Eric Sykes

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety seven, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Costaway this week is a comedian. He's been making the people of this country laugh ever since he came out of the services at the end of the war and joined Oldham Rep.

Presenter0:39

For twenty years his show was a centrepiece of British television, as, with his screen partner Hattie Jakes, he epitomised the naïve and bumbling Englishman. He's a prolific scriptwriter and has also directed a number of silent films. Earlier this year, you could have caught him in the West End playing a classic comic role in Molliere's comedy School for Wives. A night of laughter is worth a year on the NHS, he says. He is Eric Sykes. Do you mean a night of laughter for us or for you, Eric?

Eric Sykes1:10

No, I think it starts with laughter for me because I think what makes me laugh makes a lot of people laugh. But comedy is a.

Presenter1:19

But comedy is a serious business, isn't it, for those of you who make it? It's actually.

Eric Sykes1:23

No, it's serious fun.

Eric Sykes1:26

But that's been my philosophy. You can't make a comedy when when people are not, when people don't like each other.

Presenter1:32

Unless you've got a a b a a happy company, you're saying that's a good idea.

Eric Sykes1:35

That's right.

Presenter1:36

Or you know, a happy team of people. It's not going to work.

Eric Sykes1:38

That's right. And we had the happiest with uh Hattie Jakes, Richard Wattis, Derek Geiler. We are like old times. We were like a family. Hat was really like my my sister or my identical twin as we had it. Because when we finished the series of six, I would go away and do uh uh other things, like uh a tour with Jimmy Edwards of Big Bad Mouse.

Eric Sykes2:03

And Hat would do some of the carry-on films. So when we met again it was like coming home. It was oh, it was lovely. And it went on for twenty years.

Eric Sykes2:12

Not the same program, no, we change it every week. But uh

Presenter2:17

But as I say, most recently you you've been in the theatre in the West End and you need this audience and you need to hear their reaction in order to do what you do. But you have a problem, don't you? Because you are deaf.

Eric Sykes2:29

Oh yes, well uh i it it has been a problem in the past. Luckily I've got these uh these now these listening glasses which uh help me to hear.

Presenter2:38

Just explain those to how do the glasses work, then?

Eric Sykes2:41

Well, it's called bone conduction, and the the arms of the the glasses uh vibrate against the head.

Eric Sykes2:48

Because I have no eardrums, you see, the sound vibrates against your eardrum, you hear. When you have no eardrums, it vibrates against your skull, or my nose, or my cheek bone.

Presenter2:59

And this is why sometimes you kind of rub your eye by putting your finger through the lens, because there ain't no lenses.

Eric Sykes3:05

No, but I've never had lenses in the glasses because they are purely for listening.

Presenter3:09

So all these years we've thought of Eric Sykes in his hornroom specs is nothing to do with seeing at all.

Eric Sykes3:14

It's nothing to do with seeing. I mean, I've got a dog in the wings for that.

Presenter3:20

Right, let's get down to some business here and let me ask you about your first record on this desert island we're sending you to.

Eric Sykes3:26

Oh yes. I think uh Bing Crosby I played golf with him a few times and and I thought what a lovely man. We were brought up with Bing Crosby and he was known in uh Germany as Derbingle and and I always do impressions of him.

Eric Sykes3:41

He got me the sack one day.

Eric Sykes3:44

Because I used to do him doing uh When the Blue of the Night into a bucket in the cotton mill where I worked. And uh they used to stand round and they all used to enjoy it. When the blue and I did that in the bucket. When I took the bucket down, everybody was hard at work and the manager was standing there and he said, Get your carts. My mama done told me.

Speaker 44:03

Me

Eric Sykes4:04

Please

Speaker 44:05

Uh Uh

Speaker 44:08

A woman with sweet talk

Speaker 44:11

And give you the big eye.

Speaker 44:13

But when that sweet talkin''s done

Speaker 44:19

A woman's a two-faced A worrisome thing Who'll leave you to sing the blue

Eric Sykes4:22

Yeah.

Speaker 44:28

In the night.

Presenter4:29

Bing Crosby is singing Blues in the Night, and that was recorded in 1942.

Presenter4:34

Um, you said in the past, Eric Sykes, comedy is a calling. You don't decide to become a comedian. How early in your life did you hear the call?

