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Digger's interview
with Alan Simpson, OBE - part one
Ray Galton and Alan Simpson are probably the best known and best loved comedy
writing duo in Britain, thanks to their inventions Tony Aloysius Hancock and
Harold and Albert Steptoe. They recently were awarded long overdue OBE's for
their services to British comedy by creating Hancock's Half Hour and Steptoe And
Son. They pioneered situation comedy in this country and literally brought the
nation to a standstill when their shows were broadcast in the 50s and 60s. Alan kindly
agreed to talk to me about his life and work - we chatted for so long that I am doing
this interview in two parts.
Galton and Simpson
Tony Hancock and Kenneth Williams
Sid James
...... Phone rings.
Digger: Hello, Alan.
Alan: Hello David.
Digger: How are you?
Alan: Fine, thank you.
Digger: Thanks very much for agreeing to do this.
Alan: Not at all!
Digger: I hope the questions I sent you weren't
too daunting.
Alan: No... What I can't answer, well, I can't
answer! ( Digger laughs )
Digger: Do you do a lot of interviews these days?
Alan: Yeah, I seem to do more now I've retired,
than I used to.
Digger: Oh right.
Alan: Mind you, if I was working I wouldn't be
able to do them! Hang on ........ I've got the
notes here somewhere!
Digger: Have you got the same sort of
filing system as me?
Alan: Filing system as you, yeah! I think
we'll just play it by ear.............
Digger: Have you seen the web sites dedicated
to Hancock and Steptoe and Son?
Alan: I haven't because I'm not on the web, but
my manager Tessa has seen them. And they're in
touch with her for material.....
Digger: What about Ray?
Alan: We're opening our own site now, Ray and I.
Not that we understand anything about it!
Digger: So somebody's doing a site for you?
Alan: Well we aren't, Tessa's doing it.
We've registered the name...
Digger: Oh I see. So what's it going to be called?
Or is it a secret?
Alan: Well not really, Galton&Simpson.com
Digger: God! What a surprise! Has it got an
ampersand in the middle or an 'a-n-d'?
Alan: Oh God! Oh, I think an ampersand.
Digger: Ok, well that's something to look
forward to.
Alan: .......... And uh, well we've got to work out
what we're going to put in it.
Digger: Well, you said you were retired so would
it be selling new stuff or just keeping the
fans happy or what?
Alan: Yes. I don't know. I mean, we haven't really
got into what we're going to do with it. It's just
a question of registering the name. We found
out, for instance, SteptoeandSon.com has been
registered by somebody else in America.
Digger: God, yeah. What about 'Hancock'?
Alan: Well, you could only really register 'Hancock's
Half Hour'. The Hancock family have the rights
on the Hancock name...
Digger: Oh right.
Alan: We found out StepotoeandSon.us sells second
-hand odds and ends but nothing to do
with Steptoe and Son.
Digger: Oh, I see! So it's not Sanford?
They're using Steptoe.
Alan: Yeah.
Digger: It's taken off over there now as well?
Alan: Well, I expect that it was from somebody
who has emigrated or something. And taken
the name with them.
Digger: Yeah. Alright, so shall we go through
the questions?
Alan: Yes indeed.
Digger: Can you tell us about how you and Ray
started writing? It was when you both worked
at the hospital, I believe?
Alan: Well, we certainly didn't work at the
hospital... we were patients.
Digger: Ok. Oh, I see.
Alan: When we were seventeen we both contracted
T.B. and eventually I went into a hospital nearby,
near where I lived at the time and for while
we were waiting for the sanatorium in Surrey, the
Surrey county sanatorium, to be able to take me.
And eventually after thirteen months there was a
space. All the sanatoriums in those days were full
up, this is in 1947, you see. So after, in 1948, I was
sent to the Surrey county sanatorium at Milford,
where Ray was already ensconced. He'd been in
there for a year. And, so that's where we met.
We were both eighteen at the time.
Digger: And, what about the writing.
I mean, how did you...?
Alan: Well, the writing started by being in the
sanatorium. The sanatorium had their own radio
room. By each bedside, everybody had their
headphones and there were two plugs. One for the
( Important voice ) BBC LIGHT programme ( Digger
Laughs ) and one for the BBC Home Service.
