Benny Hill

Speaker 10:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:07

Benny, what part of England do you come from? Southampton.

Presenter0:10

What gave you your first interest in the theatre? Do you remember?

Benny Hill0:13

Yeah.

Presenter0:13

Uh

Benny Hill0:13

Um

Presenter0:14

Yeah.

Benny Hill0:14

It was probably um Christmas Days.

Benny Hill0:19

Stood up in the corner with funny hats on making mum, dad and aunties and uncles laugh with little impersonations of film stars and Ned Sparks and Gord Mark and all that lots of

Benny Hill0:29

What what did you develop? Two five.

Presenter0:31

From that.

Benny Hill0:31

Uh from that um I I did uh semi-pro entertaining, w working men's clubs and uh

Benny Hill0:40

Charity concerts and so on. What sort of act did you do?

Speaker 10:41

Yeah.

Benny Hill0:43

Anybody, so whoever I happen to see at the palace that particular week, including Max Miller, often.

Presenter0:47

There.

Benny Hill0:50

Uh

Presenter0:50

And what

Benny Hill0:50

But if

Presenter0:51

You left school you decided to do that professionally.

Benny Hill0:53

Uh yeah, well no, no, not immediately because it was always at the back of my mind. But I had various jobs. I worked for a coal company and I worked on a milk round and during this time um I used to do still do the semi-pro work but was getting better paid for it.

Presenter1:05

Yes.

Benny Hill1:05

And eventually I found I was getting more money from my semi-pro entertainment work than I was from the actual job during the day. So I packed it all up, sold my drum kit.

Presenter1:11

Yeah.

Benny Hill1:15

Came to London and got a job as a property boy.

Benny Hill1:20

At three pounds a week. Property boy, that meant you didn't have to appear at all. But I made my first professional appearance actually at uh East Ham Palace on the Wednesday first house after I'd opened on the Monday. But on the Monday I was uh had to set um

Benny Hill1:34

All the props out, you know, behind whatever scene was taking place in front. That this, you know, the small props like glasses and cups and saucers and so on. And the principal comic was Hal Bryan, and he used to go on. I could always hear this just coming through the cloth, you know, this opening of the show when he used to come on from one side and the straight man would come on from the other. And how the straight man would say, Hello, Hal, going to it. And he'd say, No, I'm just coming from it. And they go into a beer routine, buying drinks and being friendly with barmaids and so on, that sort of routine. But I was setting the props, and on the Wednesday, first house.

Benny Hill2:06

I have

Benny Hill2:07

I heard the music, and I knew how Brian had gone on stage, but I didn't hear the straight man coming on saying hello, how going to it, and going into the routine. I thought something must be wrong.

Benny Hill2:16

So I dashed round to the side of the stage and um

Benny Hill2:19

There's Hal Brian all by himself saying, oh, it's seven so lonely in East Ham, not a soul in sight. Well, we looked for the straight man everywhere and we couldn't find him, he was probably in the pub having a drink. So I knew somebody had to go on and help him out. So with me knees shaking and my hands all hot and sticky and trembling, I went onto the stage and with a very nervous, high-pitched voice said, Hello, Hal, going to it. And he said, thank goodness you've come. No, I'm just coming from it. And he was, for the rest of the sketch he delivered his lines out loud and my lines very quietly at the side of his mouth to me, you know, so that I could pick him up. And we managed, we pulled through.

Benny Hill2:54

What happened then? Well, I continued on as the property boy and eventually they gave me small parts and I did become a stage manager just just before I went into the army.

Presenter3:03

Any chance to do any entertaining in the Army?

Benny Hill3:05

Towards the end of my career, for the first three years of my Army service, I was a very bad driver mechanic.

Benny Hill3:11

But a bad one. I've never touched the wheel of a car since I've come out.

Benny Hill3:15

And for the last 18 months or so I went into Army Entertainments, which was called Stars in Battledress, Central Pool of Artists, and went over to CSE afterwards, where incidentally the the colonel who was in charge of CSE, Colonel Stone, is now my agent. So you got your Colonel

Presenter3:32

They're not working for it.

Benny Hill3:32

Yeah.

Presenter3:32

Uh Yeah.

Benny Hill3:33

Yes, he's not working hard enough.

Presenter3:34

Work it out again. Every private sambish.

Benny Hill3:36

Of course.

Presenter3:37

Yes. And when you were demobilized.

Benny Hill3:39

Well, when I was demobilised I came out and did a few working men's clubs around London, pound for a single spot, thirty bob for two spots and then, you know, that would lead to a a Masonic dinner and that would lead to a week's variety. I did my first broadcast for Eric Speer, who helped me in broadcasting very much by seeing.

Presenter3:54

Yeah.

Presenter3:56

Is there any particular occasion?

Benny Hill3:57

Any particular occasion that you can look back on as your big opportunity? No, I think uh

Presenter4:00

No.

Benny Hill4:02

There has been no big opportunity. It's been, you know, very slowly going up. And I hope it'll be just as slow coming down.

