Charlie Cairoli

Speaker 40:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy six, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:31

Spending Christmas on our desert island is the clown Charlie Carolly.

Presenter0:35

Charlie, I don't have to ask if you're interested in music. How many instruments do you play? Oh, quite a few, I'll be honest with you.

Presenter0:43

Mm. Nearly the lot. Nearly the lot. Yeah. Only one I don't play. Mhm. Is the app.

Presenter0:50

But I think I got plenty of time for that. Probably get one free. Well, if you practice all of them every day you have your work cut out. Yes, I cannot practice every one, you know. It depends.

Presenter1:03

what act I'm gonna do and what I'm gonna use.

Presenter1:06

Where are you working this Christmas? You're you're in Pantomime? Yes, in the ice show at Wembley.

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Uh Sleeping Beauty.

Presenter1:13

What part in the story do you play? Oh, I don't play any part. No, no. You see, the point is that when you see people uh going round and round for a couple of hours, it's a good break for the audience to see something entirely different. You're just doing your acts? So we just do one or two acts. Yes. You don't wear skates? No, not at all. We got uh l like pointed shoes, you know, with the spike underneath. Mm-hmm. Otherwise we we go all over the place. Yes. What's your first record?

Presenter1:44

Shall I tell you something? I'm a very happy married man. As a matter of fact, it's over forty years now, and I got a delightful companion, so I think my first thought would be for my wife.

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And I know, I know she would love me to play a tune that she loved uh Darling, Jebusembuku. And who shall sing it? Oh, the only one.

Presenter2:10

Nothing coal.

Charlie Cairoli2:12

Darling Jevous M. Beaucl

Charlie Cairoli2:18

Genise Parv.

Charlie Cairoli2:20

What to do

Charlie Cairoli2:23

You know you completely

Charlie Cairoli2:27

Stolen my heart.

Presenter2:33

Nat King Cole. Could you stand loneliness, Jolly?

Presenter2:37

A bit to a certain point.

Presenter2:39

You know, to be honest with you, uh sometimes I like to be alone, quite alone. Of course you spend a great deal of your life amid crowds. Yes, that I would miss enormously.

Presenter2:50

Can you think of any particular thing you'd be happiest to have got away from?

Presenter2:55

Like, shall we say the income tax? Yes, shall we say that? By all means, let's say that. And I'm not the only one, I'm sure.

Charlie Cairoli2:57

Yes, shall we say that? By all means, let's say that.

Speaker 43:01

Oh well.

Presenter3:03

Let's have your second record.

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I would like a record what I can hear.

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A lot of people, a crowd of

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For instance, what about Karinka? I would love that. And I would imagine myself like the fellow there singing, and all the crowd answering back to me. I think it would be delightful.

Speaker 33:48

Uh

Speaker 33:50

Talk hidden.

Speaker 33:51

Maya, Santu Yang, Namarin, Kamarin, Kamaya.

Presenter4:18

Kalinka by the Soviet Army Ensemble. Where were you born, Charlie? It was a little bit of a you see, actually I should have been a British subject.

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How is that?

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Because, you know, traveling the artist travels. Yes. And uh whatever happen.

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No, I came too early.

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I think the the the journey was too much for my mother. Mhm. And she had to stop to Italy, near Milan. I was there for about uh three weeks or four weeks. But as my father is a French subject, my mother too. So automatically I was uh

Presenter4:54

a French subject.

Charlie Cairoli4:55

Object

Presenter4:56

Both your parents were circus people by family. Oh, yes, a few generations back. How many generations do you have?

Charlie Cairoli5:02

Yeah.

Presenter5:03

That I know, uh, about four. And as a child you travelled with your parents? Oh, you had to in those days. Yes.

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When did you make your first appearance in the ring? Oh, about I was uh five and a half. Not in the ring, it was, I remember, on the little theater, in the matinee. In those day I used to play uh saxophone, xylophone.

Presenter5:27

I remember my first job when I used to arrive in town is to get an empty orange box because I was so small I couldn't reach the the cylophone. And I used to play the drum.

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and in the same time I used to jot at the stick.

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Can you still remember that first performance the first time you appeared with the family?

Charlie Cairoli5:45

Yeah.

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Oh, I shall never forget that. My father said one day at the martine,

Presenter5:51

because the it was an empty house.

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And if I did anything wrong, he wouldn't have murdered. So he said you were gonna appear. So I did.

