Bob Monkhouse

Speaker 30:00

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.

Speaker 30:09

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety eight and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:32

My castaway this week is an entertainer. Now seventy years old, he's been in the business for more than fifty years. His faultless delivery and astonishing memory for lines and jokes won him top billing at an early age, and he went on through shows like The Golden Shot, Bob's Full House, and Celebrity Squares, to become one of this country's most ubiquitous and familiar celebrities. But the star with the self confident charm smarmy some call him is the product of a difficult upbringing. His mother didn't speak to him for twenty years after he married. I think, therefore, I invented a facade, he says. He is Bob Monkhouse. Will the real Bob Monkhouse stand up?

Presenter1:10

I suppose it's what you've been doing all your life, stand-up.

Bob Monkhouse1:12

Well, yes, I think because I wasn't much of a fellow when I was young, being yourself made large, which a comedian I think ought to be.

Bob Monkhouse1:22

uh was not particularly impressive. But because I had

Bob Monkhouse1:26

Facile tongue, and I was fairly articulate. I was employed immediately by television as well.

Presenter1:32

And a perky mind, you said.

Bob Monkhouse1:34

See how the Pokemon?

Presenter1:35

But describe it to me, what happens? Because of course we know you prepare very well. You're very diligent, very conscientious, you do a lot of homework. You can construct and act, you know, the scaffolding of of the gags and the lines. But you have to capture that magic out there, and if you don't capture that, it's flat, isn't it?

Bob Monkhouse1:45

Gags

Bob Monkhouse1:50

That's right, but then there are lots of ways of changing your grip on your opponent, if that's the way you view your audience. Or uh s some use the analogy of riding a horse to get that audience correctly paced so that you don't exhaust them too early. Try not to use your A material too soon. You save that for later. And in those first three or four minutes, you find what what the audience is like.

Presenter2:14

But you're working all of the time. I mean, you're watching yourself watching them. Oh, yes. Working out what it is they like, what it is they're going for.

Bob Monkhouse2:17

Oh yes.

Presenter2:21

And when, what's the feeling? When is it a delicious moment when you suddenly have got them? How does it happen?

Bob Monkhouse2:27

They're usually there now for it the only dates I hate to play I love dates where my name is up outside because then the people know who they're going to see and they paid uh for a ticket to see you because they want to see you. Well, so you've won the battle. But when you're booked as a surprise cabaret uh for two hundred and fifty butchers' apprentices and they've all been betting all evening that they're going to see um

Bob Monkhouse2:48

simply read um you have got an everest to climb

Speaker 22:52

Yeah.

Bob Monkhouse2:53

Flopsweat is cold. You feel it running down your back, but it's it's icy. And your suit gets too big for you. You feel as if you're rattling around in your suit. You feel as if you are shrinking as a person. And the one thing that I always tell young comedians that I've discovered is you must slow down when that happens. You can't

Bob Monkhouse3:10

If you start chattering fast, the situation worsens.

Presenter3:14

But just tell me something. I get the impression reading about you that you prefer

Presenter3:18

Appearing live in a club to being on the television. More vastly. And when people see you do that, as I understand it, they come up to you afterwards and say, We never liked you on the telly, but we like you now.

Bob Monkhouse3:29

They used to say that all the time. Now they don't seem to mind me. I think I've battered down their resistance a bit. Well, at least they don't say it to me as often as they used to.

Presenter3:36

I just wonder if we don't get the facade that I mentioned at the beginning on the television, whereas the real you is out there in the clubs.

Bob Monkhouse3:42

Here's my t tiny theory for what it's worth.

Bob Monkhouse3:45

Television has this subtle way of changing certain elements in what you are, your personality, and it will emphasise some things perhaps which are unsavoury, um, instead of those elements which are attractive. And quite often we all know it puts weight on people. Skinny people can appear normally proportionate on television, and fat ladies look enormous.

Bob Monkhouse4:03

Um m men, I think, if they are

Bob Monkhouse4:07

If they attempt to be more friendly and more charming, if you like.

Bob Monkhouse4:13

Than is normal, then it will come over as almost offensively oily or obsequious. You talk about yourself.

Presenter4:18

You talk about yourself.

Bob Monkhouse4:19

Cool.

Bob Monkhouse4:20

And I think that has happened to me. My parents brought me up to be very polite.

Presenter4:24

Your whole problem is you're too polite and too nice.

Bob Monkhouse4:27

Well that's my way of putting it.

Presenter4:29

Tell me about your first record.

