My Autobiography (15 page)

The third day, in the middle of rehearsals, I received a note from Charcoate to say he had decided not to produce it. Not being the valiant type, I put the note in my pocket and went on rehearsing. I had not the courage to tell the cast. Instead, at lunch-time, I took them home to our rooms and told them my brother wished to talk to them. I took Sydney into the bedroom and showed him the note. After reading it he said: ‘Well, didn’t you tell them?’

‘No,’ I whispered.

‘Well, tell them.’

‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I just can’t, after their having rehearsed three days for nothing.’

‘But that’s not your fault,’ said Sydney. ‘Go and tell them,’ he shouted.

I lost courage and began to weep. ‘What can I say?’

‘Don’t be a fool!’ He got up and went into the next room and showed them Charcoate’s letter, explaining what had happened,
then he took us all to the corner pub for a sandwich and a drink.

Actors are unpredictable. The old chap who had grumbled so much was the most philosophical, and laughed when Sydney told him of the awful state I was in. ‘It’s not your fault, sonny,’ he said, patting me on the back. ‘It’s that bloody old scoundrel, Charcoate.’

*

After my failure at the Foresters’, everything I attempted met with disaster. However, a most formidable element in optimism is youth, for it instinctively feels that adversity is
pro tem
and that a continual run of ill luck is just as implausible as the straight and narrow path of righteousness. Both eventually must deviate.

My luck changed. One day Sydney told me that Mr Karno wanted to see me. It appears he was dissatisfied with one of the comedians playing opposite Mr Harry Weldon in
The Football Match
, one of Karno’s most successful sketches. Weldon was a very popular comedian who remained popular up to the time of his death in the thirties.

Mr Karno was a thick-set, bronzed little man, with keen sparkling eyes that were always appraising. He had started as an acrobat on the horizontal bars, then got together three knockabout comedians. This quartette was the nucleus of his comedy pantomime sketches. He himself was an excellent comedian and originated many comedy roles. He continued playing even when he had five other companies on the road.

One of the original members tells the story of his retirement. One night in Manchester, after a performance, the troupe complained that Karno’s timing was off and that he had ruined the laughs. Karno, who had then accumulated £50,000 from his five shows, said: ‘Well, boys, if that’s the way you feel, I’ll quit!’ then, taking off his wig, he dropped it on the dressing-table and grinned. ‘You can accept that as my resignation.’

Mr Karno’s home was in Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell; annexed to it was a warehouse in which he stored the scenery for his twenty productions. He also maintained his offices there. When I arrived he received me kindly. ‘Sydney’s been telling me how good you are,’ he said. ‘Do you think you could play opposite Harry Weldon in
The Football Match
?’

Harry Weldon was specially engaged at a high salary, getting thirty-four pounds a week.

‘All I need is the opportunity,’ I said confidently.

He smiled. ‘Seventeen’s very young, and you look even younger.’

I shrugged off-handedly. ‘That’s a question of make-up.’

Karno laughed. That shrug, he told Sydney later, got me the job.

‘Well, well, we’ll see what you can do,’ he said.

It was to be a trial engagement of two weeks at three pounds ten a week, and if I proved satisfactory I would get a year’s contract.

*

I had a week to study the part before opening at the London Coliseum. Karno told me to go to Shepherd’s Bush Empire, where
The Football Match
was playing, and to watch the man whose part I was to play. I must confess he was dull and self-conscious and, without false modesty, I knew that I had him beat. The part needed more burlesque. I made up my mind to play him just that way.

I was given only two rehearsals, as Mr Weldon was not available for more; in fact, he was rather annoyed at having to show up at all because it broke into his game of golf.

At rehearsals I was not impressive. Being a slow reader, I felt that Weldon had reservations about my competence. Sydney, having played the same part, might have helped me had he been in London, but he was playing in the provinces in another sketch.

Although
The Football Match
was a burlesque slapstick affair, there was not a laugh in it until Weldon appeared. Everything led up to his entrance, and of course Weldon, excellent comedian that he was, kept the audience in continuous laughter from the moment he came on.

