You are in the Special Features section - David Nobbs, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, A Bit Of A Do,  Les Dawson, Frankie Howerd, Jimmy Tarbuck, Ken Dodd, Tommy Cooper, Dick Emery, The Two Ronnies, Monty Python

Digger talks to David Nobbs. 

 

David Nobbs

 

British situation comedy is, no doubt about it, the greatest. It has produced wonderful shows like Steptoe and Son, Till Death Us Do Part, Hancock's Half Hour, Porridge, Fawlty Towers, Only Fools And Horses, The Office, One Foot In The Grave, Rising Damp, The Good Life, Yes Minister, The Young Ones and Black Adder.
As well as great storylines and some hilarious lines, all these comedies have great characters at their hearts; Albert and Harold Steptoe, Alf Garnett, Anthony Aloysius Hancock, Norman Stanley Fletcher, Basil and Sybil Fawlty, Del Boy and Rodney, David Brent and co; Victor Meldrew, Rupert Rigsby, Tom and Barbara Good and Jerry and Margot Leadbetter, Sir Humphrey Appleby and Jim Hacker, Vivien, Rik & Neil and Edmund Blackadder and Baldrick. 

Comedy writer David Nobbs was the creator of that other comedy classic from the 70s, The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin and its sequels, as well as other favourites like A Bit Of A Do. Tens of thousands, maybe millions, empathised with the character of Reggie and his mid-life struggle against a humdrum job, bureaucracy and the status quo.
David's career goes back to the sixties when he was writing for some of the greats of TV, including Les Dawson, Frankie Howerd, Jimmy Tarbuck, Ken Dodd, Tommy Cooper, Dick Emery, the Two Ronnies as well as working with all of the members of the Python team and Barry Cryer. David also worked as a writer on the satire classic TW3.

His list of novels is impressive - The Itinerant Lodger (1965), Ostrich Country (1968), A Piece of the Sky is Missing (1969), The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1975), The Return of Reginald Perrin (1977), The Better World of Reginald Perrin (1978), Second from Last in the Sack Race (1983), A Bit Of A Do (1986), Pratt of the Argus (1988), Fair Do’s (1990), The Cucumber Man (1994), The Legacy of Reginald Perrin (1995), Going Gently (2000), I Didn't Get Where I am Today - An Autobiography (2003), Sex and Other Changes? (2004), Pratt a Manger (2006), Cupid’s Dart (2006)

David kindly agreed to talk to Digger at www.retrosellers.com about his life and times, work and career.

Some images courtesy of and © copyright www.rexfeatures.com

 

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The Two Ronnies and Frankie Howerd

 

 

Digger: Hello David. How are you doing and what are you doing?

David Nobbs: I'm fine. I'm working away at a sitcom pilot for the BBC. But I can't tell you any more about that!

Digger: How often do these sorts of things not get to screen?

David Nobbs: Sometimes. More and more these days, but this one, I think, is very promising. And I'm with a new publisher, so I'm doing a novel by the end of the year as well. With Harper Collins for the first time. So I'm pretty busy.

Digger: You are getting busier than ever...

David Nobbs: No point in giving up. I can't afford to either. 

Digger: People have visions of anybody working in TV as being loaded, but it's just another way of making a living isn't it?

David Nobbs: It's a lovely way of making a living but, you know, you don't get what you get as a leader of industry or anything like that.

Digger: Can you tell us any more about your current work and projects? 

David Nobbs: I've also got a second radio series of The Maltby Collection and that's being recorded. A Radio 4 sitcom. The first series was very well received.

Digger: That's good. So what are the positives and negatives of being a comedy writer?

David Nobbs: The one drawback is that there's no absolute measurement of what's funny and what isn't. So you can never be absolutely certain that you've got it right. Or even if you've got it right, that people are going to recognise it. Some people think funny, some other people don't think funny. So that's a minor drawback.

Digger: Laugh, damn you!

David Nobbs: Exactly. But that's a very minor drawback. Because I think comedy is wonderful and it's very important. I think it gives a sense of proportion and I think it's been a joy to work on it.

Digger: It's very therapeutic and often used by people in times of trouble too.

David Nobbs: Yes

Digger:  What was your involvement in That Was The Week That Was and were you aware at the time of what a milestone it was?

David Nobbs: It was a few weeks in when I got on board. And just by chance I watched it, had an idea, rang them up and got through to them and they told me to send it in. It was for that week and it was very topical. And they put me through to David Frost and I think they did it because I'd been at Cambridge and David recognised my name. I'm afraid it was the old boys' network in a way. And I then sent in a sketch each week and they paid me if they used them. I had quite a few sketches on. And then, for the second series, I started working with Peter Tinniswood who I'd met on the Sheffield Star when we were both reporters. We were firm friends and he gave up journalism as well and we worked on it and had a good time.