That was about the only broadcasting we were
allowed. Well, the ONLY broadcasting there was
then. And so the friends of the sanatorium provided
funds for a sanatorium channel to be installed.............
Digger: That was quite revolutionary in those days.
Alan: ................And although Ray was also in as a
patient, he was in cubicle with a radio engineer
and helped with wiring up the entire
sanatorium with a network. This was Radio
Milford, which was originally
intended just to play records and give out
information and that sort of thing. But the average
stay in those days was about three years. So it was
like a little community. And Ray and I were great
listeners to the BBC......
Digger: What sort of stuff were you listening to?
Alan: Well, all the comedies in those days. Take It
From Here, Goon Show... And we were always fans
during the war listening to the American forces
network. So we used to listen to all the shows with
Jack Benny, Bob Hope and Phil Harris. All the
American shows were on. So, you know, we said to
the radio network, why don't you do a comedy
programme? Try to make it like the BBC. They used
to do programmes like The Seat In The Circle where
every Wednesday night there'd be a film show and
so they plugged into the film camera or the film
projector and did a commentary on the film for
the people who were bed-ridden.
Steptoe and Son
Digger: Oh, I see. ( Digger Laughs )
Alan: So, you do Casablanca like this. "Humphrey
Bogart opens the door and walks across the room"...
Digger: It was all quite high-tech in those days,
wasn't it really, in it's way?
Alan:.......... It was. It's what the Seat In The Circle
did on the BBC. They used to give the directions on
what was happening and then let the dialogue speak
for itself. You know, "Humphrey walks across the
room and is confronted by the Englishwoman" -
"Hello sweetheart" (in American accent) and go on
from there. And you'd just describe it, what was
happening on the screen.
Digger: So why do you think you two went to comedy
rather than to serious, drama or whatever?
Alan: Because comedy was what we were fans of,
you see. So, the radio channel said "Well go on,
write some." And we thought 'Oh, hadn't thought of
that!' So we said, "Alright, we will."
Digger: So, you sat down in a little room?
Alan: We were in our beds. We were in the same
cubicle, you see, and then we started trying to
think of something to write about.
Digger: Did that come naturally?
Alan: We came up with the idea of doing sort of
little pastiches of sanatorium life. And we
called it 'Have You Ever Wondered?' And the
thing was........ "Have you ever wondered what
would happen if the patients became doctors
and the doctors became patients?" Like that.
( Digger Laughs ) And it took sort of fifteen
minutes. It was all quite amateurish but we agreed
to do six. After four we dried up, couldn't think of
anymore! ( Digger Laughs ) So the series was only on
for four weeks but it was quite successful.
We had our first fan letter!
Digger: Good grief! What did the doctors
think of it?
Alan: I can't remember really. It didn't last long
enough really, for people to catch on.
But, it was quite amusing.
Digger: So that was your first situation
comedy set in a hospital?
Alan: That's absolutely right. And that was it.
We didn't think of... a year went by, we didn't do
any more. And we came out of the sanatorium and
I'd always been a member of a church hall concert
party before I went into the sanatorium. And I
was a comedian but it was nothing original. It was
all copying. I used to go to the cinema and copy
Red Skelton's routines and do them onstage. No
dialogue, just pantomime. So anyway, when I came
out of the sanatorium the concert party said, "
Are you going to come back into the concert party?"
And I said, "Well, I can't really because the
doctors had said I've got to rest." So they said,
"Well, have you got any ideas for us?" So I said,
"Well maybe," I said, "I'll get in touch." So, I
got in touch with Ray and so over a year that had
passed, he used to come over to my mother's house
and we wrote some sketches for the concert
party. Having done that, we remembered we wrote
a letter while we were in the sanatorium to
Frank Muir and Dennis Norden, who wrote Take
It From Here, asking how you become script-
writers and we offered to become their tea boys
( Digger Laughs ) in case we could get round
there and observe! And they wrote a charming
letter back saying the best thing to do is to write
to Gale Pedrick, who was the script writer of
the BBC, sending the material we wrote, because
we know he's avid for new writers.
So really they were passing the buck!
