TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

After their starring role in the regrettable comedy review series Running Wild in 1954 they wisely shied away, or just plain hid, from television for the next few years, until persuaded by the influential Val Parnell that maybe it was time to return to TV and make guest appearances in his variety shows for ATV. After all, if they were doing new material it would be a new set of writers, and they wouldn't shoulder the burden by having their name above the title should it all go wrong again. They had quietly racked up a dozen appearances on Parnell's Sunday Night At The London Palladium, plus several Saturday Spectaculars, grabbing British audiences attention by stealth.

Establishing themselves as a solid booking Parnell took a chance and set aside time for a series 'Bernard Delfont Presents The Morecambe & Wise Show', debuting 12th October 1961 across the ITV network. Delfont had been the number one theatrical impresario for a number of years and just like Jack Hylton at Associated-Rediffusion had contractually requested/demanded his name above the title along with the talent. In later series the studio ident on the closing credits would be accompanied by the legend "by arrangement with Bernard Delfont."

Talking to TV World magazine in 1967 for their final ATV series Eric claimed "We found the formula for success during the Equity strike in 1961. At the time we belonged not to Equity but to the Variety Artists' Federation and so were not directly affected by the strike. But indirectly we were affected because we had a contract to put on six shows on TV. Some artists who had been booked to appear with us in the series were on strike. Well, Ernie and I asked each other what the blazes we were going to do about it. Then Dick Hills and Sid Green, our script writers, told us that we would have to do it on our own and they would write down the material with that in mind. Then, suddenly, we found that when we were on our own we clicked. Previously, we had too many people round us and we had completely disappeared."

All their ATV shows were written by S.C.Green (Sid) and R.M.Hills (Dick) who would stay with the duo until the late sixties and their move to the BBC. Green and Hills were not performers, but managed to write themselves into each episode nonetheless.

Initially, all of the guest musical acts were popular singers of the day like Gary Miller, Cleo Laine, Valerie Masters and trad jazz bands led by Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball, Dick Charlesworth and the like. The first series barely gets a mention in the TV Times, with the editor preferring to plug the new series of established favourite Bootsy and Snudge.

The second series, now titled Two Of A Kind had the same singers and trad jazz line-up with The Beverly Sisters and Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson as resident singers with a different trad jazz group each week. By the time of the third series the weekly trad jazz band was phased out and more solo and group singers were brought in and, once in a while, a pop group like Joe Brown and His Bruvvers would be called upon.

Unfortunately, the third series in summer 1963 co-insided with ABC playing Mike & Bernie Winters' Big Night Out the same Saturday night. Rivalry between ATV and ABC, despite sharing studio facilities in Birmingham, meant that they would cheerfully cancel out each other's shows in the schedules, which in the end only meant reduced ratings for both. Meanwhile, both shows seem to share a lot of musical acts like Susan Maughan, Acker Bilk and The King Brothers, and just like Big Night Out several acts would appear more than once in a series.

The title Two Of A Kind was dropped for the next series in spring 1964, although the Two Of A Kind theme would stay with them, even when they moved to the BBC in 1968. The usual singers and trad jazz bands were present and correct. However, the 18th April 1964 show featured The Beatles who played several songs live and joined in on a musical sketch with Eric and Ernie, but one can't help thinking that they did this stuff better with Mike & Bernie Winters. The following week everything returned to normal for the rest of the series with guests like Edmund Hockridge, Acker Bilk and The Bachelors. Each show would end with Eric attempting to tell a dirty joke about two old men in deckchairs.

There would be no new shows in 1965 as they spent the time making the first of three movies for Rank. Instead, a Best Of Morecambe and Wise series filled the space until the new series began in January 1966. It would have proper pop guests this time, as well as the traditional middle of the road singers, with the likes of Lulu, Georgie Fame and Herman's Hermits making an appearance. There were a few pop culture references in the script and ad-libs, but it frankly felt a bit odd. For the finale, instead of an attempt at a dirty joke Eric tries to perform the play Home From The Wars. For the first show in the series the duo bag the front cover of the TV Times. Inside Ernie explains their writing routine "We use our calendar as a memo pad for joke and sketch ideas. Scribble them down beside the day's date on the calendar. That way we can remember when we thought of it, why, and what seemed funny at the time. Sometimes we can't remember. Then we hand the whole thing over to scriptwriters Dick Hills and Sid Green and let them work it out. When we can't see the calendar any more for scribble, we know the opening date for another television series is near."

The final ATV series ran from 1967 into 1968 and in a bid to break them in America ATV would record each show twice during the same sessions, once in black and white for the UK market and then in colour for the USA, where the show was presented as Piccadilly Palace, the summer replacement for Hollywood Palace. The duo had appeared several times on CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show at the insistence of the host and it was decided to give them a break with their own series in the USA. Unfortunately for the UK audience they decided to re-do some of their recent ATV sketches for American viewers. They also included American singing stars who were probably on their way down like Bobby Rydell, George Maharis and Jimmie Rodgers. It was also broadcast once every three weeks in the UK, alternating with Spotlight and The London Palladium Show. The show was extended to an hour which meant room for extra guests, and as a result Morecambe and Wise sometimes looked lost within their own show, just as they had feared back in the fifties for the BBC. Pop acts for the final ATV series included The Kinks, The Small Faces, The Hollies and The Moody Blues among others, while Millicent Martin was the resident guest singer.

Having to re-do old sketches, the long gap between shows and the extra guests meant a new plan was necessary, but there was only one place to go in those days, Morecambe and Wise would have to go back to the BBC.

After the failure of Piccadilly Palace it was decided to concentrate on the home market and a move to BBC2 would see them appear in colour for the first time in the UK. The move to BBC2 in 1968 however saw a return to the early sixties reliance of trad jazz and solo singers, but Elton John would appear a couple of times in the mid-seventies.

Despite the deserved honours given to their later BBC shows written by Eddie Braben, several classic BBC era routines like the Grieg Piano Concerto sketch, props going awry, the actresses Janet Webb and Ann Hamilton, the plays and Ernie's deluded opinion of himself as a great artist all started in the ATV era with Green and Hills.

The ingenuity of the scripts together with their performance and relationship as a double act set them apart from other comedy teams, prompting many documentaries about them over the years, but nothing specifically about their ATV years has been made to date, despite four of the six series still surviving complete. Network released a box set of the surviving ATV shows, but Apple Corps only allowed The Beatles clip from 1964 to be available for one year.

THE MORECAMBE AND WISE SHOW / TWO OF A KIND

ATV

12th October 1961 - 31st March 1968, 11th August 1968