The
comedy gene, Carlton was thinking. That's got to be the
best answer. Comedy is passed on through DNA, just like
everything else. But there was a depressing lack of evidence.
He had turned for help to a large file he had downloaded
from the Entertainment Library on the Planet Disney. It
was supposed to be illegal, but how could information be
illegal? He had chosen to ignore the fact the file was flagged,
and had downloaded it anyway. It was mainly comedy material,
notes, sketches and biographies, of entertainers and performers
from the early 19th to the late 20th Century. There was
a ton of information about comedians he had never heard
of. He decided to search the genetic backgrounds of these
performers (a long, painstaking task) in the hope of turning
up some ancestral link. He wasn't very optimistic but to
his surprise he struck pay dirt with a man called Idle.
He was not very well known. In fact he was downright obscure.
He had been peripherally involved in comedy in the latter
part of the 20th Century, but more importantly for Carlton
there was an odd link in his genetic background. When Carlton
looked up Eric Idle in his files he found he had been part
of an strange British comedy group called Monty Python's
Flying Circus. Monty Python was a stupid name, and it was
a very stupid show as far as he was concerned; six unattractive
men frequently dressed as women, shrieking their heads off.
When he played the tapes Alex laughed and laughed. Even
Lewis giggled occasionally. But Carlton watched in total
amazement. What was funny about that? He was bewildered
by it. What was there to laugh at? It was a puzzling show,
more quirky than anything; heads came off or popped open,
sheep dropped on people's heads, Vikings sang love songs
to pressed meat, weird men dressed as old ladies talked
in strange voices, and still the audience laughed. He didn't
understand it at all. However, in cross checking the genetic
backgrounds of the six performers involved he had turned
up an ancestor for Idle in Showbiz. Significantly enough
a Ring Master no less. A Victorian gentleman called Henry
Bertrand who was Idle's maternal great-grandfather. Was
this the genetic missing link? Idle was in a Flying Circus
and his great grandfather had been a Circus Manager. Surely
this was significant?
Carlton
was looking at an image of Henry Bertrand. A handsome man
of the 1890's with deeply piercing eyes, in white tie and
tails, stares out challengingly at the camera. Mustachioed,
his short dark hair pomaded, he flaunts a raffish center
parting. Sensual flared nostrils with a generous mouth,
give him an air of challenging devilment. You can see he
is something of a ladies man. His credits list him in descending
order and varying fonts as General Dramatic, Equestrian
and Music Hall Manager, Equestrian Director and Ring Master,
Advertising Manager, Stage Manager, Fete and Gala Contractor
&c. (Don't you love that &c?) Down the left hand
column are further credits, which include Wulff's Great
Continental Circus, Lord John Sanger & Sons' Royal Circus,
Hippodrome and Menagerie (14 years Manager), Royal English
Circus, Birmingham. Record 10 months Highly Successful Season,
1897-8, and then, my particular favorite, Advance Manager
for Roby's Midget Minstrels! The mind boggles. A musical
munchkin orchestra. He looked up Henry Bertrand in the Circus
Fans' Association of Great Britain and found an article
entitled "Ring Master Henry Bertrand" by Dr. John
M. Turner.
Hengler
was a household word in Victorian times and was synonymous
with excellence….. To work for Hengler was not only
financially advantageous, the engagements better-paid
than with other companies, but also prestigious. After
working for a spell with Hengler, artistes would commonly
publicize the fact when advertising that they were available
for new engagements. Henry Bertrand was no exception and
after his 1885-6 engagement, as ringmaster at each town
visited by his company, he was proud to give first place
mention to Hengler's Grand Cirques on his headed notepaper.
He joined the company at Hengler's Grand Cirque Variété
in Hull… As well as being listed as one of the principal
artistes, Henry Bertrand was also named as the Ring Master.
The principal artistes named in the advertisement carried
by the "Hull News" of 26th September 1885 were:
John Henry Cooke, Signor Permane, Henry Bertrand, The
Elliots
Special engagement of the Selbinis, including baby Lalla,
the infant phenomenon
Whimsical Walker's singing donkey
Clowns Le Quipps, Bros Rogers, D. A. Seal, Whimsical Walker
Ring Master Mr. H. Bertrand.
All
these artistes would have been well known to Henry Bertrand
before he joined Hengler's, and as ring master he would
have orchestrated their performances in the ring to best
advantage. In particular he would have parried with the
clowns, being both their butt and their disciplinarian.
All of the clowns, whether comedians, mimes or grotesques
would have been familiar with the crack of the ring master's
whip, at close quarters!
…Before
leaving the Metropolis, however, Hengler's gave a Royal
Command Performance before the Queen Victoria, at Windsor
in the Royal Riding School. The performance celebrated
the birthday of Princess Alice of Albany."
Idle
had the program for this event on his wall. It was printed
on silk with the name of his great-grandfather prominently
featured. In his memoirs (Say No More, The Unauthorized
Autobiography of an ex-transvestite comedian) Idle recalled
being taken as a child by his mother's uncle Frank Bertrand
to Bertram Mills Circus in Manchester, and how respectful
the ring masters had been, how they had shown him around,
how they had treated him almost like royalty. Well circus
royalty anyway.
