- by fred spanner
“I went to pick up John Cooper Clarke once. He lived exactly where you’d expect him to live- next to a cemetery. He was having egg custard for breakfast. Living the Dream.”
Gavin and Stacey, Alan Partridge, The Mighty Boosh, The Royle Family, Red Dwarf, The Mrs Merton Show…it’s all in a day’s work for the Bafta-winning writer, producer, and poet. From getting his milk delivered by Steve Coogan to pushing Jarvis Cocker around in a wheelchair, this incredible man has lived a very full life. And he’s still up to mischief.
This month, he’s tearing up the UK on tour with the legendary Brian Bilston. Tickets are expected to disappear faster than the complimentary peanuts in the Linton Travel Tavern lounge. Aha! Let's chat...
So, tell us where your love of comedy originated.
“I was brought up on a council estate in Nottingham. My mum died when I was eleven, and I became very withdrawn. Everything around me was very bleak. In fact, in Nottingham in the 70s, the 60s still hadn’t arrived. It was still a very deprived area with bombed-out buildings. People wore clothes they made themselves as opposed to the things you saw on Carnaby Street. When you think of the Swinging Sixties, it’s not a council estate in Nottingham you picture.
“I sought solace in television comedy. I used to love Bilko, Monty Python, Morecambe and Wise, and stuff like that. I was in another world. The Marx Brothers were working-class like me, but they were running amok amongst posh people. I wanted to be in that world.
“I also stumbled upon a comedian called Jack Benny, who not many will remember these days. He was one of the top comedians in the 40s and 50s. He took his cat from radio to television, even though they tried to persuade him not to because one of his characters was black. The guy became the first black actor on television because of Jack Benny.
“I loved Jack Benny. He was Jewish and from New York, and he had been working since he was a kid. By all accounts, he was a lovely guy, and I wanted to be him. I looked nothing like him. I had ringlets and a centre parting, and I used to wear my sister's T-shirts, to be honest.
“I started reading everything that had to do with comedy. I’d go to the library and I'd get every comedy book out. I came across a book by Spike Milligan, whom I loved. It was called Small Dreams of a Scorpion. I thought it was a comedy book, but it was a book of poems. And it made me cry. And I thought there was something beautiful about someone who could make you both laugh and cry. I knew then that this was something I wanted to do.”
You’ve met Spike Milligan before, haven’t you?
I’d made about 450 television programs by then, and I was asked to judge a comedy competition. I remember sitting next to Spike and telling him I worked in comedy and I’d written The Royle Family, and it was all because of him. People were coming up to him, asking for his autograph. He told them all to “Fuck off”.
“I tried to rescue the conversation by telling him I lived in Brighton cos I love the sea. He then leaned forward with a twinkle in his eye and said, “Henry, you’re a fascinating man.” Which was lovely. But nowadays, if I say anything a bit boring, my wife will say, “Henry, you’re a fascinating man.” ”
You got away lightly. He called King Charles a groveling bastard, back in the day.
“Yes, I think I did a bit better.”
When did you start writing stuff yourself?
“I used to write my own Monty Python sketches. I used to put them up on the school noticeboard. I’d often hang them the wrong way up and write “Please do not read” on them (which was the name of my magazine). It was great fun and helped me to skive a bit off of lessons.
“When I was nineteen, I managed to see Roger McGough at the Nottingham Playhouse. He read Summer With Monika. Now, if you’re nineteen and someone is reading a poem about being in bed with his girlfriend the whole summer, that’s going to have an effect on you. I was sold.
“A few years later, I saw John Cooper Clarke at The Leadmill and that was pure Rock n Roll. He was a lot younger then, of course, but he was brilliant. I played with him at the Royal Concert Hall a few weeks ago. He calls me “Our ‘Enry”. I once asked him where Beesley Street was, but he admitted it didn’t exist. It just rhymed with “Cheesy” and “Greasy”. Poetic license!
“I went to pick up John Cooper Clarke once. He lived exactly where you’d expect him to live- next to a cemetery. He was having egg custard for breakfast. Living the Dream.”
Speaking of Rock N Roll, you’ve toured with Pulp, of course?
“I opened a record shop in Chesterfield called Planet X Records with a mate of mine at a time when vinyl was starting to die. I used to do a bit of poetry at a night they used to run called Gotham City, where all the Sheffield bands used to come. Pulp is the best we know of now, but at the time, there were quite a few. I used to like Dig Vis Drill, too. I always thought they were going to become famous one day.
“People would laugh at Pulp in those days. They’d made a few albums, but no one was taking them seriously. Russell, their violin player, was a great mate of mine. Jarvis was just as eccentric back then. When I toured with them, Jarvis had fallen out of a window and broken both of his legs. I had to wheel him onto the stage in a wheelchair. He would sit there, sing, and do all of his usual movements. It was brilliant.
“The thing is, it was at the time when Morrissey was wearing his fake hearing aid. Everyone thought Jarvis was just trying to go one better.”
Tell us about the birth of Baby Cow.
