Bernie Clifton: From Crackerjack to Vegas - The Life of a Comedy Legend

Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, Screen Rats, and welcome to another edition of Television Times Podcast.

Edition, episode, what am I talking about?

Anyway, let's try something new.

Let's put some background music on this intro, but just to give it a bit more life.

Let's try that.

Today's guest is someone from a blast from the past, someone who's on their own website has written, go on, admit it, you thought I was dead, which I think is fucking hilarious.

It's Bernie Clifton, it's Bernie Clifton, a man who used to be on television when I was a kid, all the time, sitting on the back of that ostrich.

And, you know, he's on the Meet the Richardson's for people who may not know that either way around.

And, you know, he was always on telly when I was a kid and he was often in the sketches and on the show Crackerjack, which was massive when I was a kid.

And Bernie was really sweet, actually, after our interview, he sent me a package, he sent me a CD of his music, I already had his book sent from the publisher, but he also sent me a little signed photo and a Crackerjack pen.

Now, it doesn't mean anything unless you know what that is, but it's kind of like the Blue Peter badge for people that like Crackerjack.

And, you know, I did and I watched it all the time.

And Bernie would have been on there and obviously I know his comedy, he was a staple on television when I was a child.

And, you know, he's in all kinds of things since then and, you know, he's written this book, which is absolutely brilliant and really funny.

And obviously he, you know, the time he came up, he's in his 80s now, he worked with everybody.

So you can just imagine the stories, right?

I was lucky enough to link up with him via...

Well, basically we have a mutual friend.

So I thought I would reach out.

And I was very surprised that he said yes.

I really was.

And it really took me by surprise because he called me.

You know, he's not really on social media and things like that.

Of course he isn't.

So he just phoned me up and I was like, who the fuck is this?

It was Bernie Clifton on the end of the phone.

So we tried to do it the normal way using the remote recording software.

But it was a bit of a tricky one for Bernie.

So we ended up doing it on Zoom.

But first of all, we had a little phone call to sort of sort things out.

Originally, I was just going to record the phone call somehow.

But here's a little snippet of our first meeting.

And this is how he answered the phone to me.

It's Americans.

Hi, Bernie.

It's Steve Gunn.

Hello.

Yes, it's Steve.

I've got this.

Yeah, it's a smart phone.

But I've got to press three buttons, which meant I couldn't hear whether it was you or not.

But I guess it was because you're that kind of guy.

It's 1101.

So I do like to be punctual and I was there on time.

But we it took a little while to get all the technical stuff done.

So I won't bore you with any of that conversation.

But yes, I was thrilled to talk to Bernie.

It really is like, it's just a dream, this podcast, that allows me to speak to people that I completely admire and loved and do love and just, it's just brilliant.

It's just excellent.

I can't believe I'm talking to him.

Yeah, I see him on telly as a kid.

I see him on telly now.

I give him a call.

It's amazing.

It really is quite the life I'm leading.

So yeah, it was great to talk to Bernie and I really enjoyed that conversation.

I talked to him on two different occasions.

So the first half is going to be on Friday and then we had a weekend.

This is about late January, I think.

And then on the Monday, I called him again and we continued our talk because we were limited with our Zoom recording.

And I also didn't really know how that will work because I don't use Zoom.

Anyway, let's get straight into the chat.

This is me talking to the absolute legend that is Bernie Clifton.

Welcome to Television Times, a weekly podcast with your host, me, Steve Otis Gunn.

We'll be discussing television in all its glorious forms.

From my childhood, your childhood, the last 10 years, even what's on right now.

So join me as I talk to people you do know and people you don't about what scared them, what inspired them and what made them laugh and cry here on Television Times.

During the last hour or so, I was due to go into town to drop some books off to meet my publisher in a car park.

Oh, okay.

No pressure, Steve.

The clock has begun to tick.

Well, well, I'll tell you.

So I'm halfway through your book.

I got to the bit where Bob Monkhouse leaves you that lovely little sneak package, which warmed my cockles.

That was nice.

Imagine doing that after a conversation with somebody he'd never met before.

He must have done it in the early hours of the morning.

And have you ever seen his handwriting?

Yeah, I saw his joke books.

I've seen excerpts of jokes.

I mean, he's such an artist.

And he decorated the notes with little bits of cartoon and stuff and pictures.

And then put the earplugs and the eye mask and everything.

I mean, what kind of animal could possibly function at that level?

I've no idea.

It strikes me as a man that probably didn't sleep much, I'm guessing.

Someone once told me, well, over the years I had met him, because we were in a nightclub in Chesterfield.

Back in the 70s.