Bob Monkhouse4:31

Um it's Sinatra. It he is the voice of the century, he is the voice of my the populist voice of my entire life, Sinatra.

Bob Monkhouse4:39

I worked with him only once when he came over to do the Shoband Show in the early fifties, and I went round with Cyril Stableton, the bandleader, the Shoband Show bandleader, and the producer John Browell and Johnny Stewart to present him with the continuity script that I'd written. And he kept us waiting for a couple of hours in an ante-room to hit the suite he had in the London Hotel. And so the other two left. They decided it was my job to just go through the script with him. And after about another half an hour, I badly needed the lavatory, so I started experimenting with doors. And I opened a door, and it obviously was a bathroom, and I tiptoed across to use the loo, and a cake of soap hit me on the head.

Bob Monkhouse5:18

So I rushed out and

Bob Monkhouse5:20

Not attempting to explain myself, and opened the wrong door again. And I recognised the young lady who was in the double bed. And Sinatra then appeared in the doorway behind me and socked me. Well, as I was turning, he obviously made for my face, but I turned away and he got me in the side of the jaw and the neck. And when he came on the show, he was courtesy itself, enormously professional, very charming, did the script, never spoke to me. And he left, and his assistant pressed a little box into my hand and said, That's Frank's apology. And it was a gold Rolex.

Speaker 25:51

Don't know why

Speaker 25:56

There's no sun up

Speaker 25:59

In the skies, stormy weather

Speaker 26:09

Since my gal and I together

Presenter6:17

Frank Sinatra and Stormy Weather and you couldn't be cast away without him. You worked with him you worked with them all, it seems to me. Dean, Martin, Lenny, Bruce, Jack Benny, Tommy Cooper, Bing Crosbie. Didn't you write a script for Crosbie that he delivered completely by eye?

Bob Monkhouse6:32

Yes, he was pie-eyed. It was I've never seen anything like it in my life. Um

Bob Monkhouse6:36

We were we met him at the Criterion for lunch. Ronnie Waldman was then they had a variety and a number of other people were there. And uh he was asking if he'd like something to drink and he said, I'll have a bourbon. And Ronnie Waldman said, Shall we make it a large one? He said, No, just a regular bottle.

Bob Monkhouse6:51

Well, bourbon was hard to get in the early 50s, but they managed to find a bottle of some kind of bourbon, old grandad or something, and throughout the meal, without eating much of his Chicken Maryland, Bing just swigged the bottle until it was empty, and his eyes were rolling in his head, and he was completely stocious. We had great difficulty getting him under the arms and out into a snowy London, and his feet skidding around on the icy pavement. And so we said we can't possibly do the programme. And his musical director, John Scott Trotter, said he'll be all right. We said, What are you talking about? He won't be all right. He'll be all right.

Bob Monkhouse7:25

Okay.

Bob Monkhouse7:26

He was useless in the wings, behind that curtain that used to be and the stage was beyond us, and the orchestra on one side and the studio audience on the other. And then his bell note played, just just the uh the first note of his signature tune, which was when the blue of the night meets the goal of the night. Bong and he straightened.

Speaker 27:41

But

Bob Monkhouse7:44

And it wasn't an illusion, it just his eyes focused.

Bob Monkhouse7:48

And his his backbone straightened, and he just as his foot hit the stage, he was sober.

Presenter7:54

Do you have a drink before we go? You're a mold whiskey man, aren't you?

Bob Monkhouse7:57

Yes, I love malt whisky. I also have a large slug before I go on stage, if I'm going to work for over an hour. And around about forty five minutes in I get a surge of energy, which I'm I may be kidding myself, but I think I've probably burned up that alcohol, turned it into sugar, and it's given me another forward plunge.

Presenter8:11

But what you do, um uh you you have a gag for every circumstance, don't you? I mean, in fact you've done whole programs about it, like gag tag. Somebody s I mean if I say New Year to you, y you can give me a gag.

Bob Monkhouse8:22

Yes. I find

Bob Monkhouse8:24

I've got to cut down my New Year's Eve drinking, because I wake up with a pitted complexion from my face having been laying in a bowl of peanuts all night.

Presenter8:32

Now, when you do that, your eyes sort of go off to the right slightly. So is it a photographic memory? Are you looking at a page somewhere?

Bob Monkhouse8:38

No, no, no. I'm weaving words together. I was I was trying to think through to as soon as you said that, I was trying to think of where you would drink and I saw immediately a bowl of peanuts. So I thought that's what I do. I I'll f uh what did I do with that?

