Mike Yarwood

Presenter0:00

This download is the only extract the B B C has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley. As a youngster, what did you want to be?

Presenter0:10

Um well I

Presenter0:12

Just before I left school I wanted to be a journalist and I was told that uh this couldn't be. The headmaster said uh you can't be a journalist because you don't have a GCE in English and I have since told this to journalists and they've laughed.

Presenter0:26

I said I've never heard anything so ridiculous, you know, none of them had G C's. Uh but I particularly wanted to write about sport, which has always interested me. And um Which sport in particular? Cricket, football, tennis, uh interest me tremendously. Um

Mike Yarwood0:30

I've

Mike Yarwood0:34

Which

Presenter0:40

And I would love to have written about them, yeah, but uh it wasn't to be. This imitative facility that you have, when did it start? Very early on?

Presenter0:49

It started with me, like every child, from sort of learning to talk. I think we all learn by mimicry, and I suppose I never stopped doing it really.

Presenter1:00

What did you do, having left school? Uh well, I I worked for a mail order firm, um, hoping I could get into the uh selling game. I was told to go into the selling game because I had the gift of the gab. I remember the teacher saying, Yah, would you got the gift of the gab, go and sell, you know. So I I went to a mail order firm and uh I left there and then went to another firm, a clothing firm, where there was a very good chance of me becoming a a commercial traveller, but unfortunately I failed my driving test four times. So that never came about. And um

Presenter1:29

It was then uh it was while I was at this firm that I was encouraged by people who I worked with to go into the entertainment profession in. Had you started entertaining as an amateur?

Presenter1:39

Um, only for about two weeks. Um, because in actual fact, uh I I earned more in the first two weeks as a semi pro than I could possibly earn uh in the at the

Presenter1:50

Clothing firm, you know.

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So I thought, well, there isn't much hope for me in the other job, so I'll I'll take a chance. I had nothing to lose really, because I wasn't getting anywhere in the other job because I kept failing my driving test. What was the semi-pro work you'd done?

Mike Yarwood2:01

What was

Presenter2:03

Uh well, it was clubs and pubs and things, you know. I I remember the first time I was asked to appear professionally, it was rather funny because the chap who asked me, um

Presenter2:12

Offered me 30 shillings to appear on the Friday night and the Saturday night in his pub. He'd seen me in an audition, you see. And.

Presenter2:20

I was so lacking in confidence about myself, I I knocked him down to a quid, you know. You offered to do it for less? Have you done that since? No, no, I I don't do it anymore. And what was your first full time job?

Mike Yarwood2:25

To do it for less.

Mike Yarwood2:27

Gun that's

Mike Yarwood2:28

No, I

Mike Yarwood2:31

Hello

Presenter2:33

a club in Manchester and they paid me twelve pounds for the week.

Presenter2:36

uh which was uh three quid more than I was getting at the rail order firm. Then I started to work sort of fourteen shows a week, you know, two shows a night. Yeah. And uh I could earn thirty pounds a week, which was a fortune to me, you know. So

Presenter2:50

You were a fully-fledged professional. Was there plenty of work about? There was indeed, actually, because.

Mike Yarwood2:53

It wasn't

Presenter2:55

Uh in Manchester the clubs were just sort of uh beginning to sort of blossom, you know, and there was so much work about then. Um and of course in Yorkshire and in the north east of England uh ten years ago the clubs were just uh

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beginning to happen and uh there was plenty of work about. I was very lucky. And when did you move further afield, out of the Manchester area? Well, I've never really moved uh

Presenter3:17

out of the the North of England club scene at all ever. I think uh my first sort of uh prestige move to the south was when I was asked to appear on Sunday night at the London Palladium in 1965 I think it was. And that was uh that was a great thing. That was a thing really that got me off the ground. And then there were summer seasons and pantomimes? Summer seasons. I was in Yarmouth for the first one, then Blackpool. And radio and television of course came along quite quickly. Yes I did I did various radio programmes. programmes that we don't have now, Midday Musical, I think I did once and things like that. And um and television came pretty frequently. Yes.

