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Oh, Please Yourselves! Frankie Howerd at ITV (TV)
R2 - United Kingdom - Network Review written by and copyright: Paul Lewis (3rd September 2011). |
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The Show
 Oh, Please Yourselves! Frankie Howerd at ITV (Yorkshire, LWT, HTV, 1973-91) 
The much-missed comedian Frankie Howerd’s career in television, radio and film comedy spanned four decades. This new release from Network features four live studio performances spanning 1974 to 1990, a 1973 documentary about Howerd’s work entertaining British troops in Northern Ireland, and the 1991 revival of Howerd’s popular sitcom Up Pompeii (BBC, 1969-71). Two of the four live performances, ‘Francis Howerd in Concert’ (Yorkshire, 1974) and ‘Frankie Howerd Reveals All’ (Yorkshire, 1980), feature a mixture of stand up comedy and sketches. The remaining two, ‘Superfrank!’ (HTV, 1987) and ‘Frankie Howerd on Campus’ (LWT, 1990), are entirely based around Howerd’s stand up routines and show a greater rapport between Howerd and his audience. All of the shows were written by Howerd’s frequent collaborators, including Johnny Speight, Barry Cryer and Galton & Simpson. The shows also offer the opportunity to trace changing attitudes towards issues such as race and class. For example, ‘Francis Howerd in Concert’ features a sketch which is characteristic of Johnny Speight’s satirical examination of issues of ethnicity (as per Speight’s roughly contemporaneous sitcom Till Death Us Do Part, BBC 1965-72, and his one-off play If There Weren’t Any Blacks You’d Have to Invent Them, filmed first for LWT in 1968 and again in 1974 – and released by Network in 2010). The sketch opens with (an uncomfortable-looking, it has to be said) Howerd asserting that Speight’s Till Death Us Do Part is ‘full of vicious stuff, satirical stuff [….] I’m more of the lovable kind. [Comic pause.] Well, don’t take a vote on it’. From this, Howerd presents a ‘satirical sketch’ written by Speight, which he has ‘dreaded’ performing. The sketch offers a bizarre parody of Shakespeare’s Othello, with Howerd (in ‘blackface’) as Othello and the British Afro-Caribbean singer/comedian Kenny Lynch (in ‘whiteface’) as Iago. (Lynch had already worked with Speight before, on LWT’s controversial 1969 sitcom Curry & Chips.) In the sketch, Howerd criticises Olivier’s performance in Othello at the Old Vic: ‘Oh, jabber, jabber, jabber. You won’t take a penny for this in Blackpool, I said. It’s all so wordy, isn’t it’. ‘You stand there looking like a negative’, Howerd tells Lynch, and the pair deliver an ad-hoc minstrelsy performance of ‘Old Man River’ before Howerd describes the decision to wear blackface as ‘something modern… “with it”’. The bizarre tone of the sketch increases when Julie Ege, another of Howerd’s guest (along with John Le Mesurier) enters and addresses Othello as ‘Sambo’; Howerd questions her use of the racially-loaded term of address, and in response, Ege matter-of-factly asserts that ‘In the script, it says “Julie meets coon and says, ‘Hello Sambo’”’. 
It’s a strange and challenging sketch that, like much of Speight’s work, leaves the viewer wondering whether it is a clever satire of attitudes towards ethnicity in Britain (and the use of ‘blackface’) or simply an exploitation of ethnic stereotypes; however, the same could be said of more modern comedy shows that explore the theatrical use of blackface – for example, the sitcom The League of Gentlemen (BBC, 1999-2002) and the sketch show Little Britain (BBC, 2003-6). Either way, it provokes awkward laughter which encourages the audience to reflect on the limits of humour and questions of taste. Howerd certainly looks uncomfortable delivering some of the humour in this particular show, but it’s unclear as to whether this is part of the comic performance or whether he was genuinely uneasy presenting some of Speight’s comedy. Regardless, like much of Speight’s work, it could be claimed to be a form of self-reflexive meta-humour, which is also a pretty good label for much of Howerd’s stand up as a whole. For example, ‘Francis Howerd in Concert’ opens with Howerd berating both the studio audience and the viewers at home for not being dressed in evening dress. ‘Don’t keep showing the audience’, he challenges the director when cutaways to the studio audience are used. With the camera constantly on Howerd, he greets the ‘stars’ who he claims are in the audience: Dean Martin, Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand and Elton John. (It’s clear that none of these people are in the audience.) Addressing the camera directly, he challenges the viewers at home: ‘Can you prove it?’, he asks. Throughout all of the stand up-based shows, Howerd’s self-effacing on-stage persona comes across strongly. In one show, he asks the audience if they realise that people can die from laughter, before adding, ‘Do you realise that I’m actually saving your life tonight?’ Unlike many other comedians who performed work written by others, watching these shows in quick succession reminds the viewer that Howerd was always willing to give credit to his writers and let his audience know that he didn’t write (all of) his own material. 