Carlton was excited by this discovery. He had found a genuine
genetic link. Also an interesting linguistic link: Henry
Bertrand was in the Circus; Idle, his great-grandson, was
in the Flying Circus. Surely that couldn't be just a co-incidence?
I mean what were the odds? Actually he could calculate them
(and did) and they were long. He was even more excited to
find that Henry's brother the foppish Clarence had written
plays about fallen women in St. John's Wood and had had
a particular success with the lyrics for a popular patriotic
song called "England is Ready." The lyrics
were purely jingoistic.
England
is ready what e'er folks may say
England is ready, by night or by day;
England is ready, as history knows,
To welcome her friends, or vanquish her foes.
This
chauvinistic bravado was written shortly before the First
World War showed where such arrogant thinking led, but the
important thing for Carlton was that Clarence Bertrand had
written a genuine Victorian hit song. Less than a century
later Idle also wrote a hit song called "Always
Look on the Bright Side of Life," a song that was
almost an unwitting commentary on the song of his ancestor.
Surely that could be no co-incidence! But he was forgetting
sod's law, the immutable iron rule that governs the actions
of mankind. He decided to find out more about this Idle,
to see what made him join the Circus and why he went into
comedy and after his initial excitement the sad truth revealed
itself: the reasons for him going in to comedy were patently
self-evident.
Amongst the material he had downloaded from the Disney Library,
Python studies were fairly common. It had been for a while
a favorite research subject for the more pretentious post-graduate.
John Cleese studies, in particular, were common. Apart from
the towering Three Volume Biography, and the more commercial
Life Of by George Perry, he was the subject of no
less than two hundred doctrinal theses. The life itself
though was rather dull. In truth he was not a man to set
the table on a roar. It was the work that was funny. Like
many another white face clown he was only funny for money.
There was a lot on Gilliam, who had been a film director,
in the days when that had mattered. Jones was renowned for
his children's stories and his rollicking, raunchy Autobiography
of a Penis which revealed rather more than one needed
to know about the sex-drive of comics. Chapman had died
too late to die young, but too early to die, and Palin was
noted under travel and tourism. Idle was rather under studied,
and for good reasons mind you, hiding in the shadows of
great men and then leaping out at unexpected moments with
waspish comments. "A short wig and a regional accent"
as someone called Jagger had once said memorably. (Carlton
made a note to look him up.)
There
was another reason for Carlton to be drawn towards Idle.
Carlton was a Bowie Machine and was modeled directly on
the looks and behavioral patterns of David Bowie. Not the
Ziggy Stardust extremes of the Space Oddity Bowie (way too
androgynous for Disney who ordered them) but the classic
1983 blonde haired super-cool hipster. For a certain time
Idle had hung out with Bowie. Indeed they had been friends
taking holidays together, Mediterranean yacht cruises, Caribbean
vacations, Swiss weekends; Idle had even given the speech
at Bowie's wedding to Iman, though he confessed he thought
he had gone "rather too far" on that occasion,
in the way that white-faced comedians often do. There was
little else on Idle; an ex-President of the Cambridge Footlights,
coming of age during Beyond the Fringe, he had witnessed
the Satire Boom, and then worked in comedy during one of
its Golden Ages with the ubiquitous David Frost. Marty Feldman
had been on his first honeymoon, Peter Cook was a friend,
Robin Williams, Steve Martin etc. etc. He seemed to have
rubbed shoulders with most of the great comics of the time,
first in the 60's which led to the Python comedy and then
American comedy in the seventies with something called Saturday
Night Live. He had hung out with some of the world's finest
comics, and he had survived his brush with celebrity, the
praise, the over extended fulsomeness of compliment. Pedestalised
as one of the Pythons he was able to survive thanks to his
upbringing, the orphanage, the university and his wife and
children. He knew about abandonment. So why did Idle become
a comedian in the first place? Here, sadly, Carlton's great
genetic link concept fell down.
Try this for pathos. It's England. It's Christmas 1945.
The country has just spent six years at war, an exhausting
crippling war, a war that has cost it every last ounce of
will to survive. This was the world Idle's father knew.
After several attempts Ernest joined the RAF in 1941, in
the bleakest darkest time, when his country stood alone
in the world against the entire continent of Europe united
under a Nazi Germany. Take a look at the map sometime. It's
awesome. The Battle of Britain. Mastery of the skies, the
few, the many dead. The sickening civilian bombing. London
burning. The hammering sound of the planes at night. Cheer
up love, we can take it. Death from the skies. The boy Eric
was born in 1943 - he nearly didn't make it, a previous
brother died. His father came home on sick leave to give
him blood. The absent father, always gone, India, Nassau,
New York, RAF stations round the globe, sitting in the most
dangerous seat of a Wellington bomber, the rear gunner,
wireless operator. Just a Plexiglas bubble between you and
the enemy planes. But he came through.
