From research notes for a book to be called 'A Century of Slapstick'

1963


Of all the unlikely places to get a break but Dudley! I was topping the bill there in the West Midlands at the old Gaiety for a week. Tuesday night before the second house there's a knock on the dressing room door and in walks me old mucker Max Morris. Now Maxie won't thank me for reminding you but he used to be a hoofer - we'd been in the chorus together in the old days. He'd done well for himself since then because by now he was a swanky television producer with Redifusion.

We had a grumble about the way variety was going - downhill, fast - and then he says to me, 'Freddie, I'm about to produce a comedy series for children's telly. I want it to be knockabout and I want you to star. Interested?' Had I known then I'd be spending the next three months plastered in shaving soap and wallpaper paste I might not have said yes so sharpish, but right away we got down to sorting out the who's what's and how's. Back in town Maxie teamed me up with veteran comedy writer Chas Chesley and Chas and I came up with an idea. I'd be the bossy foreman of a couple of nutcases and each week our gang would try our hand at a different profession - six programmes, six jobs - bakers, barbers, builders, plumbers, decorators and garage mechanics. It didn't take a genius to see the potential for messy comedy in that little lot. It'd be called Fred's Barmy Brigade and sub-titled Odd Men for Jobs.

In those days everything was done quicker. We had just six weeks to write, cast and do the location filming before we went into the studio - and that was scheduled for only one day per episode on the day before transmission. I had a bit of luck straight away - Nobby Ford was free. Nobby was older than me - 52 to my 39 at that time - but he could still perform the same amazing stunts he'd been doing at 19 or 20. His timing was always split-second perfect, he was a first-rate tumbler and contortionist - quite simply Nobby was the best stooge in the business.

But we were racking our brains trying to cast the other part. Then I remembered a gangling young man of about 26 called Graham Drain (yes, his real name) who'd been in one of the Carry Ons with me. He'd had a scene with a young girl - also an unknown at the time - playing newly-weds. The set-up was that when he tried to carry her over the threshold, they'd fall into freshly laid cement on the garden path.

The location was an ordinary semi. The props boys had dug a trench in the front garden six feet long and three feet deep and filled it to the top with very fine, wet cement. We had to film immediately and get the take in one because the actors had only a single costume each and the cement would start to set in minutes. 'Action!' We held our breath.

Graham, in a smart suit and tie, swept the girl in her wedding dress up into his arms at the garden gate and took a few steps before lurching up to his crotch in the cement. Somehow, he managed to keep the girl mostly out of it, and she reached the porch with only a bit of muck on her dress, but he really went to town. He stayed rolling about in the cement, acting like he couldn't get out. I'd tipped him the wink beforehand it'd look good if he lost his trousers and he worked the gag so they fell round his shins. By the time he finally clambered out his bare legs and the back of his white underpants were as plastered in cement as his face and hair. When the director shouted, 'Cut!' the crew burst into a spontaneous round of applause (and you don't hear that very often).

I'd been impressed at the time so I got him on the phone and offered the job on the spot. Brilliant! Now we had a great looking comedy trio lined up - Nobby, short and wiry - Graham, lean and lanky - and me. And let's not beat about the bush, stout and stocky are the words that best fit Freddie.

Graham earned his spurs on the first day in the studio. We were shooting the Decorators episode and we all thought the first half needed a stronger finish before the ad break.

'I know,' Graham said, 'Why don't I climb the ladder with a full bucket of paste. The ladder tips me backwards onto the pasting table which'll collapse under my weight and I'll end up with the glue all over my face.'

Ooh blimey, I wasn't sure about this. He was proposing to fall backwards from six or seven feet up and land on his back on a wooden table. I mean, we all get used to regular bumps and bruises in the comedy business, but this stunt risked a nasty injury. Still - he insisted, Maxie agreed, and once again it was fingers crossed on the word 'Action!'.

From nearly at its top young Graham rocked the ladder to make it tip backwards and he fell, landing with an almighty smash on top of the rolled-out wallpaper I'd just been pasting, scooting his bucket of slimy stuff all over his head and chest. The table gave way on cue and Graham ended up sitting on the deck in the V it made, dripping with the frogspawn-y paste. No bones broken, thank goodness, but he'd taken a hefty wallop on his elbow from the bucket. So we couldn't believe it when Maxie called through the studio intercom, 'Sorry, playmates. Technical hitch. We'll have to go once more.'

And my hat off to him, young Graham didn't flinch. He showered in a trice, put on clean overalls and did it all over again for take two.