Speaker 14:06

Yeah.

Benny Hill4:09

When did you start in television, Benny? I think about 51, 52-ish.

Benny Hill4:15

I think.

Benny Hill4:16

And there again, it's funny how I got into television. A lot funnier than when I'm on. But the thing is, no, um, I was in a a a show a touring show, and because my performance was not suitable, shall we say, it was lousy.

Benny Hill4:30

And I don't blame the proprietors at all and they asked me to leave, you know.

Benny Hill4:35

And um and I left the show and I had nine weeks out of work, but during that nine weeks

Benny Hill4:41

Uh I spent all day writing television material. I had a feeling then that television was going to be the thing that that would do more for me than anything else.

Presenter4:50

Yeah.

Benny Hill4:50

And I wrote material.

Benny Hill4:52

I managed to get in to up at television BBC television and

Benny Hill4:59

to see Bill Lyonshaw and uh he sent me along to see Ronnie Waldman, who didn't know me from a hole in the ground.

Benny Hill5:05

And he was then head of Light Entertainment on BBC and I put all this material, a pile of it, in front of him and said, look, Mr. Waldman, would you like to pick any of those sketches and, you know, anyone you like and read it and tell me if you think I've got any promise as a scriptwriter? I had a feeling I would be a scriptwriter then, you know. And he said, well, he pulled one out. He said, that's alright. Read it. Work it for me. And I worked it for him. And he said, well, you've made me laugh in the office here, you know, and I like the way you work it. Would you like your own show? And I said, yes. He said, in three weeks' time, I said, yes. He said, right, well, you've got it. And he gave me my own show three weeks from that day. The Benny Hill Show. Well, it was called High There. They said, who would know Benny Hill? We'd call it High There. But it was virtually my own show. I was MC'd it and did all the sketches in it.

Presenter5:46

All the sketches are there. Now these impersonations of yours, it must need a tremendous amount of of rehearsal and planning. F for example to do all the people in What's My Line in in one sketch.

Benny Hill5:55

Well, no, to be fair, I shouldn't be saying this, but really it's a bit of a trick. If you sit at the same desk that the What's My Line panel sit at, and you've just done an impersonation with, say, of David Nixon.

Benny Hill6:06

And you got to the other end of the table. The people are expecting Gilbert Harding before you appear as him. So the chances are, if you look remotely like him and sound remotely like him, you're away.

Presenter6:13

I can you're away. Oh, Benny, you're you're top of the tree in in a whole lot of media. You're starring in a West End show. Uh, you've got the Benny Hill Show on television, there's radio and films. Now are you happy with things as they are at present, or have you any particular ambition?

Benny Hill6:27

Well, I'm quite happy with things as they are at present because, you know, I'm not over ambitious, you know, but I I do think the sensible thing to do is to specialize. And though I like stage work, cabaret work, radio work, television work and film work, I like them all. I think one really

Presenter6:30

Overhead

Benny Hill6:42

should specialize in one thing and I think that this coming year I will lean more and more towards television not just as a performer but also as a presenter of shows as a a writer an encourager shall we say of new comics and new scriptwriters and so on. See if a new comic comes on television instead of me worrying about him doing me out of a job I can say good I'm glad he's getting on because I'm helping him to get there I'm helping you know

Presenter6:58

See?

Speaker 17:05

How you know No ambition to play Hamlet? Oh no, no, no, none at all.

Benny Hill7:09

Yeah.

Benny Hill7:14

My first ever romance, the biggest I think I've ever had. I was twelve and she was fourteen, and I saw this lovely girl in a green coat and dark brown hair on a merry go round

Benny Hill7:25

at an Eastleigh Fairground, which is about six miles from Southampton um during a September carnival week when I was staying with my uncle and aunt and I fell like mad for this girl.

Benny Hill7:36

And um

Benny Hill7:38

I asked my cousin Chris, you know, all about her and he explained, you know, where she lives and everything. And he said that every lunchtime she used to take her father's lunch into his shop in Market Street in Eastley. Well, of course, I had to go back to school. But the next Christmas holiday that came up, the very first day of the holiday, I said, well, mum, I think I'll go out for a walk today. And she said, you'll be alright, wrap up warm and listen some sandwiches, you know. And I said, I'll be out all day, like, in a nice long walk, keep me fit. And I walked all the way into Eastleigh, stood at the end of Market Street, watched this girl go into the shop with her father's lunch, come out of the shop with the empties, you know, and go away. And that was my, and I'd finish my sandwiches and go home. That was my day made. And I did that day after day, right through the holidays. Six miles there, six miles back. Rain, shine, hail, storm, snow, a lot.

Presenter8:22

And you never spoke to her.

Benny Hill8:24

No, I didn't, and at the end of the holiday

Benny Hill8:27

I went back to school and

Benny Hill8:29

I don't know whether I forgot or I think my dad bought me a football or something and it took me my life or fiction that way.

Speaker 18:32

Me myself.