Digger: Were these topical sketches?

David Nobbs: They were news of the week type sketches. We concentrated on slightly off-beat things. I wouldn't say we did the major political stuff. We were real novices and we weren't as good as others, like Waterhouse and Hall, who had learned to hone their craft. But some of the things were very funny and we got some good laughs and gained a bit of confidence.

Digger: This was around the time of Billy Liar too?

David Nobbs: Yes, and I think we all were aware of 'TW3' being a milestone. Because there was such excitement and things like the Henry Brook This Is Your Life about the Home Secretary, which really caused such a stir I think it virtually destroyed his political reputation. That was a very big thing in those days and it was something new.

Digger: I know that there was an election coming up and the BBC were asked to 'can' it. 

David Nobbs: That's right. And Peter and I wrote a sketch about all the other shows that should be canned. Like hospital ones where if people had 'Labour' pains other people had to have 'Conservative' ones.

Digger: I think I've seen that. Was writing for That Was The Week That Was high-pressure, given that it was a weekly satire programme based on current affairs?

David Nobbs: No, it wasn't because there were so many writers. We would write two sketches, of three or four minutes each, and other people wrote the rest of the programme. Everybody's commitment was small and the show had a great many writers. I don't think we felt any pressure.

Digger: There's still that pressure to produce even one or two lines?

David Nobbs: Yes, there is, but we were young and keen and a bit inspired to find ourselves doing this, so we just enjoyed it to be honest.

Digger: Can you tell us about your comedy writing for the greats such as Kenneth Williams, Frankie Howerd, Les Dawson and The Two Ronnies? Did you have to change your style a lot for each personality and how much input did they have?

David Nobbs: They didn't really have a lot of input, at all. They weren't those sort of beings. I mean, you watched their act and you realised the sort of style they had. The answer to the question 'Did you have to change your style a lot for each personality' the answer is undoubtedly yes. Utterly and totally really. For the Two Ronnies I was able to write stuff that was the sort of stuff I might have written if I hadn't got anybody in mind. Because the material was from my sort of background - the party sketches and all that sort of thing. 

Digger: Was that your hallmark, the party sketches?

David Nobbs: Not particularly, but I did do a few. 

Digger: You weren't the 'slapping in the face one' were you?

David Nobbs: No. One of my sketches that was always in every compilation was the Rook restaurant. Where they only served rook, and they were both brilliant in that. They were very, very good actors. Les Dawson, I was very close to. He did sixty eight episodes of Says Les, and Barry Cryer and I were the main writers. 

 

 

   

Leonard Rossiter as Reggie Perrin and 'as himself'

 

 

Digger: There seem to be some recurring themes in your work – for example, The Itinerant Lodger contains job and identity changes and A Piece Of The Sky Is Missing is about 'the everyman' and the ogre boss. Both of these seem to be also reflected in Reggie. What's your view on this?

David Nobbs: I think that, to a certain extent, in all my writing, if there is a recurring theme in my writing, then it is identity. And there are two great aspects to identity. One is not knowing who you are, which applied certainly to the character in the Itinerant Lodger and in A Piece of The Sky Is Missing. The other aspect is knowing who you are only too well and not liking it, and Reggie came into that category, although maybe in the end he was in both categories. Maybe that's why he was more successful than the others. 

Digger: He was a sympathetic character in that millions of people recognised themselves in him.

David Nobbs: They did, they did. Certain things that he said that they would have wished to have said if allowed to say them. Like "My God, you're boring" or something like that. But he was able to come out with these things. Which the kids loved as well, of course.

Digger: I'm halfway through the third series on DVD again now, so obviously I've watched the mid-life crisis and Grot and we're into the community.

David Nobbs: For some reason the third series wasn't as good, but I think it had some highlights in it. 

Digger: The council guys coming in to complain and ending-up staying. Unintelligible Scottish chef McBlane...

David Nobbs: There was a role-playing session, I don't know whether you remember it? Which I thought was hilarious.

Digger: Yes, of course. It was of its time, with the industrial relations theme - the management against unions and CJ playing the dolly secretary. And Reggie and CJ ending-up screaming and gesturing at each other when they were trying to show the guest how a manager/union negotiation should take place. You must have had so much fun writing that.

David Nobbs: I did, I did, it was a great joy. 