And this punter came up to me and said, you won't remember me.

He said, well, I met you in Gateshead four years ago.

He said, of course I do.

Your wife had just had a baby.

And this bloke went, what?

He got this photographic memory and he used to say, it's a pain.

I can't forget anything.

The amazing guy and sad loss to us all, isn't it?

But yeah, it was a very big part of that period of time.

He seemed to be on every TV show, as far as I could tell.

I love that big box of money he used to open in, what was that one?

I always wanted that, what show was that?

I keep forgetting.

Celebrity Squares.

Was there a photograph in my book of Family Fortunes, perhaps?

I don't know.

Yes, yes, there is.

And it was great because come the day when my wife couldn't answer anything, he just stopped the recording and whispered in my ear, I'm going to ask you this, this, this and this.

Can we start again, please?

Oh, there's noise.

Such a gent, such an amazing guy.

I looked at all the photos from the book and the one that stood out for me was this one.

I don't know who the other guys are, but this looks like it was taken in a hipster cafe today.

Yeah, Grindwatch 1959.

Or, yeah, or he's a smoothie from a 1950s black and white film, isn't it?

We were in the RAF together.

I can't remember his name, but I think he was sent to America.

Why the RAF should send someone like him to America?

But the bizarre thing about that aspect of my life was I was a failed plumber from St.

Helens.

And I mean, bad.

They were so pleased to see the back of me as I made clear.

And suddenly I ended up in a classroom in Wiltshire as a radar mechanic and turned to the guy next to me and said, what do you do?

He said, I've got a degree in electronics and I went to the other, what about you?

He said, I've got 16 gills in electronics and electrical engineering.

What about you?

I said, I'm a bloody awful plumber.

30 of us were in a classroom and we were the creme, we'd been picked out to service the equipment.

It was called Navigational Bombing System that was installed in the H bomber fleet in the Vulcans that were there to bomb Russia in the height of the Cold War.

And I thought, how on earth am I ending up in this exalted company?

Fortunately, I didn't have anything to do with pressing button, but we trained navigators and bomb aimers to drop bombs on Russia.

That was the whole project at Lindholm, the bomber command bombing school.

And it's so bizarre that this old plumber from St.

Helens failed, miserable plumber, could be in this kind of company.

You were 15 when you left school.

I was 15, yeah.

And you didn't really finish your exams, and they just put you in the co-op, right?

Yeah, Friday at four, I was out the door at grammar school.

Saturday morning, I was at the Quarp, I'd been enrolled.

And Monday morning, I'm at the Quarp, and that was that wonderful moment that's etched in my memory.

And I know you remember from the books, when I've got the hovis pipe full of bread, and I'm at the junction of Westfield Street, and the bus went past, and in the window was Christopher Robin Boydell, and it crawled past, and he looked at me and went, what the?

And I looked at him and went, I don't know.

Amazing, isn't it?

And that's 75 years ago, I remember it as if it was yesterday.

This podcast is mostly about television, so I guess I should like jump ahead to your TV career.

And I've just been reading.

By all means, yeah.

I was reading about how Oswald the Ostrich came into being, because I was like, I've got to get to that bit before I speak to you.

And you go around to that props place and they're making it for you.

And I have to say, Bernie, honestly, it was the funniest thing I ever saw on Telly as a kid.

When everyone asked me, like, what's the funniest thing I saw on Telly as a kid?

Everyone's like, Malkerman, why is this?

It's Bernie Clifton coming out on the ostrich.

It's just funny.

And even, and you proved it recently in that Meet the Richardsons.

Yeah.

Why do you think it's always funny to see that?

I don't know.

You can't forget it.

You know, I mean, in the last 10 minutes, we've spoke about moments that are etched in your brain forever.

And at the time, I was quite hotty for props.

I flew from Jersey to the TV studio.

One day I flew to Teddington, they were having a sale and went back on the flight the same night because I was working that night with a bloody great fish under my arm.

I was mad on, that was Les Dawson, that was all down to Nez, who said to me, that was 1971, and he said to me, you've got to get out, you're just doing what all the other comics are doing.

So I said, yeah, I love, he said, go and be a prop comic.

And I was, I became a prop comic and I became sort of manic.

But as far as the ostrich is concerned, it's such an old gag.

Apparently, somebody I knew had seen somebody in the street with a carnival on it.

And he explained, so I sent a sketch to Peter Pullen.

Peter made it.

I had no idea of the impact.

And he rang me up and said, come and try it.

Also, I went down to Coventry and Peter Pullen, I mean, genius of Peter, he made everybody's props back in the day from Rod Hall and Keith Harris and all the TV, The Honey Monster, all those, Peter made all those.

