Carr, Nat Temple and orchestra. Series became Bedtime with Braden, then Between-times with Braden.

1951 Here’s Television (TV), one-off, one-hour sketch show, written with Frank. First programme to send up TV. Maggie born. Gently, Bentley (radio), written with Frank. Performed in Australia on ABC, with Australian cast.

1952 In All Directions (radio); the first radio comedy series the BBC allowed to be aired without a script. Frank and I devised and edited it into coherence. Starred Peter Ustinov and Peter Jones, who played all the characters and most of the sound effects. London Laughs (revue), Adelphi Theatre; with Jimmy Edwards, Tony Hancock, Vera Lynn (later Shirley Bassey); ran two years.

1953 Barbara with Braden (TV), written with Frank; with Barbara Kelly, Bernard Braden; producer Brian Tesler. The Name’s the Same (radio), panel game; with Frank, myself, Fanny Craddock and Frances Day. In 1954, it won National Radio Award as the Most Promising New Programme. Programme didn’t make it to 1955.

1954 And So to Bentley (TV), b/w live; written with Frank; with Dick Bentley, Peter Sellers, Bill Fraser, Jackie Collins. Between-times with Braden (radio); written with Frank.

1955 Bath-night with Braden (TV), b/w, live; written with Frank; with Bernard Braden; produced by Brian Tesler. Began writing sketches, with Frank, for George and Alfred Black’s Blackpool Summer Shows, continued until 1963. Arthur Haynes starred in one revue.

1956 Whack-o! (TV), written with Frank; 63 episodes to 1972, 47 live and b/w. Set in Chiselbury School. Finkle’s Café (radio), ‘where the posh squash to nosh’, written with Frank. Based on American series, Duffy’s Tavern, ‘where the elite meet to eat’. With Peter Sellers, Sid James, Avril Angers, Kenneth Connor; producer Pat Dixon.

1957 My Word! (radio), panel game; other panellists included Nancy Spain, E. Arnot Robertson, Anne Scott James, Antonia Fraser and Dilys Powell. Ran for over thirty years. We published seven books of My Word! stories (1974–91).

1960 ‘Consultants and Advisors, BBC TV Light Entertainment’. Left in 1964. Frank stayed on. Bottoms Up!, movie version of Whack-o!, written with Frank and Michael Pertwee. Became one of the founder members of The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain.

1961 The Seven Faces of Jim (TV), written with Frank; introduced Richard Briers and Ronnie Barker to TV. The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award for Best Contribution to Light Entertainment.

1962 More Faces of Jim (TV), written with Frank. Brothers in Law (TV), written with Frank and Henry Cecil.

1963 Mr Justice Duncannon (TV), written with Frank and Henry Cecil.

1964 How to Be an Alien (TV), written and presented with Frank; based on George Mikes’ book of the same name. The Big Noise (TV), b/w; written with Frank; starring Bob Monkhouse. Hazel Adair and myself joint chairmen of The Writers’ Guild.

1965 My Music (radio and couple of seasons on TV) panel game; with Frank, myself, Ian Wallace, David Franklin followed by John Amis, chairman Steve Race. Ran till 1993.

1967 At Last the 1948 Show (TV), ‘Script Referee’.

1968 The Bliss of Mrs Blossom (movie); written with Alec Coppel; starring Shirley MacLaine, Richard Attenborough; director Joe McGrath. Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell (movie), written with Melvin Frank, Sheldon Keller; starring Gina Lollobrigida, Shelley Winters, Lee Grant, Phil Silvers, Peter Lawford, Telly Savalas; Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

1969 Wrote The Best House in London (movie); starring David Hemmings, George Sanders; director Phillip Saville.

1970 Every Home Should Have One (movie), written with Barry Took and starring Marty Feldman.

1971 The Statue (movie), written with Alec Coppel; starring David Niven.

1973 Looks Familiar (TV), nostalgia panel game; wrote and presented 195 episodes to 1987 for Thames TV. During this time, wrote cartoon sequence of The Water Babies (movie). Also wrote, under the name of Nicholas Roy, Confessions of a Door to Door Salesman (movie). You Can’t Have Your Kayak and Heat It (book), with Frank; collected My Word! stories.

1974 Upon My Word! (book), with Frank (My Word! stories). Take My Word for It (book), with Frank (My Word! stories).

1977 It’ll Be Alright on the Night (TV), wrote, selected and presented to 2006. Second It’ll Be Alright on the Night won Silver Rose of Montreux. Its twenty-nine year run, earned me entry in the Guinness Book of Records.

1978 Frank and I jointly won Variety Club Award for Best Radio Personality.

1979 The Glums (book), with Frank.

1980 Awarded CBE. Oh, My Word! (book), with Frank (My Word! stories).

1983 Wrote and presented It’ll Be Alright on the Day (TV); all sport cock-ups pre-Cup Final. The Complete and Utter My Word! Stories (book), with Frank.

1984 Royal Variety Show (theatre), introduced Robert Dhéry’s bell-ringer sketch.

1985 Coming To You Live (book), behind-the-scene memories of fifties and sixties Television.

1988 Wrote and presented In On the Act (TV), short nostalgia series; with Roy Castle, Bernie Winters and others. Wrote and presented Pick of the Pilots (TV), six episodes; all failed pilot programmes. Wrote and presented With Hilarious Consequences (TV), twenty-one years of Thames Television sitcoms (‘It was the best of Thames, it was the worst of Thames’).

1989 You Have My Word (book), with Frank (My Word! stories).

1991 Selected, wrote and presented Denis Norden’s Laughter File (TV); ran till 2005.

1992 Wrote and presented Denis Norden’s Trailer Cinema (TV); one-off.

1993 Selected, wrote and presented Laughter by Royal Command (TV); based on Royal Variety Shows.

1995 Selected, wrote and presented 40 Years of ITV Laughter (TV); three sixty-minute programmes. Wrote and presented Legends of Light Music (radio).

1996 Selected, wrote and presented A Right Royal Song and Dance, based on Royal Variety Shows.

1999 The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Comedy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

2000 Royal Television Society Lifetime Award.

2006 Wrote and presented All the Best (TV); farewell round-up programme.