Sid James in Carry on at your convenience
Comedy can be strange world, it is a broad palette of humour, which may not be to the taste of all. But have you ever stopped to think about the lives of the purveyors of comedy?
You might presume that the comedian at the microphone is a walking joke book with an encylopedic library of humour to draw on from memory, that is not always the case. A lot of comedians aren't really funny, they just get up in front of a microphone and have some sort of instinctive ability to make people laugh, relying on comedy writers for their material.
Often, away from the adulation, they are paranoid characters with inner torment, addictions and demons to conquer. The performance is where they come alive. So let us look at a few of the well known comedians from British television and film.
Sid James, instantly recognisable from that wrinkled washbag face and dirty laugh, but Sid was a restless character off stage. He came to prominence after WW2 , moving to London from his native South Africa having escaped a troubled marriage.
Sid starred in many films, honing his ability in bit parts in films like 'Hell Drivers,' with a young Sean Connery and Patrick McGoohan. He found fame with Tony Hancock, (the depressive who would later take his own life) in the radio series 'Hancock's Half hour,' which also featured Kenneth Williams, of more later.
Sid was the foil to Hancock's major player of the program, but Sid was getting the laughs, whereas Hancock played for laughs with his comic pomposity, it was all getting a bit strained and Sid's laughs came easier, which cost him the Hancock role.
Similarly, Kenneth Williams fell foul of Hancock too, Williams's 'Snidey' charachter which he had developed and would use in a number of situations including the popular 'Round the Horne,' led to his going the same way as Sid.
It is said that Sid was something of a gambler and he also could not resist the temptation of chasing Barbara Windsor, but who could? Like many players, Sid knew that show business was not always a guarantee of fortune and he endured hardships along the way, although suffering from a heart condition, he continued to push himself and ultimately he died in harness as some of his contemporaries did - Eric Morecambe and Tommy Cooper for example. But we only have to hear Sid's grating laugh to put the smile on our faces, I even have it as the ringtone on my phone.
Sid summed up his work on the Carry On films as 'Me in different hats.' He is missed.
Eric Morecambe with Sid James, coincidentally!
Eric Morecambe, one half of the legendary Morecambe and Wise comedy partnership came from Lancashire and it was due to a teacher that basically told him that 'the only thing he was good at was playing the fool,' led him to a career in comedy.
Teaming up with Ernie Wise, a then young Ernest Wiseman as he was, the then Eric Bartholomew, like George Formby before him, changed his name to that of a Lancashire town, in his case the seaside resort of Morecambe and the rest is history.
Like Sid James, Eric Morecambe knew showbiz was a rocky road and he realised that he had nothing else to fall back on, which drove him throughout his life to keep performing. He too had heart trouble but carried on and sadly died on stage. Perhaps the finest accolade, he died doing something that he liked and lived for.
Eric's fear it seemed was to go out of fashion, but he did not, the Morecambe and Wise humour was clean, family entertainment and it had to be to be mainstream and attain the audiences it did for the accepted guidelines of the time.
Eric would even on holiday be thinking up and trying out routines and the lifelong stage partnership with Ernie Wise was built on an almost psychic ability to drop in the lines and feeds as though they were all scripted. He gave us some of the funniest moments on television.
Kenneth Williams
Kenneth Williams got his early break like Charles Hawtrey in the Will Hay films. During military service, Kenneth Williams managed to get into entertaining the troops and he was able to develop his career after the war.
Finding footholds in Hancock's half hour and later Round the Horne, Kenneth Williams would then hit the big time in the double-entendre heavy Carry on film franchise. Like Sid James, Charles Hawtrey and Frankie Howerd, he benefitted from the exposure! Indeed Williams was quoted as saying 'If I see an innuendo in a script I have to whip it out.'
The comedic ability of Kenneth Williams, who also enjoyed a stage career in serious theatre and radio was marred by the suicide of his father and also his own homosexuality, which at the time was against the law.
Beyond even the performing, Kenneth Williams was a proficient chat show host and read stories on the children's series Jackanory. He potentially had a future beyond comedy, having left the Carry On series as he had lost enthusiasm for it.
For all the happiness that Kenneth Williams generated, he was deeply unhappy and depressive, which ultimately led him to overdose on medication, leaving a rather sad final entry in his diary 'Oh what's the bloody point?'
It was a sad end to a career that had given much entertainment to the British public. However, we do have a great visual and aural archive of our comedian's work to refer to.
Charles Hawtrey his 'Well, hello...' catchphrase lit up many a scene
So to our last but one character actor, Charles Hawtrey. Finding early celluloid exposure with Kenneth Williams in the Will Hay films prior to and at the start of WW2, Charles Hawtrey embarked on a career of supporting roles in post war British cinema.
Like Kenneth WIlliams and Sid James, they all hit the big time with the Carry On series of films which Charles Hawtrey left around 1974. Like Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey also battled with homosexuality and alcoholism, surviving being 'outed' in a court case for public indecency popularly known as 'cottaging,' he was troubled with an increasing alcoholic intake and had to leave the Carry On franchise and from there the end of things was inevitable.
Frankie Howerd with Anita Harris during Carry On filming
Frankie Howerd also found fame in post WW2 comedy, very popular in the 1950's his career suddenly took a turn for the worse and opportunities were less plentiful.
Although having writers like Barry Cryer write for him, Frankie Howerd was very skilled at improvising and working off the cuff.
Frankie Howerd came back to better times in the early 1960's with the Frost Report and the shows from the Establishment club, where he performed a rather irreverent and starchy style of comedy, almost sour, but that was the key to its success, the public liked the waspish almost one to one style of oratory.
The new lease of performing life in the 1960's brought Frankie Howerd back to the mainstream and to acting roles where he performed in Carry On films and later the Up Pompei series on BBC2. Although lurking in Frankie Howerd's closet was indeed his homosexuality, which he likely felt had been imposed on him as some sort of millstone and greatly troubled him, resorting to extreme medical treatments which did not work.
However, Frankie Howerd continued to work until the 1980's when new comedy controllers and heads of light entertainment decided to change things and the bounds of acceptability were being challenged and pushed.
The older performers who had in the past, had to abide by strict almost 'Reithian' guidelines were likely seen as old hat and irrelevant, against those that used politics in their comedy, bad language and talk of sex which was in the main forbidden in the past.
That said, Frankie Howerd found popularity with a young audience, indeed at Oxford University of all places as such, which renewed interest in his work and led to a final flourish for his career.
Barry Cryer once asked Frankie Howerd if he might be able to do a small spot at his son's school at an evening event, Frankie said he might be able to do a half hour, he was still going two and a half hours later, all off the cuff and unscripted.
This goes to demonstrate that whatever the demons lurking off stage, when these comedians were in front of the audience, this was their time.
So we will leave you with a piece of Sid James. The caption says it all.
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