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And after the act my father Kemmy say

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Were you scared?

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Say no, papa.

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Weren't you really scared?

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To see the people. Won't you scare? I said, No.

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Mm.

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I shall never forget. He turned around to my mother and he said, We'll never do anything with him. He hasn't got any feeling You see, Roy, I'm blessed. I don't know what his uh stage fright.

Charlie Cairoli6:22

Yeah.

Speaker 36:22

T Roy

Charlie Cairoli6:23

Yeah.

Speaker 36:24

Yeah.

Presenter6:27

I never do.

Presenter6:29

The thing I've got I suppose like everybody has is attention. If I do anything new I got attention. But stretch part, I don't know what it is.

Presenter6:38

And you grew up to do all the jobs. You could do the acrobatics and the juggling. But you had to, why it was normal.

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You understand what I mean?

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Uh in those days you couldn't choose your profession. Like uh my children, for instance, one wanted to be a pharmacist, another one wanted to be an engineer.

Presenter6:58

Another one want to be a company director.

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In those days you couldn't do it. You had to do what your daddy told you to do. Yes. And that meant turning your hand to everything. You had to put put up the big top take the money at the box office. Yes. You couldn't run a cirque unless the artist gave a hand.

Charlie Cairoli7:06

Do it with

Charlie Cairoli7:09

And he hit the box on his

Presenter7:14

It would cost a fortune. But your main interest was cloning.

Presenter7:18

Clowning, yes. But I didn't start as a clown, right?

Presenter7:21

You see, I was so small.

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And against my parents I look like a child.

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And what you expect, you cannot make people laugh, you know, when you're small like that. So they had an idea. We were in uh Nice.

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and we pass in front of a big hotel there, and in front of the door was a little page.

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And my father said, That's it, we're gonna dress Charlie as a little page.

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And to put a little comic note, Hm, they asked me to black my face, you know, like the white and black mister. Yes.

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Man you I did quite well.

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Because in a way I'm a little bit of a perfectionist. If I have to do something, I'll try to do the best I can.

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So I try to develop a laugh, like the colored people have, you know. You know what I mean, that the

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And uh that served the purposes. And every time I used to laugh, the people used to laugh too. Let's have your third record. What's that to be? On Sunday.

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But I hope

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not to do anything and have a little bit of the beauty, you know, look. I like to have the

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The non-scholars of Casanova.

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Because there is an angel voice, beautiful angel voice, and then you got all the cows, which should give me such a beautiful feeling. And who's that angel voice? Oh, John Sutherland.

Presenter9:47

Joan Sutherland in The Nuns' Chorus from Casanova by Johann Strauss, Jr.

Presenter9:53

Have you any idea, Charlie, how many countries you've worked in? Oh, quite a few.

Presenter9:58

You know, s I went to America, went to Spain, Denmark.

Presenter10:04

Holland, Belgium, you know. How many languages do you speak? I could answer back in Germans.

Presenter10:10

Spanish, Italian, French, a little bit of English, ma

Presenter10:16

Now you nearly came to England in order to be born. When did you come to live?

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I was playing in a pantomime with Emilitle at the Prince of Wales,

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Birmingham.

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and another contract.

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To go to the Tower Circus Blackpool the next summer. When was this? In nineteen thirty nine. And thirty eight in Birmingham. Yeah. Thirty-nine in Blackpool. I remember you the London Hippodrome about that time in Get a Load of This, it was a very successful musical. With Vicolov. That's right.

Charlie Cairoli10:43

That is

Charlie Cairoli10:45

Yeah.

Presenter10:47

And from then I went to the London Palladium with Tommy Trinder.

Presenter10:51

Another good friend. And you haven't stopped since? I've never stopped.

Presenter10:56

Let's have record number four. What's that to be?

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Look, Croy, can I ask you something special?

Presenter11:03

You see, I've had lovely time here in England, beautiful time.

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During the war I used to work at the palladium,

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And then I used to work also at night in a factory.

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During war work war work, and I was the chief setter.

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I used to fix all the machine.

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But to Roy

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I had the nicest bunch of women you ever

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Can imagine.

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Art worker

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Nice, happy

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and the loveliest workers I ever seen in my life.

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And I remember one thing.

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I used to get a telephone call from the

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the watcher on the roof, and they used to say, Charlie, they coming this way.

