We Interview Eddie Braben - page 3

Interview

Continued…

You mention the costumes. Eric’s big entrance was always an anticipated event, waiting to see what he would be wearing. Was that part of the script?
Oh no. I never told them what to wear. He knew what was right and maybe try half a dozen things before he got the right one. The only time I mentioned anything to do with costume was a sketch called Mr. Memory.

I said to him who will you be and Eric said Billy Bennett. I knew what he meant because that is what I was going to suggest. Billy Bennett was known as “Almost a gentleman”. He wore a false moustache, evening dress that was badly fitted and suspenders. That’s how Eric came on, but you couldn’t see fully what he was wearing because he was behind a prop. Eventually it was revealed, Mr. Memory had forgotten his trousers, that was the pay off.

That’s were the catchphrase “Arsenal” came from, that particular sketch.
Yes, and I still here it today. It’s funny how these things stick.

I remember, going back now, that one of the big changes I made to Morecambe and Wise, was to Ernie. When I got to know them well enough, maybe after half a dozen shows and I had told them how bad I thought they were originally, which they agreed with, I told them Ernie was too hard. I said he was far too hard and Eric was far too silly. Eric said Ern was just a Wellmaboy. Eric would come on and Ern would say “Wellmaboy, what have you been doing today?”, Eric would reply with a gag and Ernie would continue on with “Wellmaboy, what happened then?”

So I made the change and Ernie became the pompous, egotistical author.

Do you think Ernie, in general, was underrated, hard done by over the years?
Oh yes. Even today I don’t think we realise just how important Ernie was. I wrote a line once that has often been used since, and Eric said it was so right. He said it was absolutely spot on. They were doing a stand up and Ernie had to go off quickly for a prop and Eric said “Don’t be long, when you’re not here I feel a cold draught all down one side.”

Eric didn’t like standing on his own. He didn’t like performing on his own. He was OK for a couple of minutes, then he’d start to feel uncomfortable.

Ernie was the perfect partner, Eric could trust him to bounce off and provide well timed feeds as well as his own gags. Ern could bring him back if Eric chose to ad lib too.

The ad libs were not as often as people might think which was a good thing because they rehearsed everything to perfection. It looked like they were making it up, but it was all rehearsed over and over again. Occasionally Eric would ad lib, like the time Lord Hill was Chairman of the BBC and in the routine Eric said;

“I’ve just bumped into Lord Hill, he was walking along the powers of corridor.”
Ernie said; “don’t you mean the corridors of power?”
Eric ad libbed; “Ah, but he was walking backwards.”

Eric fluffed the original line, Ern replied and in doing so gave Eric the time to think of a way out, which he did.

I asked Ernie when he knew Eric was going to ad lib and he said he could tell by his eyes. I was astonished, but when you think they were together all that time it makes sense. It tells you a lot.

As their popularity grew, so did the pressure on you to produce the script. Did you ever think about walking away, packing it all in?
Only every day. The pressure was enormous. One occasion I remember, I was writing for Eric and Ernie. I used to start at eight o’clock in the morning, and all that Monday morning and all that Monday afternoon, working twelve hours a day, I hadn’t put one word on paper. I’d sat there for twelve hours and I was saturated, nothing had happened. Tuesday, the same. Eight o’clock, twelve o’clock, eight at night – nothing. Again I was saturated. I though God almighty there must be better ways of earning a living. Then on the third day, the flood gates opened and I couldn’t get the words on the paper quick enough.

But that only happened because I’d done those two days before hand. I would have been easy during those first two days to get up and go out, go for a walk or what ever. But I couldn’t. I had to stay and apply that pressure, and eventually it paid off.

Yes the pressure was enormous, especially when you saw the viewing figures start to rocket.

Do you get inspiration from everyday life? You mention getting inspiration for the series of Connoisseurs sketches from a man on a train who gave you a sausage roll.
I wish it did happen like that,but it doesn’t. That was a very, very rare event. The connoisseurs, yes, they were quite good, a bit like the antiques road show with food and drink.

When writing for the later shows, did you intentionally write slower routines, taking into account Eric’s health?
No. They wouldn’t have had that if I did. It never entered my mind. Once you start writing all you are worried about is getting laughs. You are not particularly concerned about how you get them, or what the performers have to put themselves through to get them. You just want the end product, which is laughter.

During the writing, do you get any input from anyone else?
Well, because my thinking is so… off centre, it always came from me. There may have been rare occasions where someone might say “why don’t you do this…” , they once said “why don’t you write something where we go to the Mediterranean, or the Bahamas....” but I always said it won’t work.

Once you go outside of the studio, you loose something. You loose the intimacy and warmth of the studio. Very often when we did historical things, we’d go on location and shoot things outside of that environment. To me that never worked. It never had the same character, the same warmth. In the studio we had the audience, it was like a family. Outside of that, for me, it didn’t work. That’s why I was never interested in doing a film.

When you were writing, did you know if they were going to film it outside the studio?
I never specifically wrote do this in a castle somewhere in England or anything like that. In my mind it was always in a television studio.


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