As payment for supplying the script for such occasions, I would be given whatever ‘plug’ money the comedian would (illicitly) receive from the song’s publisher for performing it. It was not a princely sum, three or four guineas was the norm, but if it was a romantic number, you could sometimes augment it by finding an excuse to repeat part of the song again. This was generally achieved by following the first chorus with a fervently delivered ‘recitative’, an overheated monologue in which the song’s romantic theme would be comedically underlined before a return to its last eight bars. (‘You may not believe me, but I tried everything with that girl. Everything, I tell you! Flowers, chocolates, jewellery … They all worked.’)
By far the most profitable comedian to write for proved to be Issy Bonn. Besides being a top-of-the-bill comedy name, he enjoyed considerable recording success as a singer. Consequently, the BBC allowed him to finish with a medley. Three songs, three lots of plug money.
One of Hymie Zahl’s judgements that has stayed with me was addressed to a comedian whose full name those same years have erased but whose first name was Harry.
Harry had been one of Hymie’s artists throughout the War years and he was a byword in the Zahl office as ‘the comic who played Dover more times than any other performer’. During that period, many artists did not welcome being booked for a week at Dover because the town was within range of the German heavy guns across the Channel as well as being a regular target for bombing raids. The sound of the air-raid siren was frequently heard and theatre performances were regularly halted for an announcement offering audiences the choice of going down to the shelter or remaining in their seats for the rest of the show.
In most cases, they elected to remain and the performers would keep going until the ‘All Clear’ sounded. Harry, a stubby, cheery little man, would sometimes entertain audiences for hours at a time on his own, getting them singing and laughing, in complete disregard of the thuds and explosions that could be heard outside. In consequence, he became a local favourite and something of a legend.
When the War ended and I joined the office, he was fulfilling dates around the North of England – Halifax, Huddersfield, Attercliffe, etc. Unfortunately, their reports on his act were less than flattering and Hymie was obliged to call him into his office to discuss his future.
When Harry came in, his spirits were noticeably drooping and I can still remember the fragment of conversation I heard before they closed the door.
‘I don’t understand it,’ Harry said. ‘Does the fact that I played Dover more times than any other comic count for nothing, Hymie? Doesn’t what I did with those audiences down there mean anything these days?’
‘Of course it does,’ Hymie said. ‘But I’m afraid the time has come when you have to face the truth. What it amounts to, Harry, is that you are an artist who is only at his best during heavy shelling.’
At the Variety agency, Hymie allowed me to make occasional minor bookings off my own bat, especially where little or no money was involved. Thus it was I was able to book Harry Secombe into his first West End date, a prestigious charity show sponsored by the Albany Club. He performed the hilarious ‘shaving’ act that later became his trademark and it went down so well, he was given a string of bookings across the North of England.
At the first one, unfortunately – as I recall, it was either Huddersfield or Halifax – the manager came round after his opening performance. ‘You’re not shaving on my bloody time,’ he growled and paid him off.
My usual response to magic tricks is boredom if I can work out how they are done and sullenness if I can’t. However, while I was in the employ of the Hyman Zahl Variety Agency, one of my duties was to make weekly visits to the Nuffield Centre, a servicemen’s club which had become London’s foremost showcase for new acts. On one visit, I saw a magician whose final feat I found so totally baffling, it left me in a state just short of awed.
To demonstrate his exceptional powers of memory, he passed down to an ATS girl in the audience a copy of the London Telephone Directory – back then, you could get all the numbers in one book – and invited her to open it anywhere at random. After she had done so, he asked her to look at the two pages she could now see, choose one of them and tell him what page number it was.
‘Page 273.’
‘Page 273?’ He frowned thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Would you now look at the three columns of names on that page and select one of the columns.’
‘Okay.’
‘Would you tell me which column you’ve decided on?’
‘The middle column.’
‘Page 273, second column … All right? Next thing I’d like you to do is run your finger down the names in that column till you come to one you’d like me to try and recall. Tell me when you’ve picked it.’
‘Right … Got one.’
‘Good. Then all I need you to do now is, counting from the top, tell me how far down the column that name comes.’
‘It’s – the fifteenth name down.’
‘So – the fifteenth name down the second column of page 273.’ He closed his eyes and put both hands to his temples, as though at a sudden headache. Then, relaxing, ‘That name is Jarvis, Kenneth. The address is 23 Springfield Road, N16, and, just to round it off, the telephone number is Clissold 6232.’
When the answer was confirmed, the applause was so vociferous he repeated the trick several times, only going wrong once on a detail of the address. Next morning I wrote such a glowing report on his performance, Hymie told me to go back that evening and sign him up.
This time I entered the Nuffield by way of the Stage Door, which meant crossing the backstage area to get into the audience. I could hear the voice of my magician in front of the curtain asking someone to pick a column. But now I could see that, behind him, with only the thin curtain between them, sat a man with a London Telephone Directory on his lap, turning the pages as the directions were given and murmuring the information in a voice audible only to his employer standing the other side of the curtain.
My disillusionment was total, but the trick’s simplicity was so irresistible, I remained impressed. Sad to tell, however, it didn’t stand the test of the subsequent Moss Empires booking we got him. The curtains were too thick.
I would often eat at Olivelli’s, the famous theatrical digs in Store Street, London, not simply for the quality of their pasta but also for such titbits as the one I gleaned from Jack Wilson. He told me that one of the first things the Nazis did when they came to power in the early thirties was to ban Wilson, Keppel and Betty from appearing anywhere in Germany.
Apparently they objected to the bare legs.
There was no end to the amount of time, patience and planning some Variety performers put into perfecting a comedy routine. Payne and Hilliard were a prime example. They were a male and female double act, she large and commanding, he short and fierce.
A staple of their well-established act was ‘our impression of Napoleon crossing the Alps’.