And he just rang me up and said, it's ready, this thing.

So I went down and said, well, I better get on it.

And he was right in the city center, his workshop.

And I went, well, I've seen, I just went out on the street and the whole, it took everything.

And people are getting out of the car saying, what is that?

Because it messes with your brain.

Your legs look real.

I mean, they looked real.

They weren't floppy down the side.

They looked like, are they his?

They're sort of letting it lie.

We just improved it.

And it took a couple of years to get from the basic thing that he made to get the realism.

And it was the realism.

And then the physicality of it and the speed and the athleticism, all those things that I had back in the day that actually made it work.

I remember working on the ships.

I used to do, well, the QE2 all the time.

And I used to burst out.

It was like an international audience.

And I'd do five minutes on the ostrich and then disappear.

And then at the end of my act, an hour later, I'd say, well, as I take my final bow, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sure you'd all like to know and meet the legs of the ostrich and I used to throw it.

And here he is, Ayah Anadol.

And this crew member I'd recruited had come out, really a stocky Malaysian type of guy.

And he would come out in a vest wearing the tight and the fluffy feet and take a bow.

And I'd jump on his back and say, cheers.

I'll never forget this table of Americans.

This guy said, there you go, I was right.

But we did have a spare ostrich that I used in the Royal Variety Show.

We had a second ostrich in the wings with a guy inside it.

It was what we used to call the empty ostrich on the Royal Variety Show.

That was my breakthrough, I suppose.

I did three or four minutes on the ostrich, and then it dragged me off.

And I was given the script by Neil Schand, who we used to write with Barry Cryer.

He used to write for everybody.

And he said, why don't you do To Be or Not To Be, Shakespeare on the back of it.

And it was like, To Be or Not To Be, hee hee, ho ho ho.

And then I ran out across into the audience on a passarella and back again.

And three or four minutes of that, and then it dragged me off.

That is the quick, quick, quick, quick.

And as I disappeared in the wind, the ostrich came out on its own.

And did a tap dance on its own while I was changing.

And inside the ostrich was a guy, a dancer, a choreographer who directed subsequent Royal Variety Shows.

His first experience of a Royal Variety Show was inside my ostrich.

It's bizarre, isn't it?

Obviously, you said you kind of jumped a gun a little bit from a lot of people in the comedians' time in the 70s to get onto television.

Did you have a want to get onto TV?

Even more so, how predominant was television in your world?

Obviously, you didn't have telly as a kid or anything like that.

I wouldn't have thought.

When did you first see a TV set, for instance?

How old were you?

Did you buy one?

We were the only family in 1953, The Queen and The Coronation.

We were the only family on the street with a television.

The television was the size of a large fridge with a nine-inch screen.

What some very enterprising people made a magnifying screen and placed this magnifying screen in front of the screen.

However, you had to sit directly in front of the screen, otherwise there was a terrible distort.

I remember The Queen's Coronation in 1953, our front room had about 20 people in, all trying to sit in the middle.

So that was television.

And then getting into the 60s and the late 60s and the early 70s, when the comedians came on the screen, when Johnny Hunt invented the comedians, and that was it.

All of a sudden, that was the breakthrough.

But it was a terrible time of if you weren't on the comedians, you were out, you were down the league table.

And to get on, and this was early 70s.

But there was a select few, I mean, what, 15, 20 of them, and I wasn't one of those.

So you definitely felt derailed at that time.

Did you want to get on too?

Did you have the urge to be on television?

Absolutely.

Yeah, that was the time.

Because there was a thousand comedy acts and 20 or 30 on television.

So there were that many acts doing some kind of comedy.

But somehow Johnny Hampton plucked the select few, with talented select few, and made stars of them.

And the rest of us were sort of, oh no, we missed the boat.

There wasn't as much opportunity to get on television as a comedian then.

There was literally the one show or sections on other people's shows, right, little sort of stand up routines at the beginning of like...

There was Pebble Mill at one.

Pebble Mill.

And there was The Good Old Days.

That was a very important show.

Barney Collins always used a comedian.

And usually because it was Leeds based, it would be a Northern comic.

And that's when Barney saw me.

That was really my first break on television.

And that was about 1971.

And that was all of a sudden, you've got your foot in the door.

And that was my TV breakthrough.

And that's where Les said to me, you're on television, but you're just doing what everybody else is doing.

Why don't you become a prop comic?

And over the years, when we met, when we became good pals, he always used to wink and say, I put you right there, didn't I?

And he did, of course.

That's very sweet.

So I always ask people this that are kind of, you know, in the public eye.

