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All right, shut up!
Now, listen to me.

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In 1979, a charismatic young actor
sauntered onto our TV screens.

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Rotund, long-haired, he seemed to
specialise in down-trodden,

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seedy lowlifes.

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All right. I never forget a face.

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Look at me.

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Mel's face has that... Even though
there's something which can be

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quite pompous about it and quite
sort of haughty,

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you know, bombastic,
he, er...it's a downtrodden face.

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But it was in the
ground-breaking sketch show
Not The Nine O'Clock News

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that Mel Smith emerged as one
of TV's most unique comic talents.

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Game on.

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'So it's Fat Belly to go first.
And it's a good start.

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'Double vodka.'

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He found a very normal, relaxed
thing in the biggest of characters.

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OPERATIC SINGING

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Wank.

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Mel, who died aged 60 earlier
this year, was many things.

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He was a theatre and film director,
a businessman,

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an obsessive gambler,
a racehorse owner and a bon viveur.

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Mel always looked famous and rich
and successful long before he was.

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But most of all, Mel was the face
that changed comic acting

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for a generation.

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Air safety. In new regulations
put into force today,

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the Federal Aviation Authority have
withdrawn 20% of all aeroplanes

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and put them out to stud.

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Not The Nine O'Clock News was
the brainchild of

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current-affairs producer Sean Hardie
and comedy producer John Lloyd.

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Just two inside, please.

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I set out with Sean to go
and cast the thing and then I

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found Mel in a pub in Chiswick.
I said, "I've got this show,

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"it's six shows, it's a blank
canvas, do you want to be in it?"

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And, um, we had a couple of pints,
got on rather well.

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He said, "Well, I can't do it
actually, I'm busy at the moment."

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So he wasn't in what would have
been the first series,

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and became known as the pilot, cos
it was... Not The Nine O'Clock News

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was cancelled because of
the general election of 1979.

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Eyes down for a full house.

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On its own, number 1.

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Two fat antelopes, 22.

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Mel eventually signed up for
the first series proper

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of Not The Nine O'Clock News.

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Two rather plump antelopes, nine.

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By the second series,

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the familiar award-winning line-up
had been established.

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I used to write all the billings
for the Radio Times and we tried

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to break all the rules with the
billings as much as anything else.

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My favourite one was the cast of it,
Not The Nine O'Clock News,

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and it said, um, "The rubbery one -
Rowan Atkinson,

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"the fat one - Mel Smith,

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"the girl - Pamela Stephenson, and
the other one - Griff Rhys Jones."

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It sort of went into a niche,
very difficult to imagine

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when we look at comedy now,

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but most of the practitioners
of comedy at that time were over 50.

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The Two Ronnies and Morecambe and
Wise felt like another generation,

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like another world,

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and certainly we weren't going
into that world,

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we weren't part of that generation.

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# With a bum... Tit.

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# How's your father, tiddly-eye.

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# ..All day just crawling up through
the grass

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# Thistles in my hair and bracken up
me anus

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# I'm thrilled to bits if I see a
pair of tits

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# And I love to watch the sun
go down

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# Over China, over China
over China town. #

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In Not The Nine O'clock News
we wanted to reflect

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the landscape of the street and the
world in which we actually lived.

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Come on, there's people waiting.

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Not The Nine O'Clock News was in a
sense the comedy equivalent of punk.

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It was roughly the same era so it
was saying, you know, goodbye

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to all that and here's something new
and right for a modern generation.

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# I go up west every night

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# Go down to the pub
and look for a fight

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# I have ten lagers
then I have ten more

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# Then I jump up and down
and I'm sick on the floor. #

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# Come on, you

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# Cos your hands are cold

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# Come on, you

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# Cos you're far too old

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# Come on, you

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# Cos you're a stupid old straight

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# Go, go, go, go
hate, hate, hate, hate. #

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We were really on the bounce
from Monty Python.

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I mean, they were the heroes
of everybody in my generation,

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and we didn't think we could do what
they did, so we decided to do

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something completely different,

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which was to do something very
low-key, something realistic,

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and Mel was the perfect person to do
low-key.

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I'm sorry, John, I'm sorry,
whatever you say,

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this film is a highly
distasteful one.

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Have people forgotten how
Monty Python suffered for us? I know.

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How often the sketches failed?
I mean, these men died for us.

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Frequently. I know.

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He brought such a self-confidence
that he didn't have to act up,

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he wanted to act out.

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Everything was...
Everything was casual.

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I think modern Christians should have
a bit less of the, "Get thee
behind me, Satan,"

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and more of the, "Come in, me old
mate, and have a cup of tea."

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Hello, John.

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Because he came from a straight
acting, serious directing

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background, that's where you get
that amazing flat acting style

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that started really with
Not The Nine O'Clock News and goes

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all the way through modern
alternative comedy of that...

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If you turn the sound down you can't
tell somebody's trying to be funny,
you know.

