Morecambe and Wise (Text Only). Graham McCann
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‘Mr Black, if you don’t want our act, I don’t think we are really interested.’37 Black – not to mention Morecambe – was somewhat taken aback by the sheer impudence of this, but, quickly regaining his composure, he made a minor concession: if the second comic in the show, Alec ‘Mr Funny Face’ Pleon, was ever indisposed, the double-act could take his place. At that, they shook hands with Black and went off with Sadie to celebrate their first engagement in over three months.
Strike a New Note opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre on 18 March 1943. The programme heralded ‘George Black and the Rising Generation’, and, inside, an insert read: ‘HERE IS YOUTH. These boys and girls have been gathered from every part of the country. All are players of experience, needing but the opportunity to make themselves known. They have worked, they have learned; this then is their chance to show what they are worth.’38 The cast included the comedian and singer Derek Roy, the South African musical comedy performer Zoe Gail, Bernard Hunter, Betty and Billy Dainty and the dancer Johnny Brandon, but, without any doubt, the stars of the show very quickly became the brilliant comedian from Birmingham Sid Field and his excellent straight-man Jerry Desmonde.
Field was hardly a representative of ‘Youth’. He had been touring the provinces for years, largely unknown to Southern audiences and critics, and now, suddenly, at the age of thirty-nine, he found himself being hailed as the proverbial ‘overnight success’. He was a comic with a gift for dialects (‘I’m not drinking that sterf!’) and his own personal repertory of characters: the spiv ‘Slasher Green’, the camp photographer, the would-be snooker player, the unteachable golfer, the music professor and the quick-change artiste. ‘No more naturalistic clown walked the land,’ wrote Kenneth Tynan of him, adding that now, with the assistance of the admirably disciplined and unselfish Jerry Desmonde, he appeared beyond comparison: ‘Nobody has done such things before on our stages’.39 Another, very experienced, critic said of that first night:
Never before have I heard such gales of laughter and applause whirling through a theatre … The man in front of me laughed so helplessly that he had to be carried out, and given first aid. I, myself, felt weak with mirth. I was sure that every man and woman was longing to shout to the comedian on that stage: ‘For mercy’s sake, stop! You’ll kill us with laughter.’40
It was a good show to be a part of. Although neither Morecambe nor Wise had much to do, and Alec Pleon’s health – in spite of daily prayers to the contrary from Eric and Ernie – remained depressingly hardy, both of them realised that there was a priceless education to be had from watching two inspired performers like Field and Desmonde, and they also appreciated the fact that the sight of such a successful show on any performer’s curriculum vitae – regardless of how minor a role they may actually have played in its popularity – was guaranteed to impress prospective employers. They relished the opportunity to bask vicariously in Fields’ newly won celebrity: any star who happened to be visiting London at the time seemed to make a point of seeing the show, and among the visitors backstage whom Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise encountered were Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Deborah Kerr, Alfred Hitchcock and George Raft. On one memorable occasion, Adolphe Menjou complimented Wise on his typically spirited impression of Jimmy Cagney singing ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ (which proved, of course, sufficient encouragement for him to reprise the performance at regular intervals during the next thirty years). They also met innumerable West End stars at drinks parties hosted by Wendy Toye, the show’s choreographer.
Throughout all of the seductive hubbub of this brightly unfamiliar showbusiness world, Morecambe and Wise continued to work diligently to promote their critically neglected double-act: ‘At least we loved our act,’ said Wise; ‘we thought it wonderful and were prepared to do it anywhere, anytime, at the drop of a hat.’41 They played several dates at the American officers’ club in Hans Crescent, off the Brompton Road. They stood in at short notice for indisposed acts on local Variety bills. They even played in people’s front rooms – anything to keep in practise and keep being noticed. They also managed during this period to make their very first radio appearances together when the BBC broadcast a special version of Strike a New Note on 16 April 1943, followed in May and June by a ‘spin-off’ series, Youth Must Have Its Swing, on the Home Service.42 In spite of their persistence, however, not everyone was convinced that the double-act had a future. Wendy Toye, for example – who had watched them perform both in the theatre and, slightly less willingly perhaps, in the middle of one of her soirées – continued to regard their partnership with a certain amount of scepticism. ‘I was very fond of both of them,’ she would recall, ‘but I did all I could to separate them’:
I remember saying to Eric, ‘You know, Eric, you’re such a wonderful comedian, you ought to be your own stand-up comedian,’ and I remember taking Ernie to one side and saying to him, ‘That lad’s holding you back – you ought to be a solo song-and-dance man. You’d go straight into musicals and do very, very well.’ They stuck together, thank goodness, but just think: I nearly put a stop to that great double-act!43
Ernie Wise, by this time, was quite impervious to such advice. His often overlooked yet invaluable capacity for loyalty was very evident here – as, indeed, it would be at several crucial points later on in the act’s development – and even Sadie was surprised by how utterly devoted he had become to his partner. Although Wise was, strictly speaking, the one with the more distinguished past and still, some were saying, the more obviously promising future, he seemed perfectly content to let Morecambe berate him at regular intervals for his supposed inadequacies. ‘You’re not a bit of good,’ Morecambe would shout at him after he had forgotten or mistimed a tag line. ‘You’re supposed to have learnt this.’44 On one occasion, Sadie, feeling that things had gone too far, intervened by ordering Eric to leave the room. Ernie’s reaction, she would recall, was entirely unexpected:
Ernie turned to me. ‘You know, you shouldn’t have interfered.’
‘But I’m sticking up for you,’ I said.
‘Don’t you see? Eric is only trying to make me the best feed in the country, like Jerry Desmonde is to Sid Field,’ Ernie said.
‘Make you the feed!’
‘Yes, and shall I tell you something? He’s going to be the best comic in the British Isles.’
Later I told Eric this, and there was no more temperament from my son, never another cross word, never any more argument.45
Their progress, however, was interrupted abruptly on 27 November 1943 with the arrival of Ernie Wise’s call-up papers. He had the option of joining the Army, the Merchant Navy or going down the mines; he decided to join the Merchant Navy, anticipating an exotic life at sea but ending up ferrying coal from Newcastle and South Shields down to Battersea Power Station in London for the Gas Light and Coke Company. Eric Morecambe, who was not due to be called up before May of the following year, stayed on in Strike a New Note until it finally broke up. He then found a job in ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association46) as a straight-man to a Blackpool comic called Gus Morris (brother of the more talented Dave Morris). When his papers did eventually arrive, he opted to become a Bevin Boy,47 volunteering to work down the mines in Accrington for Hargreaves Collieries. Eleven months later, however, he was classified C3 with what was referred to at the time as a touch of heart trouble and was sent home to Morecambe – first to rest and regain his good health, and then to work once again at the local razor-blade factory.
Sadie Bartholomew, scanning the ‘wanted’ columns in The Stage, came across the news that a touring show was looking for a straight-man for its principal comic, Billy Revell. Morecambe got the job, earning £12 per week, and the show ran for six months. Wise was also doing his best to keep himself involved in showbusiness during this period. He had been made part of a permanent reserve of seamen available for placement anywhere in the world at short notice, but, as there were often long breaks between postings, he took the opportunity to keep in touch with a circle of agents and producers who provided him with a steady supply of short-term engagements around the country (billing him as a ‘boy from the brave merchant