Simon Dunn's Blog, page 4

The Pirate Bob Monkhouse

Bob Monkhouse was an archivist. From very early on he collected and restored movie reels, and when home video recording became possible, he habitually recorded hours of television every day. He had a collection of some 50,000 tapes, some of which have been used to recover missing shows.

But in 1979, Bob appeared at the Old Bailey, alongside co-defendant Anthony Scott, accused of being a movie pirate. You may have heard this story before, so let’s track it through contemporaneous newspaper clippings.

[image error] Birmingham Mail – Monday 04 June 1979

The four charges related to the movies Carmen Jones, The Day The Earth Stood Still, I Could Go On Singing, The Three Musketeers, and Goldfinger. It was alleged they engaged in a conpsiracy to defraud movie distributors of hiring fees.

Here’s a slightly more emotive version of the same story.

[image error] Daily Mirror – Tuesday 05 June 1979

It may have been harder for the jury to do as instructed here, what with Bob being all over TV screens at that time on Celebrity Squares.

The Acton Gazette framed the story from the perspective of local resident Scott …

[image error] Acton Gazette – Thursday 07 June 1979

And we learn that Scott’s movies included The Mediterranean Cruise, The Culpepper Cattle Company, and The Bride Of Frankenstein.

Of course, the celebrity aspect of the trial was a bit too much to ignore, as shown by this.

[image error] The Scotsman – Friday 08 June 1979

If you think that Terry Wogan giving evidence at the Old Bailey for borrowing Goldfinger to show at his son’s birthday party is ridiculous, you wouldn’t be the only one.

Here’s a sober report about how the judge ruled there was insufficient evidence of any crime taking place.

[image error]Lincolnshire Echo – Tuesday 19 June 1979

Here we learn a little more, including the fact that the judge halted the trial to acquit.

[image error] Birmingham Daily Post – Wednesday 20 June 1979

This one quotes the judge …

[image error]

‘That is not the sort of evidence which in my view, justifies you coming to the conclusion that Mr Monkhouse is guilty of conspiracy to defraud film distributors of their hiring fee.’

Seems pretty scathing to me.

The following weekend, Bob gave a nice little interview to the Sunday Mirror.

[image error] Sunday Mirror – Sunday 24 June 1979

They celebrated the win by watching Sherlock Junior. Also, a nice little nugget at the end, where Bob reveals his new show – wondering if it might be called Bob’s Your Uncle – which would later be titled Family Fortunes, of course.

BEEB Magazine

I stumbled across the BBC’s answer to Look In magazine last night. It was called BEEB, and lasted 20 issues. Here’s a look at some pages and covers from the run. All of them are available here.

A Ship Off The Old Block

Here’s a fun article from The Stage, marking the transition between series two and three of Red Dwarf, including some gossip about movie and US TV adaptations, and a chat with the writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor.

[image error] The Stage – Thursday 09 November 1989 Click to buy

The British Broadcasting Century

Comedy on Air: Hysterical History from The Co-Optimists to Bottom

The British Broadcasting Century is a fabulous podcast, with the excellent Paul Kerensa, that charts and explores the true story of British broadcast’s forgotten pioneers.

Every episode is well worth a listen, and I had the pleasure of chatting to Paul about all things comedy (and Bottom), alongside the brilliant James Cary.

PROCTOLOGY: A Bottom Examination is my in-depth guide to all things Bottom.

Available now on Kindle and in paperback.

Learn more …

Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Clippings

It’s publication day for my new sci-fi comedy novel, and I am trying to resist my most British of urges to just cough politely, and never mention it again. In so doing, I thought I’d have a look at some early newspaper coverage of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, and there’s very little of it to be found – certainly whilst it was still solely a radio show.

I really enjoy the complete lack of prescience in this article about radio comedy adaptations though.

[image error] The Stage – Thursday 01 February 1979

Maybe whoever wrote it is pleased they were credited as a Television Today reporter, not least because less than a year later, with a new radio series being given some special treatment, there was confirmed talk of a TV transfer.

[image error] Daily Mirror – Tuesday 22 January 1980

Here’s a review of Ken Campbell’s stage version …

[image error] Daily Mirror – Tuesday 22 January 1980

And finally, here’s an announcement from the BBC, in which the new TV show is mentioned, alongside a new sitcom called Hi-De-Hi!.