So the height of your fame, I'd imagine, be like Crackerjack, where everyone knows exactly who you are, right?

So what was fame like for you in that period?

What did it feel like?

Did it feel good?

Was it extra pressure?

Yeah.

I'll never forget the first time it came home to me.

I'd done the Lillie series in 1974 or 5, which wasn't very good for me.

It was Saturday night at 8, but didn't really do me any favors.

But suddenly I did my first kind of week of Crackerjack and Ed Stewart had got some tickets to go to a football match at Wembley, and we parked the car at the Holiday Inn at Wembley.

And we walked like half a mile to the stadium.

And suddenly I was just conscious of this everybody coming up to Ed and people didn't have cameras.

There was no, you can have a foot.

It was like, can I shake your hand?

Can I have an autograph?

And I thought, what's going on here?

And I was like totally anonymous.

We used to film on Crackerjack outdoors.

And the director would say, Ed, just get in your car and drive around the corner.

Because if anybody sees you, they would just stop the filming.

That's when it first came home to me, the power of the box.

I'm side by side with somebody else.

Everybody knows him and no one knows me.

I mean, that wouldn't have lasted very long, I would imagine.

And then you're looking at the viewing figures must be, that's when half the country watching you, right?

Well, Friday at five to five, yeah, the whole families.

I always remember doing a pantomime in the, it was in South London and rented a house opposite a school and it was blissful.

You know, I was, we were doing two shows a day, but I was lying in and suddenly when the school term started about the 6th of January, word must have got around the playground and at half past eight every morning, they were hammering on the door for really to grab.

That's when it first came home to me, the power of the box.

Crackerjack, for me, I would have been absolutely perfect to watch every episode.

I look back at a few of the sketches today, because you mentioned in the book, the outside sketches that you used to do that were sped up sort of thing.

They're like silent movies, they're like comedy silent movies.

Genius, yeah.

Alan Bell, Alan Bell, who sadly, he went on, he just died, I'm sorry to say, Alan Bell went on to direct Last of the Summer Wine, and he was a genius and all these side gags, it was like Chapter S, wasn't it, everything was so popular and he used to make it up as we went along.

He would bring up somebody and say, well, bring your ladder, we're going up to Sutherland, we're going to the Gas Works in High Wycombe, bring your ladder.

It was an amazing brain, Alan, lovely man, and we hold him aloft, because those films were very popular.

Yeah, well, they speak to any age, right, I mean, because you don't, there's no language that we shouldn't use, actually.

I mean, you must have been just traveling around the country with ladders and fish and all kinds of stuff just under your arm the whole time, like I was reading today when you said you were traveling around before the motorways even were invented.

Yeah, I remember the M1 had come as far north as Nottingham.

And if I wanted to get to a gig, say, in Brantford, I'd have to go right through the middle of Sheffield, right through the middle of Wakefield, through the middle of Leeds.

It didn't matter because we didn't know any different, did we?

That's the way it was.

In Ireland, when I lived there, there were no motorways, and now there's no ways all over.

It's amazing how quickly you can get around.

It's just that makes a big difference.

I live in Newcastle.

I used to get up here, I have no idea.

The funny thing is, in the height of Clubland, and we were talking now of the mid to late 60s, when northern Clubland totally exploded, half of the club acts would spend a week or two weeks in Sunderland and Newcastle, and it was brilliant.

Until they were fed, it was like giving, if you had caviar for breakfast every day for a month, your taste buds would be absolutely soured by it.

It would be great at the beginning, but once they had entertainment seven nights a week, and they'd seen everything, and it was so hard, it was so tough.

The audiences that were brilliant suddenly became so blasé.

I used to get away with it, or thought I did, by singing, by sprinkling my comedy with song because I was a good singer.

I remember starting my act once in a club with a bloody Greco number, and suddenly somebody came up from behind me, grabbed a guy in the arm, he was a member of the committee, and says, are you a singer, or are you a bloody comedian, like he says on the poster?

What are you?

And in the middle of my act, he stopped me, because they were paying until a six quid for a singer, you'd get a tenner, and I had to explain, in the middle of the number, that it was just an opening song.

And that's a question I have for you, because you were perfectly placed to do that thing that Keith Harris did with Orville.

Did you never want to do a sort of 80s pop song, essentially?

Obviously, your Oswald didn't speak.

Well, there were all kinds of things going on, on the periphery of it.

I'm a good friend with Bobby Crush, and it was Bobby Crush that wrote the Orville song.

And Bobby and Keith were in summer season together in Scarborough.

And Bobby Crush came up on Monday from London and said, I wrote the Orville song.