Presenter3:57

You did a couple of series of a programme called Three of a Kind that did you no harm at all. That was in 1967, yes, that was uh for BBC Two. Um and this programme was was quite popular. In fact, we were the first um light entertainment programme to about in colour, I think I'm right in saying. And uh that was the second series we did. And um

Presenter4:17

We all went our separate ways afterwards, uh Ray Fell and Lula, we all sort of uh Lula got her own show, we all sort of split up then after that.

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What do you look back on as your first big break?

Presenter4:28

Um I would say in nineteen sixty eight uh that the television series, which was called Will the Real Mike Yah, would stand up. Yes. And uh in the same year I was asked to appear in the Raw Variety performance, which was a great thrill as well.

Presenter4:41

Now you married one of the dancers on Will the Real Mike Yarwood Stand Up, didn't you? Yes, yes, I did. Um

Mike Yarwood4:42

You married.

Presenter4:48

I met Sandra on the programme. I was about three weeks plucking up the courage to ask her out. In fact, I had to get somebody to do it for me in the long run. And we were sort of courting for about twelve months, and then we got married. Yes. And then you did two series of Look, Mike Yerwood. The first one got something of a hasting for the critics, but the second one was a tremendous success. What was the difference between the two series? Um it was very little really. I think the second series probably was better because of uh I gained experience, although I thought the material on the first show was um every bit as good. Yes, now obviously impersonation is isn't enough, it it is the material, it's what the the characters are doing.

Mike Yarwood5:24

Mm-hmm.

Presenter5:24

Do you write a lot of your own material? Yes, I do. I have a scriptwriter for the T V series and he does uh other bits for me. But I think it's important that uh a performer should uh be very much involved with his own material. Um

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I have to think uh what those people would say, you know. I mean, uh if I write a script for um Max Bygraves, I have to um

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think what he would say or if I write a bit for

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Edward Heath, I have to think what he would say in whatever situation I'm putting them into.

Presenter5:57

Mike, how do you set about planning an impersonation? Which strikes you first, is it the voice or the face or a mannerism?

Presenter6:04

Um no, it it's a very collective thing. If if I see somebody become famous and they've got tremendously

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Predominant mannerisms and they speak a certain way which is unusual.

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I go for it right away. I I don't find um just the voice is enough. I think that I i the whole thing has got to be um

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Visually uh amusing as well as uh vocally, you know. How long does it take usually unt until you're quite confident that you've worked your way into the skin of this personality?

Mike Yarwood6:24

Obvious

Presenter6:35

It can take ages. I mean, I'm still trying to do Sir Alec Douglas Hume and it it really it can take a long time and I I th I watch television all the time when I've got the free time. I just keep watching television and uh until it comes, you know. How do your victims feel about it? Obviously um i they should feel flattered in some way and it in its good publicity but do they never feel that they're being held up to ridicule?

Presenter7:01

Um well, I've never had uh any reaction from the people that I do. Uh I have had reaction, people have re remarked about it, but never taken offence. Are you planning to broaden your scope? I mean, d would you like to do the singing and dancing and

Presenter7:16

Well, I do a little bit of singing on the T V shows, but I never take it seriously. I just do it. Um I'm what you might call a very, very average singer for a comedian, but um I'm a below average singer for a singer. So um there's talk of me doing a record, so um who knows, I may sort of uh branch out. It's not an ambition of mine.

Presenter7:39

What about straight work? Would you like to turn your ability to characterize into straight acting?

Presenter7:45

Well, it's um

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There again, it's not an ambition, but if I was asked to do it, I would certainly like to.

Presenter7:53

I I've never had any training in acting. People often say to me, uh, Oh, yes, but you are an actor because look at all these people you do, but of course they are real, they exist. I know them, I can see them. Um if you're an actor you have to pick up a piece of paper, which is uh

Presenter8:09

Your script, and you have to uh create the character yourself, whereas the people I do actually exist, and I find that easier than acting.

Mike Yarwood8:12

Right.