Michael Bentine

Michael Bentine0:00

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

Presenter0:08

Where were you born, Michael?

Michael Bentine0:09

In Watford, very romantic place.

Presenter0:13

Of a Peruvian family.

Michael Bentine0:14

of a Peruvian father and an English mother from Essex.

Presenter0:17

Uh

Michael Bentine0:17

Yeah.

Presenter0:17

Yeah.

Presenter0:19

You're one of that very select few of old Etonian comedians. What was it your first ambition to be?

Michael Bentine0:25

Ha ha ha

Presenter0:25

Uh Uh

Michael Bentine0:26

Old Edonian, I should imagine

Presenter0:27

Uh

Michael Bentine0:27

That's a factor. Yeah.

Presenter0:31

What did you do when you left people?

Michael Bentine0:32

Well, um I wanted to study physics. My father is an aerodynamicist, a scientist.

Michael Bentine0:38

And um unfortunately the war interfered with this because naturally overnight physics became secret, you see, so we couldn't indulge in this. And um I mucked about in Fleet Street for a short time.

Michael Bentine0:50

and then went um holding a spear with Robert Atkins in uh Regent's Park.

Michael Bentine0:55

Yeah, Robert, come bless him.

Presenter0:55

Yeah, Robin.

Michael Bentine0:57

Would you like to have remained a classical actor in Shakespeare? Oh, no, I don't think so. I think the range is much too uh limited in that. I I I prefer working in the type of medium I'm working now where I can play any any type of part. Anyway

Presenter1:09

Need the right

Michael Bentine1:09

Yeah. Therefore Yeah.

Michael Bentine1:11

Yes, well actually I was arrested as a deserter in order to get into the RF. I volunteered seventeen times and they lost my address the seventeenth time. And I was appearing in London at the Westminster Theatre and um i in Shakespeare I was playing in uh Merchant of Venice. Two hefty S P's came along and took me off in Dublin Hose.

Michael Bentine1:31

But it was all ironed ironed out at the point. Patently obviously, you wouldn't be a deserter with your name outside a theatre.

Presenter1:31

But it was all uh

Michael Bentine1:36

And when you would immobilize.

Presenter1:37

Yeah.

Michael Bentine1:40

Uh well, science had marched on then, because he was nearly five years later, and the only type of of physics that seemed to be um encouraged was atomic physics. They offered me um

Michael Bentine1:51

A postgraduate course at the University of Bristol if I'd wanted.

Michael Bentine1:55

And I talked it over with father and I thought, No, I'd like to I'd like to go back to the stage. It seems a harmless enough occupation. We don't do anybody any harm on the stage.

Presenter2:00

Yeah.

Michael Bentine2:03

I don't think you do anybody any good, but just anybody any good. So what did you do? Uh

Michael Bentine2:07

Well, I'm I joined up with uh a a friend of mine I'd met uh in the RAF and before the RAF called Tony Sherwin.

Michael Bentine2:14

and um a very brilliant jazz pianist. I used to play drums. And we did a a Russian

Michael Bentine2:20

A Russian poem about a girl called Natasha who gets her face kicked in by a prince and that we appeared at the Windmill Theatre.

Presenter2:28

Yes, uh

Presenter2:29

There was a lot of excellent young comic talent going in and out of the windmill in those days, just after the war.

Michael Bentine2:34

Oh, it was indeed.

Presenter2:36

How did them?

Michael Bentine2:37

Peter Sellars, Norman Vaughan, Frank Muir, Dennis Norden and of course Jimmy Edwards. Who else?

Presenter2:41

Yeah.

Michael Bentine2:43

When did you get your your first reel break?

Michael Bentine2:46

In 1947, I was spotted working at the Nuffield Centre doing the chairback act. I was actually trying it out that night. I was spotted by an agent. And the next week I did an audition for Robert Nesbitt at the Prince of Wales Theatre.

Presenter3:00

Mm-hmm.

