I'm guessing you'll be sick of Christmas-spirited activities by now and have relapsed back into even more of a mean-fisted figure than Scrooge ever was. So I thought I'd take advantage of that mood with something totally un-festive.
Bob Monkhouse’s collection of diaries from the years 1993-1998, Over the Limit, contains a brilliant story about the music hall comedian Ronald Frankau (who I've already mentioned elsewhere on this blog here and here) upbraiding him for stealing material. It’s worth repeating here, and gives me a chance to post another Frankau recording and plug the Windyridge website again.
Monkhouse tells of how he borrowed a gag from Frankau. The joke was a slightly risqué one in which a Hawaiian woman is greeted by a man called Buck with the word “Me Buck!” to which she replies “Me, twenty bucks.” Monkhouse changed ‘Buck’ to ‘Bob’, but otherwise pretty much used the joke as Frankau had written it.
The ensuing reprimand from Frankau is one of my highlights of the book. I won't quote it in full, but Monkhouse’s description of the older music hall comedian is so vivid it is worth cherry-picking:
The protagonist is either an exaggerated male ingénue or a repressed homosexual; Frankau seems undecided – or ignorant – as to which.
Bob Monkhouse’s collection of diaries from the years 1993-1998, Over the Limit, contains a brilliant story about the music hall comedian Ronald Frankau (who I've already mentioned elsewhere on this blog here and here) upbraiding him for stealing material. It’s worth repeating here, and gives me a chance to post another Frankau recording and plug the Windyridge website again.
I relished his broadcasts as I did those of equally literate humorists - Gillie Potter, Oliver Wakefield and, later, Eric Barker and America’s Fred Allen. None of these, however, did wonderful comic songs with Monty Crick at the piano.
Monkhouse tells of how he borrowed a gag from Frankau. The joke was a slightly risqué one in which a Hawaiian woman is greeted by a man called Buck with the word “Me Buck!” to which she replies “Me, twenty bucks.” Monkhouse changed ‘Buck’ to ‘Bob’, but otherwise pretty much used the joke as Frankau had written it.
(A fan’s montage of Frankau I bought on eBay.)
The ensuing reprimand from Frankau is one of my highlights of the book. I won't quote it in full, but Monkhouse’s description of the older music hall comedian is so vivid it is worth cherry-picking:
The great comedian could look benign – I’d seen him on the variety stage at the Brighton Hippodrome and the Lewisham Empire, eyes twinkling beneath his bald dome – but he could also look frightening. He fixed me with his eyes no longer twinkling but bleak, a pair of hot poached eggs, and his irregular teeth gave his rather thick and livid lips an angry sneer.I thought an appropriate song would be the scathing Freddie’s Got A Lot To Learn.
The protagonist is either an exaggerated male ingénue or a repressed homosexual; Frankau seems undecided – or ignorant – as to which.
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