On the opening night at the Coliseum my nerves were wound tight like a clock. That night meant re-establishing my confidence and wiping out the disgrace of that nightmare at the Foresters’. At the back of the enormous stage I walked up and down, with anxiety superimposed on fear, praying to myself.

There was the music! The curtain rose! On the stage was a chorus of men exercising. Eventually they exited, leaving the stage
empty. That was my cue. In an emotional chaos I went on. One either rises to an occasion or succumbs to it. The moment I walked on to the stage I was relieved, everything was clear. I entered with my back to the audience – an idea of my own. From the back I looked immaculate, dressed in a frock-coat, top-hat, cane and spats – a typical Edwardian villain. Then I turned, showing my red nose. There was a laugh. That ingratiated me with the audience. I shrugged melodramatically, then snapped my fingers and veered across the stage, tripping over a dumb-bell. Then my cane became entangled with an upright punching bag, which rebounded and slapped me in the face. I swaggered and swung, hitting myself with my cane on the side of the head. The audience roared.

Now I was relaxed and full of invention. I could have held the stage for five minutes and kept them laughing without uttering a word. In the midst of my villainous strutting my trousers began to fall down. I had lost a button. I began looking for it. I picked up an imaginary something, then indignantly threw it aside: ‘Those confounded rabbits!’ Another laugh.

Harry Weldon’s head came round the wings like a full moon. There had never been a laugh before he came on.

When he made his entrance I dramatically grabbed his wrist and whispered: ‘Quick! I’m undone! A pin!’ All this was
ad lib
and unrehearsed. I had conditioned the audience well for Harry, he was a tremendous success that evening and together we added many extra laughs. When the curtain came down, I knew I had made good. Several members of the troupe shook hands and congratulated me. On the way to the dressing-room, Weldon looked over his shoulder and said dryly: ‘That was all right – fine!’

That night I walked home to get unwound. I paused and leaned over Westminster Bridge and watched the dark, silky waters drifting under it. I wanted to weep for joy, but I couldn’t. I kept straining and grimacing, but no tears would come, I was empty. From Westminster Bridge I walked to the Elephant and Castle and stopped at a coffee-stall for a cup of tea. I wanted to talk to someone, but Sydney was in the provinces. If only he were here so that I could tell him about tonight, how much it all meant to me, especially after the Foresters’.

I could not sleep. From the Elephant and Castle I went on to
Kennington Gate and had another cup of tea. On the way I kept talking and laughing to myself. It was five in the morning before I got to bed, exhausted.

Mr Karno was not there the first night, but came the third, on which occasion I received applause when I made my entrance. He came round afterwards, all smiles, and told me to come to his office in the morning and sign the contract.

I had not written to Sydney about the first night, but sent him a succinct wire: ‘Have signed contract for one year at four pounds per week. Love, Charlie.’
The Football Match
stayed in London fourteen weeks, then went on tour.

Weldon’s comedy character was of the cretinous type, a slow-speaking Lancashire boob. That went very well in the North of England, but in the South he was not too well received. Bristol, Cardiff, Plymouth, Southampton, were slump towns for Weldon; during those weeks he was irritable and performed perfunctorily and took his spleen out on me. In the show he had to slap and knock me about quite a bit. This was called ‘taking the nap’, that is, he would pretend to hit me in the face, but someone would slap their hands in the wings to give it a realistic effect. Sometimes he really slapped me and unnecessarily hard, provoked, I think, by jealousy.

In Belfast the situation came to a head. The critics had given Weldon a dreadful panning, but had praised my performance. This was intolerable to Weldon, so that night on the stage he let me have a good one which took all the comedy out of me and made my nose bleed. Afterwards I told him that if he did it again I would brain him with one of the dumb-bells on the stage, and added that if he was jealous, not to take it out on me.

‘Jealous of you,’ said he contemptuously, on our way to the dressing-room. ‘Why, I have more talent in my arse than you have in your whole body!’

‘That’s where your talent lies,’ I retorted, and quickly closed the dressing-room door.

