LIP SERVICE

RAY ALAN
(1930-2010)

I've always loved ventriloquist from my first radio-listening days which were dominated by Educating Archie with Archie Andrews and Peter Brough to my earliest TV-watching days when I fell under the spell of the Lenny the Lion and his wrangler, Terry Hall.

Ray Alan, who died yesterday aged 79, was one of the all time great masters of ventriloquism who endeared himself to adult audiences with his ever-so-slightly-inebriated companion Lord Charles who would repeatedly dismiss Alan as a "silly ass!" I saw them perform in the flesh (and veneer) at a Magic Circle banquet and they were a class act.

Alan also delighted young audiences with a cheeky schoolboy and cute duck duo called Titch and Quackers and with a magic-performing feline in a fez named Ali Cat.

There can be no better example of the ventriloquial art that this routine from the Bob Monkhouse Show in which Ray Alan demonstrates how to do it, while Lord Charles does the precisely the opposite! Pure genius!

Asked once what was the secret of good ventriloquism, Ray Alan replied: "Cractice!"

MISS JULIE ANDREWS: AT HOME

It's one of those occasions when you have to pinch yourself and ask, "Is this really happening?" I'm sitting in a suite in London's Dorchester Hotel with Julie Andrews - yes, the Julie Andrews - Mary Poppins! Maria Von Trapp! - who is asking, "Shall I be mother?" and pouring me a cup of tea.

"Sugar?" Just a spoonful...

Ten years ago, 1998. Radio producer, Malcolm Prince, and I are finally about to have an interview for which we've waited weeks. It's been on, it's been off and, now, it's back on again...

Julie is in London, rehearsing with the cast of the new musical, Doctor Dolittle, in which she is providing the voice of Polynesia the Parrot, and she's agreed to give us an interview for a radio series we're making on Disney's Women - the real and fictional women in the life and films of Walt Disney.

The evening of the interview eventually arrives. We are on time - well, absurdly early, of course! - but Miss Andrews is delayed. Detained at rehearsals....

An hour passes. Then another... We sit in the Dorchester bar, drinking over-priced orange juice, not daring to risk any alcohol - just in case the interview actually happens! I'm unaccountably nervous. It feels how, I imagine ,it would feel if you were waiting for an audience with the Queen...

I look at my watch. It's getting late. Miss Andrews is now stuck in traffic. The interview will definitely get rescheduled... Then the call to go up to her suite.

If possible, I am now even more anxious: at the end of a long day of rehearsals, she'll be tired, she'll be hungry. She's certainly never going to be able to give us the promised hour of her time...

In the suite we sit and wait some more. So near and yet so far... I hum to myself: "Fa - a long, long way to run..." How true.

Then the door opens and in comes Mary Poppins - spit-spot, hurry up, no dawdling...

She greets us with a big, warm smile and instantly defuses all anxiety. "Gentlemen! I am terribly sorry to be so late and to have kept you waiting!"

We shake our heads. Was she late? Had we been kept waiting? Really? We hadn't noticed!

Malcolm ventures that we'll try not to keep her too long. Again: the reassuring, I-have-confidence-in-sunshine, smile...

"I think we said an hour. Let's do it!"

Always the trouper, her on-with-the-show, vaudeville origins coming to the fore.

"But first, I need to freshen up - and then I think we all need a cup of tea!"

She vanishes into the bathroom, an assistant phones room-service and in a twinkling - only Disney magic could have done it quicker - a tray with a silver tea-pot and bone china tea-cups materialises before our eyes.

Then she's back, settling herself beside me on the sofa and asking if she should be mother...

Perfect! In fact, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

The interview - which flows effortlessly and runs for well over an hour- passes in a kind of hazy, pink blur...


Disney's Women was duly broadcast - to considerable acclaim - and, subsequently part of the interview relating to Mary Poppins found its way into an essay I contributed to A Lively Oracle, a book about Poppins' creator, P L Travers - which also published one of Andrews' fascinating (and revealing) letters sent to Travers from the Disney sound stage in Burbank.

When, last year, I wrote (with Michael Lassell) my book Mary Poppins: Anything Can Happen If You Let It I'd planned to include part of what Julie had said about Walt, Mrs Travers and playing the practically perfect nanny. But word came down from on high in the Mouse's Kingdom that the Andrews references and quotes would have to go.

The only reason I supposed that this curious decision had been taken - for Julie's presence in the film was crucial not just to the movie itself, but also to her own future career - was that, for some time she had been reportedly working on her autobiography. Maybe she was anxious that we didn't preempt her own book... Who knows? Anyway, the problematic passages were excised and that was that.

And, once again, I waited for Miss Andrews - or, rather, this time, for her book!

And now it's here. Home: A Memoir of My Early Years is, as you'd expect, a charming read. But it's much more than that, being uncompromisingly honest - whilst remaining, as she would say, "polite and decent".