Eric Sykes4:43

When I say uh one doesn't decide to be a comic, the audience decides whether you're going to be a comic. They're the ones.

Presenter4:52

But did you make people laugh as a child?

Eric Sykes4:55

Well, I don't think I I think I exasperated people more than anything because uh uh let me try to encapsulate it. It on my final report at school was inclined to be scatterbrained. And uh later on in life my father told me that we'd never they'd never send me on an errand because I would have forgotten what it was that I was going for and I would invariably go to the wrong shop. I mean it's no good walking into a tailor's and asking for a pound of beef. So I lived in my head, I lived in dreams, I lived in an abstract world.

Presenter5:27

But you wrote silly verse, didn't you?

Eric Sykes5:29

Oh, I did. I wrote it.

Presenter5:35

But did you perform it to anybody? I mean, did and make people laugh at it.

Eric Sykes5:38

No, I remember uh sitting at the top of the stairs, very cold one night, and listening to my father reading out some of the verses to his cronies, and what did me an awful lot of good was the laughter that uh the it was receiving. So probably little things like that did have an effect.

Presenter5:55

But this was what late twenties and early thirties in Lancashire.

Eric Sykes5:59

That's right.

Presenter5:59

You know, the cotton strike, the depression, it's it's not really the kind of time when a young man might have contemplated a career in show business, you know.

Eric Sykes6:08

No, I didn't contemplate a career in show business because when you were 14 you went out and you had to earn a bit of money. But it was a dreadful period of time and when people talk these days about stress and strain, I think my poor father, what he had to go through to have to feed three sons and he was unemployed for about two and a half years. But I think I had a very enjoyable childhood because uh when we marched down the backs, what we call the backs between the houses with a pole over your shoulder and a handkerchief hanging out the back of your your cap, you're in the Foreign Legion.

Presenter6:44

Hmm.

Eric Sykes6:44

Uh

Presenter6:44

Yeah.

Eric Sykes6:44

And uh I I lived in a dream world, which was uh rather jolly.

Presenter6:48

And then of course you you you did sign up. You signed up, I think, um, into the army just before your eighteenth birthday.

Eric Sykes6:54

No, I what I I desperately wanted to be was a fighter pilot, which was uh w which was impossible because in those days th they had to be uh matriculated and they had to, you know and in any case I I didn't uh pass a medical. I had a a scar on the eardrum. So I was put in as a as a wireless operator. I became a a mobile signals oper operator. That's a small unit that just goes

Eric Sykes7:18

here and there, fast, and hopes they know where they're going.

Presenter7:22

And it was, as I said, just before your 18th birthday when you joined up. It was 1941.

Presenter7:28

Can you remember what you felt at that moment? I mean, did you feel frightened or excited or a mixture of both?

Eric Sykes7:34

In those days we were always taught to uh stiff upper lip and boys so men didn't cry. And I think uh uh

Eric Sykes7:43

I probably have only cried about five times in my life. And uh but one of them was the night that I arrived at Padgate and had to get up on my bunk and sleep. And I and I just cried out of sheer homesickness I because I was uh a loner.

Eric Sykes8:00

And to be amongst all this lot, uh you know, I knew the first time in my life I'd had a bed to myself, so it wasn't too bad. And I must say that uh having been in the war,

Eric Sykes8:11

It was the making of me.

Presenter8:13

I want to ask you a bit more about that, but I'm going to pause for your second record. Tell me about that.

Eric Sykes8:18

My second record will be The Light Cavalry by Supe. And I think this is probably one of the most descriptive pieces of music I've ever heard anyway. You can see the scene and the the the hillside and down in the valley there with a gallant six hundred are all lined up on the horses, the horses are sweating up a bit, all the troopers are getting a bit dry mouthed and all right Jack, yeah, don't worry about it Jack, you'll be all right and all that and up on the hillside there's the families there with their their tablecloths and their crest sandwiches and their wine and they're all watching like this and then there's the brass all around the horses up on the hill looking down on it.

Eric Sykes8:59

Now then.

Eric Sykes9:05

Now they're walking their horses into position and and they're all now everybody's dry mouth and you can hear a pin drop, you can hear the buzzes of the flies and the bees and down below there they are.

Eric Sykes9:31

That's nerves. Now pure nerves. Now the y you can hear the tension now building up amongst all the troopers, the watchers, and even the the Turkish gunners who are behind the gunners at the

Speaker 49:43

Mm.