Digger: American re-makes of British sitcoms like Reggie, All In The Family, The Office and Sanford And Son don’t seem, to me, to live up to the original series. Why do you think that is?

David Nobbs: I don't have a great knowledge of them because I don't really tend to watch them. Of course I saw Reggie, but that was the big exception. What happened there was they approached me and asked me if I wanted to write it for American TV. Now I'd already written it as a novel, and then written and adapted it for TV and I'd had enough of it. I wanted to move on. And they gave me a very good deal and I was to get about half as much for them writing it as if I'd written it. By sitting at home and doing nothing, whereas I would have had to go to live in LA and I didn't want to do that. But I made a mistake because I'd seen a lot of good American comedies, not made from British things and I thought they'd make a really good professional job of it. And the actor they chose for Reggie was good, Richard Mulligan, no problem there.

Digger: Yes, I remember him from Soap.

David Nobbs: Yes, he was a good actor and very well cast. But it just lost the edge. And the Americans say "Shit" and turn over after a minute. And I think they didn't give it time to build his predicament. Unless you saw the pressure that led him to behave like this then he's just an eccentric, kooky character. And there's been millions of those and he's not strong enough.

Digger: In the first series, but not in two and three, it gives you a resume of what's happened in the story until now at the start of each episode. I suppose by then you had so many people watching and they were so familiar with the story that they didn't need to be reminded.

David Nobbs: I'm not sure to what extent it was necessary anyway. It just told you to what stage we had got.

Digger: In modern programmes they'll give you a minute or two of edited excerpts of the last episode to get you up-to speed. And they'll even do that after the adverts within the same programme as if we're idiots.

David Nobbs: They do seem to treat us like idiots, I must say. 

Digger: The Perrin novels complemented the TV series rather than detracted from them as many book/screen adaptations seem to. And I was reading the novels as the shows were on TV and I loved the fact that the books didn't spoil the TV series and vice-versa as sometimes happens.

David Nobbs: I think, don't forget, that in television it's almost always the book is an adaptation of the script. The other way around and it's an attempt to cash-in on something that has been successful, it's as simple as that. And I don't think that way round is very valid because you're padding it out to make into a book. Whereas if you take a book you're seeking the best bits.

Digger: I just remember that when watching it on TV it seemingly hadn't lost any of the best bits and the feel of the books. Sometimes when a book is translated to the TV or movie screen you lose some of the important stuff - key words, phrases, storyline, description of situation or location or character motivation. Reggie thinking out loud, talking to Ponsomby the cat and so on obviously helped this, but the adaptation worked very well so that the TV version did the books justice but you could go from watching it on TV to enjoying the books.

David Nobbs: You say I didn't lose anything and I'm delighted you think that. I obviously tried not to. In fact, there are some sub-plots in the book which don't make it ... well, for instance there were slightly comic policemen looking for Reggie but I think it's all the better without them. And then there was the incestuous relationship between Reggie and Linda which was not something that you could do with a studio audience. 

Digger: A little bit implied maybe.

David Nobbs: Exactly, there was just the implication there and that's all.

Digger: Unlike the 'relationship' between Doc Morrisey and Joan. There was definite lust from the Doc which, of course, wasn't reciprocated. And don't take this the wrong way, but looking again at the plot where they are trying to encourage the neighbours to put their properties up for sale and they dress up as black and white minstrels made me take a sharp intake of breath. (Both laugh) And I thought 'did they really get away with that in the 70s?'

David Nobbs: Yes, but you know the heart of that is in the right place and it's showing people's prejudices. And it's something I think you even ought to be able to get away with today.

Digger: I know what you mean. Did Leonard Rossiter make any specific changes or enhancements to Reggie, apart from the obvious ones of interpreting the character and the scripts? Did his involvement in Rising Damp and his success there have an impact on Perrin?

David Nobbs: Well I think his involvement in Rising Damp was vital to the BBC suggesting he was cast in the first place.

Digger: Because originally it was going to be Ronnie Barker, wasn't it?

David Nobbs: No. It wasn't like that. I'll tell it as a joke because it was half a joke. The head of comedy of the BBC asked me if I had anyone in mind for the part. And since I was working with the Two Ronnies I said "Yes I have, Ronnie Barker" and he said "Splendid, Leonard Rossiter it is then!" (Digger Laughs) That's how I always tell the story and it wasn't quite like that, but that was it in essence. It was political. They'd already got Open All Hours and Porridge for Ronnie and they didn't need another series. Leonard had become very successful with Rising Damp and they wanted a slice of that.

