William Hall - Titter Ye Not!

Frankie volunteered the same day he heard about it. In all, he volunteered four times – but on each occasion his audition was given the thumbs-down. If a bad workman blames his tools, and a bad comic is tempted to blame his material, Frankie, who was by now a remarkably good comic, must be unique in this case in being able to blame his audience. Of one.

The lone stranger was the ‘interviewing officer’, who behind the pips and a bored expression sat alone in large empty Nissen huts while the would-be stars in battledress did their best to impress him. Frankie needed a full house, a large audience to tease along. His ‘ Oooh, no – now lis-sen!’ had the hollow echo of failure, and he knew it almost before he left the hut to await the verdict a week later.

It was their loss – but in those days, who could know? Frankie tried not to feel disillusioned, but it wasn’t easy. Especially for a performer whose opinion of himself seesawed wildly between adrenalin-fuelled buoyancy and the stricken depths of self-doubt. The station was too small to warrant a regular concert, so he joined a local amateur dramatic society to keep his feet near the footlights.

The war dragged on. The only significant event in Frankie’s life was when he was promoted to Sergeant, and put in charge of a large Army lorry packed with soldiers. With only half a dozen driving lessons behind him – ‘Well, there’s the Army for you, always ready to test new talent’ – Frankie lost control inside a minute, and drove the giant vehicle through a hedge and into a tree. No one was hurt, and Frankie never got behind a driving-wheel again in his life.

His brother Sidney was in the RAF and sister Betty was doing her bit for King and Country in the ATS. Frankie was actually part of the D-Day force that set out for the dawn invasion on 6 June, but neither the Germans nor more than a boat-load of men in his own Royal Artillery battalion were aware of it. The merchant ship that took him across to the beaches was unable to disembark its troops because of heavy seas, and wallowed in the swell until the first wave of the invasion had long passed on its way. Frankie was only dimly aware of what was going on – to boils and pneumonia, add sea-sickness.

He was posted to Lille, then transferred to Brussels as part of the Military Establishment. Frankie would tell a hilarious story of how he personally liberated Holland, simply by being in the first staff car to arrive at The Hague after his convoy became lost in fog. His bewildered uniformed figure was hoisted aloft by cheering crowds, and carried shoulder high through the cobbled streets. ‘I was even asked for my autograph,’ he said. There’s a first time for everything.

Frankie was demobbed three months after VE Day brought the war to its final end. He had served six years and given of his best. And if he had made little obvious dent in the German war machine, those noisy nights in a smoke-filled Mess would prove a useful training ground for his future forays into the front line. Like other wartime entertainers, Frankie had instinctively acquired the special gift of getting through to fighting men in battlegrounds across the world. He would put it to good use.

Meanwhile he had a living to earn. And no real qualifications, apart from a one-page reference from a Major Richard Stone, who later became an agent, in appreciation of his concert party efforts.

So began the daily slog around West End agents. It was tiring, demoralizing and ultimately mind-numbing. Immediately after the war was a period when cinemas and live theatre were on the upswing, reflecting the euphoria of the times. People wanted to laugh, to be entertained. With no television to keep them glued to the flickering screen in their homes, they went out looking for their fun. Music halls were packed. Variety was king, and Frankie was desperate to be one of the courtiers.

But the agents were all powerful. Without their backing, it was almost impossible for a struggling hopeful to get on the boards – although Norman Wisdom, with admirable tenacity, had managed it. He had hounded the owner of Collins Music Hall for three weeks until the poor man finally succumbed to his pleadings and gave him a week’s work – paying him a fiver, which the Scrooge immediately took back as commission.

It was a hard world and you had to have enormous faith in yourself to survive. Frankie grew used to climbing flights of wooden stairs in Soho backstreets, where he’d sit with other hopefuls on hard chairs in a small room waiting for the summons into the inner sanctum. He got to recognize the same faces, thumbing through dog-eared copies of The Stage, the performers’ Bible. And always it was the same. ‘I must have tramped across half London every week,’ he said. ‘They would ask: “What are you working in now?” Honestly! The daftness of it.

‘“Nothing,” I’d tell them. “If I was working I wouldn’t need you, would I?” That’s common sense, isn’t it? But somehow it still got me nowhere.’

Nowhere, that is, until he chanced on an agent named Harry Lowe. ‘Tell you what,’ said Harry, taking pity on the dejected figure sitting across the desk from him. ‘Why don’t you get yourself a spot on the Stage Door Canteen, and I’ll come to see you.’ That was one option Frankie hadn’t tried, mainly because the Stage Door Canteen didn’t pay any money. It was an ex-Servicemen’s bar in Piccadilly, with an adjoining concert hall where big names entertained the Services, waiving their fees, and the supporting acts came from the ranks. The atmosphere was one of beer mats and nostalgia, and Frankie, putting an inquiring nose round the door, felt instantly at home.

There was one snag. Civilians weren’t allowed on the stage unless they were topping the bill, by invitation.

Undeterred, Frankie hurried back to his bedroom in Eltham, opened the battered suitcase he’d left on top of his wardrobe and pulled out the uniform he had folded neatly away, never really expecting to use it again. And off went Sergeant F.A. Howard that same afternoon, taking the bus to Piccadilly, and all the time in a sweat in case a redcap military policeman tapped him on the shoulder and demanded to see his papers.

He marched into the secretary’s office, snapped to a smart salute, and produced the creased reference from Major Stone. And to his astonishment was told: ‘All right. You’re on next week. Friday, seven o’clock sharp.’

Frankie raced for the phone in the corner of the bar, and called up the agent. ‘I’ll be there,’ Harry promised.

Butterflies once again, having a field day. But looking out at a familiar sea of faces in uniform, Frankie felt the nerves dissipate, to be replaced by a feeling of sudden elation. There was no sign of Harry Lowe, but he presumed the agent was somewhere at the back, watching from the shadows. And Frankie gave it all he’d got, the big butcher’s hands flying about as he patrolled the stage, pressing the palms together, squeezing his nose, pulling at his chin, regaling the audience with his Army adventures until they were dissolved into helpless laughter. Especially D-Day. That was the one, he recalled later, that went down best. ‘ There I was, rolling about in the scuppers … yes, the scuppers, well and truly scuppered I was… And pea-green … don’t laugh if you haven’t tried it, sir … Oh, I see by your shirt that you ’ave … Never mind, it’ll wash out …’

And the cowardly approach. As a raw sentry, he told them, he jumped out of his skin when the sergeant crept up on him. ‘ What would you ’ave done if I’d really been a German?’ bellowed the sarge.

‘ I’ve already done it!’ was the anguished reply.

That night was a riotous success, apart from one slight drawback – Harry Lowe never turned up.