Presenter8:44

The first one

Bob Monkhouse8:51

Then that the g the the idea for the the pictorial joke.

Presenter8:52

Yeah.

Presenter8:54

But you do write these jokes down, don't you, in in I understand different coloured inks.

Bob Monkhouse8:58

But we know

Presenter8:58

Well, we know you do because of course the books were stolen, weren't they?

Bob Monkhouse9:01

When my books were stolen, and and they're safely back with me now, thank heavens, um, they were in fact colour-coded.

Presenter9:08

Coded for what?

Bob Monkhouse9:09

Um, partly for memory, because I can remember whether it's in red ink, blue ink, green ink, brown ink, whatever it is. Um if it's a bit naughty the joke's a bit naughty, it's in brown. If the joke is something that I've derived from somebody else's idea, it's always in green.

Bob Monkhouse9:24

If it's an incomplete thought, it's in black, and needs improvement and needs to work on it.

Presenter9:31

If you can if you can call them up so easily, which you obviously can, why was there such a fuss when you lost the books?

Bob Monkhouse9:38

Well, then the books was not they weren't just jokes. You can buy a joke book in a shop. It was material.

Bob Monkhouse9:44

Warp and weft of what I'd do for a living. It was cartoons, drawings of props.

Bob Monkhouse9:50

Whole scenes on on of sketches and plays, ideas for plays and plots, material that I intend to work on for the next ten years.

Presenter9:59

So when you lost it it was terrible.

Bob Monkhouse9:59

So when you

Bob Monkhouse10:01

It was awful because I hadn't bothered to actually commit it all to memory or to computer. My the books were always with me.

Presenter10:07

Second record.

Bob Monkhouse10:09

When I was a teenager and

Bob Monkhouse10:12

I had a wonderful romantic time with a number of very, very

Bob Monkhouse10:15

Short-sighted women. And every time I seemed to be enjoying Congress, on the radio there was Vaughan Munro's hit record of Racing with the Moon. It was his signature tune. He'd written it himself. And Vaughan Munro was a band leader who actually wanted to be an operatic singer, I believe, at one time. He made one movie as a cowboy, and he was exactly the way his voice sounded, a muscular-looking man. He sounds like a weightlifter who's decided to sing. And this particular melody, it's a lovely melody, and it's something that brings up so many memories of my teen years in my mind, many of them utterly delicious and experimental.

Speaker 211:02

Fly up in the midnight blue

Speaker 211:09

And then all too soon.

Speaker 211:13

It's lost for me.

Presenter11:18

Vaughan Monroe singing his theme tune Racing with the Moon

Presenter11:22

Memories of a thousand, if not more, romantic entanglements.

Speaker 311:25

Yeah.

Presenter11:26

Um it was your marriage as a result of one of those romantic entanglements at the age of twenty one that alienated you from your family. Is it true your mother came to the wedding eventually but in black?

Bob Monkhouse11:36

Yes. I still have photographs of her stern-faced in that uh black outfit that she bought especially for it, I think. But what

Presenter11:43

Bye.

Bob Monkhouse11:44

I never really understood myself until I had a kind of epiphany, I suppose, right in the middle of talking to Dr Antony Clare in a studio not unlike this.

Bob Monkhouse11:55

And I suppose I became

Bob Monkhouse11:57

Rather emotional.

Bob Monkhouse11:59

I don't know that that studio is is dark.

Bob Monkhouse12:02

And I wasn't facing the control panel, I'd even forgotten I was on.

Speaker 212:04

I'm not even the

Bob Monkhouse12:06

On the radio.

Bob Monkhouse12:08

And he asked me did I think my mother hated me?

Bob Monkhouse12:13

And

Bob Monkhouse12:16

He said he guided me into realizing that my mother's love for me was much greater than she could handle.

Bob Monkhouse12:24

And uh

Bob Monkhouse12:26

I had never seen it that way. In all those years I hadn't seen it.

Presenter12:28

Because she'd been so undemonstrative towards you.

Bob Monkhouse12:30

Yes.

Bob Monkhouse12:32

She was brought up, I suppose, not to show her feelings, and and therefore didn't expect her children to show their feelings and

Bob Monkhouse12:40

And she was not a woman who was tactile in any way. I was never I was I can remember only one occasion once I had se left infancy behind when she actually embraced me, and that was out of fear of Doodlebugs buzz bombs falling.

Presenter12:53

What about your father in all of this? He was pretty bleak, too, by the sound of it.