Eric Sykes9:43

That you know what's gonna happen.

Eric Sykes9:49

And the horses are getting a bit skittish. Right there, watch that horse there, lad, lad, easy lad, easy. And they're all ready for the charge.

Presenter10:09

Marvellous. Well, that was uh The Light Cavalry by Frantz von Suppay before the fight.

Eric Sykes10:14

I think Richard Dimbleby would have done it a lot better in the old days.

Presenter10:18

Well, I thought you did it beautifully. And and you were accompanied by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra conducted by Paul Perret.

Presenter10:26

Actually, talking about action, you saw a lot of it in the war. What are your memories of it? They must be vivid.

Eric Sykes10:31

It's funny, it's it's stupid little things you remember. Like I remember when I was uh on the beaches of uh Normandy at D-Day and and a few days after. I mean there's still quite a lot of action going on. And I thought to myself, stupidly, like an American film, I said loudly, Sol blesses France. By the time, because we couldn't get up past Caen at that time, that was uh full of Germans that were resisting very valiantly. But they kept landing troops in Normandy, so in the end we were almost shoulder to shoulder.

Presenter11:03

And the noise must have been.

Eric Sykes11:05

Oh, the noise. Well, during the day it was pretty quiet and it was pretty orderly, but at night, as soon as it started to get dark, then it was a real

Eric Sykes11:14

Uh

Eric Sykes11:15

Real noise of it.

Presenter11:16

So you you went on, as you say, to the siege of Kahn, you went on to Luneberg Heath, uh I think?

Eric Sykes11:21

Right, yes. We went through Falaise Gap and uh we were ahead of the uh Second Army at one time, but then again, uh you can't have everything in a war. But anyway, we w Lundeberg he finally signed the uh peace, yes.

Presenter11:34

But at some point, you know, in this in this wartime career, strange to say, you began to write and perform comedy, or think about it anyway, and then you got round to doing it, I think, by the time you got to Schleswig Holstein, I think, wasn't it? How did it come about?

Eric Sykes11:48

Well he came about because the Stlazek Holstein war was over then, peace had been signed, and a notice was up on the board, all those with theatrical experience, put your name down. And well, of course, I put my name down because it was either that or the cookhouse. And I went for this audition, which was given by Bill Fraser, who gave me my first break. And he said the right name. He sent me on a desk and I said, Rick Allen.

Eric Sykes12:13

And uh he said, What do you do? I said, I'm Rick Allen.

Eric Sykes12:17

He said, I'm sorry, I I don't I've never heard of Rick Allen. I said I used to do a drunk cake for eight minutes without saying a word, which of course was perfectly untrue. And he said, Oh, I'm sorry, I don't know a lot about vaudeville and I said, Well, I'm Rick Allen. Oh, so straight away I'm in.

Eric Sykes12:34

Now, so I'm in there, and we start rehearsing the all the sketches written by Dennis Norden, who's also in there, you know. So the first sketch they put me in, I'm a drunk in a French bistro. Well, I was awful. I was really awful. And a fellow called Gordon Horswell, who changed his name to Vic Gordon and Peter Colville, he said, no, this is the way to do it. And he tried to put me right. But in the end, I couldn't do it. So in the end, Bill says, I'm sorry, Eric, but you're going to have to go back to your unit. So as I was leaving with my small kit and that, I said, oh, by the way, I also was a member of a four-part harmony team.

Eric Sykes13:15

And he said, oh, he said, what was that? And I said, the Four Aces. Well, at that time, the Four Aces were very famous. And he said, you remember that? I said, yes. He said, do you think you could get three lads, three other lads out of this lot to make a four-part hour? I said, no problem. So I was back in. Now, Gordon Horswell, he said, well, he said, I've heard some cheek. He said, well, that's it. Because Gordon Horswell was a member of the Four Aces before the war.

Presenter13:44

So now the truth is out, Eric Sykes lied his way into the business.

Eric Sykes13:48

I I did actually.

Presenter13:49

And then you came home and joined Oldham Rep. Let's let's pause there. Let's have some more music.

Eric Sykes13:54

This is uh I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles because as I say I I love close harmony and I was actually quite good at it.

Speaker 414:01

I'm forever blowing bubbles.