Michael Bentine3:01

And uh the next month, I think it was, or two months later, I was in Starlight Roof, in which Julie Andrews, incidentally, was an eleven-year-old child.

Presenter3:06

Yeah.

Presenter3:10

I remember that chairback act. You came on with a wild shock of hair and

Presenter3:15

Clutching this brawn

Michael Bentine3:15

Not at first. Ah, no. I grew the beard and the hair later. Mine was very smooth in those days, yes. But I was I looked too young, whereas now I look too old to be a comedian, but in those days I looked too young.

Presenter3:17

No.

Presenter3:25

But you nasty

Michael Bentine3:28

And so I had to grow all this nonsense in order to

Presenter3:30

Well, I remember you were given about four and a half minutes on the show and you you stole all the notices.

Michael Bentine3:33

At the

Presenter3:35

Well, after the starlight groove, what?

Michael Bentine3:38

Promise year I was out of work.

Michael Bentine3:40

And then uh I got a job in Variety. I was working the Kingston Empire.

Michael Bentine3:46

with uh Billy Cotton, bless him, who was the only one that would uh g uh give me any work. And I was spotted by Val Parnell and I got a job at the Palladium. I was in the Palladium the next week. And from then on it sort of the th that r that really was the major breakthrough.

Presenter3:57

Yeah.

Presenter3:59

Yeah.

Presenter4:01

Yes. You had added a a a sink pump to your chair back, I seem to remember.

Michael Bentine4:05

Yes, that's right, yeah.

Presenter4:06

When you were doing this Zaney act, in which the the the sink pump or the chair back um took the place of uh about a thousand things from a trolley bus armed lethal weapon, when you were doing th this act, with one eye you looked round at the audience while the other was fixed in a terrifying glare. Now this is not natural. How did you manage this?

Michael Bentine4:24

It's a series of eye exercises I did in the RAF when my eyes packed up. Uh they were about 610 I think each eye. They had a slight fault. They went to six sixty both eyes, so they took me off flying and gave me a job as an intelligence officer. And in an attempt to get back to flying, I used to do these eye exercises and found that I could make my eyes do damn nearly anything.

Presenter4:43

Mm-hmm.

Presenter4:44

About this time I remember you you did a Royal Command performance.

Michael Bentine4:47

Hmm, let's try it.

Presenter4:47

Hmm, four to nine, now.

Michael Bentine4:50

I wasn't forty-nine, it was nineteen forty-nine at the time.

Presenter4:50

I wasn't

Presenter4:52

Do not have to do it.

Presenter4:54

And about this time we we first began to hear something o of the Goon.

Michael Bentine4:58

Mm-hmm.

Presenter4:58

Yeah.

Michael Bentine4:59

Yes, yes. Well, that was that was really due to the fact that we'd all known one another at the windmill. I mean, Spike did an audition there with the Bill Hall trio, in which he played guitar, and um Harry had already appeared at the

Michael Bentine5:13

um uh the windmill and um we naturally gravitated. We've got the same sense of humour, so we g we gravitated together.

Presenter5:21

And this led to a radio programme called Originally What? Crazy

Michael Bentine5:22

Yes, Old Rich.

Presenter5:24

Yeah.

Michael Bentine5:24

Okay.

Presenter5:24

People write.

Michael Bentine5:24

Uh crazy people, yes, we were called the Junior Crazy Gang. It shows you how long ago it was.

Presenter5:30

Who inside the BBC worked to get the thing started?

Michael Bentine5:34

I think um obviously the answer to that is Pat Dixon, who unfortunately has now passed over. He's a wonderful man who was one of the most brilliant and most delightful men I've ever met in my life.

Presenter5:38

Yeah.

Presenter5:45

And crazy people became the goonshire.

Michael Bentine5:47

Yeah.

Presenter5:47

Uh

Michael Bentine5:47

You didn't stay with it very long? No, I was with it about three years, and then uh by mutual consent, firstly because I thought that four goons were one too many.