Digger: Do you think they got a lot
of letters like that?
Alan: Yeah, I think so and they sent the same answer.
And years later Ray and I sent the same answer to
letters that we get. Because we DID do that and
we got in on the strength of it. So our philosophy
is, if it worked for us it could work for you.
Digger: I see.
Alan: We wrote a script and sent it in to Gale
Frederick. And he wrote a letter back saying
"We were highly amused"!!!! "Don't read more
into this than appears on the surface, but we
were highly amused by your script and if you
ring my secretary, make an appointment and I'll
see what we can do to help"
Digger: You must have been excited!
Alan: Oh, over the..... I mean, we're now twenty one
years old. The letter was sent to my house. I
IMMEDIATELY rushed out of the house and
caught the bus to Ray's who lived in Morden.
I remember running down the street waving
the paper ..... a bit like Chamberlain coming back
from Munich! "What have you got there?" said
Ray. "It's from the BBC! A letter from the BBC!!"
And we went out and got drunk on the strength of it!
Got in touch with all our friends. And if nothing
else had happened that would have been the highlight
of our lives ( Digger laughs ) .....
that letter from the BBC!
Digger: What sort of stuff was in the script?
Alan: It was 'Henry Morgan' - it was a 10
or 15 minute.......
Digger: He was an American actor, wasn't he?!
Alan: He was, but he was ORIGINALLY
a pirate. Captain Henry Morgan was the scourge of
the Caribbean. In the days of Blackbeard and all
those and he was also Sir Henry Morgan, Knighted
by The Queen and wotnot.
Digger: What, for being a pirate?
Alan: For being a pirate! They were strange fellahs
all those privateers - they were usually men of
....... sea captains who became pirates -
probably an easier way of doing it.
Digger: Was he a hero of yours?
Alan: Not really. It was basically taken from a
Take It From Here sketch. The last sketch on that
show was always a pastiche of a film or show or a
play or a genre. And they'd go "Today we bring
you a saga of the seven seas, the most evil man...."
and then they'd do a pirate sketch. So we wrote
this thing based on that.
Digger: Do you think it had your and Ray's own
stamp on it already?..............
Alan: Not really. I don't think so - as I
remember it was FULL of puns.
Digger: Do you like puns?
Alan: No, we never used them. But everybody when
they first write, do puns. It's the cheapest and
lowest form of humour. Some could be quite
ingenious. Frank and Dennis used to do
absolutely incredible puns.
Digger: I remember those.
Alan: What was that show called?............
Digger: I can't remember either but I
remember the stories.
Alan: Long rambling stories that would set up an
enormous great pun. We only actually used one of
the jokes that we wrote and that was "Where
are the crew? They're downstairs playing Jane
Russell pontoon. What's Jane Russell pontoon?
It's the same as ordinary pontoon except you need
38 to bust!" ( Digger laughs ) It's amazing to me
that it was the highlight!
Digger: Was that rude in those days?
Alan: Quite rude. Mentioning the bust.
Tony Hancock
Digger: 'Cos I saw Max Miller on the telly the other
day and he was doing his "Roses are red, Violets
are blue, I know 'cos I saw them hanging
on the washing line."
Alan: He also did something like "When apples are
red, they're ready for plucking, when girls are
sixteen, they're ready for ..... well anyway,
I was walking down the road........."
Digger: ( Laughs ) I can't believe he got
away with that then!
Alan: Oh yeah! He got banned for saying "I was up
this mountain, walking down this narrow pass,
there wasn't room for two people to pass.
A beautiful girl came down. She was so beautiful
I didn't know whether to block her passage or
toss myself off!" ( Digger laughs ) That was on BBC
radio and he got banned! A live radio show!
Digger: Wow! .......... Can I ask you who some of your
top comedy writers would be and why?
Alan: At the time, or now?
Digger: Well, in your life.
Alan: Frank Muir and Dennis Norden were our
mentors. The ones that we admired when we started
and we wanted to be like. The thing about Frank
and Dennis was that they NEVER wrote down - they
were quite intellectual in a way....
Digger: What, you mean it was off the cuff?!