The studio days were frantic. Often there wasn't time for a thorough rehearsal, so we had to wing it while the video was rolling. I chuckled when I saw the Garage Mechanics episode. All three of us had to slide headfirst into an inspection pit which was full to the top with black oil. But the stuff was so thick that when we clambered out we were totally blinded. If you looked closely you could see that we were genuinely trying to wipe the stuff out of our eyes just to get our bearings, never mind do our next bit of business!

I had another tricky time when we were shooting the Bakers episode. The script called for a 'sausage machine' that had broken down. I was going to be pulled through from one end to the other to 'mend' it. In fact it was a shoulder-width cylindrical tube of transparent plastic filled right up with goo made from the chemical they use in wallpaper paste - methyl cellulose. In the scene I'd whipped off my chef's jacket ('Right lads, leave this to me!') and just in check trousers and singlet dived headfirst into the slosh-filled tube. It was thirteen feet long and as soon as I was inside it was too slippery for me to keep hold of the rope that was dragging me through. I let go (and Nobby and Graham - outside, pulling - fell on their backsides) and then I couldn't get any purchase to move myself either forwards or back.

Now I've always been a bit of a prodigy at holding my breath (even at my age now I can still swim two lengths under water) but after a minute or so of scrabbling around without air even I was getting worried. Luckily the boys realised I was in trouble and got everyone on the floor to help bodily lift one end of the tube up till I slid downwards and plopped out the other end like you know what. They said my face was blue. I know my language was.

Some of the biz worked like magic though. In the same episode Nobby pulled off one of his legendary rubber-jointed tumbles down the full length of a staircase while holding a cream pie undamaged in one hand. (He got it in the face the minute he stood up). And I was chuffed by the daft way we finished off that programme. We had Graham swinging upside down, suspended by his trousers that he'd accidentally set on fire which were now round his ankles, while Nobby and I hosed him all over with a soda syphon and a giant icing syringe. Lunacy sublime!

The bigger budget we had on television allowed me to try out all sorts of stunts I'd had in my mind for years. For the Plumbers episode they agreed to construct a set of a basement that would flood completely. As useless plumbers we would set off more leaks than we plugged till a faucet would release thousands of gallons and over the course of about two minutes the water level would rise till it was above our heads. The last shot was going to be my bowler hat bobbing on the surface.

It took hours to set up and it was bloody nearly ten o'clock at night before we were ready to film. Just before the 'stand by Studio' I noticed Nobby hopping from one leg to another. 'I hope we start soon,' he said. 'I'm dying for a pee.' It was unlike him, but apparently he'd nipped out to the pub in the break for a pint or three. Little did I know it was Dutch Courage. He couldn't swim!

Everything seemed to go fine when we filmed. At the finish the water rose up to cover us and we held our breaths for as long as we could. I couldn't see from where I was but apparently little Nobby, six inches shorter than me, had disappeared under almost a minute earlier and had nearly drowned. Luckily he'd managed to manoeuvre himself out of shot to the edge of the tank where a sound guy had hauled him out.

Our ordeal wasn't over. Maxie kept us waiting, shivering in our soaking wet overalls, while he talked over the phone to someone high up.

'Here', I said to Nobby, who seemed to have recovered well enough, 'I thought you were desperate for a Jimmy Riddle.'

'Oh,' he said, nodding towards the water tank. 'That was taken care of.'

Just at that moment Maxie spoke to us over the talkback.

'Sorry boys. The head of children's telly says we can't have that ending. The little kiddies will think you've really drowned and they'll all have nightmares. Jump in again will you and let's have a shot of you surfacing.'

'Thanks, you filthy so-and-so,' I said to Nobby and dived back in. Maxie said Nobby needn't do it but I shouted out he'd excused himself already! To his credit Nobby insisted on joining us.

I'll be honest - there were occasions on that series when I thought why the flippin' heck are we putting ourselves through this? It's only six or seven-year-olds watching. We all suffered knocks and bumps - Nobby and I had both nearly drowned, young Graham got conjunctivitis from getting soap in his eyes in the Barbershop episode and my arms had turned permanently yellow from the dye they'd put in the goo for the 'sausage machine'. But all told it was one of the happiest shows I've ever worked on. It launched my television career - and what's more the Daily Sketch voted us 'Best Children's Comedy Programme of 1963'. Great days!


[ Printed material: copied from a public library's copy of Chapter 6 of 'Just Clowning Around!' - the autobiography of Freddie Finchley, comedian, (1924 - 89), published posthumously, 1989. ]