Michael Bentine5:57

Because we were doubling up on each other. There was no need for four of us.

Presenter5:59

Was that needful?

Michael Bentine6:00

And secondly, because I wanted to do this Bumbly series, Children's Puppets for BBC Children's Television.

Presenter6:08

Yeah.

Michael Bentine6:08

Went on.

Presenter6:08

for a couple of years.

Michael Bentine6:10

Yes, what were you doing there? That's right. Well, I th uh firstly, I wanted to take my family

Michael Bentine6:14

my eldest two children round the world and it seemed the best way to uh to uh pay for it was to work in Australia.

Michael Bentine6:21

And secondly, because I wanted to change from a performer to a writer, and in order to do that I had to leave the leave the country and and then come back freshly as a writer rather than a performer.

Presenter6:32

Well, since then you've written and starred in

Presenter6:34

Lot of radio and television series round the bend after ours and of course the present success. It's a square world, which is

Michael Bentine6:42

That's right. Well, it seems to be going alright at the moment.

Presenter6:45

Michael, looking at your career to date, which we've just been

Presenter6:48

doing briefly. There doesn't seem any any clear pattern. You've started something and then dropped it and gone off and started something else, obviously trying to find yourself. Do you think you've done it now?

Michael Bentine6:57

No.

Michael Bentine6:58

Uh my father always uh said that I was educated off the backs of cigarette cards, which is a perfect description really, because I have a complete butterfly mind.

Michael Bentine7:07

And the medium that I'm working in now demands a butterfly mind with the ability to concentrate. I'm only interested in in uh something new, something something different. You'll hear the other side.

Presenter7:17

You've never been interested in popular success. You've never gone after a mass audience.

Michael Bentine7:20

Gone off for a mouse audio.

Presenter7:22

In which medium are you happiest? Radio, television, theatre, films?

Michael Bentine7:25

I think really television because I think visually, I think in pictures, and yet I use sound to i

Michael Bentine7:31

Evoke pictures. So um I think that television is the ideal medium for me, if you can call television a medium. I don't think it is, I think it's just a means of communication th that uses many, many mediums.

Presenter7:32

So

Presenter7:41

What are your interests outside your work? You talked about your butterfly mind. Where does it light?

Michael Bentine7:46

Well, in precisely the same way. I I I I go from flower to flower. I d I don

Michael Bentine7:50

I didn't quite mean it that way, but um I have uh four children and they take up a lot of time and my family can hardly be referred to as a hobby.

Michael Bentine7:59

Um you pay increased

Presenter8:00

Fashionably.

Michael Bentine8:01

Yes, I've painted professionally and and I've had to make my living as an artist as well as a writer. I use it a lot in cartoons, that type of uh thing, but um I love

Michael Bentine8:12

I love painting. I'll never be a good painter. I'll always be an adequate painter. But I I can draw.

Presenter8:17

Mm-hmm.

Michael Bentine8:17

Uh better than I penned.

Presenter8:17

Uh

Presenter8:19

Yes. And what about hobbies apart from

Michael Bentine8:21

Yeah.

Michael Bentine8:23

take the normal hobbies like like painting and sculpture and and engraving and uh

Michael Bentine8:28

And music. I these things I have to use professionally, so I go for hobbies that are rather different. I

Michael Bentine8:35

I have my own little ship and I navigate that and I glide and

Michael Bentine8:40

I shoot because being s being of South American descent and being intended for South America, obviously shooting was part of one's um necessary defence mechanism. And I've always fenced because um of uh keeping physically fit. I haven't done it for fifteen years, which shows you how unphysically fit I am.

Michael Bentine8:58

Have you any one major ambition?

Michael Bentine9:00

Been gnawing.

Presenter9:02

Yeah.

Michael Bentine9:02

Uh to go on living for a bit longer. I can't think of anything else.