Alan: No, no, no it was all scripted. But they didn't
believe in 'dumbing down' to their audience,
do you know. It was quite intelligent. They gave
their audience a bit of credit. Some of their stuff
was quite erudite. And we used to admire that.
Digger: Isn't that something that Python did
a bit later as well?.....
Alan: Yeah.
Digger: With the 'Summarizing Proust' competitions
and things. Most people wouldn't know who Proust was.......
Alan: Yeah. The thing was, it didn't matter.
To begin with you knew he was somebody a bit
posh so it didn't matter if you hadn't heard of him.
The art of dropping names and showing how intellectual
you are is making sure that it doesn't matter as
to whether the joke gets a laugh or not.
Digger: So who else, apart from Frank and Dennis?
Alan: In those days there was Spike Milligan
and Sykes........
Digger: And more recently?
Alan: Yeah. A lot of the modern ones - John Sullivan
and Simon Nye. David Croft must be the most
prolific of them all when you think of the actual
number of the shows he's done.
Digger: Esmonde and Larbey, Clement and
La Frenais.....
Alan: Yes, Clarke holds the record with longevity....
Digger: ( Laughs ) For a series, that is!
Alan: Yes, for Last Of The Summer Wine. There aren't
lots....... when Ray and I started it was an unknown
profession. There were only about 7 or 8 writers
making a living from it. We got in - because of that
- we were lucky and got in pretty quickly.
Digger: Did you mix with these others?
Alan: No, not at all. We didn't mix with anybody in
showbusiness. We were too busy writing to mix
with anybody. The only time we'd ever be up in
town was when we were actually doing the show.
Digger: Did that seem strange when you went up
and saw your show actually performed?
Alan: Oh yeah. Initially, we were open-mouthed.
We were in show business!
Digger: And I suppose you were watching people
in the audience dying for them to laugh as well?
Alan: It was a tremendous kick. And we were VERY
young and it was all new to us. We didn't come
from show business backgrounds. It was like
kids wanting to be professional footballers.
And suddenly you are.
Digger: Was this at the Paris studios?
Alan: No, we started at the Aeolian Hall which
doesn't exist now. A lot were done at the Paris
and then the Playhouse on Charing Cross embankment
and the Camden Theatre.
Digger: So can I ask you about your first
impressions of Tony Hancock?
Alan: Indeed, we met Tony very early in our career
in the very first show we were involved with which
indirectly came through Gale Pedrick who gave
our Henry Morgan script to a few producers and
one was called Roy Speer who was producing a show
with Derek Roy who was one of two top comedians
in the country at the time, the other one being
Frankie Howerd. He left this script on Roy Speer's
table and Derek Roy came in one day and was
flicking through it and said "Who wrote this?".
Roy Speer replied "Two youngsters, Galton and
Simpson, I don't know who they are." And anyway,
the next thing I was at work and got a telephone call
from Derek's secretary - a fellow called John
Vyvian - a man who we used subsequently in
many of our shows.
Digger: Is that 'Johnny Vyvian'?
Alan: Yes, Johnny Vyvian - he was Derek's secretary
at the time, you know, in between stage work as
an actor. And he said "Derek Roy would like to
meet you" and we arranged to meet him one evening.
Ray came up on the train and I was already up
there and we went round to Derek's place and he
said he liked what he'd read and would we like to
write for him? So we agreed to write jokes for
him. He said "Just write me pages of jokes."
( Digger chuckles ) So we went home, we were only
working on them in the evening at my mother's house....
Digger: Now what was the process for doing that?
Alan: Well, you just used to sit there and think of
one-liners. Based on Bob Hope, really. "I wouldn't
say my wife was fat, but when she goes into a
chemist's shop the weighing machine gets up and
runs. " You know, really terrible one line jokes.
( Digger laughs ) "My girlfriends so ugly......".
So we used to do about 3 pages of these then take
them up to Derek and he'd take us into his bedroom,
because we weren't allowed in the lounge because
he'd always have people in there! So he used to usher
us into the bedroom and we'd give him the pages and
he'd go through them and he'd tick them if he liked
them ......"Yeah, yeah, oh no, no, that's old, no, yes, yes"
and he'd give the pages to Johnny Vyvian and he'd
count them up "1, 2, 3..... 7" and the deal was we'd
get 5 shillings a joke, which is 25p for you youngsters.
