Pawnbrokers, poverty, policemen and boxers-these are a few of Les Dawson's Collyhurst memories. But it was a Manchester community which stuck together and lives on in the minds of those who have left it to the ravages of the developers. Lancashire mill folk and Black-pool landladies are also a fertile source of fun for Les-so they feature in this amble around the people and places of his past. with Roy Barraclough
Roy Hudd goes back to his native Croydon and stages an improbable 'Old boys' reunion' with some of the lads who were with him in a Boys Club concert party.
Irene Handl is one of Britain's funniest actresses, appearing in countless plays and films in a succession of working-class cockney parts. Yet her own London background is vastly different. Born of foreign parents over 80 years ago, she grew up in a household staffed with servants, and in this film she talks about the childhood experiences that later became the basis of so many comic roles in films like A French Mistress, Morgan and I'm All Right Jack.
The one-time miner from South Yorkshire, now one of the stars of Hi-De-Hi! shows us round his native Rotherham; retracing his steps from Hovis to Bovis! The school which failed to train him and the colliery which failed to restrain him led to the pub which paid a pittance and the club which proved the pit's answer to his prayers. Rotherham's other famous comic son, Sandy Powell - making his last recorded television appearance -and the town's singing mp, Stan Crowther , join Paul in a celebration of Rotherham old and new.
Michael Palin looks back in languor at his meteoric rise to stardom from Sheffield (full address withheld), through Bnghtside and Carbrook Co-operative players, Brasenose Revisited, to Edinburgh's famed Parks and Burials Department, with the help of his Mum, his old geography teacher, Spike Milligan, Terry Jones, the boy next door and D. P. Gumby (full address withheld). But whether the roots of comedy are in nature or nurture is best left to the sociologists to decide...
'Dear Mum, I'm crying as I write this letter, so please excuse the tearstains ...' wrote 12-year-old Billy Dainty after he got his first taste of show business. He grew up to become the back legs of a dancing donkey. In tonight's programme he meets up again with his front legs, and gives an unlikely rendition of Hamlet.
Alexei Sayle was one of the founders of what has come to be known as 'alternative comedy'. His roots aren't in the traditional theatre but in the pubs and clubs more associated with the world of rock music. He started drinking in Liverpool when he was 14. "I never had any trouble getting served 'cos I've looked like this since I was three." At 17 he exchanged the pints of the northern pubs for the 'G and Ts' of London clubs. Alexei takes us on a memorable journey round the places which feed his imagination. We start at opening time and end ... well, in the early hours.
Kenneth Williams explores his roots in and around St Pancras where he grew up. Architecture, poetry, art and music were the formative influences on Kenneth Williams: the slum architecture of St Pancras where he grew up; the liquid poetry of his gran's fruity anecdotes; the art of the Marcel wave practised by his hairdresser father; and the musical knees-up of The Boot.