Home is jam-packed with insightful stories: the benefits and pitfalls of being a born-in-a-trunk child star; singing (aged 13 years) for Queen Elizabeth and Princess Elizabeth at a Royal Command performance on the stage of the London Palladium; appearing on radio with Peter Brough and that other Andrews - Archie; getting the role of Polly Browne in the first Broadway production of Sandy Wilson's The Boy Friend (as a result of a recommendation from fellow Educating Archie regular, Hattie Jacques); and, later, her fairy-tale romance with Tony Walton; playing opposite Richard Burton and Roddy McDowell in Camelot and becoming friends with T H ('Tim') White, the idiosyncratic author of The Once and Future King, the book on which the musical was based.

And, of course, there are the chapters that will doubtless excite most reader-interest - her experiences during the creation of Lerner and Loewe's classic musical, My Fair Lady. Fascinating to learn, incidentally, that they nearly called their show Fanfaroon - a man who blows his own trumpet! All things considered it's probably just as well that they didn't...

Here, Julie reveals the monstrous egocentricities of Rex Harrison, the lovableness of Stanley (Alfred Doolittle) Holloway and Robert (Colonel Pickering) Coote, the utter beastliness of designer, Cecil Beaton and the devoted, nurturing care and attention which director Moss Hart showed towards his inexperienced young star at a point when everyone - and, in particular, the monstrous Rex - considered her a total liability and the show's undoubted ticket to the graveyard of theatrical flops and failures...

"She'll be fine," Hart told his wife after 48 hours of ceaseless coaching, "she has that terrible British strength that makes you wonder how they ever lost India."

Of course, what I was most interested in was what she would say about Poppins? Would it differ in some crucial way from my own interview account? But, no! There it is, virtually word-for-word as it was told to me over the teacups in the Dorchester...

The first volume concludes with Andrews getting the Poppins role, so there's plenty more to come in volume two: The Sound of Music, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Star!, Darling Lili, Hitchcock and Torn Curtain, Blake Edwards, S.O.B. and Victor/Victoria and the story of what happened to that extraordinary voice - not to mention the Shrek and Princess Diaries movies.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to read part of the missing text of my book, you'll find it posted on my Ex Libris blog...

CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK

How often do you ever get to meet one of your childhood heroes and find them utterly unchanged? Inevitably, the handsome hunk is now pot-bellied and bald, the glamorous pin-up has become grey and scrawny.

But yesterday, I met someone with whom I was obsessed as a child and who, happily, doesn’t look a day older than how I remember him from fifty years ago…

His name - though it will only be familiar to British readers of a certain age - is ARCHIE ANDREWS.


For those in need of an explanation, here it comes…

Archie Andrews was the ventriloquial doll of entertainer Peter Brough, whose BBC comedy programme, Educating Archie was, for over a decade, the nation’s favourite radio show.

Today, that is a cue for people to guffaw at the notion of a ventriloquist on radio. But those of us who tuned in every Sunday lunchtime to hear Archie’s quick-witted banter with his guardian - always referred to simply as “Brough” as if he were merely the butler - know that Archie’s success had very little to do with the art of ventriloquism and everything to do with character…

Like his famous predecessor on American radio, Edgar Bergen, Peter Brough created a character that, quite simply, we the listeners loved and the limitless boundaries of a purely audio medium meant that Archie (like Bergen’s sassy side-kick, Charlie McCarthy) could get up to all kinds of exploits that didn’t require any literal, physical support from the vent. Freed in this way, Archie was able to overcome his Pinocchio syndrome and - to millions of listeners - was no longer a woodenhead, but a real boy!

"Millions?" you ask? Yep! FIFTEEN Million listeners a week, making Brough one of the top-paid entertainers of his era and requiring Archie to be insured for £10,000.

Educating Archie, was written by some of the finest scriptwriting talent you could name: Eric Sykes, Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Cheshney and, later, Marty Feldman. And the supporting cast became stars in their own right while their catchphrases entered the lingo of the nation’s playgrounds.

One of Archie’s earliest tutors was played by Tony (“Flippin’ kids!”) Hancock before his move to 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam and the odd-job man was Max Bygraves, whose quoatble sayings included “That’s a good idea - son!” and “I’ve arrived, and to prove it, I’m here!”

Fourteen-year-old Julie Andrews was Archie’s girlfriend and the resident singer; Hattie Jacques was Agatha Dinglebody and Beryl Reid was variously Monica, the adenoidal schoolgirl and Brummie Marlene with habitual greeting, “Good evening, each!”

Among others involved over the years were Bernard Breslaw ("Hello, it's me - Twinkletoes"!), Dick Emery (“I hate yew!”) not to mention the likes of Bruce Forsyth, Sid James, Gilbert Harding, Alfred Marks and Harry Secombe.