Bob Monkhouse12:57

Yes, Dad was a a prematurely bald accountant, of of of somewhat parsimonious disposition.

Bob Monkhouse13:04

who was, I think, fairly well dominated by my mother.

Bob Monkhouse13:08

He seemed to be quite

Bob Monkhouse13:09

frightened of her at times. And certainly I do believe he came to see me once. I did a show at Streatham Hill Theatre, and I'm sure as I looked out the window I saw my father leaving.

Bob Monkhouse13:19

In the audience.

Presenter13:20

But other than that, you don't know that they either of them ever saw you.

Bob Monkhouse13:23

No. Dad died when he was sixty-four in 1957, and although I had my own television series by that time and was off to the races, as it were, as a performer, um I've no idea whether he was either pleased or displeased by that. People have written to me subsequently, subsequent to that um uh Anthony Ch Clare programme, who knew my mother in the latter part of her life, and they tell me in the letters whether they're just being kind or not, I just don't know, but they said that she was very proud of me.

Presenter13:51

And that helps, obviously. I mean, you can't.

Bob Monkhouse13:53

Oh, that was a great c consolation for me, yes. That that's something why I want to believe those letters.

Presenter13:57

But the other thing that that strikes me reading about all of this, uh because you've written about it, is that in the midst of all this

Presenter14:04

Awful lovelessness is what it sounds like. You never really got low. You were never brought down by it. You always kept your pecker sunny side up, Bob, you know.

Bob Monkhouse14:13

I don't know whether that's an indication of shallowness of character, or whether it's just that my equanimity is such a powerful.

Bob Monkhouse14:22

I fang it within me.

Bob Monkhouse14:23

That there is no dark side. I d I don't suffer from any kind of melancholia. I'm I'm never bored.

Bob Monkhouse14:29

And I don't get depressed.

Presenter14:32

Tell me about your third record.

Bob Monkhouse14:34

Well, I suppose arising out of my lack of melancholia is my fascination with things that are melancholy. It's as if I'm reaching for melancholy music in an effort to understand its inspiration. And when Maurice Revell, at a very young age, I think in his twenties, wrote his Pavan for a dead princess, he had no particular princess in mind, apparently, although the reference to an enfant seems to suggest in found her a Spanish princess. But the melody line

Bob Monkhouse15:01

which he which he wrote for piano. It it wasn't orchestrated by him until ten years later. But nevertheless and when he did come to orchestrate it, he used every part of the orchestra so elliptically, so smoothly, that it seems to suggest a kind of g gentle, beautiful misery, and I find that enthralling.

Presenter16:20

Bot of Ravel's Pavan for a Dead Princess, played by the Ulster Orchestra, conducted by Jan Pascal Tortellier, and that's Bob Mancas' Hankering After a Bit of Misery.

Bob Monkhouse16:30

But it is so beautiful, lovelier than that music doesn't get.

Presenter16:34

What did your parents say when you told them that you wanted to become a comedian?

Bob Monkhouse16:39

Don't ever remember that happening, to tell you the truth. Um

Presenter16:41

But your mother had paraded you in front of friends, hadn't she?

Bob Monkhouse16:45

My mother was a good artist. She was a good painter. She was a watercolourist really, and not about sculptress either. And she had always encouraged me to draw. So she really saw my future as being in in cartooning, doing a cartoon strip for the newspapers. I d I drew a lot for comics, you know, the ch Children's Weeklies when I I was in my teens. And

Presenter17:03

Make money?

Bob Monkhouse17:04

Oh, yes. I always had an eye on making a few bulbs. So from the age of

Bob Monkhouse17:09

I think my first

Bob Monkhouse17:11

Publication was in Mickey Mouse Weekly, uh when I was twelve, and uh I got, I think, a guinea for that.

Bob Monkhouse17:18

Then I sold some jokes at the stage door of the Lewisham Hippodrome and the Penge Empire to some comedians. I just went there on my bike. I'd written the jokes. I'd typed them out on a very old Imperial which I'd bought for eleven pounds.

Presenter17:26

Major

Bob Monkhouse17:31

and took my jokes there and I I managed to sell a few and

Presenter17:34

Is that is that where you met Max Miller? Is that he bought some jokes from you, did he?