Digger: When you look at it, you hardly ever see that it's the same person, which is rather strange actually.

David Nobbs: No, well he was a very good actor. I think it helped us with the impact.

Digger: And he hadn't been type-cast at all.

David Nobbs: No, I mean his interpretation was great and that was it. He didn't alter the scripts or anything. He wasn't that sort of actor.

Digger: Was he great at learning his lines?

David Nobbs: Oh yes.

Digger: Because when you see how much there is to learn actually. And lots of very complicated lines as well.

David Nobbs: Yes.

Digger: And he does it very well. The whole cast. There are some very good performances there. There's a video of John Baron on Youtube talking about his portrayal of CJ. Can you recall your inspiration for any of the characters or any of the scenes in Reggie Perrin and give us examples? 

 

 

 

 

David Nobbs: The actual inspiration, looking back, came from when I went to school every day from Orpington to Chiselhurst on the same train and saw the same businessmen. And the Sunshine Desserts and exotic ices sprang from an article I read in the Sunday Times colour supplement. This was Morton's Jams who were researching a possible new flavour for a jam and whether it would go down well with the public and these people were going around the country delivering little jars of jam and going back to interview them about it.

Digger: Pumice stone flavour, I hope?

David Nobbs: And I thought it would really drive me up the wall to do that for a week. That was definitely something that gave me a bit of inspiration.

Digger: What's this thing about Petula Clark? In the group sessions, there's a lady who has the name of a famous actress - I can't recall the name. And her friend is similarly famously called Pet Clark.

David Nobbs: Oh, I'd forgotten about that. I think she's lovely and she was growing up round about the same time as I was.

Digger: How much do you enjoy making people laugh and do you find it irresistible?

David Nobbs: I do enjoy it. I don't know if I find it irresistible. Maybe that's putting it a bit strongly. But I do love it. I like doing public appearances.

Digger: Do you ever find yourself in situations where you should be serious and you say something funny at a perhaps inappropriate time?

David Nobbs: I suppose I have done. I remember when I was on the Writer's Guild Committee, and we had a problem with a member who was slightly schizophrenic and they said "What should we do?" and I said "Perhaps we should charge him two memberships." (Digger laughs) That is typical, isn't it and I am a bit like that.

Digger: Did you hear the story about Peter Cook when he was applying for equity membership when he first started?

David Nobbs: No.

Digger: They wrote to him and told him that there was already a member called Peter Cork and so he would have to change his name to avoid any confusion. Peter wrote back with an application in the name of Sting Thundercock. They replied telling him to not be so silly and to suggest another name. He replied with a new application in the name of Wardrobe Gruber. They then wrote back to him and said he could register as Peter Cook.

David Nobbs: Peter Cook did find comedy irresistible, and in a sense I think it destroyed him. I mean he hankered after something more but he couldn't resist the laughter and the giggles. He never achieved the major work of which he was capable in my opinion.

Digger: Do you have any particular preference for site gags, puns, funny lines or any other form of comedy?

David Nobbs: I prefer comedy that springs out of character. Visual humour is good.

Digger: The letters falling off the sign at Sunshine Desserts week by week...

David Nobbs: Some people said that was overdone and perhaps it was a little bit. One of my favourite things in the all of Reggie is in the second series and Reggie mistakenly thinks that Elizabeth is having an affair with Tony. And Tony and Reggie have a fight and Reggie punches Tony over a hedge. And a policeman comes round the corner, sees them and just turns round and walks away. That was very funny and these things can be done very economically. Puns? Yes, in moderation. But character comedy is perhaps the best.
 
Digger: There are so many great scenes in Reggie - ravioli, the lions of Longleat and poopy plops, the failed seduction of Reggie's secretary, Seamus Finnegan being appointed admin head of Grot, the faux dinner party with snacks and no meal. What are your favourites/what are you most proud of?

David Nobbs: Seamus is one of my favourites and I love to turn the stereotype on its head. 

Digger: Reggie tries to sack them all in the end because they are all doing too well. And Seamus knows exactly why Reggie employed them all. 

David Nobbs: As far as the dinner party was concerned, there weren't even snacks, there was nothing.

Digger: That's odd because I remember crisps and nuts (laughs) but you wrote it!

David Nobbs: There weren't any. It wasn't my favourite. It didn't quite work for me. I thought Uncle Percy Spillinger was just too eccentric. The Lions of Longleat was just a great sequence with the kids and the heat and the smells in the car and Reggie getting out of the car to face the lions.

