You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone by Gary Morecambe

Author:Gary Morecambe [Morecambe, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-01-10T17:23:11+00:00

Healthy, Wealthy… and Wise

‘I first met up with Ernie Wise when we were thirteen-year-olds doing turns on Youth Takes a Bow. I remember what I thought of him then. The only word for it was “strange”. But now I know him so much better I’ve changed that. He’s “very strange”.’

The beginning of the ‘golden era’ for Morecambe and Wise was heralded by the words ‘Thursday 25th December 1969 BBC1, 8.15pm-9.15pm, Guests: Susan Hampshire, Frankie Vaughan, Nina,Ann Hamilton and Janet Webb’.Those were the details in Radio Times of their first-ever Christmas special, a seminal event which would change everything.

With the nation’s unified love and expectation of the wonderful Morecambe and Wise Christmas Shows came a fame they had dreamed about as kids but never fully believed would be theirs; and with it a wealth that likewise went way beyond the modest expectations of their youth.And that was all fine and dandy. So what were the drawbacks?

I think that from my father’s point of view the stress of not only having spent years attaining what they set out in search of, but of now having endlessly to work to consolidate it, did some harm to his physical health. From having been hopefuls without much pressure beyond the basic desire to survive in the business—and they’d always managed that OK—they were catapulted into being the top act on the comedy heap.As frightening and heady as it was remarkable, this new situation placed great pressure on them. Many times before I’ve said that my father was never fully able to deal with responsibility and stress, and this he himself readily confirmed over the years.

My mother deliberately geared our home life to making everything easy for her husband, and we all understood, and for the most part did our best to meet, the need to make allowances for genius. But in the working environment, following Morecambe and Wise’s sudden elevation from what Eric jokingly described as ‘a cheap music-hall act’, they were now in all seriousness dubbed ‘the nation’s favourites’.

From Ernie Wise’s standpoint the downside of this success was that his role as straight man—one which even today has a vaguely derogatory connotation—was being given far closer critical scrutiny.This was right and understandable in so much as Eric was receiving the same examination for his comedic talents. But the fact remains that the lot of the straight man, which is a topic that surfaces repeatedly in this book, was and is a particularly tough one; and while Eric was arguably over-glorified for his unquestionable comic gifts, Ernie was ludicrously devalued for his own gifts.And gifts they clearly were, for what is a double act without two performers? As comedy double act Mitchell and Webb point out, Eric and Ernie are inseparable because what makes the comedy work is the combination of the two personalities.

Negativity has hovered over Ernie’s career ever since those original media examinations and mud eventually sticks. So perhaps it is hardly surprising, if not very pleasant, that over the decades several people have said to me,‘We love your dad but hate Ernie.

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