Bob Monkhouse17:38

His dresser actually took them in to him, and came back and gave me

Bob Monkhouse17:41

Um

Bob Monkhouse17:42

I used to say, well, he gave me folding money, but you'd had to put a a hinge in a half crown for it to have been that. Max was notoriously stingy. But he was very generous with advice, and he said one line I've never forgotten. He had me sat in the back of his Rolls-Royce Max One during the charity concert, and he gave me more or less a master class in timing and audacity.

Bob Monkhouse18:05

And he had one lovely line. I don't know whether he originated it, I imagine he did. He said, You know, comedy comedy is the one job you can do badly, and no one will laugh at you.

Bob Monkhouse18:15

That was a great line.

Presenter18:17

And Arthur Askie gave you a few tips as well, didn't he?

Bob Monkhouse18:20

Arthur was my friend. I cuddled my radio in bed. Used to s suck the the the flex I loved it so um which I'm surprised I'm still alive to tell the tale.

Bob Monkhouse18:31

So when um Dennis Goodwin, my late writing partner and I, in nineteen forty nine were invited to write a radio series called Calling All Forces, hosted by Ted Ray, Arthur Askey was the first guest ever on that.

Bob Monkhouse18:44

Arthur had a wonder had several wonderful little tricks that I I know every time I want to pull applause from an audience and I don't think they're going to applaud if I just give them straight delivery I do a little check step backwards Arthur used to do the line and then step back just move back from the microphone clapping his hands at the same time and the very sound of one clap inspired more clapping and so the audience would almost as if psychologically he was leaving so they

Presenter19:09

He's going to take a little bow.

Bob Monkhouse19:11

Yes. And he w and sometimes if he wanted to extend a laugh, he would hold his sides and laugh like that um uh silly looking sailor outside the Black Bull Funfair who rolls around like that.

Bob Monkhouse19:23

Yeah.

Presenter19:23

You see I'm doing that.

Bob Monkhouse19:24

I often do that.

Presenter19:27

Tell me about your next record, number four.

Bob Monkhouse19:29

Oh, um Samuel Barber, the American composer, was about twenty four when he wrote his A Daggio for Strings, opus eleven, and again it's a it's a melody that I find entrancingly sad but uplifting.

Presenter20:45

The opening of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, Opus Eleven, played by the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Jeffrey Simon. What was your first big break in television, Bob? How did it come about?

Bob Monkhouse20:57

Well, I started in television in nineteen forty-seven up at Alexander Palace doing a show for Duncan Wood, which I don't think even he watched.

Bob Monkhouse21:06

And then after that nothing seemed to happen for me in television. I was doing guest appearances on things, but nothing seemed to be moving at that time. And then nineteen fifty one or two

Bob Monkhouse21:17

I had a wonderful break. I'd been writing uh radio shows.

Bob Monkhouse21:22

For Richard Murdoch and Kenneth Horne and Sam Costa, a famous comedy team from Much Binding in the Marsh, uh quite my favourite half hour in comedy ever.

Bob Monkhouse21:32

And Richard Murdock was a man of extraordinary charm and kindness. He was very encouraging to me, but I used to say, Gosh, I wish you'd come and see me perform so he came round to see me at the Nuffield Centre, which was the the famous centre in London for for forces, guys and girls in uniform, to go.

Bob Monkhouse21:48

And he's enthused. He said, You've got to get that. You've got to see you do that on television. People will be amazed at the speed and the timing and and the the he he he just encouraged me so much. And then one day he said I'm booked to compare a show called Garrison Theatre from Lichfield for an army camp by a very nice man called Barry Edgar.

Bob Monkhouse22:08

and if I went ill about two days before we had to do it,

Bob Monkhouse22:12

and recommended you to replace me, would you be ready?

Bob Monkhouse22:15

And I said, That's the most incredibly generous thing I've ever heard. And he said, No, no, nonsense. Nonsense.

Presenter22:20

And he did it.

Bob Monkhouse22:20

And that's exactly what he did.

Presenter22:22

And were you any good?

Bob Monkhouse22:24

I was sensational.

Bob Monkhouse22:27

I was better than good. I'd got all this stuff in my head, and I'd done my three years in the RAF, so my head was, I knew the Forces attitude. Now, Force's audience was just a darling situation for me. And Alma Cogan was on the show, and I remember Barry Edgar, after the rehearsal, said, Alma, you've got to cut a number. Everyone's got to cut a number to make room for this boy.

Presenter22:27

Do it.

Speaker 222:27

I'm sorry.

Presenter22:27

Scroll up.

Speaker 222:28

Yeah.

Presenter22:47

More music.