[image error] Belfast Telegraph – Monday 11 August 1980

Anyway, you might enjoy Jem Roberts’ fabulous biography of Douglas Adams, The Frood. And have a read of his thoughts on a new book about the author here.

Thunk – First Chapter

It was time to die.

She hadn’t had an idea in the longest while, and so it was definitely time to die.

Plus, the clock had stopped.

It used to tick, she knew that. And she knew it because she’d made it. She’d made a lot of things in her lifetime, too many to count. She even knew, somewhere in the back of her decaying mind, that she’d built something big once. Something so huge that it had taken its toll, and reduced her to the wisp of a memory of what she had once been.

For now, it was hard enough to recall the last thing she’d made, let alone the major thing.

Her wrinkled hand pressed against the cool window pane, as yellow with age as her skin, and her failing eyes squinted to see beyond the dirt. The beach outside used to be purple, not this vague grey mauve weak soup colour. The giant planet on the horizon once sparkled as it reflected the hollow sun back at her tiny lost moon.

They had forgotten it was here. They had forgotten she was here. And she had forgotten that they had forgotten. How she knew she had forgotten this, she’d forgotten.

She’d even forgotten her name.

It might have been Derek.

Somewhere out there, there was a reminder.

She blinked.

That was a new memory.

Or maybe it was an old one that had been mis-filed and handed back to her in a buff folder marked ‘melancholy and nostalgia’ by her mistaken brain clerics.

A tiny spark fizzled and spat for the briefest moment, ejaculating enough energy into a mental dynamo for it to be able to turn a cog with enough torque to break its rusting bonds. The cog clicked around once, moving its mate one notch, kicking the mechanism into life just long enough to shift an idea forward.

It presented itself to her mind with a deferent bow, uncertain that it even merited her attention.

She examined it, forgetting quite where it had come from, but interested in its form, intrigued by its presence, and invigorated by its self-conscious insistence.

It had the pleasing smell of a ‘good idea’.

Whatever that was.

The roar of a wave crashing on the beach bought her attention back to the real world, and she struggled to keep the ‘good idea’ in her mind, even as she looked around the little wooden hut, searching for something she searched for out of habit.

He was in the corner, covered in cobwebs.

His fur was matted and he had small patches of decay that exposed his metallic innards. White spots peppered that wilting fur. His eyes had long since perished.

And yet, he still seemed to look back at her.

She tried to remember how to form words with her mouth.

At first it was just a meaningless croak, before a few throat-clearing coughs unclogged her cords and she managed to speak.

‘Forn?’

If her ears were working properly, she would have heard a high-pitched whine, a crunch of gears, and several fans rising from their slumber. Forn’s head twitched once and stopped, and the fans picked up speed, making the cobwebs flop about his face and entangle themselves around his big upright ears.

She watched him do nothing for a moment, and then he thrust his rear end upwards, and his ageing servos began to straighten his front legs. He teetered uncertainly for a few seconds as his gyroscopes levelled out, and then with steady feet, he shook the dust away. A cloud of grey enveloped him, and she watched as he trotted forward emerging from the plume of dust like an oiled man at a wrestling event.

Forn approached her, cocked his head, and examined her without any eyes.

‘What happened to you?’ he asked.

She shrugged.

‘Looks like you fell asleep in the bath for a month.’

‘We got old,’ she said.

‘I’ll make some tea.’

‘You’ve still got hooves.’

Forn looked down at his trotters.

‘You said you were going to do something about that.’

‘It slipped my mind.’

‘I need to go for a walk. Help me up.’

Forn dipped his head, and she used it to lever her creaking joints into the semblance of an upright stance, though she looked more like a question mark. It took a few unsteady steps to get going, and when she did, she walked with a speed that surprised her. Some life in the old legs yet, even if she was having to use Forn as a crutch.

‘I knew I made you for a reason,’ she said as they waddled towards the rotting wooden door.

‘Only useful thing you ever created.’

She harrumphed, and yanked at the door handle. The door didn’t open. It just disintegrated, leaving two rusting hinges and a small pile of brown dust at her feet. The wind from the ocean lifted it away, and sent it flying back into the hut.