The highlight of the set may very well be Howerd’s late-career routine delivered in front of the Oxford Union Society, ‘Frankie Howerd on Campus’. Late in his career, Howerd found a new, younger audience, and in ‘… on Campus’ there’s a real warmth between Howerd, who is clearly enjoying himself, and his young spectators: it is clear that Howerd was extremely happy for his comedy to find a new generation of fans. Again, his self-effacing character is present throughout: ‘I’m not what you call an intellectual’, he tells the students at the start of the show. To this, somebody in the audience shouts, ‘Here, here’, and Howerd responds by asserting, ‘Which is why I feel so much at home here tonight’ before delightfully accusing the audience member of ‘mocking Francis’. He also makes jokes at the expense of the perception of his comedy as ‘old hat’, joking with the audience that the president of the Oxford Union asked him not to ‘do all those old jokes’, to which Howerd responded by asserting, ‘That’s all I know’. The ‘opener’ of disc one, the documentary ‘Frankie and Tommy’ is an interesting curiousity. Described in its titles as ‘A film profile of Frankie Howerd as he entertains British troops serving in Northern Ireland’, the film offers an intimate portrait of Howerd as he travels through Ulster entertaining members of the British military stationed there. The documentary opens with clips of Howerd performing on stage, and we are told that in Ulster, Howerd and his crew repeated their show six times over the course of two and a half days. To illustrate this, we are shown Howerd repeating the same jokes in different contexts, at different venues. Interviewed in a car, Howerd is asked, ‘Is it like giving a twelve-hour non-stop performance?’ Characteristically giving credit to his writers, Howerd responds by telling the interviewer that, ‘It’s not performing in the sense of the word that one tries to be comic, and funny, and full of witticisms – which I can’t do anyway very much, because most of my witticisms, if they’re written at all, are written by writers […] and so I learn them and speak them’. Howerd talks about his time in the army during the way, which led to his career as a comedian. He reveals that he’s ‘always very sentimental about that part of my life’. He also talks about his childhood shyness and reveals that ‘Every time you go on stage, it’s an audition – a constant audition’ due to the fact that he never knows how the audience will react. Scenes showing Howerd drinking with the troops – from Belfast to Londonderry – paint a picture of an unpretentious, down-to-earth man. It’s a fascinating documentary with much to offer to viewers interested in Howerd’s career and his approach to comedy; in this sense, it should not be ‘skipped over’ by a viewer eager to get to Howerd’s more conventional comedy shows. 
Disc One: ‘Frankie and Tommy’ (24:51) ‘Francis Howerd in Concert’ (52:33) ‘Frankie Howerd Reveals All’ (52:59) ‘Superfrank’ (51:10) Disc Two: ‘Frankie Howerd on Campus’ (50:00) ‘Further Up Pompeii’ (41:55) Special Features: - ‘Russell Harty Plus’ – 16/01/1974 (25:15) - ‘Russell Harty’ – 14/04/1979 (50:45)
Video
With the exception of ‘Frankie and Tommy’, all of the main features on this release were shot in a studio on videotape, and thus display the characteristics of shot-on-video footage (eg, burnt-out highlights), with – as would be expcted – the earlier shows exhibiting more wear-and-tear than the later performances. ‘Frankie and Tommy’ was shot on 16mm and is in pretty rough shape, but it’s never less than watchable.
Audio
Audio is presented via a two-channel mono track. This is mostly clean, but as noted above the earlier programmes show more damage and wear than the later shows. Sadly, there are no subtitles.
Extras
Extras include two interviews between Howerd and Russell Harty, from 1974 and 1979. Thankfully, Network have elected to include the full episodes of each show, rather than simply including the interviews with Howerd: - Russell Harty Plus. This 1974 episode of Harty’s interview show, produced for LWT, begins with a song from Cleo Laine that precedes an interview between Harty and Laine and her husband Johnny Dankworth. In part two of the show, Harty introduces Howerd, who at the time of recording was performing in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ at the London Palladium. He was playing Simple Simon in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. Harty and Howerd share some quickfire banter, some of it quite crude. There are some good insights into Howerd’s attitudes towards his fame. Harty asks Howerd whether people ever expect him to be funny when they see him in the street, and in a serious tone Howerd explains that he thinks people don’t expect comedians to be funny but are ‘disillusioned if you don’t look happy, or jolly’. Howerd also reflects on his refusal to state his political beliefs (in comparison with someone like Kenneth Williams, who was very vocal about his anti-trade union beliefs during the mid-1970s): Howerd asserts that ‘by not aligning myself with any political party, I’m free to take the mickey […] out of them all [….] As much as you want players, you also want a few umpires, or referees […] who can adjudicate, so to speak’. - Russell Harty. Again produced for LWT, this 1979 episode of Harty’s later talk show Russell Harty runs for fifty minutes. The first half of the episode is taken up with an extended interview with Charlton Heston; the interview focuses on the publication of Heston’s journals, The Actor’s Life. Howerd is interviewed in the second half of the show. Again, he shares some witty banter with Harty. It’s an engaging and amusing interview but less illuminating than the other interview between Harty and Howerd that is included in this release.
Overall
The contents of this release are hugely entertaining. Howerd was always an engaging performer, often backed by some fantastic comedy writers (such as Barry Cryer and Galton & Simpson). In relation to the contents of this specific set, it’s worth noting that the shows that mix stand up comedy and sketch-based humour are a little weaker than the two shows, ‘Superfrank!’ and ‘Frankie Howerd on Campus’, that focus exclusively on Howerd’s stand up humour; in these two programmes, Howerd is able to develop a stronger repartee with his audience. ‘Frankie Howerd on Campus’ is a particular delight. ‘Frankie and Tommy’ is a fascinating insight into Howerd’s work, but as a documentary (rather than a comedy show) it’s a strange choice as the ‘opener’ to this release and is the kind of programme which would usually be labelled among the ‘extra features’. The two bonus features are good, although it has to be said that the first, shorter interview with Howerd (from Russell Harty Plus) is more insightful than the second, longer interview (from Russell Harty). It’s pleasing that Network have included the full-length episodes of both of the Russell Harty shows rather than electing to include only the interviews with Howerd, as both shows feature interesting interviews with other celebrities. (The interview with Charlton Heston is particularly good.) This release offers a chance to revisit Howerd’s comedy, and fans of Howerd’s work will find much to enjoy here. For more information, please visit the homepage of Network DVD. This review has been kindly sponsored by: 
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