He'd say "35 bob" and we'd say "Yes, that's right"
and he'd open the cash box and give us 35 bob, say
"Thanks very much, see you next week" ( Digger
laughs ) and we'd get the train back home and on
the train I'd give Ray his 17 shillings and sixpence.
Digger: Very glamorous wasn't it?!
Alan: That was the beginning. We were professionals!
So that was our first money from writing, and
Derek was doing this show called Happy Go Lucky,
and it was the most mis-named show you've ever
known because it was the most miserable experience
( Digger laughs ) and was dying on it's feet. And he
was a BIG BIG star. So we were in the background
as gag writers, for his single spot. One day, the
producer Roy Speer was so fraught he had a nervous
breakdown and he was taken off the show and Dennis
Main-Wilson who was a young twenty seven year
old - and he was doing the Goon Show, he was brought
in and he had a meeting round Derek Roy's house
with all the cast and we were in the background.
Derek said "The first thing we've got to do is
something about the script. They're terrible,
we've got to get new...." He looked across at us and
he said "Are you writers?" and we were stood at
the back and we said "........Well......... yeah" and he
said "Can YOU write it?" and we looked at each
other and thought there's NO WAY that we could
write it - I mean we'd only just started writing
gags. But you don't say that, you see...... "Oh, em,
yes!!!". ( Digger laughs ) "Right, we've got some
writers." It was like that - so we thought, "Oh
Christ, what have we done here?" But we were
lucky inasmuch as it was a fortnightly show so we
had two weeks to produce and the other thing
that we were lucky with was that it was SO BAD
that anything we produced could only be an
improvement! ( Digger laughs )
Digger: Was it 25 minutes worth?
Alan: It was an hour! Which is why we thought we
couldn't do it. We worked every hour that God sent.
Until three in the morning. Dennis was driving over
with fish and chips just to sustain us.
Digger: Oh, that was nice!
Alan: Oh, he was smashing Dennis. We'd only been
out of the sanatorium eighteen months and were
supposed to be taking it easy. Anyway, we did
the last three shows of the series and they were
marginally better than what had gone. So we were
now on the BBC's list of writers. Now, the one part
of the show that we didn't write - it was already
written based on an Australian sketch show, called
The Eager Beavers about a scout troop written by
two Australians and had already been broadcast
there. This was the one part of the show they kept
and which Ray and I didn't write and Tony
Hancock was playing the scoutmaster and the scout
troop were played by Bill Kerr, Dick Emery,
Graham Stark and Peter Butterworth.
Digger: God! Quite a list of names. Was this '53?
Alan: This was 19......51. Tony was in the show but he
was in the one sketch we didn't write and as they
rehearsed the rest that we did write
Tony was sitting in the stalls and as
we went past he said "Did you write that?" and
we said "Yeah" and he said "Very good." And those
were the first words he ever said to us. Anyway,
a few weeks later we got a phone call from Tony
Hancock asking if we would write a single for
him for Variety Bandbox or Music Call or
Worker's Playtime or one of those shows that
required a 5 minute single.
Albert Steptoe
Digger: A one-off?
Alan: A one-off, yeah. So he said "I don't know what
you charge but I'll give you half of what I get".
Well, Roy was giving us eight guineas for a single
spot and Tony said "I get fifty quid." So we thought
"Twenty-five quid?!!!!!! Bloody hell! That's three
times what we're getting." So we went to Derek
Roy and we said "Tony Hancock's given us twenty
-five pounds for a single, can we have a raise?"
And Derek said "Oh yeah, but come on boys, who
gave you your first break?" and he wouldn't raise it
- he put it up to 10. Talk about comics being mean,
they were in those days. Anyway, that was our first
meeting with Tony and our first writing with him.