Speaker 414:07

Ready bubbles in the air.

Speaker 414:12

They fly so high.

Speaker 414:15

Nearly reach the sky.

Speaker 414:18

And in my dream

Speaker 414:21

Please.

Presenter14:22

The

Speaker 414:22

Uh

Presenter14:24

I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles, sung by The Merry Max, and accompanied in the studio here by Eric Sykes, my castaway.

Presenter14:31

The the person we've left out of your story so far, of course, Eric, is your mother, who died giving birth to you, but whom you have described before now as a guiding light in your life. Can you explain that?

Eric Sykes14:45

Yes, because nobody ever really talked about my mother. She was a bit of a taboo subject at home, because I had a brother two years older than me who was idolized by that side of the family, my mother's side. And then my father married again, and I have a younger brother, John, who was two years younger. So I was right in the middle. And of course he was the took center stage and he was a lovely lad. He's still alive. I love him still.

Presenter15:15

But was there a sense in which you were

Eric Sykes15:16

Was there a

Presenter15:18

Blamed or felt guilty in a way.

Eric Sykes15:19

In a way, yes, in a way. And there were times when I felt almost like a lodger in my own house, you know, and

Eric Sykes15:28

You know the feeling you get when you say somebody's walked over my grave? I used to get that feeling. And not long after that I would write something good, or I would write something I was pleased with, or something. But I always had that little shiver before it happened, and I used to wait for it happening. And then the the the the the thoughts would come into my head.

Speaker 415:31

Hmm.

Presenter15:49

Do you still get it?

Eric Sykes15:50

Oh yes. Oh yes. And uh and when I'm in a bit of trouble sometimes or

Eric Sykes15:56

Yeah.

Eric Sykes15:58

you know, I've only got to think of my mother and and it's a sort of a

Eric Sykes16:01

I get the same feeling.

Presenter16:03

But y y you almost, I think, have suggested that she made a a a kind of spiritual intervention once when you'd had a big operation on your ears, I think, in in sixty two. Tell me about that.

Eric Sykes16:11

Yeah.

Eric Sykes16:15

Well, I'd had the first operation in 1951 and in 1962 I had the other operation. Well when I came out of that other operation I was stone deaf, but absolutely it was

Eric Sykes16:28

So I couldn't hear at all. I thought, well, that's the end of my career. And I was really in a desperate state. Anyway, one day the ENT man, John Ballantyne, was a very good friend of John Williams.

Eric Sykes16:43

And one day the door of my room opened and in came John Williams, you see, who I'd met before. And I said, Hello, John, how are you? And he said,

Eric Sykes16:53

And I said, Oh, you look great. And he brought his guitar case and he sat by the bed and before I could stop him, he'd started to play. Now this is, you know so I watched his fingers until he'd finished and then he he looked out and said, Oh, John, that was sensational. And then he started to play again. And he sat by my bed and he played for half an hour. The end of it I said all the usual plaudits.

Eric Sykes17:20

Because I thought here's the greatest guitarist, the greatest classical guitarist in the world. And he's sitting by my bed. What a lovely thing to do. And I didn't tell him until six months later that I hadn't heard a word, because he laughed, you know, when I told him. And I was quite at about five days or something when I was absolutely stone deaf. So, and then I woke up one morning and I heard the rain. He said, well, I didn't think anything of it. The nurse came in and she mouthed, how are you? I said, I'm very well, thank you. What a shocking day. And she said, yes, she said, the rain's coming down. I said, yes. She said, it's been like this all night. And she turned to go out and she did the biggest double take I've ever seen. And she said, you can hear it. I said,

Eric Sykes18:07

I can hear

Eric Sykes18:09

And it was a miracle. John Ballantyne, the ENT man, he came in and that they examined me very closely and they said, There is no medical reason why you should have got your hearing back.

Presenter18:22

So what do you put it down to?

Eric Sykes18:24

I put it down to my mother. I put it down to a miracle. I put it down to there are more things in heaven and earth than I dreamt of syndrome.

Presenter18:32

Well, tell me about your next record.

Eric Sykes18:34

Well, it's got to be my w o great friend lovely John Williams.

Presenter19:09

John Williams playing Asturias from the sweet Española by Isaac Albanitz.