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So my duty was to stop the radio and say, Ladies, they come our way. It's gonna be rough. So if you want to go in the shelter, you go. If you wanna stay, you stay.

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And I never forgot all of them used to turn I say, Oh, shut up You repeat that every blooming night. Go on, put the radio a bit louder. Eh, come on, let's sing, girls.

Presenter12:15

And the Bob were falling, bomb, incendiary. I remember we used to go on the roof, kick them out, until they find those explosive ones, so we had to wait so many seconds.

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And the g the girl used to start to sing, and is a tune that will always stay my mind, and I'm sure.

Presenter12:33

If some of those ladies can hear me to day, they will remember the bad and the good time we had.

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And this is a tune

Presenter12:41

Music while you were.

Presenter13:12

Now you told us in your first year in this country you went to work at the Blackpool Tar Circus in the summer. How many years now have you been in that circus?

Presenter13:22

Yes, uh thirty-seventh season next year. And you have to think up a new act every year. Yes, two new acts.

Charlie Cairoli13:29

Yes, two new eggs.

Presenter13:31

Where do you get your ideas? Um more or less with life, you know, and if I see something funny

Presenter13:38

We know the public.

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is the the best the best material you can get because it's so natural.

Presenter13:46

And I get a lot from the children.

Presenter13:48

And at Christmas it's pantomime or sometimes an ice show. Yes. And children's television. Right, Charlie, that was a very successful series of yours. Thank you.

Charlie Cairoli13:55

Yeah.

Presenter13:58

And your son Charles, another Charlie, works with you. Yes. But I told you before.

Charlie Cairoli14:00

Another

Presenter14:04

By trade he's an engineer, but he caught the disease, you know, with the metro.

Presenter14:08

and the doctor told him he has to stop for a while.

Presenter14:12

So he asked me one day I can adjoin the act.

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So as he was as a hobby playing the clarinet,

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I say why not?

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And he does it very well. A record number five, what's that to be? But luck look, Roy. Can I tell you a little secret?

Presenter14:29

When I was about sixteen,

Presenter14:31

One day I remember it was at the Palais d'Eta Brussels, a theatre.

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I was one morning

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cleaning the instruments. Because that was one of my job, you know.

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And I had a lot to clean.

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and all along in the direction I was singing.

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And

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I've been blessed with quite a powerful voice, and being all alone I let myself go.

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until somebody came.

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At the door.

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And you say

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Is it butterfuse singing? say yes.

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Hm. Can you come with me?

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I thought it was only the director, you know.

Presenter15:10

In spite he had a bit of an accent.

Presenter15:13

I went there, he says, Sit down there and he went to the piano and he started a few chords, and he said, Go on.

Presenter15:19

Try to do all those notes with your voice. And I went and I went.

Presenter15:24

And the thing is that uh quite uh long range I could go quite low and quite high.

Presenter15:32

And he said, Okay, and he went to see my father. He said, I'm taking you some with me.

Speaker 315:34

Uh

Presenter15:38

We'll train him.

Presenter15:40

So my father, look he said, We'll train him for what? He's going to be a singer. We'll take him to Italy and we'll train him for five years. My father laughed, he said, Look, I need him, I don't want him to be a singer And you know, always at the back of my mind,

Presenter15:57

I was wonderin', an' I'm still wonderin'.

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Would I been any good when I hear those lovely singers?

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those lovely voices

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Ooh, go so high

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And be honest with you, I love opera.

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So, my next record, which I envy.

Presenter16:18

It would be to hear Geda singing the postillion of Langimot.

Speaker 317:04

Ah Helitable

Speaker 317:09

Le Postion Legot, Le Postillon, Melancholy

Presenter17:27

Nicolai Guedda singing the Postillon song from Adam's Le Postillon of L'Anjumeaux.

Presenter17:33

Now, Charlie, we know about your your makeup, the familiar makeup of the big red nose, the big eyebrows, the painted-on moustache. Every clown's make-up is different.

Presenter17:42

Yes.

Presenter17:43

You're you're not really a clown, though, are you? No, no. It's what I'm call

Presenter17:49

in the classic way, you know. I'm a Auguste.

Presenter17:52

The clown is the chap with the white face.

Presenter17:56

And the ogreist is the one who gets the thick end of it. He gets the buckets of water and the sticky paste and all the

Charlie Cairoli18:01

Yeah.