Digger: My favourite character is Doc Morrisey and my favourite scene of his is when Reggie visits him with various symptoms and Doc has exactly the same ones and wonders what it could be. Did the actors often crack up when performing scenes like that?

David Nobbs: That was the very first Doc Morrisey scene in the very first episode and it was brilliant. I shouldn't say this in relation to my own work but it was comic acting of the very highest calibre and timing. John Horsley's throwaway technique. "I wonder what it is?" It cracked the audience up. They were very professional and they hardly ever cracked up.

Digger: They took their comedy very seriously.

David Nobbs: Yes.

Digger: Who are your situation comedy favourites and why?

David Nobbs: I should have thought about this one... Hancock certainly. Steptoe. Bilko. M.A.S.H. which is my favourite of all because it dealt with war and made it funny. I liked Dad's Army. A lot of Fawlty Towers. Fairly obvious choices. I'm a great Monty Python fan although it's not a sit-com. And Phoenix Nights. And I like the British version of The Office. It took me two episodes to get into it but then I liked it.

Digger: When I spoke to Alan Simpson he told me he spent a lot of time getting the wording just right. For instance, in The Blood Donor, Hancock protests "That's very nearly an armful" rather than "That's an armful." Somehow the preciseness made it funnier. But most people wouldn't even notice that.

David Nobbs: They do without knowing they know it. Like the fact that "Don't tell him, Pike" got a big laugh in Dad's Army but "Don't tell him Henderson" didn't get a big laugh in the American version. It's unbelievable that a small thing like that should change everything. 

Digger: Did you notice that in the episodes where they show the Poet's Estate in Reggie Perrin, the BBC props department had just leaned a sign against the brick wall rather than attach it to it?

David Nobbs: No I was watching his feet and how they reflected his expression in his shoes!

Digger: Oh dear. That was me being over analytical and critical as usual. Who would be at your ideal dinner party? - you are allowed real of fictional people, living or dead.

David Nobbs: Well, I've made a very strange selection. Mostly humorous writers. Evelyn Waugh. Aristophanes. Dorothy Parker. Thomas Love Peacock. PG Wodehouse. And Cate Blanchett, because I think she's beautiful. Nothing to do with anything except she'd add a bit of glamour.

 

Cate Blanchett

 

 

Digger: She was great in Veronica Guerin. Where would you have got today if you hadn't been a comedy writer?

David Nobbs: Goodness knows, I have to say. I couldn't have gone on with working on a newspaper. If I hadn't been a writer the only occupation I could even consider was a lawyer. Whether I'd have been good enough. I would have liked to have stood up and done all that. 

Digger: Twelve Angry Men. And the Hancock version.

David Nobbs: Hancock was great. And those were the early days and British sit-com still hadn't defined itself then. 

Digger: Paul Merton tried to reprise the scripts a few years ago and it just didn't work. 

David Nobbs: They were so much written for Hancock. 

Digger: What do you think about all of these comedians being tragic figures? Is it overblown?

David Nobbs: It's overblown if it suggest that all comedians are tragic figures. Some were and some not. If you said that not everybody who makes a living out of comedy is cheerful all the time, then no they're not. But the tragic clown is as much a cliche as the laughing clown. And the trouble with these programmes is - I didn't see the Hancock one - but apparently we didn't see him in his heyday being funny and so it was an unbalanced portrait. The Frankie Howerd one - first of all David Walliams wasn't as funny as Frankie Howerd. How could he be?

Digger: They focused totally on his sexuality.

David Nobbs: Absolutely. It's true he was like that but there was so much more to him than that. He was quite generous and he took us out for dinner at a posh French restaurant to thank us for doing his scripts. And he said "We don't talk showbiz when we go out, I make that rule." And we talked about sport and various other things and it was very nice. They showed just one tiny side of a person.

Digger: Yes. How do they know he said that? How do they know he though that?

David Nobbs: I don't know whether they talked to his partner Dennis about it. I met Dennis. But they just gave an unbalanced impression.

Digger: Finally David, what is your biggest achievement to-date and what would you still like to accomplish?

David Nobbs: I can't say what is my biggest achievement - it's not for me to say.  Reggie Perrin was very successful but A Bit Of A Do also got huge audiences. It got under the character's skin and for that reason it had more impact and that was very pleasing ... Also, I'm a novelist as well and I wish all my books were as good as Going Gently which is my best book, I think. I'd like to write a deeper and better book.

Digger: Well, that's the end of the interrogation. Thanks for that David. That was most enlightening. And much appreciated.

David Nobbs: Thank you for asking me.

 

The Pythons

 Dorothy Parker