Comedy: Barry Cryer at the Bristol Slapstick Festival

Thursday 14th January 2010

Natalie Hale talks to Barry Cryer who is singing the praises of maverick funnyman Kenny Everett at this year’s Bristol Slapstick Festival

Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper, Richard Pryor and Les Dawson – legendary comedy writer Barry Cryer has not only worked with these comedy greats, but has given them some of their best lines.

So perhaps it’s surprising that a man known for his dexterous use of the written and spoken word is involved in Bristol ’s annual Slapstick Festival, celebrating visual, physical comedy.

“Although my business is basically words, I have always loved visual and slapstick comedy,” says Barry, “and I’m very much looking forward to coming down to Bristol and being part of this festival.”

The enthusiasm for Bristol’s Slapstick Festival is almost palpable, not only from the creator and director of the festival Chris Daniels and the eager audience, but also from the high-profile guests who come back year after year.

In fact, it was Slapstick regulars, former Goodies and Barry’s fellow Sorry I Haven’t a Clue panellists Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor, who whetted Barry’s appetite for the event.

“I heard about it through Graeme and Tim, who are two old friends. They both spoke very highly of it.”

Barry will be taking part in two events – celebrity panel show, Desert Island Slapstick and, as part of the festival’s latest initiative to look at slapstick after silents, ‘Barry Cryer: The Lost Genius of Kenny Everett’.

Already one of Britain’s most successful radio DJs, Everett rose to national acclaim with the Kenny Everett Video Show, showcasing his unique, anarchic humour. Barry was one of Everett’s closest collaborators and writing partners for more than a decade, and on Sunday, January 24, he will be celebrating the work of this innovative visual comedian with anecdotes and on-screen footage.

“I was talking to Chris Daniels about my long and rather winding CV and Kenny Everett came up,” the 74-year-old explains.

“I got involved with Everett after getting a phone call from a boss at Thames Television, who had asked his 18-year-old son who he would like to see on TV, and he had said Kenny Everett.

“We met for lunch to talk about what we could do with Everett on television. We got the late writer Ray Cameron on board – he was Michael MacIntyre’s father and I’m known as Mike’s surrogate father because I’ve known him since he was a little boy – and we created these slots for Everett in which he would introduce the next band or whatever.

“Everett’s links were so good that they got longer and longer and then we started adding characters and he started putting wigs on and larking about.

“Suddenly, it had turned into something else. It turned into The Kenny Everett Video Show.

“Everyone wanted to come on the show and be insulted by Kenny – there was David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Rod Stewart, Brian Ferry...

“Kenny loved slapstick, physical stuff. I did a lot of visual gags with Kenny with the rather primitive technology we had back then. If Everett was still around with the advanced technology we have today, God only knows what he’d be up to.”

Later on the Sunday, Barry will be a panellist on Desert Island Slapstick, which asks the question, if you were stuck on a desert island with only one silent comedy to keep you company, which would you choose? This year’s panel also features Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor.

“Normally at these festivals, and quite rightly so, they look at the usual suspects like Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd. But as my Desert Island Disc, I’ll look at Fatty Arbuckle.

“I got interested in Arbuckle through a friend called David Yallop, who I met many years ago when he was a television floor manager. He has since become an enormously successful author of factual, investigative books, and he wrote one called The Day The Laughter Stopped about Arbuckle.”

Arbuckle was one of the most popular stars of the 1910s. He also mentored Charlie Chaplin and discovered Buster Keaton.

In 1921, Arbuckle threw a party at which bit player Virginia Rappe became ill and died days later. Arbuckle was accused of accidentally killing Rappe. His films were banned, his career was ruined, and he was publicly ostracised.

Though he was acquitted by a jury, the trial’s scandal has mostly overshadowed his legacy as a pioneering comedian.

“Arbuckle’s films were banned for years all over the world. He was a star before them all and was much respected but now he is all but forgotten. So I thought he would be a really interesting person to look at. There’s a strange parallel between Fatty Arbuckle and Kenny Everett actually – you don’t see Everett on television anymore either. I don’t know why.”

Growing up, Leeds-born Cryer had no pretensions of becoming involved in showbusiness. But fate had a different plan.

“I have been dogged by good luck and happy accidents all my life,” laughs Barry.

“I had got into Leeds University and blew it. My first year results were terrible because I was chasing girls and spending a lot of time in the bar. Then this guy came to see someone in a student show and he spotted me telling jokes and offered me work. So I had this offer of work in one hand and some dismal first year results in the other. There was no contest.”

Barry did some variety work which led him to the famous Windmill Theatre in London, a legendary club which showed comedy acts in between nude tableau shows.

“The people didn’t come to see us – they came to see the naked women! We used to do six shows a day, six days a week.

“It was a hell of a school to learn your trade – you certainly learned to die on stage with dignity.

“The boss at the Windmill, Vivian Van Damn, who was known affectionately to everyone as VD, loved comedians. He knew he would always get a full house with the nudes, so he would indulge his own love of comedy by getting some stand-ups on the bill. The names that worked there reads like a who’s who – Peter Sellers, Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise...

“In January 1957, I met a man called Bruce Forsyth. I never found out what happened to him! Actually, Bruce was terrific. He could keep the energy up for 36 shows a week.” Barry went on to write and appear in nightclub shows with Danny La Rue before joining the BBC series The Frost Report alongside an amazing group of writers including the Monty Python gang, Marty Feldman and David Nobbs.

“In those days, being a writer on Frost had a real cachet,” explains Barry. “It could open doors for you.”

Having made a name for himself in the industry, he went on to write gags and sketches for some of the true legends of comedy, including The Two Ronnies, Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper, Dave Allen, Bob Hope, Sir Harry Secombe, Billy Connolly, Jasper Carrott and Richard Pryor to name just a few.

“Yes, I wrote for a whole string of heavyweights, but my happiest times were writing for Everett.”

Today, Barry is as busy as ever, performing at the Edinburgh Fringe, touring the UK with a one-man show and continuing to be a panellist on the ever-popular BBC radio series I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.

“2010 looks totally erratic,” he continues. “We had the family around last night and I was bemoaning that fact that I’m getting old and I’ll never work again and they were saying ‘Oh no, Dad’s groaning again. You say the same every year. Shut up!’.

“But they’re right – I continue to jog on.”

Barry Cryer: The Lost Genius of Kenny Everett appears at Arnolfini on Sunday, January 24, at 2pm. Tickets cost £7/£5 concs – call 0117 917 2300.

Desert Island Slapstick, followed by The Rutles: All you Need is Cash appears at Jesters Comedy Club on Sunday, January 24, from 6.30pm. Tickets cost £12/£10 concs and includes both events – call 0117 909 6655 for more details.