Rikki's comedy legend lives on

WHEN Rikki Fulton died in January 2004, the world of Scottish entertainment lost not only one of its best-loved performers, but also some of the greatest comedy creat-ions of the 20th century.

Characters such as the ever- dour Rev IM Jolly, the idiot motorcycle policeman Supercop and, of course, Josie, which he played opposite Jack Milroy's Francie - a comic pairing that is recreated at the King's Theatre next week by Tony Roper and Gerard Kelly in Rikki and Me.

Written by Roper and Philip Differ, Rikki & Me is based on Fulton's autobiography and his wife Kate's memoirs, completed shortly before she died, and is the first attempt to capture the essential Rikki Fulton since his death. Told from the perspective of his family, friends, colleagues and, above all, the woman who was by his side for more than 40 years, the show brings back to life many of his greatest comedy characters, while exploring his fascinating life.

Kelly, who also directs the production, elaborates: "Tony and Philip have done an astonishing job on the script. It takes you though Rikki's life and doesn't shirk from any of the sad things - the man did die of Alzheimer's.

"What was most tragic of all was that somebody of his intellect should get that disease of all diseases. One that wiped out his ability to communicate."

Kelly first discovered Fulton's sharpness when the funnyman came out of retirement to direct him in pantomime.

"I got to know Rikki fairly well and I found him to be an extraordinary man. Because his public persona was of this very funny person, it masked the fact that he was actually fiercely intellectual. Rikki was also the most technical comedian I have ever come across. Most of us find it is almost instinctive. You just know that if you do that, it gets a laugh, whereas Rikki had intellectualised the whole process. He could break down exactly why something was funny.

"When I directed the play Revolting Peasants, Rikki came to see it and said afterwards: 'You've made a major mistake. You've got a drunk man on stage in a kilt but you've not got him to do the funniest thing a drunk man in a kilt can do . . . crawl.'

"Now, if you think about it, crawling in a kilt would be impossible because you would continually trip yourself. But only Rikki saw that comic possibility that hadn't been exploited."

In Rikki & Me, it is the brothel creepers of the other Scottish legend that Kelly slips on, those of Jack Milroy, Fulton's side-kick and one half of Francie and Josie, whose routines are also recreated in the play.

"Both Tony and I were great friends of Rikki and Jack, so I never had any real fear of bringing Jack back to life," says the actor. "He was a phenomenal performer and while you could never hope to emulate what he did completely, my approach has been to try to capture a flavour of how he approached an audience."

Kelly himself witnessed Milroy's stage craft as a child and recalls: "I saw Francie and Josie as a wee boy and although I knew they were funny men, I didn't understand what they were doing until many years later when they brought the characters back.

"Watching them as an adult I realised that they did a form of variety that nobody does anymore - two men talking about another time, and it's just hysterical.

"One of the things we do in the show is the Arbroath gag - one of their most famous gags, in which Jack asks Rikki to tell a really simple joke that Rikki continually gets wrong. Jack then tells the joke and, oblivious to the fact that the audience have now heard it, gets Rikki to tell it again.

"Although it only lasts about 20 minutes it took us all of three weeks to learn it. As we deconstructed it we realised that they started out with a very simple joke, but because they both ad-libbed and had such confidence in each other, they must have built this joke over years until this three-line gag had become a 20 minute masterpiece."

The secret of Fulton's humour, says Kelly, is that it is not just timeless but universal.

"The great thing about Rikki & Me is that you can come to see a show, laugh for two hours, get a bit sad at the end and yet never once is there a single double-entendre," he says.

"And I think Rikki would be delighted to know that even after death he's continuing to fill theatres, because audiences aren't coming to see us, they're coming to him and Jack Milroy."

• Rikki & Me, King's Theatre, Leven Street, Tuesday-Saturday, 7.30pm (matinees 2.30pm), 10-21, 0131-529 6005