Bob Monkhouse22:48

I'll need to laugh on my desert island, and there are certain things that never fail to make me laugh, never ever, ever let me down. And one of those particular things is Jonathan and Darlene Edwards recordings. It takes a singer of extraordinary skill to sing not only off the beat, but with just off the note. And it is hysterical to me. It makes me laugh every time I hear it, and I'll laugh again now.

Speaker 223:21

Maybe sweet

Speaker 223:39

Confidential pay she sweet

Speaker 223:44

Just cast an old

Speaker 223:48

In her direction, only a moment.

Speaker 223:55

Ain't that perfection?

Speaker 223:59

Hi, Rewe. Don't you think that's kind of me?

Speaker 224:04

And I skill very confidentially, ain't she sweet?

Speaker 224:10

She sweet.

Speaker 224:13

Down the street.

Speaker 224:21

Think she likes to be a little bit more.

Speaker 224:24

What's more boy?

Presenter24:32

Jonathan and Darlene Edwards performing their inimitable version of Ain't She Sweet

Presenter24:38

You had a son, Bob, in nineteen fifty two, Gary, who was born with cerebral palsy. He was very disabled, wasn't he?

Bob Monkhouse24:46

Yes, Gary was uh

Bob Monkhouse24:47

Grossly handicapped.

Bob Monkhouse24:49

Um

Presenter24:50

What was he like as a character?

Bob Monkhouse24:52

Dove

Bob Monkhouse24:54

He's still with me every day. He he died five years ago. I can never get through a day without thinking of him and being inspired by him, too. He was a v he was an astonishing fellow. I mean, he could be Hitler on wheels sometimes, but um he had a knock down smile. He was very handsome.

Bob Monkhouse25:12

Um he couldn't hear and he couldn't speak.

Bob Monkhouse25:16

And he couldn't uh stand or sit or sit unaided, he had to have a strap.

Bob Monkhouse25:21

Around him to stay on his chair, and he couldn't use his hands, they had to be tied down, and he had to wear gloves at all times, because otherwise the fingernails would have uh torn at his palms. But he could control his right leg. His left leg he used as a kind of paper weight, but he could hold a pen between the big toe and the next toe of his right foot and draw.

Bob Monkhouse25:42

and he had a great sense of humour.

Presenter25:44

Did you help put him a lot?'Cause it was he was born at the time when your career was taking off, wasn't he?

Bob Monkhouse25:49

Yeah.

Bob Monkhouse25:52

Oh, enormously involved. In fact, it uh

Presenter25:53

Still both of

Bob Monkhouse25:55

I I couldn't not be with Gary for too long. He he needed to see me and I needed to see him. So I couldn't accept engagements abroad. So I couldn't several people have suggested I might have had a career in the United States. And that did crop up, but I couldn't leave this country, not while Gary needed to see me regularly. And I found my need to see him became greater with the passing of the years because

Bob Monkhouse26:19

He had a purity about him, uh, an innocence about him, which he never lost. Most of us lose it.

Presenter26:25

It's often said that that comics writers use the pain in their lives. Did you use him? Did you use Gary in your work?

Bob Monkhouse26:33

Yeah, it's been in your work.

Bob Monkhouse26:34

Whenever anything has upset me greatly

Bob Monkhouse26:37

I mean, given me nightmares, or has troubled me. I've usually wrapped it in a joke. I've usually turned it into a gag. There's been a tragedy perhaps in the press that's

Bob Monkhouse26:48

caused me to

Bob Monkhouse26:49

Don't have a tear.

Bob Monkhouse26:51

Then I will make a joke out of it.

Presenter26:52

You made a joke about your mother, didn't you? I mean a lot of your jokes have become My Mother Never Loved Me.

Bob Monkhouse26:54

Yeah.

Bob Monkhouse26:56

I've done a thousand jokes about my mother never loved me, my mother never d never wanted me and and there was that one gag I did on Loom.

Bob Monkhouse27:04

So, live from the palladium or something, uh which got a hoot, a crack of laughter, because if if humour is if other than blue humour, humour that is based upon tragedy is particularly funny to an audience, i they they reserve their biggest laughs for that which is that which is sometimes called the pornography of death.

Bob Monkhouse27:26

And I had a gag about my mother when I was a little baby. I I hate to say this, but she tried to kill me when I was a baby. I I you may be shocked at that. I wouldn't be surprised. She denied having tried to kill me. Uh she told the police she thought the plastic bag would keep me fresh.

Bob Monkhouse27:42

Now that is a cracking gag. That will laugh. It's enormous. And I used to do that gag regularly.