*

When Sydney came to town we decided to get a flat in the Brixton Road and to furnish it to the extent of forty pounds. We went to a second-hand furniture shop in Newington Butts and told the owner how much we could afford to spend, and that we had four
rooms to furnish. The owner took a personal interest in our problem and spent many hours helping us pick out bargains. We carpeted the front room and linoleumed the others and bought an upholstered suite – a couch and two armchairs. In one corner of the sitting-room we put a fretwork Moorish screen, lighted from behind by a coloured yellow bulb, and in the opposite corner, on a gilt easel, a pastel in a gilded frame. The picture was of a nude model standing on a pedestal, looking sideways over her shoulder as a bearded artist is about to brush a fly off her bottom. This
objet d’art
and the screen, I thought, made the room. The final décor was a combination of a Moorish cigarette shop and a French whore-house. But we loved it. We even bought an upright piano, and although we spent fifteen pounds over our budget, we certainly had value for it. The flat at 15 Glenshaw Mansions, Brixton Road, was our cherished haven. How we looked forward to it after playing in the provinces! We were now prosperous enough to help Grandfather and give him ten shillings a week and we were able to engage a maid to come twice a week and clean up the flat, but it was hardly necessary, for we rarely disturbed a thing. We lived in it as though it were a holy temple. Sydney and I would sit in our bulky armchairs with smug satisfaction. We had bought a raised brass fender with red leather seating around it and I would go from the armchair to the fender, testing them for comfort.

*

At sixteen my idea of romance had been inspired by a theatrical poster showing a girl standing on a cliff with the wind blowing through her hair. I imagined myself playing golf with her-a game I loathe – walking over the dewy downs, indulging in throbbing sentiment, health and nature. That was romance. But young love is something else. It usually follows a uniform pattern. Because of a glance, a few words at the beginning (usually asinine words), in a matter of minutes the whole aspect of life is changed, all nature is in sympathy with us, and suddenly reveals its hidden joys. And that is what happened to me.

I was almost nineteen and already a successful comedian in the Karno Company, but something was lacking. Spring had come and gone and summer was upon me with an emptiness. My daily routine was stale, my environment dreary. I could see nothing in
my future but a commonplaceness among dull, commonplace people. To be occupied with the business of just grubbing for a living was not good enough. Life was menial and lacked enchantment. I grew melancholy and dissatisfied and took lonely walks on Sunday and listened to park bands. I could support neither my own company nor that of anyone else. And of course, the obvious thing happened: I fell in love.

We were playing at the Streatham Empire. In those days we performed at two or three music halls nightly, travelling from one to the other in a private bus. At Streatham we were on early in order to appear later at the Canterbury Music Hall and then the Tivoli. It was daylight when we started work. The heat was oppressive and the Streatham Empire was half empty, which, incidentally, did not detract from my melancholy.

A song-and-dance troupe preceded us called ‘Bert Coutts’ Yankee-Doodle Girls.’ I was hardly aware of them. But the second evening, while I stood in the wings indifferent and apathetic, one of the girls slipped during the dance and the others began to giggle. One looked off and caught my eye to see if I was also enjoying the joke. I was suddenly held by two large brown eyes sparkling mischievously, belonging to a slim gazelle with a shapely oval face, a bewitching full mouth, and beautiful teeth – the effect was electric. When she came off, she asked me to hold a small mirror while she arranged her hair. This gave me a chance to scrutinize her. That was the beginning. By Wednesday I had asked her if I could meet her on Sunday. She laughed. ‘I don’t even know what you look like without the red nose!’ – I was playing the comedy drunk in
Mumming Birds
, dressed in long tails and a white tie.

‘My nose is not quite this red, I hope, and I’m not quite as decrepit as I look,’ I said, ‘and to prove it I’ll bring a photo of myself tomorrow night.’

I gave her what I thought was a flattering one of a sad, callow youth, wearing a black stock tie.

‘Oh, but you’re quite young,’ she said. ‘I thought you were much older.’

‘How old did you think I was?’

‘At least thirty.’

I smiled. ‘I’m going on for nineteen.’

As we were rehearsing every day, it was impossible to meet her during the week. However, she promised to meet me at Kennington Gate at four O’clock on Sunday afternoon.

Sunday was a perfect summer’s day and the sun shone continuously. I wore a dark suit that was cut smartly in at the waist, also a dark stock tie, and sported a black ebony cane. It was ten minutes to four, and I was all nerves, waiting and watching passengers alighting from tram-cars.