“When I moved to Manchester, I met Steve Coogan, who was about nineteen at the time. He was doing impressions at the time. He could do anyone. He could do you within minutes of hearing your voice.
“He had one character at the time, called Duncan Thickett, who was a bad comedian. We’ve written stuff for him for TV and tours. We used to appear at the Thameside Theatre, with Frank Skinner, Caroline Aherne, John Thompson, Dave Gorman, and loads of other great people. We were all trying to get on TV as we were struggling to make a living otherwise.
“Thankfully, I got my own television show, Packet of Three, where I starred alongside Frank Skinner and Jenny Eclair. They asked me what I wanted to do, so I said “The Muppets”, with me as Kermit, Frank as Gonzo, and Jenny as Miss Piggy.
“But I don’t think I was very good on the show because everyone was very cool at the time, and I was a bit old-fashioned. I think I was still trying to be Jack Benny.
“I remember writing to Loaded founder James Brown when he did his fanzine Attack on Bzag, so I was trying to be cool, but it never quite happened. But what did happen is that I got sacked from my own show after the first series. I was quite relieved, as I didn’t have any more material!
“But, Caroline was starting to work on The Mrs Merton Show, so she asked me to write for her on that. Steve Coogan had just created a new character called Paul Calf, and I worked with him on that, Coogan’s Run, Paul and Pauline Calf’s Video Diaries, and Tony Ferrino. I was writing pretty much round-the-clock, trying to have two careers: one writing for Steve, and the other, for Caroline.
“Steve Coogan used to come round to my house in his Porsche and bring milk with him. So, I used to brag that I had the fastest milkman in the west,”
“I had a choice between doing a second series of The Royle Family or writing a film with Steve. I’d made the decision to go with Steve, and we made The Parole Officer. In some ways, you could say I made the wrong decision, but during that time, Steve suggested we set up our own company.
“The idea behind it was that we wouldn’t need to go into London. We could work from Brighton. After about a year, we realised that Brighton just didn’t have the same facilities as London. So ended up commuting there for eighteen years.”
Why Baby Cow?
“Steve wanted to call it Midas to begin with, but that sounded ambitious, so we called it Baby Cow because, in the third series of Pauline Calf, there was a woman called Dolphin. She tells him she’s Dolphin, as in the baby mammal, and he tells her he’s Calf, as in the baby cow. It was the first character we wrote together, plus it also has the connotations of a cash cow, of course.”
What’s the favourite show or film you’ve worked on?
“That would be my wife’s film, Snowcake. My son is severely autistic, and we were trying to come to terms with it and find ways to express it. My wife wrote a film which starred Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman, and I think it’s the best film about autism there is. It’s fun, warm, and beautiful, and it’s the best thing I’ve been involved in artistically.
“The Parole Office was great, and let’s not forget Philomena, which was up for four Oscars and made about £160 million. I didn’t get it all, of course, but I did think at that time I’d probably peaked.
“I think I made the best film about Nottingham Forest Football Club, I Believe in Miracles, and of course, Gavin and Stacey. The cast was amazing, but I’ve been so lucky to have met so many great people, and to be paid to be with funny people. The people behind the scenes are so good at their jobs, which is why I like to work with the same folk again and again.
“No matter what they’re working on, they can adapt brilliantly. Whether it’s Gavin and Stacey or The Mighty Boosh. We worked on a show called Dr. Terrible’s House of Horrible, and we actually built a forest in a studio. The last episode of Nighty Night was filmed in Steve Coogan’s house. Steve looked at the episode where the character, Jill, was torturing her husband for an hour and decided it was too bleak. So the entire episode went, and we reshot it in Steve's bedroom, living room, and kitchen, as the budget had run out and we couldn’t afford anything else.
“We couldn’t even afford to push Mark Gatiss’s character down the stairs. Instead, she killed him by force-feeding him Angel Delight, which took longer, and was funnier.”
So, tell us about your forthcoming tour.
“Yes, I’m with Brian Bilston, who’s incredibly brilliant and funny. He’s huge on the internet, and there’s a lot of clever wordplay and a lot of sophistication in what he does. We work really well together. There’s a mixture of jokes and poetry, and you get a mixture of our styles. Both funny, but with slightly different flavours.”
There’s no likelihood of you and Bilston falling out mid-tour like a couple of well-known Britpop brothers?
“No, we get on really well. He talks, and I drive and listen. And better still, our tickets stay the same price.”
You’re both a bit camera-shy at times. Brian doesn’t like his face on the posters, and you’ve been known to perform with a paper bag on your head.
“Haha. Yes, that was me doing an impression of Brian before he was born. No, it was a bit I used to do about how, when you’re a kid, your ambition can be stifled. It was based on a story I loved about a man whose wife kept berating him. So he sits under the table and says. “I’m not coming out. I’ll show YOU who’s boss! I always loved that tale, so I used to do a version with a bag on my head.”
Two absolute legends, one epic night, and a whole lot of madness you won’t want to miss. Expect plenty of belly laughs, and the kind of mischief that’d make your English teacher blush. Grab your seat and hang on for dear life.
Check out Brianbilston.com for the latest tour dates.
