'It's all based on fear.' The Edinburgh Fringe show that reveals the secret to Eric Morecambe's comedy


I recently lifted open my small touring suitcase which is full of glasses and pipes and sock braces. I’ve not opened it for a while but it is with great excitement that I dusted off the bow tie for my next chapter playing Eric Morecambe in Paul Hendy’s wonderful new three-hander play The Last Laugh.
It’s a fictional scene, which I’m certain will bring back some fond memories as well as revealing how some of our great comics became quite so great. The three of us come forearmed in our roles. I saw the brilliant Damian Williams play Tommy Cooper in 2012 at the Theatre Royal in Brighton and he left us stunned by his portrayal. I then had the fortunate task of directing Simon Cartwright in a solo play about Bob Monkhouse in 2015 and, as Bob himself once said of Simon’s portrayal, “You do me better than I do!” He’s truly phenomenal in the role. When Paul asked if we wanted to extend a short film to a play for the Fringe we all leapt at it. Paul has such immense passion for the British light entertainment years of TV and it’s hard not to join in his excitement with this piece. It’s going to be a very memorable production.
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Hide AdIt was in 2008 I first embarked on the good ship Eric with a solo performance called Morecambe. How on earth was I going to approach playing a much-loved comedy icon like Eric Morecambe? The technical side of performing in a solo play would normally overshadow everything else in such a piece of theatre, but the looming worry was WHO IS THE MAN CALLED ERIC? I had to somehow capture the spirit of him.
I locked myself away with DVDs and YouTube clips for the ‘performing Eric’, how he held himself with his left hand gently on his lower hip, how he softened his Lancastrian accent enough for a BBC audience, how his s’s were slightly close-mouthed, and how he laughed cheekily. But the challenge was how do I convey what Eric was like as an everyday chap? An impression simply would not work.
There are very few clips of Eric on his own, for obvious reasons, but I was sent a link to a site which contained a rare BBC interview on Pebble Mill at One from 1981. Eric was being interviewed because he had written a novel called Mr Lonely and, although he was his usual quick witted and effervescent self, there was a vulnerability there. No Ernie to play off, he was having to talk about subjects that he wasn’t used to and was using humour as armour.
Then he said one phrase which really helped me find my version of Eric. The presenter Bob Langley asked Eric about Mr Lonely, which was all about a fictional comedian whom Eric came up with called Sid Lewis. “Well for Sid I try and put two laughs in each chapter … or more if I can ... coz it’s all based on fear.”
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Hide Ad“It's all based on fear.” That phrase rang true for me. There was an edge to Eric. I think it was the need for approval. I’m not talking about an unhealthy obsession here, just a drive within him, which meant not allowing the fears to become real. Both Gary and Gail Morecambe, Eric's son and daughter, have often told me of times when they would watch the Morecambe and Wise shows together and Eric would ask them if they thought it was funny enough, scrutinising every gag within a sketch. He really cared what they thought. In my opinion, that care was fear-based and spread into his persona.
Our writer/director Paul Hendy has used the actor Edmund Gwenn’s phrase “Dying is easy, comedy is hard” as a tagline for this new play. Nobody knew that phrase more than Eric and Ernie, and of course Tommy and Bob too.
My approach to playing Eric 15 years after my initial portrayal in Edinburgh is proving to be similar. I have yet again immersed myself in Gary Morecambe’s many wonderful and incisive books and I’ve revisited those Morecambe and Wise box sets. The Last laugh is set in the dressing room before these three iconic comics’ last performances, so my portrayal of Eric this time round is not of him in his prime at the BBC. It’s a more grounded and somewhat more tired Eric who agrees to do a show for his showbiz friend Stan Stennett in Tewkesbury and heads to the venue.
Our fictional setting finds Eric with Tommy and Bob all respectively preparing for what would be their last performance. It’s a more philosophical Eric now, drifting in thought. I’m sure It helps that I’m older myself now. At 54, I’m very close to Eric’s age when we lost him. The solo play I did was definitely more physically demanding and showed Eric’s youthful side, whereas in The Last Laugh we hear Eric’s theory on comedy and joke-telling and life in general, perhaps even showing the fear in his character.
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Hide AdIt’s going to be an emotional journey having Eric back in my life again and I am determined to do justice to him and the legacy of so many of those lost comedians. We all are.
The Last Laugh, Assembly George Square Studios, 1.20pm, until 25 August
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