And then in 1952 there was a show called Calling
All Forces that was an hour's show with different
sketches, different guest comics, singers,
instrumentalists each week. And about thirty-five
minutes worth of material. It was fronted by Tony
Hancock, Charlie Chester and guests. Written by Bob
Monkhouse and Dennis Goodwin and it had been running
for 81 weeks. For some strange reason it had six
weeks to go and Bob and Dennis decided that they were
going on holiday. So the BBC got in touch with Ray
and I through Jacques Brown who was a producer who
asked if we would do the last 6........... so this was our
second big break and we said "Yeah, lovely!". Sixty-
three guineas for the fee, twenty-one of which Charlie
Chester took because he was writing his own single
spot, which we thought was a liberty! ....... they're
mean bastards, they really are! It was easy for
a fellah like him to give the money all to us, 'cos
we needed it. The first fee we ever got from Happy
Go Lucky we bought a typewriter, that shows you.
We wrote the last 6 Calling All Forces starring
Chester and Hancock and that really set us off
with Tony. For the next two years this show carried
on under different titles - it became Forces All
Star Bill, then All Star Bill then Star Bill!
An hour's show with guests and Dennis Main-Wilson
was producing all of them. This took us through to
'54 and then he said "What do you want to do in
the future?" and then I said "What about doing a half
hour sit.......", well, we didn't call them sit-coms in
those days, "a half-hour show with Tony with a
storyline". We were thinking in terms of all the
American shows that we'd heard all these years
before - Jack Benny, Phil Harris- they all had
storylines running through but used to be interrupted
by 2 musical numbers. So we said "Why don't we do
one without any music - a straight storyline from
beginning to end?" And they said, "Yeah, alright,
give it a go" and that's how
Hancock's Half Hour started.
Digger: Did you have an idea....................
Alan: No! We had to sit down and think and then
we thought it's not so much the storyline, what about
the people? So it seemed to us that the lead
always had a girlfriend so we thought "Right, we'll
have Hancock and he's got a girlfriend" and they
also had a best friend, so we copied the.......
Digger: The winning formula.
Alan: The winning formula - we took the George
Bernard Shaw line that "It's not the plot, it's
what you do with it that counts." So we cast Bill
Kerr as his friend, and then we thought it would
be nice to have a shady character in the background
rather like Sheldon Leonard in the Phil Harris show
so we cast Sid James.
Digger: You'd seen him in a movie hadn't you?
Alan: We wanted a crooked type of character. We
knew who we wanted but we didn't know his name.
He had a lovely face - not that it was much good
on radio! We knew he was in The Lavender Hill Mob
so we went to see it again purely to see who he was.
So we had to wait until the end - we missed the credit
titles first time round so we had to sit through the
film again to see who it was and it came up Sidney
James. So we got in touch with Dennis Wilson to
check Sid James' availability. Sid came to meet
us all and he said "To be honest with you, I've never
done radio and I don't think I'll be any good at it"
and Hancock said "Nonsense, course you will." And he
was petrified and for the first couple of shows he'd
stand and have difficulty in turning the pages of his
script without making a noise. So they got him a
lectern and undid the scripts so he could get rid of
the pages without rustling. And he'd never played
in front of an audience before - only in front of
the cameras. So he wore his hat down over his eyes
so he couldn't see the audience and they couldn't
see him. He did this for 2 or 3 weeks until he got used
to it and then, being an old pro he was holding his
script out in front of him, hat off, playing the audience!
Very quickly, but he really thought he couldn't do it.
Digger: So was there some sort of chemistry
between Tony and Sid?
Alan: Yes, there was straight away, and also they
became very friendly and their wives did too
and they spent a lot of time in each other's company.
Digger: Very different types, weren't they?
Alan: Um, not really. Sid was very cosmopolitan, he
liked good company and he knew all the clubs and
Tony, even in those days, liked a drink and a wine
down after the show. And the wives got on very well.
And they both had been in showbusiness from
a young age.
Digger: And Sid had come over from South Africa.
Alan: Yeah, via the army. So they got on like a house
on fire straight away.
Digger: Did you socialise much with them?
Alan: Not really, because Ray and I were younger,
you see. And we were still in our early twenties and
Hancock was late twenties and, especially in those
days, the difference between 22 and 28 is enormous.
Sid was older - Sid was about thirty-eight, I suppose.
As you get older it doesn't matter so much, does it?
Digger: No.
Alan: But we were the boys! Almost like we were
too young. But we were very close professionally
and they respected us but we didn't mix much.