And within a week, they'd been hovering up and down to London from Scarborough, and they'd written it.

And it wasn't it number one, it was an amazing, I wish I could fly, wasn't it?

Bobby Crush, there was a song of his when I was very young that I loved.

But the first thing I ever loved was his, what was his big tune in the early 70s, I don't know.

Bobby Crush's song was called The Entertainer from the film The Sting in 1974.

We shared a dressing room in Las Vegas, me and Bobby.

I was watching a bit of that today, because I worked on a panto once with Sue Collard about four years ago as well, I must talk to Sue.

Great buddy, wonderful Sue.

We invented a switch in between her shoulder blades to stop her and she agreed that if she came in a room and took the room over, we'd just beat her behind the back and go click.

Oh really?

That would mute her.

That was the only way she could stop.

Amazing, I love it to death.

So that was me talking to Bernie on the first day, which was a Friday, and although heavily edited due to the Zoom noise.

And now what you're going to hear is me chatting to him again over the other side of a weekend on a Monday morning.

So this is me continuing my conversation with the brilliant Bernie Clifton.

Thank I had a heavy oversleep, actually.

Oh, yeah?

A part of the fact that I'm getting up twice a night for the bladder alarm.

You wake me.

Oh, I'm already at the once a night.

That happened a couple of years ago.

Even if I don't drink anything at night, and I eat some pasta, or if I eat potatoes, I've noticed.

If you ever bake potato, that's it, you're up.

Oh, really?

I haven't got that on my list, but it's reassuring to tell that our conversation has started at a certain level.

I can only go downhill from there.

Whether you can get back to sleep afterwards, it's keeping the brain off on the walk back to the bed.

I've got a little, I've got a radio by the side of the bed, and I put it back on when I get back in bed.

It has to be conversation and no music.

And I turn it down, down, down, down until the conversation, the human voice, is just like a bit of a broken drum.

So I can't hear, I don't know what they're saying.

I know there's another human being there, which stops that awful silence, which in my case tends to energize my brain to say, my God, you'll never get back to sleep.

Once you thought of that, it's almost impossible.

It depends on the time of the wake up as well.

Yeah, psychologically, it tends to show what a mess I am.

That's just above the neck.

I was looking at your website as well.

Just have a look.

You mentioned it briefly.

Do you have a microlight or you go up in microlights?

I have a microlight aeroplane, yeah.

If you scroll through and find the, as a photograph would be, in what looks to be something almost like a Victorian flying machine, if there ever was one, it was the original microlight called an eagle.

It was almost like a converted hang glider.

Some genius in America said, well, we're hang gliding already, why don't we attach a frame so that instead of carrying our hang gliding wings up the side of a mountain and launching ourselves into space, we can use the same science, but we'll put an undercarriage on it.

We can make an airplane.

That's how it started back in the 80s.

Of course, I saw one and bought one, didn't I?

This is perfect.

There were no regulations.

The Civil Aviation Authority hadn't worked out anything could fly below a certain weight.

And these things crept in below the minimum weight.

So there we were, a bunch of near-door wells.

Flying around.

Yes.

I'll have one of those.

I'll have a blue one, please.

Put it on the roof of my car and off we went.

I didn't let it stop there.

I ended up in summer season and I think it was Great Yarmouth.

I had a friendly farmer with an idea, because it's very flat down there, plenty of opportunity.

He actually cleared a section of a field that was my runway.

But not content with that, I rang up The Daily Mirror and said, it's me, the guy on the ostrich.

I've just done the marathon.

I've got an airplane.

It's called a flying ostrich.

So they sent this guy down.

Don't forget, he came down like a proper London journalist.

I think he had an E-type Jag, he had an exotic car and he parked up in this farm on this field and there I am with this thing at the side of me with the flying ostrich emblazoned on the wing.

And he went, oh, that's interesting.

And he said, go on then.

I said, well, he said, well, I said, oh, I can't fly it, I can't fly it yet.

He said, pardon?

I said, I thought it would make a nice photograph of me on the ostrich in front of the area plane.

Well, that seemed to pacify him for a while.

So we did all those photographs of me in front of the aeroplane.

And he said, no good, he said, I can't take this back to the office, got to see it fly.

I said, I can't fly it.

Anyway, he said, can you get in it on the ostrich?

Oh, I doubt it.

Anyway, finally, he insisted, I actually got in it on the ostrich.

So I'm sitting in an aeroplane that I've never been in.

With the legs hanging over, and he said, I have to see daylight under the wheels.

They wouldn't give up.

So I'm hopping this aeroplane that I can't fly, sitting on an ostrich.

