Which Irish comedian was both a murder suspect and the singer of a top 10 hit in the English pop charts? The answer, of course, is Wexford's own Tommy Tardy. "The Step-Uncle of Irish Comedy" was born to a ridiculously large family in Enniscorthy on October 24th, 1922. Bullied at school, Tommy started making people laugh to prevent them from beating him up. Unfortunately, his jokes were so bad that he would end up getting an even more severe beating.
So from an early age, in the mind of Tommy Tardy, comedy and suffering were interlinked. But he was determined to succeed. And as he developed his act and got the odd engagement in Ireland in the late 1940s, things started to improve. He still got no laughs, but people had stopped beating him up and had begun just to shout abuse at him.
To Tommy, being heckled was progress. His act still wasn't very good, though. A booking agent described him at that time as being "a bit like Abbott & Costello, without Costello".
But he persevered and honed his material, and eventually he got a big break in a talent show in Tramore in 1951. Among the other contestants that night were those four lovely cailins from Donegal, "The Juggling Irish Dancers", the three-armed cult ventriloquist "Donnacha and his Three Dummies" and "The Sensational Vince Fontaine and his Singing Spoons". Tommy came second, but was elevated to the top spot when Vince Fontaine was disqualified after the judges discovered a minute radio device in his cutlery bag.
In the audience that night was the legendary impresario Hillary Humphries. He gave Tommy his card and told him he'd introduce him to a few people if he ever came to London.
Unknown to Tommy, Humphreys was renowned for his practical jokes and sadistic streak, and when Tommy turned up at his office in Oxford Street the following spring, Humphreys was waiting for him. His way of keeping his promise was to introduce Tommy to his gardener and his proctologist.
Tommy left the building and went to the public house next door, barely able to conceal his tears. Post-war England was a drab and austere place. He longed to be home, but then, realising it was just as drab and just as austere in Ireland, he changed his mind.
Sitting at the bar while ruminating on these issues, he noticed another young man blubbering into his pint of ale. His name was Al Floyd. He'd come down from Carlisle that morning, and Humphreys had played the same trick on him. Through such an unlikely meeting, the quasi-legendary "Tardy & Floyd" were born.
At first, the mix of the Carlisle and the Wexford accent was quite a novelty on the variety circuit, and they were much in demand. They became renowned for their immortal "Cheeky Monkey" sketch. Tommy would come out dressed as a monkey, and Al, offering him some peanuts, would ask him if he was a "Cheeky Monkey". Tommy would deny it, but Al would ask him again. This would go on for 12 minutes. Like a lot of comedy from that era, it has lost a little bit with the passage of time.
With their modest success, Al's personality started to change. He became the more domineering of the two. He changed all the writing, and therefore gave himself the best lines. He insisted on re-vamping "Cheeky Monkey", but audiences were not as keen on "Cheeky Squirrel". After a while, Al decided he didn't like the sound of Tommy's voice, and suggested that only he should speak on stage. When this didn't work out, he devised an entire new approach to the double-act genre and suggested that only he should appear on stage.
The tension between them was unbearable, and things came to a head on the night of August 12th, 1954, after a show at the Hull Hippodrome. Mystery still shrouds the exact events of that night, but one thing was definite: by the following morning, Al Floyd was dead. Press coverage at the time records a bizarre incident involving a loaded gun, a pipe cleaner and a jar of Marmite. To this day, Tardy and Floyd's 17 fans worldwide speculate on what really happened. Tommy always maintained his innocence, claiming he was at the dry cleaners that night having his squirrel outfit cleaned. When the fuss had died down and, being the trouper he was, Tommy vowed to set up another double act. The important thing was finding the right partner. After six months of searching, he found the right man.
If ever two performers were completely unsuited to each other in the history of show business it was "Tardy and Ramirez". Ramon Ramirez was a Latino fire-eater and sometime narcoleptic. Tommy only found out about his condition on the first night of their big West End debut. Still recovering from his third-degree burns, he later remembered, "it was a sketch called 'The Fireman and The Fire-Eater'. I came out dressed as a fireman with a cigarette and with my back to Ramon, said my line: 'Have you got a light?' Ramon said nothing. I repeated the line. Still no response. I turned around, to find he was asleep and the theatre was on fire."
After the accident, Tommy was out of work for a year. He married his new girlfriend, actress and Sandra Dee wannabe Kitty Jenkins. He started to think about his future. It was now the late 1950s, and he realised the direction of show business was changing.
Television and rock'n'roll were pushing music hall and variety aside. Promoters were no longer interested in hackneyed comedy double acts. Tommy knew he had to re-invent himself or he'd be finished.
He took up guitar lessons and decided to form his own skiffle group and make a record. He held auditions the length and breadth of England. He later recalled, "Sifting through all those showbiz hopefuls was a long and tedious task. But in the end it was worth it."
Eventually, in early 1961, the final line-up of "Tommy Tardy and The Latecomers" was complete.
Tommy did lead vocals and guitar and Kitty played the piano, accompanied by a completely recovered and rejuvenated Ramon Ramirez. The look of the group was quite striking. Out front, Tommy had a most distinctive image. Leather-clad, nearing 40 and practically bald, his attempt at a pompadour caused much comment. Beside him, Kitty - not so much Sandra Dee as Sandra Dee minus - pounded away tunelessly on the ivories. Behind them, Ramon kept a very eccentric and at times somnolent beat. Teenagers found them a gruesome novelty act but strangely appealing, and nobody was more thrilled than Tommy when their first record, Sputnik Baby, Rock'n'Roll, rocketed to number nine in the charts in November, 1961.
But, just as success was at last about to embrace, cuddle, tickle and disrobe Tommy Tardy, disaster struck again. Chuck Berry, on his first tour of England heard Sputnik Baby, Rock'n'Roll and, feeling it was similar to Sweet Little Rock 'n' Roller, immediately sued Tommy, claiming a breach of copyright.
Tommy lost the case and, facing bankruptcy, fled with Kitty and Ramon. They were last spotted in Rangoon in 1979 hosting a music, comedy and fire extravaganza.
Karl MacDermott is writer-in-residence at his home in Kilmainham.