Long days on the couch in front of the TV reveal time is not often kind to fondly remembered shows and films
IS IT a bank holiday today? Or just a holiday? The National Gallery Calendar, to which we cling in these troubled times, declares Monday January 3rd the “New Year Holiday”, whatever that might be. Mark my words, my pretty ones, this is turning into the Forever Christmas, a chilly eternity from which nothing wholesome can come.
It is a cliche that ugly truths are revealed at Christmas time. Domestic realities emerge starkly from the receding tide of goodwill. But it is really surprising – I would say it is shocking – to discover that you are living with someone who does not find Morecambe and Wisefunny.
“Likeable,” they say, kindly. “But not funny.” Then you have to explain that yes, Morecambe and Wise did routinely sleep in the same bed. You have swine flu. It’s been a tough couple of days.
And now Morecambe and Wise aren’t funny. Not the stripper routine, not making Glenda Jackson laugh, not messing about with Andre Previn while members of the orchestra giggle in the background. But maybe it’s true. Maybe Morecambe and Wise are looked at now with a fond smile, rather than with real laughter. Maybe what they really inspired was love, and if you were not there to feel the love the first time around then you are not going to start loving them now. And maybe, as well as being a generational thing, it is also a British thing.
That comfortable, besuited British comedy – the Two Ronnieswould be another example – is now a subject of nostalgia in the UK. Plays are written about Morecambe and Wise, and whole theatres swell with remembered love. Victoria Wood produces a television play about the early years of Eric and Ernie – it was shown on BBC2 last Saturday night – and starred in it as Eric's formidable, and perhaps crucial, mother, Sadie. Whole acres of British newsprint were devoted to this venture: any excuse to talk about Morecambe and Wise. It wasn't even a particularly good story – the reality of Ernie Wise's family life was not addressed – although it was so beautifully done. Yet it seems to have been compulsory viewing for the British, one of whose many national virtues is loyalty.
One of the many joint virtues held by Morecambe and Wise was their modesty – they rehearsed to the point of exhaustion. It is a safe bet that they would be astonished to see the affection in which they are held in their native country, and how their wives are still stopped by strangers who wish to talk about them.
There are huge advantages to being the junior partner in a cultural relationship which can, in our more optimistic moments, be described as symbiotic. The Irish – or those of us in multichannel land – just stole Morecambe and Wiseand all that similar comedy off the airwaves. We enjoyed it. But we never really absorbed it; it didn't become part of us; we were never emotionally involved. When Morecambe and Wiseended we didn't look back.
For the Irish Morecambe and Wise were never a national love affair. We didn't have the responsibility of having made them. Although the north of England which did produce them was packed with emigrant Irish, the world Eric and Ernie came from – industrial towns wreathed in poverty and pluck and complete with a couple of variety theatres apiece – was always somewhere we had to get the boat to. But I can't help it, I love Morecambe and Wisestill.
Mary Poppins, to take another sample from the Christmas influenza schedule, has survived the years quite well despite its epic length and snail-like pace. Not only does it have great songs, it provides a chilly look at inadequate parenting and a clear-eyed analysis of the banking system – watching the horrible bankers trying to get young Michael to invest his tuppence safely in the bank makes for pretty distressing viewing. Its dance routines may go on for what seem like economic quarters, but Mary Poppinshas an unsentimental toughness that is not found in your modern Disney film; or indeed in your average Irish bank manager.
Young Frankenstein, the last word in comedy cool when it was released, has not survived so well. Renting Young Frankensteinon DVD especially for a teenage audience, and encouraging them with the fatal phrase "You're going to love this" should have been a clear enough lesson in the sell-by date of so-called family favourites.
There was silence in the room as the first 15 minutes crept by. Then the youngest of our critics said “This is crap.”
And it was.
You might have to spend the rest of your life watching Sponge Boband Family Guyand the Rubberbandits– not that that would be such a big sacrifice. Although Laurel and Hardyare beginning to rise like Titans from this massacre of comedy classics. Not much passes the Teenage Test. There is Laurel and Hardyand there is Father Ted. These seem to be the only two comedy items made before they were born that teenagers will view on a voluntary basis. Time is the cruellest test of everything we love; it shows us how rare genius actually is.
Now I have to take more Disprin – producing material of transitory worth isn’t a cakewalk, you know.