And in the end, I thought, sorry, it's not going to stop.

So I took off and I'm flying over Lowstove at 500 feet thinking, I'm going to die for the Daily Mirror.

And I did one circuit, landed, I can't tell you that.

It was absolutely terrifying.

Can you imagine if the phone in the wreckage?

That would be one hell of a way to go.

The tag is, when the photograph came out in the Daily Mirror, it was about an inch square.

You would have no idea what is that.

So how do you get insurance?

Oh, Estar is just going to go and fly this thing that he doesn't know he can fly.

And you wouldn't get insurance for that now.

You wouldn't be allowed to do anything.

Oh, you wouldn't even dare assemble it because what happened was hundreds of people of like mind were taken off and crashing them, flying over Heathrow because of the weight thing.

It was a free card.

So immediately the CAA clamped down, stopped it all.

And there are now flying schools and it's no longer safe as the sport can be.

For back in the day, it wasn't.

So that was a bucket list.

I got away with that, didn't I?

Did you continue to go in there?

Yeah, I've got one at the bottom of the field, waiting for the weather to settle down.

Because I was thinking, because obviously you have a fascination with the air, because you're in the RAF.

After reading your book, there's like one bit that I can't quite shake.

I can't quite remember how you end up there, but you're a bit drunk and you get in the plane and you're being flown back and you get into that Perspex.

Oh, yeah.

Just lying there looking straight down at the earth.

Ultimate mad weekend.

Well, I'd achieved the height.

I was playing in a seven-a-side tournament, an RAF seven-a-side tournament in Marham, in Norfolk, which is where the RAF should be because it's flat.

I was stationed at the Bomber Command bombing school and they have a variety of airplanes, which is what the RAF do, isn't it?

They've got airplanes.

So what they did on these tournaments, they used to fly the seven-a-side team.

There'd be about 10 of us all together in a small mid-range bomber called Varsity, like twin-engine light bomber, I suppose, at the time.

We're talking about the late 50s.

We took off, I think probably, and flew from Yorkshire down into Norfolk.

There was no drinking going on in the cockpit.

All the drinking was going on at the back with the rugby players.

We took off from Marham and the pilot came back and said, anybody want to fancy the VIP view?

And I said, yes, yes.

And he just lifted the floor of the aircraft up.

And there was this perspective bubble hung below.

And he went, in you go then.

And I'll never forget it.

Being lowered and laying on my belly, looking down with nothing between me and Norfolk.

Have you ever seen it?

Absolutely terrifying.

What a way to sober up.

You seem like a prime candidate to go on like Virgin Galaxy or whatever.

Yeah.

There's an actor just being on it.

What's his name?

Shatner.

Shatner went up last year.

I always think an unfortunate name for someone who's willing to go virtually on the edge of space.

Don't you?

Gunn, to your head, if you had to, what reality TV show could you stand to be on?

Oh, gosh, reality TV.

It wouldn't be anything in terms of the dancing.

That's gone.

That's by the bite.

In fact, I was auditioned once.

I once met the producers of Strictly Come Dancing, and I obviously failed.

They weren't that impressed with me because Frank Carson got the gig, but then he bowed out before it started.

For some reason, he was unable to do it.

It would have been that 10 years ago, but it wouldn't be that anymore.

The jungle would obviously leap forward as the most high profile, wouldn't it?

I guess it would be that.

But because of my age, they might well say, oh, well, we won't let him do anything dangerous.

We need some testicles.

We once did something.

And in fact, I was talking to Don McLean yesterday.

I can't remember the title of it, but it was a reality TV mini Olympic Games with stars.

I know there were people from Coronation Street.

There was the David Bowie's first wife.

What was she called?

Angie.

Anyway, all kinds of people doing all kinds of stuff.

And I know it was at Coronation Street stars.

Don McLean was on it.

I was on it.

I think Lenny Bennett was one of the compas back in the mid-80s and it was at Minehead, the Butler's Camp.

And I know that the last event was about 12 of us riding around this sort of contrived mini truck, riding these little mini motorcycles, you know, the ones that you can almost see.

And I remember I was last on the final lap, they all managed to collide and fall off.

And I was winning.

And I remember Don McLean said, he was on the floor in hysterics.

I was winning and with 50 yards to go, I fell off as well.

The other 11 jumped my cart and cast me, barely ended up.

So that was my most notable reality TV show.

What you described, I mean, there's a few versions of it, but do you remember?

It's Knockout.

Knockout, yes.

They tried to put that back once, didn't they?

So that, a sort of celebrity version of that would be quite fun.

Yeah, I did that when it was called It's an International Knockout.