‘That was your fault.’

‘Whatever,’ Form grunted as he helped her out onto the porch and teetered down two steps.

The warm, formerly purple sand pushed through her toes and the crisp morning air whipped a strand of her gray hair across her face. She had to squint against the breeze and the light spill from the planet.

She was on autopilot now, walking with Forn’s help along the beach, not knowing her destination, and having forgotten why she was on the journey in the first place. It was muscle memory that was driving her onwards, leaving footprints in the sand behind her. The rising tide soon erased those prints, and their course adjusted to avoid wet feet.

And then she stopped.

Forn was caught off guard, and trotted one step further on.

She lost her grip, felt dizzy, and let gravity drop her to the ground. In that moment, she was terrified that she would disintegrate just like the door, and it was only the soft sand that cushioned her fall.

Forn’s cold wet snout poked into her head, and she looked up to see the absence of eyes betraying his abundance of concern.

‘That was your fault.’

‘Perhaps you should have put some clothes on.’

‘Not like you can see anything.’

‘No, but it’s me that has to get the sand out of your cracks and crevices.’

‘So we’re here,’ she said, shutting the conversation down. ‘What now?’

‘You bought us here.’

‘I was following you.’

‘We were side by side.’

‘Your nose was out in front.’

‘I’ve got no eyes.’

‘I presumed you were smelling.’

‘Only one of us is smelling.’ Forn’s ears twitched as he listened to the ocean. ‘Which is weird, considering you’ve been in the bath for a month.’

‘We got old.’

‘I’ll make some tea.’

‘Stir it with your hooves will you?’

Forn looked down at his feet. It was a redundant gesture.

‘You promised you were going to do something about those.’

‘I forgot.’

‘I can see that.’

‘No you can’t.’

‘Fat lot of good these things are,’ he scoffed. ‘What do they even do?’

He began to scratch and scrabble in the sand, demonstrating his hooves and their uselessness. She was surprised by just how big a crater he quickly created, and then the sound changed. His trotters scratched against something other than sand, and she saw bright red amongst the dull mauve.

‘What’s that?’

‘What’s what?’ Forn stopped.

‘There. Look.’

‘Oh, you’re funny.’

‘Just smell it.’

Forn dipped his head and his nostrils twitched as his snout searched the crater, quickly homing in on the red thing.

‘S’plastic,’ he sniffed.

She creaked closer, and used her gnarled finger to clear the remaining sand away to reveal a red mushroom of plastic growing from a silver plate of metal with a green tinted glass window on its surface.

‘Looks like a button,’ she said.

‘What does?’

‘The button.’

‘Wonder what it’s for.’

‘I must have put it here.’

‘Bit weird. Going round putting buttons in stupid places willy nilly. Is it stitched to anything?’

‘It’s a button. Not a button.’

‘How am I supposed to know?’

‘Cos it looks like a button. It most certainly does not look like a button.’

‘So it’s a button. Not a button?’

‘It’s a button.’

‘Press it.’

She pressed it.

‘What happened?’

‘The screen lit up with some words.’

‘What did they say?’

‘This is not a button.’

Forn twisted his ears forward, as if looking at her with them.

‘You said it was a button.’

‘It looked like a button.’

‘So why would it say it wasn’t a button?’

‘No idea.’

‘Maybe it’s a button after all.’

‘It hasn’t got any holes in it.’

‘If you press it again, perhaps it might tell us what it is.’

She pressed it again.

‘What did it say?’ Forn asked.

‘This is not a button.’

‘It seems quite adamant.’

‘It’s doing a very good impression of a button.’

‘Let me try.’

Forn stamped his hoof forward, patting around until it made contact with the red plastic.

‘Feels like a button.’

‘Hmm.’

‘What does hmm mean?’

‘Look.’

‘Piss off.’

‘A door just appeared.’

‘Are you sure it’s a door?’

‘Quite sure it’s a door.’

‘You were almost certain it was a button.’

‘Well, it’s a door.’

She looked at it, just standing there in the sand. It had all the qualities of a door, right down to the door parts. The only thing it was missing was a wall to be housed in.

‘Maybe it’s a jar,’ Forn said.

‘I should clout your snout for that.’

‘I suppose we should open it then.’

‘I suppose we should.’