Presenter18:02

Used to be, but I've changed that, you know. I'm a little bit of so-and-so. You're the boss, yes. Now, if I get it, everybody gets it.

Presenter18:12

Record number six, what's that to be?

Presenter18:15

As I told you before, I thought that might have been a

Presenter18:19

A good singer

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But I'm not sorry at all.

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because in my own way I think I've been quite successful doing what I'm doing.

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And when I hear the children, they call me Uncle Charlie now.

Presenter18:34

And the letter receive you be supported the letter receive.

Presenter18:39

How would you react if you had a let like uh have had?

Presenter18:42

GENTLEMAN WITH THE RED NOSE, BLACKPOL.

Presenter18:44

And and you received it? Yeah. Or from the continent.

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which if you want, I can not show you one or two, I can show you what a big packet.

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Charlie Caole, England.

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And I received. So I I'm full of praise for the post office.

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So when I get all those lights of the children,

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I forget all about me being a singer. Probably have been l lousy anyway.

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And I year oldos kid.

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jumping, shouting, screaming

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You know, it's a satisfaction of it.

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I think I achieved something there.

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And the record I would like

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which I'm sure

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Some of the mother's gonna hate me.

Presenter19:29

is a tune I play and ask the children to jump, clap their hands, stamp their feet, and scream. And that tune is Lily the Pink.

Speaker 319:47

And so they gave him medicinal compound And now they move him round on wheels

Speaker 319:55

Drink a drink a drink to lay the finger

Presenter20:12

Music for screaming too.

Presenter20:14

Lily the Pink by The Scaffold. If you can put up a big top, you should be able to manage your hut, Charlie, on the island. I think so. I'm quite clever with my hands. I can do... not fantastic, I can do more or less anything. Well, if you've done the trapeze, you should have a touch of the Tarzan. You can get up trees and get some coconuts. I even got the screen, too.

Presenter20:39

Well, that can be in the act.

Presenter20:42

Cooking's a hobby of yours? Yes. I love cooking. Would you try to escape?

Presenter20:47

Um unless uh

Presenter20:50

I could make a compass. I could make something because it's no use to go and wandering in in the sea if you don't know which way to go. Could you make a compass? You know, I I think I could. Record number seven.

Presenter21:01

I'm sure I would be working it out in the desert a line.

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And I think

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At the end of the day,

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I would like a lovely lullaby something to send me.

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in dreams and have a good night's sleep.

Presenter21:15

and I would be watching the moon.

Presenter21:18

And I would like to have somebody play for me Moonlight Sonata.

Presenter22:23

The beginning of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata played by Daniel Barenboim. Which brings us to your last disc. It's a bit difficult, but I would like something.

Presenter22:33

to crown my achievement on the desert island.

Presenter22:37

Because if I've been working hard to make something,

Presenter22:41

you know, add a a tent or a hut without tools or anything, make my own tools. Or if I cook something which is so difficult, for instance, uh what should I say? Seagulls' eggs.

Presenter22:56

A la Milanese.

Presenter22:58

Or a soufflé a la coconut. Sounds delicious. But you never know, you have to test at first. But if I manage to do that,

Charlie Cairoli23:03

You never know. You have to test it.

Presenter23:07

I think I would stand there, look at the sky, and say thank you and, you know, showing forth what I accomplished. And I think it's only a record for that.

Presenter23:18

is uh two thousand one Space Odyssey.

Presenter24:23

Richard Streis's music used as the opening of the film Two Thousand and One. If you would take just one disc, which would it be?

Presenter24:32

I'm sure my mind will always go

Presenter24:35

Towards my wife. So I think. Not King Cole.

Charlie Cairoli24:40

Yeah.

Presenter24:42

And one luxury to take with you.

Presenter24:45

Hmm.

Presenter24:46

What about a nice bottle of champagne? Only a bottle. Oh, we can do better than that. A good supply of champagne. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, and we put the bar up on big encyclopedias.

Speaker 324:52

What a f

Presenter24:59

to be practical.

Presenter25:01

I would try to get a book about uh jungle survival instruction, you know, manual. Yes. So it uh that would teach you what kind of berry you can eat.

Presenter25:12

You know what hoots you can eat.

Presenter25:15

I think this to me would be the book.

Presenter25:18

And thank you, Charlie Carolly, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Yes, and thank you, Roy. I hope you understood my Lancashire French. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 425:37

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