Wednesday, April 01, 2009

About a yard.

I was going to write something today that had loads of swearing in because that's the kind of week I've had, and it's only Wednesday. I've got it all written and everything. But other people can do that stuff better than me and I've just had my blood pressure taken and it's gone up again, which is annoying because the blood donor people won't let me onto the platelets panel until it's stabilised.

Levity is required. This is, I don't know, 38 years or so old yet it just doesn't date and is still one of the funniest sketches ever. Ever. If you've never seen it, you must be very young. If you've not seen it for a while, you will still do some LOLs, probably even a ROFL. It's 10 minutes and 50 seconds of the most immaculate comedy timing ever filmed, even from the straight man who, because he'd just flown in from his mother's funeral, only learnt the script on the way to the studio.




Andre Previn said later that Eric had told him the secret was to believe you weren't being funny. He must have been a fast learner as he deadpanned brilliantly, almost outdoing Eric himself, who was a master. In his superb biography, Eric Morecambe Unseen (one of the best biographies I've ever read - he was granted complete freedom to trawl the files in Eric's office), William Cook gives a fascinating insight into Eric Morecambe's mind. He didn't just do Eddie Braben's lines, he was a a proper funny man, always looking for inspiration, sometimes in the most unlikely of places: Cook even unearthed a Frank Zappa album from among his effects. Next month it will be 25 years since Eric Morecambe died; expect to see this quite a bit.

5 Vegetable peelings:

Blogger Vicus Scurra said...

You almost got that in the right order.

5:51 pm  
Anonymous Steve Dix said...

25 years and I've only just understood the "fixer" joke!

The Fixer was a musician who usually booked all the other musicians for a session. If you were a session musician, your livelihood depended on being on good terms with the fixer. Hence the "Gold suit" crack.

1:04 pm  
Blogger Rol said...

With thanks to Steve for explaining the Fixer gag, because I still hadn't got it.

I loved this. 25 years? I'm feeling old again.

1:54 pm  
Blogger Tennessee Jed said...

Man, do I know about wanting to spew a litany of curses.

5:22 pm  
Anonymous Blazing said...

Apologies, we have not been formally introduced, but your place on Zoe's blogroll entitled you to what was, ultimately, a winning entry into the 'which random blogger can I tag' sweepstake at Blazing Towers. The name did it for me I'm afraid. Got this thing about goats.

But that is another story...

12:14 pm  

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