It
was the end of the war. The country shivered under another
winter of shortages but at least the killing was done. No
more the dread sound of planes in the sky at night, the
awful banshee wailing of the air raid alarms, the dreadful
smell of rubber on his Mickey Mouse gas mask. Eric was two
years old. His mother was working as a Nurse in the north
of England. His father, Ernest, still in uniform had nothing
much to do. They had survived, that was their triumph. Now
they flew odd sorties off Scotland to secret destinations
with strange code words. He had found the words Spam Exit
in his father's tiny handwriting, in his tiny RAF diary
for 1945. He had also found a few references to himself,
the choking words for July 7th "Eric's first paddle
& trip to the Beach" and a few days later "Took
Nora & Eric over U Boat."
Christmas
was coming. The boy was not well. But he was not that sick
either. His mother yearned for her husband, locked up in
those barracks. She sent a telegram: "Come home urgently.
Boy very sick." What harm could it do? It wasn't as
though they were still at war, and four years without your
husband, who could blame her? Fate that's who. The Fat Lady
hadn't yet sung.
Ernest
was granted leave. Four days. It was just before Christmas,
December 21st, cold, foggy, freezing, post-war Britain.
The winter solstice, longest day, hardly light for more
than a couple of hours and it's getting dark again. Wet
roads, lights on, glistening slippery tarmac. "Don't
take the trains" that's the advice to the servicemen
"hitch-hike." Everyone stops for the men in uniform.
Our boys, who have delivered them from evil.
Somewhere outside Darlington the blue uniformed man gets
a ride from a lorry with a load of sheet metal. Hop in the
back mate. No problem. Hitching home for Christmas. Nice
one. Cold in the back of the truck, huddling down to escape
the chill wind, blowing on his hands. Huddled into the great
woolly greatcoat, dreaming of Christmas by the fire, wife,
child and the war over.
Outside
Darlington a two lane main road, a car, hooting in a hurry,
tries to pass. There isn't room. Something is coming. A
honking of horns. The car swerves in front of the lorry.
The truck skids, a squeal of tires as it runs off the road.
Dad in the back is trapped, crushed by the shifting load.
Badly injured he is taken to hospital, and now it is her
turn to get the telegram. "Come urgently husband very
ill." Pausing only to find someone to care for the
two year old, she takes the trains all night to end up by
his, yes, deathbed. He lingers. "I made a right wakes
of this Nora, darling" he says to her.
He
dies on Christmas eve, the nurses in their red capes singing
Silent Night. Happy Christmas everyone.
The mother works, the boy grows, she gets £756 compensation
and a plaque from the King which says he officially "gave
his life to save mankind from tyranny." The boy grows,
but she cannot look at him without thinking she is to blame.
Her guilt. Her grief. The shining future which they had
dreamed, wiped out by telegram. Christmas by the fireside,
the mother weeping, always weeping. Why always weeping,
for look it is Christmas and how brightly the fire shines
off the little tinsel tree, how prettily it reflects the
shiny aluminum reds and golds. Surely that will cheer you
up if I cannot. Why weeping mother when we have a big bright
food parcel from America with a little bear for the boy?
Why are you always weeping?
The
boy becomes seven and is sent away to boarding school. Here's
the irony; he is sent to a school to grow up with boys all
of whom have lost their fathers in the war. A single
parent half-orphanage, which was until just before he got
there, a full blown Victorian Orphanage, with boys in blue
coats buttoning from the neck to the ankles. A Victorian
school with a dormitory 110 yards long, the longest in Europe
they are told. A dormitory which is so cold frost can be
found inside in the bleak grey winter mornings. Twelve years
he spends there. He becomes a comedian.
Why
a comedian? To avoid the bullying? To escape the irony.
They called it The Ophny. Short for Orphanage. Sad isn't
it? "Are you happy at school?" "Oh yes, please
sir, thank you." Twelve years of happiness. Pure bliss
in the longest dormitory in Europe. 110 yards - a powerful
black athlete could easily run down it in ten seconds. They
identified with the black slaves. They sang Negro songs,
on old banjos, plucking at cheap guitars, and blowing into
small harmonicas. Why should they identify with the black
slaves of the American south? The music? No, the lyrics.
The bitterness, the hopelessness, the despair, those endless
years, those endless fourteen week terms. Sonny Terry and
Brownie McGhee, Big Bill Broonzy, the songs of Jim Crow…
If
you're white you're all right
If you're brown, stick around
But if you're black, oh brother
Get back, get back, get back.
The
bitterness, the hopelessness, the despair.
They
were fed on a diet of British war films, of amiable RAF
men locked up in cold Colditz castle. No wonder they identified,
walled up in their Wolverhampton monastery. Sad? A million
sad tales I can tell you. Lack of emotion recollected in
tranquillity. A thing of duty is a boy for ever.
Father's
grave - in neat lined slabs they are drawn up in ranks,
forever at attention, name, rank, serial number and date
of death: 24th December 1945. And the sad Latin words of
the RAF over each of them "Per ardua ad astra."
Through hard work to the stars. Could be the motto of mankind
entering the Space Age. Or a young man entering Showbusiness.