I listened to the weekly show (and later watched Archie's antics when he moved onto TV) and I did my best to collect whatever Archie Andrews merchandising I could find. I especially treasured my Archie annuals -- at least until my Mum gave them away to a totally undeserving cousin!

Even after Brough and Archie retired in 1961, I clung on to fond and happy memories of those rib-tickling shows and in adulthood wrote Peter Brough a seriously belated fan letter and asked him to sign my copy of his autobiography called, naturally, Educating Archie…

Then yesterday, as part of this year’s Magic Circle Heritage Weekend, magic-and-show-business historian John Fisher (whose most recent book is the acclaimed biography of comedian Tommy Cooper Always Leave Them Laughing) included in the programme a passionate tribute to Educating Archie and - though I scarcely dared to believe it true - invited the star of the show to make an appearance along with his present guardian, Colin Burnett-Dick, who bought Archie at auction (for £34,000) following Peter Brough’s death in 1999.

John Fisher, Archie and Colin Burnett-Dick

It seems that Archie and Colin are busily cooking-up a comeback for Master Andrews and, if they are successful, then I hazard a guess that there'll be a sizable bunch of 50-somethings who will be totally overjoyed.

Meanwhile, yesterday, Colin allowed Archie to spend a bit of time greeting some of his fans who, while they may not have worn quite as well the young man himself, were still clearly kids at heart!


Getting the opportunity to meet Archie face-to-face raised some interesting thoughts about the power of puppet personality and the Promethean nature of the puppeteer.

Unlike most vent dolls that seem dull and lifeless until given animation, Archie, unquestionably, gives the illusion - even in repose - of being vibrantly "alive". This, perhaps, has something to do with the sculptor's craft, for he has the most arresting expression - largely as a result of those wide, glistening eyes - but, more than this, the puppet seems to have absorbed, and to still embody, some essence of the personality of the puppeteer who first gave him life...

Or so it seemed to me... And why not? After all, the oldest myth in the world is that of creation, where a deity takes dust - the very stuff of the earth - and, with it, creates man. There is, surely, a sense in which every artist is a sub-creator, taking dust - in the form of wood, stone or pigment - and with them creating lifelike images. The puppeteer, however, takes one step nearer to the gods and, like Pygmalion in the story told by Ovid, seizes the power to imbue the image with every semblence of life itself.

But now I am now straying into mysterious terriority that should probably be left to learned professors of some such subject as 'totemic symbolism'!


Archie also met up with Another Media Celebrity who, like Archie, can also waggle his ears!

[Images: Painting of 'Pygmalion and Galatea' by Jean-Leon Gerome; Photographs © David Weeks, 2007]

PUPPET POWER

I was perhaps seven or eight years old and - rare event - had been given some money as a Christmas present!

So, what to spend it on? Well, in my mind there was no question! It was sitting there in the toyshop window and I been eyeing it up for weeks!

It was -- and you must promise NOT to laugh -- a Lenny the Lion glove puppet!

There! I’ve said it!

I was hooked on puppets and ventriloquial acts (my favourite radio show was Educating Archie with Peter Brough and Archie Andrews) and on television Lenny the Lion made a HUGE impact by being one of the first - if not the first - vent doll to be a character other than a child or an old man…

Lenny’s partner was Terry Hall who had the ability to operate the lion’s right arm (paw) in addition to the usual facial movements and this greatly increased the sense of animation.

I was an avid fan of Lenny’s television shows (one of which featured an early appearance by The Beatles), his weekly appearance in TV Comic as well as various spin-off books and annuals, not to mention records (he and Terry memorably recorded the seasonal hit I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas); and, I suppose, that what I really loved about Lenny was his personality that was - well, frankly - CAMP!

Lenny (or Terry) had considerable trouble with his “r’s” which meant that the character had a bit of a lisp! He was also very easily embarrassed which frequently resulted in a gesture - which all TV-Oldies will recall in which Lenny would fling a paw across his eyes and say: “Oh, Tewwy, don’t embawwass me!”

So the truth of the matter is that Lenny was very probably my first gay icon!

Anyway, back to the subject in hand - or to be precise the puppet in (or on) hand…

I really, REALLY wanted it and very, VERY nearly got it...

But (not for the last time in my life) sensible adults put a great deal of sensible pressure on the wayward child and finally convinced him that, instead, he should buy ---- a WRISTWATCH.

Useful, admittedly, but boring… So, I got the Junior Timex and waved goodbye to a life with the Lion.

To be brutally honest, I'ver never quite got over making what was obviously a very stupid mistake and one which, in all likelihood, accounts for the fact that I now only ever wear Mickey Mouse or Snoopy watches and explains why I’m still scanning eBay in the hope of - one day - finding a Lenny the Lion glove puppet…