Fifty years ago today I made my first professional comedy debut at The Edinburgh Festival.\u00a0 It was August 1963 and I had miraculously received a telegram somewhere in Germany where I was hitch hiking ordering me to report immediately to Cambridge for active service.\u00a0 \u00a0That year\u2019s Footlights Comedy Review, called puzzlingly A Clump of Plinths<\/i> was being taken into the West End by Michael White under the more commercial title Cambridge Circus<\/i> leaving a hole in the Footlights commitment to the Edinburgh Festival.\u00a0\u00a0 The telegram was from Humphrey Barclay, he, myself, Graham Garden and David Wooderson were to replace Cleese, Oddie, Chapman, Brooke-Taylor and co, using their material, on stage in Edinburgh in three weeks.<\/p>\n
No problem.\u00a0\u00a0 Cambridge during the long vacation is as nice as it ever gets, the sun shone, it was the sixties, idyllic times when the girls skirts were beginning their plunge upwards and their pants downwards.\u00a0 We lay in punts and drank Pimms and wrestled with bra straps.\u00a0\u00a0 Well not quite.\u00a0 We rehearsed like hell on the tiny stage in the little Footlights club above smelly MacFisheries and suddenly found ourselves in a freezing, cold water flat, six stone stories up somewhere in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n
The Cambridge Theater Group never thinks small.\u00a0 A character called David Missen had conspired a theatrical first for the University players, the Cambridge actors were going to put on a world premiere, of a previously unheard of play by Henry Miller.\u00a0\u00a0 Not Arthur Miller the playwright.\u00a0\u00a0 Henry Miller the novelist.\u00a0\u00a0 It was called I\u2019m Just Wild About Harry<\/i> and featured quite a lot of rude behavior and a midget.<\/p>\n
This World Premiere was to take place in an old chapel.\u00a0 We had two weeks to turn it into a theater.\u00a0 Not only that but they were building a revolving stage to accommodate the many changes of scene.\u00a0 It\u2019s quite difficult to turn a chapel into a theater in two weeks.\u00a0 Stage, wings, auditorium, all had to be built by Cambridge amateur volunteer set builders.\u00a0\u00a0 The flats themselves were enormous and all had to be built of canvas on plywood frames, stretched and painted.\u00a0\u00a0 It was all hands on deck.\u00a0\u00a0 By night we Cambridge Footlights were to put on our black tie review, funny sketches and songs sung by me and played by Jim Beach (now manager of Queen) on the piano, with a full English Lord on drums.\u00a0\u00a0 Since our show was ready to open we were expected to give a hand in the making of this World Premiere, which involved taking small parts in the play itself, but more exhaustingly staying up all night painting scenery and generally helping to turn a House of worship into a Playhouse.<\/p>\n
We were young, there were girls sharing this freezing walk up cold water walk up flat, the Beatles were constantly on the radio and whisky was readily available.\u00a0\u00a0 So somehow, with several overnighters we managed to construct the stage and the revolve and mount the huge flats, but we had had no time for even a signle a technical rehearsal.<\/p>\n
Missen, already a master of PR, contrived a reason to delay this long anticipated world premiere of Henry Millers only play.\u00a0\u00a0 The Edinburgh watch committee had objected to certain dirty words and actions they proposed performing on stage,\u00a0 so Missen announced that we would not go ahead with this censorship without the authors permission.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t much but it was good enough to contrive a reasonable reason to delay a day for the Festival Press, \u00a0so that we could call Henry Miller in California and tell him his work was being censored and what did he feel about it?\u00a0 This was all concocted of course.\u00a0 But suddenly Miller himself was on the phone and Missen was explaining the problem and we all sat around in awe that Henry Miller was actually on the phone.\u00a0\u00a0 He really didn\u2019t seem that concerned.\u00a0\u00a0 This amateur production of an old play was hardly a big deal for him.\u00a0 OK, we said, if you really don\u2019t mind slight cuts we will go ahead tomorrow.<\/p>\n
The dress rehearsal was a shambles, but the Footlights Revue opened immediately afterwards and we were our usual glittering selves.\u00a0 We had all the material of Cambridge Circus <\/i>at our disposal, and many classic sketches and songs.\u00a0 We killed.\u00a0\u00a0 The London critics raved.\u00a0\u00a0 Harold Hobson, the big wheel chair bound panjandrum from the Sunday Times said \u201cthey attract admiration as effortlessly as the sun attracts the flowers.\u201d\u00a0 The audience went nuts, we were an enormous hit.\u00a0\u00a0 Now for the Actors opening night premiere.<\/p>\n
All went well with the first scene.\u00a0 I was on stage with lots of others doing some comedy business up a ladder, the midget was a professional and knew her lines, the scene passed.\u00a0 Then came the revolve.\u00a0\u00a0 It refused to budge.\u00a0 No matter how hard we all pushed the stage was jammed.\u00a0\u00a0 Eventually after a grinding twenty minutes the second scene slowly hove into view.\u00a0 The London critics crammed into the first six rows of seats waited patiently holding their pencils poised.\u00a0 The second scene went rather well.\u00a0 Now came the time to revolve the stage into the third scene.\u00a0\u00a0 Chaos.\u00a0 A series of stuttering juddering moves, resulted in the huge flats beginning to topple.\u00a0 They wavered, they tottered, they leaned dangerously and then slowly began to fall like a pack of cards, knocking each other over on to the front six rows of London theater critics, who picked up their pens and dashed for the rear of the hall and safety; all save one, the world famous critic Harold Hobson, who was stuck in his wheel chair as the set collapsed into the seats all around him.\u00a0 Mercifully he survived.\u00a0\u00a0 The play didn\u2019t.\u00a0\u00a0 I think we did a token read of the second Act but it was dead.\u00a0 Off.\u00a0 Never heard of again.\u00a0\u00a0 Jonathan Lynn and John Shrapnel went on in Waiting For Godot<\/i> the next night.<\/p>\n
The Footlights continued to stun.\u00a0\u00a0 But I\u2019m Just Wild ABOUT Harry <\/i>was gone.\u00a0 And the director of this debacle, one Stephen Frears, who would go on to better and more successful things\u2026.<\/p>\n
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