Welcome to my blog : Archive
Here is an archive of all my past blogs, just incase you missed any! To view my latest blog please click here
Charlie Williams died this week
Posted Sunday, September 10, 2006
Charlie Williams died this week damn.
Charlie is probably one of the main reasons I wanted to be in the business. You have to remember this was the early seventies; there were no hip black role model comedians for anyone to follow back in those days. Charlie, along with Jos White and Sammy Thomas were what we had. The show that made him a star was of course Johnny Hamps The Comedians. This 30 minute show that had club comedians telling jokes to a hysterical studio audience. The big names to come out of that show as far as I can remember were Bernard Manning, Colin Crompton, Dougie Brown, Jim Bowen, Ken Goodwin, Mike Reid, George Roper and of course Sammy, Charlie and Jos.
Charlie really stood out, however, because he was a black Yorkshireman , he had the whole dialect thing going on , Ee, owt flower and Ill tell thee and By eck . He was a walking advertisement for the success of the black diaspora. Their ability to adapt to any environment, to integrate into any situation. Charlie was as Yorkshire as J.B. Priestley. He was a Doncaster lad, born of Jamaican parents, he worked as a miner at Upton Colliery and even played footie for Doncaster rovers in the fifties.
I remember him as a true icon of show business , you know? Living proof that a person of colour, could make it on a predominantly white medium. Charlies ability to generate laughter from tales of childhood poverty, racism and self-deprecation gave me a way of gaining a foothold in an unfathomable industry.
For a young lad from Dudley who wanted to be a comedian Charlie Williams was the only person I could look to for inspiration it was kind of weird, because I hadnt had the same up bringing as him, so I didnt relate to a lot of the things he was talking about. I remember being on stage up north somewhere like Hull and being told off by nearly the entire audience for not being More like Charlie Williams. This meant they wanted me to do the kind of material that Charlie did If you dont laugh, Ill come and move in next door to you and Ay, love Ive been left int thoven too long stuff
like that.
Clearly this was a way to go for me , I had no idea how to generate my own material apart from the stuff Id done on New Faces , so Charlies act which poked fun relentlessly at his racial origins , his yorkshireness and peoples prejudices ,was a perfect entity for the young Len to crib.
He had great energy, Charlie. When he came on stage, you were swept away by his good will and his grown up-ness. He had been poor, he had been a part of this country, and he had seen and endured things that people in the audience would never know about because they hadnt been in his skin. He was the kind of comedian who exuded confidence when he worked live the audience knew they were going to be entertained and when he got out there, they sat back and let him get on with it... which is what its all about , I say.
I remember doing a gig with him in Leicester once. Some bright spark, thought it would be a good idea to have Lenny Henry and Charlie Williams on the same bill. I was still young and a bit geeky - fresh from the cult-ish success of Tiswas and Algernon and Gwapple me Gwapenuts style Hi Jinks. Charlie hadnt done telly in a while (his last stint had been on ATVs The Golden shot, where he had replaced the very slick Bob Monkhouse and suffered by comparison). In the dressing room before I went on, I thought Id ask Charlies advice, perhaps some sage words from an old hand would provide a much needed steer to my rudder and point me in the right direction. Charlie looked me up and down and said Well lad, the thing about you is, youre not everybodys cup of tea, so Id just keep me head down and get on wi it if I were you And that was it. That was the big advice. I remember he went on and stormed the audience that night, and I struggled a bit.
At the time I probably thought Cocky old git
But now I recognise that I was actually getting a masterclass from someone who knew his way around an audience.
Charlie Williams was 78; he had suffered from Parkinsons disease for a decade.
God bless you old dude - you were one of the good uns.
Lenny Henry - September 2006
Funny bits:LAUGHS
About:ME
Contact:ME