Someone had dropped out, a big star, and they rang me at the last minute and said, can you fly from Manchester to Florida next Friday?

And I went, yes, of course I can.

So I jumped on a plane, and about 18 hours later, I got off this plane to be whisked into a Cadillac, stretch limo, and they sort of quit, we're filming, we're filming.

They threw this costume at me.

I remember it was bell-bottom trousers, it was like a sailor, like a pirate's thing.

This lady ran into the gents with me and started to cut 18 inches off the bottom of the trousers because they were on my ankles and they said, go, you've got to climb up that tree at an angle of about 12 degrees till you get to the end where David Gower, the cricketer, your team captain is waiting for you.

So I'm jet lagged, I'm climbing up this thing and suddenly out of the mist, Joe Bugner, the boxer, carrying a water cannon was trying to knock me off this tree into the water.

It sounds like an anxiety dream.

Yeah, it's an international knockout.

I'd love to see that.

I think the misconception is that, you know, reality TV came out in the year 2000 ish with like Big Brother.

But if you think about these shows and you repackage them, that they are the same thing.

Yeah.

And you may not remember, but people might remember the infamous It's a Royal Knockout.

I was a compare on that.

I was engaged to do the warm up, keep the audience happy.

And they said, right, we'll stop filming, out you go.

And I thought, there was about 2000 people, it was like standing in the middle of a football stadium.

I had this marvellous idea, I said, okay, first boy or girl to come to me wearing odd socks.

First person come to me wearing a trainer on one high heel shoe on it.

All that kind of desperation.

It was.

Yeah.

Of course, it was absolutely vilified, wasn't it?

Subsequently, what was the controversy?

The royal family hated what the youngsters had exposed them to, the younger generation.

I don't think there was anything like it ever happened again.

I've been involved in a lot of disasters, haven't I?

I'm desperately thinking of a triumph.

There's a celebrity chef come writer called Jay Rayner.

Jay Rayner, the son of Clare.

We've not had this conversation, have we?

Right, well, I'm sitting watching Celebrity Mastermind, and it came to the general knowledge minute and a half, and Jay Rayner was in this chair, and Clive Myrie said, could you tell me the name of the man who did them?

And Jay Rayner went, Bernie Clifton.

So Clive Myrie just about continued.

And on few subsequent questions, when Jay Rayner couldn't remember or didn't know the answer, to avoid saying pass, which can be penalized for, he just burbled, Bernie Clifton.

Anyway, he didn't went, but subsequently, he explained the ruse on Twitter.

And apparently, he's a fan.

And he just suddenly thought, well, I know what I'll do.

I'll just blurt out the names.

And subsequently, got in touch with him and said, if I'm ever fortunate enough to be on Celebrity Mastermind, I promise I will return the favor.

And I mean, we can't not talk about the Inside No.9 episode, with your name on it.

Bernie Clifton's dressing room was an episode of Inside No.9, which was broadcast back in 2018.

How did that come about?

I honestly don't know.

I don't remember being asked ever, but I was thrilled to be mentioned.

And subsequently, I met them backstage.

They were on a tour a few years ago.

A friend of mine from the BBC in Manchester knew them.

And we got an invite.

I went up, saw the show and met them all backstage.

And because of their on-screen image, you would think they were absolutely terrifying.

They were the most charming, inoffensive three people I've ever met in my life.

They were absolutely wonderful.

And I was thrilled to have been mentioned.

In fact, when I first heard about it, I thought I was going to be in it.

Yeah, I think everyone did.

Yeah.

Bernie Clifton, Jasmine Bull, unfortunately, I wasn't.

What is the funniest thing you ever saw on television?

My knee-jerk reaction would be the Marx Brothers.

Yeah, I just had this.

There was anything that the Marx Brothers did.

Obviously, Laurel and Hardy as well.

But I just had this thing growing up of Harpo with this enormous big raincoat on and all the pockets had different air horns.

And just by squeezing a pocket, you could.

And I just thought, that's for me.

That's what I want.

I want one of those.

I was backstage at a club in Wales and there was this large cylinder.

And I said, what's that cylinder?

I said, that's a CO2 cylinder.

We use it to get the beer up to the pumps from the...

I said, how does it work?

And he just twisted the knob.

I thought, have you got any small ones?

He said, well, no.

He said, well, I know you can get small ones.

I said, can you get one that would fit under a big float?

And he went, oh, yes.

I came home from Wales that day and he put one of these large cylinders in the back of my car.

The following week, I went out on Battle of Variety Club where I was comparing.

In between my legs, under the robe, I've got this huge CO2 cylinder and I went and sang, lonely as a desert breeze, get that breeze between your knees.