Forn helped her to her feet, and they kicked through the sand. Her hand wrapped around the cold metal knob, as much to check it was real than to turn it.

‘Ready?’ she asked in an effort to delay the inevitable.

‘Ready.’

She twisted the knob and pushed the door away from her. It swung on its hinges, revealing a void beyond. If nothing had a colour, it would look just like this.

‘What’s in there?’ Forn asked, sniffing without focus.

‘Nothing.’

‘We should go inside then.’

‘How do we go inside nothing?’

‘One foot in front of the other I suppose.’

‘It is time to die.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

With that, she grabbed a handful of Forn’s neck skin, and pulled him forward with her. They stepped into the void, and for a moment, she lost all sense of herself and where she was. Nothing was a palpable feeling of something she couldn’t define.

And then she realised she had her eyes closed.

She let go of Forn’s neck, and felt him wander away, just out of her grasp. Maybe gone forever.

She swallowed.

Light prickled behind her eyelids, and she had to summon all her nerve just to open them.

She blinked.

She was back in the wooden hut.

Forn was fussing around, pushing things with his snout across the table top.

She looked down her naked body, confused.

‘We got old.’

‘I’ll make some tea.’ She looked at the front door, hanging firmly on its hinges. That felt odd, but she couldn’t remember why.

Thunk is available on Kindle and in Paperback.

Amazon UK
Amazon US

Clips And Saunders

I suppose it’s not all that surprising that the first few mentions of French And Saunders in the newspaper archive are within reviews and write-ups of the Comic Strip. Here’s a clipping we’ve seen before, by way of demonstration.

[image error]The Stage – Thursday 24 September 1981

Or this one:

[image error]Reading Evening Post – Friday 04 December 1981

Buried deep in this article is the lovely revelation that the duo used to give workshops – I presume in performance and comedy, but it doesn’t actually say.

[image error]Reading Evening Post – Thursday 31 December 1981

Given what they later made for BBC Two, I like this brief mention in a wider article too.

[image error]The Stage – Thursday 12 August 1982

This article is remarkable for just so many reasons … (Click to enlarge)

[image error] The Stage – Thursday 20 January 1983

And finally, here’s a nice thank you advert …

[image error]The Stage – Thursday 12 May 1983[image error]

Thunk

In Space, You Can Hear Yourself Think

Liberty Stay can’t think straight. It’s the thought controller on her wrist that does it. Mostly.

But when she’s reunited with her childhood toy, a talking elephant, her mind starts to rebel, and she makes an impulse decision that changes her life, and the solar system, forever.

As she flees the oppressive police state, she’s forced into an uneasy alliance with a doomsday priest and his silent monk, both intent on bringing about the end of days.

When thinking hurts too much, why does life present you with a naked octagenarian, a cartoon squirrel, and a mystery at the centre of the universe?

COMING SOON TO A PLANET NEAR YOU.

That’s probably the blurb for my new book, but it may undergo some changes before publication. I hope you don’t mind me doing it as a blog, it’s sometimes the best way to compose thoughts and get them into shape, so it felt right to do it here.

It’ll be out soon, and because bills don’t pay themselves (maybe that’s an idea for a short story?), it would be great if you could keep an eye out and give it some love.

Thank you.

Six Of One: Nine Of Six

A continuing series of podcasts, in which I improvise something different every day.

This week, an actor’s eulogy, a visit to the dentist, a trip in the back of a cab, the world’s best village fete, Sid Craterman looks into the abyss, and a murder thriller audio book.

Click the dots to download to your device

You can listen to the first eight here.

Christopher Ryan Clippings

It’s been said enough to no longer really be insightful, but Christopher Ryan as Mike in The Young Ones was excellent. But he’s even better as Dave Hedgehog in Bottom, and his appearances in One Foot In The Grave and Absolutely Fabulous are marvellous too.

It seems he has always been quietly getting on with being great, as shown by this, the first review I could find of his work, from 1971.

[image error] The Scotsman – Monday 08 November 1971

Or this, from a decade later …

[image error] Liverpool Echo – Friday 25 January 1980

And another …

[image error]The Stage – Thursday 19 June 1980

There’s loads of examples, but you get the point.

[image error]The Stage – Thursday 10 October 1991