Simon Brett - A Comedian Dies

He would work himself to death to make the show work, so long as no one asked him to believe in it. Even Charles, who was hardly a Little Noddy in his world-view, found something shocking in the depth of the man’s cynicism.

Walter Proud, discreetly wishing to maintain a good producer/director relationship, suggested diffidently to Wayland Ogilvie that they should have a straight read-through on the clock to get some idea of how the show ran, unless of course Wayland wanted to approach it a different way. No, Wayland said, he was happy to do it that way, though on the first day of rehearsal he tended to try to picture the overall impact of the programme than get too involved in the script.

So they started. Charles still had a blind spot about television comedy material; he couldn’t tell what was funny and what wasn’t and, having seen the miracles Lennie Barber had wrought with very indifferent lines in the barbershop sketch, he felt even less qualified to judge. However, Steve Clinton laughed raucously at every joke and there seemed to be sycophantic titters from the production crew from time to time, so maybe this was funny too.

The trouble was that Charles didn’t have Lennie Barber’s performance and reactions to help in his response. It soon became apparent that the comedian could not read. Not that he was illiterate, but that he couldn’t sight-read and give a performance at the same time. Charles hadn’t met enough comedians to know how common a failing this is. Performers used to working seasoned material or adding new jokes and ad libs in the skirmishing of night club work are very rarely dependent on scripts and can be seriously thrown by trying to give life to words on the printed page.

Charles’ first reaction was one of fear, that Barber was not going to improve and that this stumbling, ill-timed performance would be the one presented to the studio audience. He rationalized that fear away. Obviously, once he had learned the script, the comedian would start to build his performance, start to characterize and time the lines. But Barber’s inept read-through, particularly when all of the minor comedy supports were giving extravagantly self-indulgent (but funny) cameos, seemed to get the project off to a bad start.

It was also apparent as they read that the star didn’t like a lot of the script. He kept stopping on jokes, shaking his head and looking up to Walter Proud as if to start discussion, but on each occasion the producer gestured that the read-through should continue and points be raised later. Charles had got the impression that there had already been meetings between Proud, Barber and the writers when rewrites had been demanded, and the whole show (or certainly the bits that Barber appeared in — he showed no interest in the rest) looked like being rewritten a good bit more before the recording day arrived.

They reached the end of the script and Lennie Barber, in spite of his mood, sang through a verse and chorus of the closing song, the signature tune of the old Barber and Pole Show, Who Cares About Tomorrow When Tonight Is Now ?

Walter Proud leaned across to look over the PA Theresa’s shoulder at her stopwatch. ‘Just about right for time too. Lovely read. Thank you all — sorry, Wayland, I should let you speak first.’

‘No. don’t worry. I’m just kind of trying to visualize the overall shape of the conception.’

‘Thank you, Wayland. No, I’d really like to say I think we’re really on to something very, very big.’

‘Not without some changes we’re not,’ stated Lennie Barber baldly.

‘What do you mean, Lennie?’ asked Walter heartily, as if he could will away the dissonant voice. But he had started to sweat. The moment when a star says he’s unhappy with the script is the one that every producer fears, breeder of many coronaries.

‘I mean, Walter, that a lot of this stuff is just wrong. There are things in here that I can’t do. For example, that sketch where I go into the chemist and ask for a take-away poltergeist — ’

‘That’s a bloody good sketch,’ objected Paul Royce.

‘That I don’t know. It may be good, it may be bad; all I know is that it’s wrong for me. I can’t play that sort of material.’

‘Oh, come on, Lennie,’ Walter cajoled. ‘You don’t know until you’ve tried.’

‘I know.’

Paul Royce looked petulant. ‘I thought the idea of this show was to try out something new, to bring you up to date.’

‘Try out something new, yes. But I’m still Lennie Barber. It’s got to be new material but new Lennie Barber material. I haven’t spent a lifetime building up my own comic identity to have it thrown over like this. Listen, that sketch might go all right in Monty Python or whatever it’s called — ’

‘Oh, so you don’t think Monty Python’s funny?’ asked Paul Royce, leading Barber into a pit of impossibly reactionary depths.

‘That’s not the issue. I think they do that sort of stuff very well. And I damned well know that I’d do it very badly. I’ve got to work to my strengths, not show myself up by trying to do things other people do a lot better.’

Paul Royce’s lip curled. ‘Well, if you’re never going to try anything new. .’

Walter Proud came in quickly, placating. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll have a look at that sketch.’

‘Not have a look at it — cut it.’

‘We’ll see, Lennie, we’ll see. Now if we can get on. I had a few points which — ’

‘There’s a whole lot more too,’ said Lennie Barber. ‘Stuff that’s going to have to be changed.’

Everyone looked at the comedian with annoyance. He was not making himself popular. And yet Charles found his respect for the man increasing. Having seen Barber work, he knew the fine instinct that made him function as a comedian. If he said he wasn’t happy with the material, the chances were that he was right. He could only work efficiently with jokes he trusted.

Ignoring the wall of cold looks around him, Lennie continued. ‘A lot of it’s far too up-market for me, anyway.’

Paul Royce was again offended. ‘What do you mean — up-market? You should never underestimate your audience. They understand more than you give them credit for.’

‘It’s not a matter of whether they understand it; it’s whether they expect to hear it from me. I mean, for example, that joke about Oedipus doing the week’s shopping down at Mothercare.’

‘That’s a bloody good joke,’ snapped Paul Royce. ‘Just because you’ve never heard of Oedipus — ’

‘Of course I’ve bloody heard of Oedipus. He killed his father, Laius, King of Thebes, and married his mother, Jocasta, but that is not the point. The audience would not expect the Lennie Barber they remember to tell a joke like that.’

‘That’s assuming any of them remember Lennie Barber at all,’ riposted Paul Royce venomously.

Walter Proud rushed in with his can of oil for troubled waters, which is standard issue equipment for all producers. To shift the mood of the conversation, he brought in the director. ‘What’s your feeling on this, Wayland?’

‘I don’t know.’ The dreamy eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses came back lazily from their reverie. ‘I was just trying to paint a picture of that final monologue. I think we should probably shoot it through something. Ferns, maybe. With the set almost burned-out behind.’

Charles got the feeling that The New Barber and Pole Show would not be a completely trouble-free production.

There was a pay-phone in the corridor outside the Drill Hall and he went to it in a rehearsal break. Through the arguments over the script, he had been formulating his next move in the case of Bill Peaky’s murder.

A girl answered. ‘Miffy Turtle Agency.’

Her voice was Cockney. They were all Cockney — Miffy, Carla, the late Bill Peaky. But the feeling they all gave Charles was not of loveable, Dickensian Cockneys, rather of potentially criminal, Kray Brothers type of Cockneys. Miffy particularly, with his solid frame and his flashy jewellery, seemed only one step from a gangster.