JIMMY DIDN’T MAKE A BIG PRODUCTION OF THE SINGER’S INTRODUCTION
When you’re a comedian, nervously standing in the wings, trying to remember your first gag (and the one after that!), you don’t want to be distracted by the compere/club secretary mangling your introduction.
It’s happened to me.
“Please welcome a young comedian making his first appearance here. Put your hands together for . . . Bill Evans!”
I learned quickly it’s useless (and humiliating) shouting out, “Excuse me! It’s Phil Evans!” because the compere won’t hear you, even over half-hearted applause.
So, before I introduce a comedian or speakers, I always ensure they’re happy with what I’ll be saying.
Singer Ronnie Hilton was a big TV and recording star in the 1950s, but like many ‘crooners’, his career faltered with the arrival of ‘beat groups’ in the early 60s. However, he had a hit with “Windmill In Old Amsterdam” in 1965, worked in cabaret and social clubs and had a show on BBC Radio 2.
Later in his career, he took a booking at a social club in the south Wales valleys, for not a lot of money, where the ‘seen it all before’ club secretary asked him “How d’yer want to be introduced?”
Ronnie replied, as he must have many times before, “He’s had five No1 records. And appeared on three Royal Variety Performances. This man has done it all!”
The club secretary, bursting to show he wasn’t impressed by such achievements, asked, cockily, “So, what you doin’ h’yer, then?”
Ronnie’s reply isn’t on record.
But I’ve got a good idea what I would have said.
When Jimmy Tarbuck hosted “Sunday Night At The London Palladium”, after he’d quickly changed into a Musketeer’s costume during a commercial break, in readiness for a comedy sketch, he was told the sketch had been dropped because the show was over-running.
So, he had to introduce the top of the bill while dressed, for no apparent reason, as The One Musketeer!
Flustered, young Tarby forgot the name of the star, so said, “Please welcome a lady who needs no introduction!”
After the show, the lady in question (Petula Clark) said, “Jimmy. That was the loveliest introduction I’ve ever had!”
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Well – I’m glad Easter is over; there is only so much chocolate one can eat.
Safely!
Personally, I didn’t have any Easter eggs, but everywhere I went there were chocolate eggs for sale.
For the record, I’ve picked a few up today at a fraction of the price they were last week.
It was worth the wait.
Don’t judge me on this.
We all like a bargain from time to time.
We all have our funny ways and if we were all ‘perfect’ or the same, life would be so flipping boring, and I wouldn’t have anything to write about every week.
In fact, you would probably see me sitting in a coffee shop somewhere, staring into my cup.
Can you imagine?
We should all embrace and celebrate our differences.
Many of the greatest people in history often didn’t fit in.
Yet not fitting in turned out to be a huge asset for them.
They possibly didn’t know this at the time, but by being true to themselves and applying a good work ethic, they stood out and greatness was achieved.
Maybe this is something we could all think about?
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