Presenter19:16

You began, of course, but by writing. I mean, you wrote, I think, originally in the beginning a script for Frankie Howard on Variety Bandbox, and then you wrote for Educating Archie and so on. Did you criss cross the line between being a writer and being a performer? Or was there a moment when you

Eric Sykes19:30

No, I'll tell you how I became a performer because you see Frankie Howard asked me because he was the biggest thing in the country without a doubt. This is before he met me. So the thing that I found Frankie Howard is all rubbish. He was the one who picked me out of a repertory company in Warminster. And by writing for Frankie Howard then, who was the biggest thing, other comics and got in touch with me, you know, and said, could you write for me? And my writing was.

Presenter20:00

But it was un it was unusual then, having become a writer, for you then to become a performer as well, nationally.

Eric Sykes20:06

That's right. I know what you're getting at. You're a very good uh prosecutor, you know, in a court of law. Yes, I will answer it. In those in those early days, I was writing one hour shows, comedies, and they were live.

Eric Sykes20:21

And usually by the time I got halfway through them, I hadn't finished it. So I still had one sketch to write while the show was going on the air, it was actually going on. So invariably I had to go on as the butler or a bystander or something and cue the other people and tell them what to do and do it. And it got through to the cameras that this is what I was doing. But in the early days, I never put my name on the credits. My name on the credits was Butler Arthur Pules or First Bystander Jim Thies or you know Jack Knee. Anything but my own name until I thought, well it's time I stood up and be counted and that's how I came to perform.

Presenter21:09

Record number five.

Eric Sykes21:10

Now, the Mills brothers, when we were uh doing the four aces stuff.

Eric Sykes21:15

that that we took a lot of the Mills Rudder stuff and all we did was got the grammophone record and dissected all the harmonies because when you consider that these four voices were all beautiful voices and they took the places of of instruments.

Speaker 421:42

Walking walking.

Speaker 421:43

Yeah.

Speaker 421:50

Okay.

Presenter21:59

McMills Brothers with Caravan and that was recorded in nineteen thirty seven.

Presenter22:03

You met and married your wife, Edith, in 1952. You met her because she was a nurse when you had one of your ear operations, and you had four children. You've confessed before now to not being particularly active as a father of young children, that somehow you were a bit apart, a separate unit. Why was that?

Eric Sykes22:25

Uh well, I'd always been a loner and uh I had my work to do. I was very busy then, I was one of the busiest uh writers because I was one of the first writers. And so the children came, they were all like little miracles in themselves, each one, and uh but I I I almost didn't know how to approach them because they were so wonderful.

Presenter22:44

Okay.

Presenter22:45

And was it difficult for them? Again, I've seen your son quoted as saying that he it was very difficult when he was small because he he had a father who was silly on television and he found it a bit embarrassing as children.

Eric Sykes22:56

After a time I mean uh the two girls I remember uh Catherine and Susan came to me one day and they said I was typing then and they said, uh Dad, can we ask you a question? I said yes. And they said, well

Eric Sykes23:12

Why are you always so silly on television?

Eric Sykes23:16

What I did is I I stopped writing and I took them both by the hand into onto the lawn. We walked across the lawn and I after a time I said to them, I don't know where it came from, I said, We're all a bit silly at one time or another in our lives, aren't we? And they said, Yes, Daddy. And I said, Right, next time you're silly, make sure you're well paid for it.

Eric Sykes23:38

They had a bit of a hard time at school, you see. Had their father been Sean Connery or somebody like that, they would have been treated a lot differently. But to have like Hat as my sister and the bumbling way we did our show, it almost looked as if they had they really had an idiot for a father. And I've accepted that. It's wonderful to be paid for being an idiot.

Presenter24:03

Well, and you were at at that time, I think, the highest paid idiot in the business, actually, weren't you, for a while?

Eric Sykes24:08

Yes, I wa I was, but I was always fighting to get the money up because in those days I was always told we never used scriptwriters before. And I said, Well, you're going to have to get used to it because uh scriptwriters are coming along and they're going to be the the mainstay of uh your business in future.

Presenter24:24

You you kept um your deafness secret for many years, didn't you? I reading the old cuttings about you and so on, it seemed to me that you you thought maybe the audience would be alienated or wouldn't be very sympathetic if they thought you were deaf.

Eric Sykes24:37

No, no, no, I didn't. I I thought no, no, I I think they're very s they've always been sympathetic. In other words, when I've been on, they've always tried to laugh louder so that I can uh hear.