Presenter27:47

But it's dangerous because it's on the edge of bad taste. Well, it it it is bad taste, isn't it?

Bob Monkhouse27:52

It's in terrible taste, but the reason I wrote the joke and did it

Bob Monkhouse27:56

was because I had read of a tragedy in the press.

Bob Monkhouse27:59

And thought, I can't stand this, the way it was described in the paper. It haunted me. So I wrote the joke and got rid of it.

Presenter28:06

But not

Bob Monkhouse28:07

Yeah.

Presenter28:07

Garen Yeah.

Bob Monkhouse28:07

Yeah.

Presenter28:07

Yeah.

Bob Monkhouse28:10

I could never make jokes about uh cerebral palsy.

Presenter28:13

Next piece of music.

Bob Monkhouse28:16

Part of the A Daggietto from Marla Symphony No. 5.

Bob Monkhouse28:21

This never ceases to astonish me, no matter how prepared I am, for the passage in which.

Bob Monkhouse28:26

The music suddenly rises as if

Bob Monkhouse28:30

to the heavens. It still is a surging

Bob Monkhouse28:34

Nutrient for my spirit. It's like um it's it's like vitamins for the soul.

Presenter29:39

Part of the Adagietto from Mahler's Symphony No. 5, performed by the Orchestra of the Academy of St. Cecilia in Rome, directed by Franco Manino.

Bob Monkhouse29:46

Bunny

Presenter29:47

You've been, whatever you say, Bob, a huge success. You know, you've won all the awards there are and you've made and are still making, I think, a a very good living. You've got a happy second marriage and you've got a lovely home and you've got grandchildren and you've got it all. But you've presumably needed all of that support because you have taken, during the course of your career, a hell of a lot of flack, haven't you? And we've touched on some of it, you know, I said smile me in the beginning, Ollieaginous, Insincere. Wh w why why do you think there's been so much? Why have you succeeded in getting up people's notice so much?

Bob Monkhouse30:19

I've never figured it out. In all this time, I've never managed to work out quite what it is that arouses such venom in the press. And it seems to be.

Bob Monkhouse30:29

Extraordinary because uh uh the I don't get that from members of the public who seem to be

Bob Monkhouse30:35

Since to watch what I do, and either they find me funny or they don't. If they laugh, then to a certain extent they are committed to

Bob Monkhouse30:44

tolerating me at least.

Presenter30:45

But you said earlier on that that that things changed rather when you showed your vulnerability, when you revealed, you know, the your background and and the difficulties of your mother and so on. I wonder if that's it. That you didn't seem to be vulnerable before. You just seemed to be ever sunny, ever smiling, impregnable.

Bob Monkhouse30:53

Yes.

Bob Monkhouse31:03

That could be part of the reason, I suppose, uh and I'm sure that is a contributory factor to people uh liking me a bit better if they know that I'm not um

Bob Monkhouse31:12

Assuming the stance of someone who thinks he's the man who thinks he's it, as Steve Coogan calls his show.

Bob Monkhouse31:18

But I still don't understand why I excite such extraordinary dislike among pretty good writers. I mean, I've read some.

Bob Monkhouse31:26

Marvellously written stuff attacking me in the press. One writer actually wrote quite recently.

Speaker 231:29

One

Bob Monkhouse31:33

I was really disappointed with Bobmanka's home, which was a rather tasteful affair. I was hoping it would be as tacky and vile as possible.

Presenter31:40

So it's all hurt.

Bob Monkhouse31:42

Yes, I wish I could say it. I used to say, oh, no, I'm all scarce, you know, it doesn't hurt at all, but it does hurt. I mean, you say.

Presenter31:47

But even when you're seventy it goes on hurting, does it?

Presenter31:50

Nobody's

Bob Monkhouse31:51

Nobody sets out to be disliked.

Presenter31:53

Tell me about your sixth record.

Bob Monkhouse31:55

I have a very happy marriage with Jackie, second marriage, twenty five years marriage.

Bob Monkhouse31:59

But I I wrote him the first of my two autobiography books.

Bob Monkhouse32:04

that the problem with a very happy marriage is it can't have a happy ending.

Bob Monkhouse32:08

Will it

Bob Monkhouse32:09

That made one or two people write me letters, saying

Bob Monkhouse32:13

I

Bob Monkhouse32:14

Which would you rather have? A happy ending or a happy marriage? One guy wrote and said that his wife had just recently died. And

Bob Monkhouse32:23

that what I had written

Bob Monkhouse32:25

had made him realize that what he had were wonderful memories.

