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For a man who claims to have a fantastic memory, I am having to accept that those claims are exaggerated. Or that my memory, at least is not what it was.
I am very excited about this podcast, there's so much to talk to Bernie about and I was looking forward to meeting him for the first time. Until I looked through
imdb.com for a funny credit and saw "This Morning With Richard Not Judy." I had forgotten working with this great man. But how was that possible? I had a feeling that I'd remembered this fact a few years ago and then forgotten it again.
How could I forget that? Possibly twice.
I think it's probably down to the punishing schedule of recording those sketches. They were uncomfortable and exhausting as we had to hold up those heavy puppets (spoiler alert) and I do recall that we had to try and do a series worth of sketches as quickly as possible, probably all in the same day, probably in a day where we were also doing other sketches too. They were meant to be slapdash and unprofessional, which was lucky and I suspect we did them in as few takes as possible. Even so I would have been excited to meet Bernie and am surprised it had slipped my mind.
I think we're a bit ruder about him than we needed to be too, not that we were very rude (and it was Histor not me), but he'd done us the great honour of appearing on our show (and the remarkable thing about Bernie, unlike some of his contemporaries, is that he worked constantly even as comedic tastes changed). Somewhere in the back of my mind I now remember him making suggestions of business that he could do and (I might be imagining it) Stew being enthusiastic about the business - of course Bernie knew what he was doing. But I don't recall hanging out with the great man and suspect we just had to move on to the next stupid pirate crow sketch without time to chat.
Saturday in Sheffield should make up for that and I'll find out if Bernie has forgotten this bit too - I hope so. He doesn't mention it in his book!
We owed him much, of course. He was another of the childhood figures that we'd done a post-modern take on/copied with Nostradamus on his horse David Collins. Even my favourite bit of that, when Nostradamus suddenly got off the horse (and then walked around with bandy legs) isn't our idea. Bernie also apparently dismounted his ostrich in
his Royal Variety Show appearance.
I will hopefully confer upon him the respect that he deserves at the weekend and I am expecting the kind of anarchy and unpredictability that happens in the best of these podcasts. It's sold out, but there should be two podcasts worth of stuff for you to listen to in the autumn! Having read his book I am just terrified to see what pranks he might pull on me. Whatever they are I will deserve them!
RHLSTP with stand up legend and possible creator of alternative comedy (though he's too modest to take the credit) John Dowie (with Dave Cohen in Dictionary Corner) i
s now up hereJohn will be back for Part 2 on Friday with RHLSTP Book Club!