Eric Sykes24:49

But what I was worried about was that people who put shows on and the the the the entrepreneurs and that thing said, Well, we don't want him, he's deaf.

Presenter24:58

Mm.

Eric Sykes24:58

And and there was that.

Presenter25:00

And these days your sight isn't very good either, is it?

Eric Sykes25:03

No.

Presenter25:04

What have you got? Peripheral vision or?

Eric Sykes25:06

No, it's uh it's something it's called latimus something rather. I'm not sure that's uh an affliction of the chest, but uh everything's in squiggles, the the the bit of vision I have.

Presenter25:17

So how do you manage on the stage?

Eric Sykes25:17

So

Eric Sykes25:19

Oh, very good. I have to have somebody to take me onto the stage, you know, to on the side, which is rather gloomy. And uh I just go in the door and that's fine. Once I'm on the stage I'm all right. But somebody has to take me round the back for every entrance and wait for me for every every exit.

Presenter25:19

What a

Presenter25:36

Do you feel resentful? Do you think you have more than your fair share of disabilities?

Eric Sykes25:41

Oh, I don't. I always think it's it's there to test me. It's uh, you know, can he get over this one? Well, I I figure out now I can get over everything except death. And uh, you know, I I'll I'll have a serious goal at that.

Eric Sykes25:57

More music. Oh yes, Sweet Banana. Well, we've done many shows in Zimbabwe. We spent a lot of time with the King's African Rifles and they brought their band to to play actually for us. This was one of the songs that they sang, and it's a wonderful thing to listen to.

Speaker 426:14

Are, areado, buy you a sweet banana.

Speaker 426:21

A B

Speaker 426:24

I will buy you a sweet banana.

Speaker 426:32

B C D

Speaker 426:34

Headquarters, I will buy you a sweeper night.

Presenter26:39

Sweet Banana, sung and played by John Edmund and the Rhodesian African Rifles Regimental Marching Band. You've made several silent films, Eric. Was it most famously The Plank, I should say. W was it as a result of the deafness, or was it because, you know, visual humour is very much your thing?

Eric Sykes26:58

I would say it was because visual humor. I was greatly influenced by Lorna and Hardie and I loved all those visual things that they that they did. I loved the two of them because when they walked down the street, the sun was shining, they had a a swagger about their gait, but you knew that they were doomed to failure.

Presenter27:18

You don't slow up, though, do you? I mean, you're seventy four?

Eric Sykes27:22

Yeah.

Presenter27:22

Why don't you give yourself a break? Don't want one.

Eric Sykes27:25

No, they they'll tell me when it's time to go. My mother and whoever else is looking after my destiny. They'll tell me uh to say it's it's time to uh hang up your uh red nose or whatever, or your explodable boots.

Eric Sykes27:39

I've got these films. I've got a silent I'd like to do with Bob Hoskins, which is uh almost ready and but we'll have to do it in the summer because it's a sunny uh one. And so uh I I have uh all these things that I'm desperately keen to do and excited about them. But you could afford to stop, couldn't you?

Eric Sykes27:58

I don't know about that. I haven't talked to we w we don't have bank managers now, do we? No, I I haven't talked to the computer about that, but uh I I think I could, you know, if uh the matron's very good and uh she looks after me.

Eric Sykes28:12

She doesn't know I'm here. She thinks I'm coming to walk across the lawn.

Presenter28:17

Record number seven.

Eric Sykes28:18

This is Jack Parnell. You see, every g person that I know, like Peter Sellers, Johnny Spate, myself, we all started off or tried to start off our career as drummers.

Eric Sykes28:30

I always and Jack Farnell was the orchestra leader in those days as well. And he could play Bach too. He went nutties studying Bach. He's a great guy, Jack. I spoke to him and said, I want to hear some when you were with the Ted Heath band, you see, because I introduced Jack Domel told me, I said he's been with Ted Heath. And he said he's a politician, isn't he? And I said, I don't know about that, but he's also got a band. And Jack Farnell was a drummer in that, and he's a really great guy.

Presenter29:32

Ring Dem Bells performed by Ted Heath and his band with Jack Parnell on drums.

Eric Sykes29:36

Well, what a drummer. We're never in that class, but what a great guy.