Bob Monkhouse32:31

Indeed.

Bob Monkhouse32:35

Uh

Speaker 232:35

When the kettle's on for tea

Speaker 232:39

An old familiar feeling settles over me

Speaker 232:45

And it's your face I see

Speaker 232:48

And I believe that you

Presenter32:55

Michael Feinstein, and you are there. It's casting away time, Bob. Does that fill you with dread?

Bob Monkhouse33:02

Ah, uh I I d I quite enjoy my own company.

Presenter33:05

What about Bob's Desert Island? Is it in the book? Is it in the joke book? Desert Island. Come on, boo, boom.

Bob Monkhouse33:10

I think one of the first jokes I ever had was about a desert island. It was Robinson Crusoe, who uh had all his work done by Friday.

Bob Monkhouse33:18

Come.

Bob Monkhouse33:19

Therefore had his weekends free. I guess that's the approach. I think I altered I altered that. I said Robert Shruzza'd be alone on the desert island for twenty years, and he never went to work on Friday, which is a rather ruder version of the same joke.

Speaker 233:21

I think I

Presenter33:29

It would, though, at Desert Island, be enforced retirement, you know, no no audience, no work, you know, no no no

Presenter33:36

Diligently going about your business, nothing to prepare for. You just couldn't cope with that, could you?

Bob Monkhouse33:42

I have a very

Bob Monkhouse33:44

Fertile imagination, and I can live in my mind quite happily for quite some considerable length of time.

Presenter33:52

But real retirement retirement for real is something you'll never do, isn't it?

Bob Monkhouse33:56

No, no, I don't have to, do I?

Presenter33:58

You'll die standing up.

Bob Monkhouse34:01

I hope that never happens again. But yes, I think the way Dear Tommy Cooper went and Kenneth Horne uh was wonderful, getting a laugh. That's the last sound they heard, and I think that's rather miraculous.

Presenter34:11

Last record.

Bob Monkhouse34:13

Well

Bob Monkhouse34:14

I I I've always found a bit

Bob Monkhouse34:17

A bit funny about people who come on Desert Island discs and choose their own records.

Bob Monkhouse34:22

But there's a lovely song called You Have Cast Your Shadow on the Sea, a most unusual little song, written by Rogers and Hart for their production of The Boys from Syracuse back in the 30s. And we revived that in 1963 and did it at Drury Lane. And I played Antiphilus of Syracuse or Antiphilus of Ephesus. I can't remember which Antiphilus I was. Dennis Quilley was my twin. And it was a lovely, lovely experience.

Speaker 234:48

And will reach my heart.

Speaker 234:56

When you cast your shadow on the sea.

Speaker 235:04

We all agree.

Presenter35:14

My Castaway, aged thirty five at the time, Bob Monkhouse, singing You Have Cast Your Shadow on the Sea from Rogers and Hart's The Boys from Syracuse. Um, if you could only take one of those eight records, Bob, which one would you take?

Bob Monkhouse35:28

Oh, I think it would

Bob Monkhouse35:31

Have to be the Adagia for Strings by Samuel Barber.

Presenter35:35

What about your book?

Bob Monkhouse35:37

That would be the complete works of Lewis Carroll.

Presenter35:39

What about if you could only have?

Bob Monkhouse35:41

One

Presenter35:41

One bit of Lewis Carroll.

Bob Monkhouse35:42

Well, The Hunting of the Snark, I suppose, is that my favourite piece of work by Lewis Carroll. But then again, I c I couldn't do without the characters in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. No, it would be Can I please have the complete adventures of Alice?

Presenter35:56

What about your luxury?

Bob Monkhouse35:58

I think I've given that a lot of thought.

Bob Monkhouse36:00

I finally concluded that what I'd like to have is a clarinet.

Bob Monkhouse36:04

I always loved Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, and I haven't got either of their records in my collection of Eight for the Desert Island. But I I think I could teach myself to play. It's the only instrument I've ever managed to conquer was a a recorder. And I think I'd like to teach myself to play. I wouldn't disturb anyone practising and playing badly. Uh I would eventually, I think, satisfy myself. And furthermore, I could go snorkeling and use it.

Bob Monkhouse36:29

For that purpose.

Presenter36:32

Bob Munkhouse, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Bob Monkhouse36:35

Thank you, Sue.

Speaker 336:43

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

Speaker 237:34

Yeah.