I turned the valve on and the thing, the bloody thing blew me onto my back.

It was like a jet take, you know.

The band thought it was hilarious.

However, it was the start of my Red Shadow routine, which I ultimately performed on the Royal Variety Show in front of the Queen.

So that kind of quality epitomized by the Marx Brothers, just for me, that's it.

Because that sounds quite ad hoc.

Because I've worked in theatre and stuff, I've worked backstage and seen people come up with things and go on stage and do them.

Have you always been quite spontaneous, like find something backstage sometimes and then just go on and do something with it?

Or was it always massively pre-planned?

Oh yeah, I would just pick stuff up.

We always had stuff on the clubs, on the working men's clubs or the social clubs, where the potential for the objects that would be littered around the stage.

For instance, I would just go to the piano stool.

There would always be an organ, but there'd be a sort of a redundant piano and a piano stool.

And I'd lift the lid and the stuff that was in the stool, like the old Victorian music.

And I used to do a gag.

And of course, the old piano stool, it works on a hinge, remember, the lid.

And I would go to the audience, lift, this is difficult explaining it, but bear with me, lift the lid up, exposing the contents, and offer it around the room saying, would anyone like some snuff?

Now that just tells you, this is 60 years ago.

So I was eager, I was eager to seize on any form of stuff that was available, and if the turn was good, they'd ask him to stay on and draw the raffle.

And at the Ilkiston Co-op Club one night, they had two large biscuit tins, the type of the old fashioned big biscuit tin, and all the tickets were in the biscuit tins on the stage.

So I drew a ticket out of one bin, and they said, thank you very much.

So I jumped in the tins and did a fandango around the stage.

I mean, got such a big laugh.

I went down to the Lotus Supermarket, and got the old biscuit tins, they said, we've got hundreds.

And I went round the back, borrowed a couple and I built that into my act.

In that respect, I was seizing on stuff that was available to me.

I went to a club once and I was mainly a singer, and I lifted the mic stand up to take it downstage, and it came off the bass, like there was a three footed bass, and it came off.

So I got my old mic stand and I saw the rivets off so that my mic stand would come off the bass also.

But before I went on, I turned the mic stand upside down and filled it full of marbles.

When I put it in position, waiting, and I'd reach back and pick up the mic stand and all these marbles, like 30, 40, 50 marbles would cascade across the stage.

So I was on my way, and that's where Les Dawson asked me the question, what do you like when I went visual comedy?

He said, well, go out, go out and be a proctomic.

You know, you can buy, it's called an adult Bernie and Ostrich costume on eBay.

I bet it's awful.

I bet it's a terrible front, isn't it?

I'll send you a link.

I'll send you a photograph.

If you give me your postal address.

Yeah, before we go, make sure I can actually put something in the post here.

Oh, thanks.

You know, you were asking about the microlight photograph.

I've got a microlight photograph of good quality on the front cover.

Well, hopefully next time we can meet in person or something.

Yeah, you're in Newcastle.

I'm in Newcastle, yeah.

So if you ever swing by, we'll do another one.

I could talk to you all day, Bernie.

Yeah, give us a shout.

I'm glad we finally got together.

It's lovely to chat.

And thank you.

Somehow I've got a new aspect on my phone.

I owe it all to you.

If they charge me for it, I'll send you the bill.

That was Bernie Clifton.

What a great chat.

I loved hearing about all those stories from like decades and decades ago and the history of comedy and working in the clubs since 60 years ago.

I mean, it's mad, right?

Mad to hear.

What a guy.

What a fun chat.

I really loved talking to him.

He was an absolute gem.

Oh, Bernie, let's do it again.

OK, and today's outro track.

OK, we went far back in the decades with Bernie.

Now you're doing that with me.

Three decades, in fact, back to 1994, when I was a mere early 20s man with hardly any equipment and somehow I was bashing out tunes.

I don't know.

Anyway, this song's called Mr.

Sensible.

It's silly, it's fun, it's frivolous, it's, you know, slightly childish, but I used to love stuff like that.

Heavily influenced by Madness and probably Harry Nilsson's string arrangements.

I still don't know how I did this.

We'll call it a demo.

Slightly cleaned it up.

It's called Mr.

Sensible.

And here it is.

Oh, such a youthful singing.

That was me 30 years ago singing Mr.

Sensible in a room in, I don't know, Putney, South East London.

There we are.

I hope you enjoyed that episode with Bernie Clifton.

I certainly did.

It was quite involved.

Hey, and you got a lot of history.

Come back next time for another podcast whenever that may be.

Thanks for listening.

Bye for now.