I think we used to go down to Tony's flat and his
house sometimes when we were discussing things
and we all got on very well within the working........
Digger: And that's probably what comes through
in the finished programmes.......
Alan: We spent more time with Bill Kerr than
the other two.
Digger: Were Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams
coming in at that stage?
Alan: Hattie didn't come in until the second series.
We had three girls - we had Geraldine McEwan
who subsequently became a Grand Dame at the Old
Vic - a funny squeaky voice in our show but she became
a big classical actress, then we had Andre Melly,
George Melly's younger sister - she came in to bring
something exotic into the show as a French girl saying
( mock French accent ) "Oh Tony, you must not do
this." as his girlfriend and that didn't work
and gradually she became 'terribly English!'
Digger: Nobody noticed!
Alan: Oh, nobody noticed. They didn't notice the
change in Bill's character, just gradually over
the series starting as a wise-cracking American
and by series 2 he was Stan Laurel! A total change
but it didn't matter. ( Digger laughs )
Digger: Tony once said "I think the world is both
funny and sad which seem to me to be the two
basic ingredients of good comedy".
Alan: Yeah. A truism I would suggest. ALL comedy going
back to the year dot.
Digger: Now I have this theory, certainly not a
unique one, that a lot of comedy stars are very
tragic figures. I'm thinking of people like Tony
and Sid, Kenneth Williams, Benny Hill, John
Cleese, Spike Milligan.
Alan: Yeah. But they're the only ones. I don't think
John Cleese is particularly tragic.
Digger: He has suffered from depression,
Alan: Oh yeah! But that could be from pressure of
work. I think it is because some comedians are
like that it's more of a story, isn't it?
Digger: Yes.
Alan: It's not a story when dramatic actors become
miserable and depressed but it is with comedians.
Digger: True.
Alan: And it becomes a cliche. I mean look at
comedians like Tommy Cooper, Eric Morecambe.
Harry Secombe - he's never been depressed in his life.
There are just as many who are quite happy and
jog along....... I mean Tony's depression was more to
do with the fact that he was terribly unsure -
he lacked confidence in many respects.
Digger: That's certainly true, though, that a lot of
people who are really great and really popular....
Alan: Yeah, absolutely. Because they never come to
terms with the fact that they are popular.
Digger: Does it effect writers in the same way?
Alan: Absolutely, I mean I never ever have put
a new clean piece of paper in the typewriter without
thinking "Oh **** it, am I ever going to be able
to think of anything?" And even after having done
it for thirty years and having written 600 scripts
the 601st is like you have never written before.
Because you learn the technique and the little tricks
to set yourself off - you learn these. "What do
you want? One of those? Okay...." ( imitates rapid
typing sound ) and you go straight in. Journalists do
that. Journalism is instant writing. People like
Keith Waterhouse - he will give you 500 words on
ANY subject you care to mention and he'll have
it ready in half an hour.
Digger: ( Laughs ) And it will be good!
Alan: That's the journalist in him. If somebody drops
dead in a room he's got to be prepared to dictate a story.
Digger: But how much of that 500 words is actual substance?
Alan: Exactly. A lot of it is technique. "As the sun
came slowly down at 7 o'clock last night, tragedy
was being enacted......".
Digger: It's the sort of thing they do on the
news now. When a news story breaks - they don't
know what's happened, it's too early, but
they have to report it......
Alan: That's right.
Digger: ..... So they fill it with loads of rubbish.......
Alan: That's right.
Digger: And it takes about a day for the real
information to come through.
Alan: Yes, and it gradually gets edited.
Those are the techniques you learn......
Digger: What sorts of pressures did that
put you and Ray under?
Alan: Yeah, certainly deadline pressure. Yeah.
With television it wasn't quite so bad because
you had weeks - you started weeks ahead because
they had to build the sets. But with radio you didn't
have that and sometimes we were writing the day
BEFORE the show. There are some stories you
hear where they are handing in the pages
while the show's on!
Digger: Would you end up shouting at each other?
Alan: No, we used to go into morose silences!
( Both laugh )
Click
here for the second
part of the interview
Alan Simpson.
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