I’m Not All There
I’m not all there, there’s something missing
I’m not all there, so folks declare
They call me ‘Looby’ ‘Looby’, nothing but a great big ‘Booby’
Point and say that’s where you want it
But that’s just where I’ve got it
I know they think I’m slow
Let them think, let them think, I don’t care
When I go to the races, my fancy to back
If I back a winner, they give me my money back
‘Cause I’m not supposed to be all there
Let them think, let them think, I don’t mind
Courting couples in the park, on any night you’ll find
If you stay, they’ll separate, for love’s not always blind
But they let me stay and watch them, and they never seem to mind
‘Cause I’m not supposed to be all there.
(THE WORDS TO THE SONG THAT ERIC AUDITIONED WITH FOR THE IMPRESARIO JACK HYLTON)
In his 1990 autobiography, Still On My Way To Hollywood, Ernie Wise recalled the first time he set eyes on Eric. ‘I first met Eric in the spring of 1939. I was on tour with Jack Hylton, doing a concert at a cinema in Manchester, and all of five months in the business…It was my usual practice…to sit out front
casting an “experienced” eye over the ever-hopeful acts. At this point enter Eric Bartholomew accompanied by his mother, the redoubtable Sadie.
‘Eric took the stage and went into a number called “I’m Not All There”. This he followed with a very polished impression of Flanagan and Allen. How the hell he did it I don’t know! He played each character separately but somehow wove them together in such a way that we were convinced there were two people up there on stage. Everybody was terribly impressed. The Flanagan and Allen brought gasps of admiration and I began to get seriously worried about my future career. I had a lot of push in those days, a hard core, but I have to admit my self-esteem took a bit of a knock from Eric even though we never said a word to each other…’
In looking back at the beginnings of Eric and Ernie’s working relationship it is interesting also to consider briefly the beginnings of northern comedy, of which both men were a product.
Northern humour developed mostly in the mill towns. From the start of industrialization until well into the twentieth century most working people in the north of England spent tedious and soul-destroying days toiling in vast spaces in large numbers, and humour and song became the only way they could express themselves, feel a little alive, and generally relieve the monotony of everyday life. No better example of this can be found than the wealth of comedians produced by the industrial heartland of the northwest. This tradition stretches back to Victorian times, but among the great names of comedy of more recent years are Jimmy Clitheroe, Ken Dodd, Tommy Handley, Victoria
Wood, Stan Laurel, Thora Hird, George Formby, Albert Modley, Al Read, Les Dawson, Sandy Powell, Peter Kay, Jewell and Warriss, Morecambe and Wise, and scores of others. (In passing, Sandy Powell is the only entertainer to whom Eric ever sent a fan letter.)
All made their mark in their time. For Victoria Wood and Peter Kay, that time is right now, but for those who know their British comedy history, the others never seem that far away. The late Les Dawson remains perhaps still the most quotable comedian on mother-in-laws. While his material is now widely viewed as outmoded, a form of comedy done to death in pubs, clubs, and variety theatres over too many decades to remember, the natural humour of his gags, reinforced by his deadpan delivery, still survives and surely always will. ‘The wife’s mother has been married three times. Her first two died through eating poisoned mushrooms!’ (In the comedian Jack Dee the deadpan melancholic embodied by Les Dawson lives on, though the mother-in-law jokes are sacrificed for observations of people in general.)
Those bright lights of the north, and many more like them, illuminated the entertainment industry that was born during the Industrial Revolution and reached its zenith in the first half of the twentieth century. Of course the north of England wasn’t the sole purveyor of comedy. The humour served up in the south, particularly London, was and is profound—from Charlie Chaplin to
Peter Sellers, from Max Miller to Mike Reid, from Flanagan and Allen to Norman Wisdom, Kenneth Williams, Ben Elton, and Harry Enfield.
It’s important to remember that over the decades other regions of the United Kingdom, notably the mining towns and shipyard areas, have also produced great comic entertainers, from Tommy Cooper (Wales) to Billy Connolly (Scotland). But the northwest corner of England has consistently yielded up an astounding plethora of talent.
In the eighty or ninety years after 1780 the population of Britain as a whole nearly tripled and the average income more than doubled. The share of farming fell from under a half of the nation’s output to just under a fifth, and the making of textiles and iron moved into steam-driven factories. As a result the north experienced exceptionally rapid growth, with the towns of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield becoming teeming cities during the nineteenth century. Such monumental changes had not been fully anticipated and were not fully comprehended at the time.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, with much of Europe and
America fully industrialized, a comic voice emerged that spoke for the age: Charlie Chaplin in his mocking role of Hitler in The Great Dictator and as the Tramp in Modern Times. In the former film he makes a long speech as the dictator. This is a small part of it and for us, with the benefit of hindsight, it expresses the fallibility of that era:
Greed has poisoned men’s souls—has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
Yet out of it all, with Chaplin’s huge impetus, grew British comedy, which has continued to thrive and expand as quickly as our great cities did during the nineteenth century. Today saying you are a stand-up comic working the comedy circuit is as cool as saying you’re a rock star. Being a comedian in the last part of the twentieth century and the first part of the twenty-first century has meant elevated status. When I was a child at my first school it was nothing short of an embarrassment, and I kept very quiet about my father’s work.
Morecambe and Wise were aware of the tradition of northern comedy in Britain at the time of their coming together, even if they were uncertain of the how and why of it. But they were expansive in their taste and deeply curious about the comedy coming out of America as much as the home-grown comedy they themselves would soon be presenting to the world at large.
‘Morecambe and Wise were aware of the tradition of northern comedy in Britain at the time of their coming together.’
Although Ernie saw Eric perform for Bryan Michie and Jack Hylton in Manchester, it wasn’t until Eric passed the audition and joined them on the road that he got to know his future partner well.
Ernie, who hailed from East Ardsley, Leeds, began his career in show business by performing with his father in clubs around the region. They were billed as Carson and Kid. But Ernie also did plenty of solo work. An article from the Morley Observer of Friday, 18 March 1938 bears the headline: ‘Youngsters Are Favourites On Morley Stage’. It goes on to list various young acts appearing in a local talent competition—a sort of regional version of today’s TV show Britain’s Got Talent. Out of around twenty finalists, the list was whittled down to five contestants.
An extract from a book entitled Morley Entertainers says of the contest: ‘The voting by the audience on ballot papers was close. Each of the runners up
received an award of half a guinea while an additional prize of a special course in tap dancing, given by the society’s ballet mistress, went to Hetty Harris. The first prize of three guineas was awarded to Ernest Wiseman whose comedy song and clever tap dance routine brought the house down.’
Over the next two years Ernie would go on to become a child star, a rise culminating in performances at the London Palladium with the popular comic entertainer of the day Arthur Askey.
‘It was the beginning of a friendship which would last another forty-three years.’
Shortly after this success Eric and Ernie found themselves travelling together, though each was still a solo act. They shared digs, even shared a bed, which would gently be nodded to in later years when they put a much-loved
bed routine in their TV shows. Sadie spotted the chemistry and it was she who encouraged them to form a double act.
It was at the Empire Liverpool in August 1941 that Eric and Ernie first performed as the double act Bartholomew and Wiseman. This wasn’t a moment that heralded the arrival of a new and wonderful double act—that was still a decade and a half away—but it was the beginning of a friendship and a working partnership which would endure until Eric’s death forty-three years later.
Eric and Ernie hadn’t been teamed up for very long when they were to see their partnership put on hold. The Second World War began.