Presenter29:41

50 years old, that record is amazing, isn't it? What about comedy today? Who makes you laugh?

Eric Sykes29:43

Yeah.

Eric Sykes29:48

Joe Pasquale. Eddie Isard is probably one of the great ones. And I think he's rather clever. He doesn't do a lot on television.

Eric Sykes29:56

But uh

Presenter29:58

I thought you had a soft spot for Victoria Wood.

Eric Sykes30:00

Oh yes, I think she's lovely. And I think she's so clever, Victoria Wood. And but funny with it. And and also, I mean, when she sits down and plays a piano and things like that, it almost looks as if like uh she didn't really want to play in the first place. But she's not quite sure of her talent. But it is there in in a great abundance in spades.

Speaker 230:15

But

Presenter30:22

But but would I be right in saying that sums up your kind of humour, and therefore the kind of humour you like, which is that it is quite gentle, it's very warm.

Presenter30:31

And it's kind of it it it's it's not hopeless, is it? There's a kind of optimism to it.

Eric Sykes30:36

The sun is always shining and there's a pot of gold just round the corner. That's what it's all based on. And wouldn't it be nice if the world was like that?

Eric Sykes30:46

Oh, yes.

Presenter30:47

What about your desert island? Do you think it will be like that? How pleasant a business do you think it'll be for you, all alone on a desert island?

Eric Sykes30:55

Uh I don't know. I don't think of any different to what it is now. I think i if if something comes up in my mind I've I've got to write it. But you've also got to have the other end, people to laugh at it.

Eric Sykes31:07

And I think I get very frustrated of writing funny stuff that I I've felt that nobody was ever going to read or listen to. And you can't stand up in front of a bunch of palm trees and do an act.

Eric Sykes31:19

I've done it, mind you, although they were they said they were people.

Presenter31:22

Yeah.

Eric Sykes31:23

Uh

Presenter31:24

Tell me about your last record.

Eric Sykes31:26

I think sometimes during the nights on this desert island it'd get a bit uh lonely. So I'd like something to lift my spirit. What I've chosen is uh the Hallelujah Chorus. As we've had so much fun uh out of my life, all the records I've chosen have been chosen with love and and they're all a bit parochial. So the Hallelujah Chorus it'd be fine. It all depends who's singing it.

Speaker 432:20

Oh God, who gave us everyone

Presenter32:42

Part of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah, and that was performed, Eric, by the London Symphony Chorus and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Bolt. So that's a diversion.

Eric Sykes32:51

Not a bad bunch. Not a bad bunch. No, I think I'd play that every night. And then ev anybody else that had animals and that thing, oh, there's a bunch of them there. Keep away.

Presenter33:02

What about if you could only take one, then I suppose it'd have to be that one keep you safe?

Eric Sykes33:07

I think I would take that one, because uh I'd feel I might join in, too.

Presenter33:12

What about a book as well as the Bible or Shakespeare? Any good to you?

Eric Sykes33:16

Well, not because I can't read books anymore, but if I had a book and I could read, I was thinking that Ripley's, believe it or not, he used to write all facts of things like a fack here in India who'd gone around with his arm up in the air, and of course it had withered up in the air. That was the way he went round. And a bird had built a nest in his hand. Now, these are the sort of facts that were fascinating as a boy, and I'd like Ripley's, believe it or not.

Presenter33:47

A book of fascinating facts. And what about your luxury?

Eric Sykes33:51

What I would like to do is to have a a sandwich and a a crateful of golf balls.

Eric Sykes33:59

And I could stick a palm tree up there and put a flag on it, a bit of my shirt on it for a flag, and try to hole out from what I would call a large bunker. But I'd have to have my guru, this is Tony Fisher, who's an old pro who takes me out twice a week to play golf and he he looks where the ball goes and everything. And then I'd like to write to the PGA and and have it put on the tour so that they'd have a a match there. Eventually I'd have eighteen holes of palm trees for flags, and no fairways, all bunker.

Eric Sykes34:30

And how's that?

Presenter34:33

As long as you've got a sandwich, you'll be fine.

Eric Sykes34:35

Well, I should be, but the time, you know, by the time I finished.

Presenter34:39

Eric Sykes, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Eric Sykes34:42

Well, it's been a pleasure for me. Thank you, Sue.

Speaker 234:52

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co. uk slash radio four.