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That's Mel's idea. Nobody else's.

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He was always a very relaxed,
capable, good,

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believable, unshowy actor.

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We're going to take a look at
origami, aren't we, Rowan?

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That's right, Mel,

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which is the ancient Japanese art
of paper folding.

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His style is so simple
and so sort of unpretentious

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and so effortless, really.

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Mel's performance tone
and style. And it was something that

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I suppose I tried to emulate
a little.

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And actually found very interesting
and very engaging.

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And I remember a lot of the sketches
that we did together,

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like the origami sketch,
in which we were being very flat

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and very sort of naturalistic to
camera, which is something

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that I'd never done,

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because even then I tended to do
characters that were rather extreme.

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You can do this on your own

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but if there are two of you then it
will probably help.

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And we just have a pull there.

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That's it, that's it. Now...

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And you see,
now there we have a very nice hat.

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Here's a...

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Here's a little bracelet.

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And here we have a nice
pair of earrings.

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And of course the moustache.
The moustache.

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He's sort of daring you to say,
"Yeah, you're not funny, you're

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"being completely silly." "No,
I really mean this, I'm a proper

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"children's television presenter
and this hat is really good."

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He dares you to contradict him.

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Twins, doubles, lookalikes.

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In the studio now are two men who
will tell us what it is like

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to suffer the pain and
heartache of being identical twins.

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The thing about Mel is that

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he found a very normal, relaxed
thing in the biggest of characters.

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So if he was playing a vicar or
a bishop or a man who lives with

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a gorilla, you would have all the
little sort of tensions of normal

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conversation and normal behaviour,
and that's what made it so funny.

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Professor, can Gerald really
speak as we would understand it?

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Oh, yes,
he can speak a few actual words.

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Of course, it was extremely difficult
to get him even to this stage.

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When I first... When I first captured
Gerald in the Congo, I...

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'67, I think it was.

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'68.

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'68.

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With Mel, I felt this wonderful
sort of peace in performance,

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where you didn't have to do much
and you could just be very flat

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and tonal in his way. And it was
something that I really enjoyed.

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I had to do a lot of work with him
on a one-to-one basis.

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If I might just butt in
at this point,

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I think I should point out that
I have done a considerable

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amount of work on this project
myself, and if I may say so,

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your teaching methods do leave
a bit to be desired.

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That's a bit ungrateful, isn't it?
And your diction, for instance...

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I'm sorry, can I put this into some
sort of perspective?

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When I caught Gerald in '68,
he was completely wild.

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Wild? I was absolutely livid.

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I think I wrote a sketch about a man
and a talking gorilla, and a lot of

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the deep, um, er, homosexual subtext
was added by Mel and Rowan and John.

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How has Gerald reacted to being
separated from his family?

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Well, to begin with, Gerald did make
various attempts

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to contact his old
flange of gorillas.

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It is a whoop, Professor,
it is a whoop of gorillas.

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It is a flange of baboons,
for God's sake.

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He sent them the occasional letter
but I couldn't really see the point.

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I mean, they either ate them
or wiped their bottoms on them.

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Look, look, I know you've never
got on with my mother.

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Well, she didn't exactly like me,
did she?

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She got on perfectly well with David
Attenborough. David Attenborough!

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All I ever hear is David bloody
Attenborough.

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Let's leave Dave out of this, shall
we? Oh, shut up and have a banana.

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You could cast Mel in anything,

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you know, high comedy,
serious drama.

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In 1982, Mel was cast in his first
lead role in a TV drama,

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as ruthless property developer
Tom Craig in Muck And Brass.

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There's a lot of people owe me in
this town, Cyril,

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and you're one of them.

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I'm telling you. I don't give fair
dos. I'm going to start digging.

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You're an old man.

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If you want to go out
with the brass bands playing,

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and a plaque to your memory in
the town-hall toilets,

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you'd better make sure one of those
tenders I've got in there
gets accepted.

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Do I make myself plain?

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While Mel was filming
Muck And Brass,

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Not The Nine O'Clock News
suddenly ended,

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leaving him and Griff to partner up
or face unemployment.

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# Kinda lingers...#

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Kinda lingers, me old mate.

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# Kinda lingers...#

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Kinda lingers, Pam. Oh, Griff.

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Mel and Griff were
the two people who

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looked like mates and they clearly
weren't a woman,

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as Pamela Stephenson was.

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I think that was fairly obvious from
the get-go.

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And they weren't Rowan, who was
sort of his own, you know,
mimetic genius.

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They became partners
cos Rowan sacked us all.

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Simple as that. You know, they
thought they were out of a job.

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They definitely thought, the
game's up, we'll never work again.

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After Not The Nine O'Clock News
finished,

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Mel and Griff pitched
an idea for a two-man show.

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00:11:32,640 --> 00:11:35,640
Their audition piece was
featured in a BBC Christmas Special.

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I wrote a sketch
about a hospital visitor.

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00:11:42,360 --> 00:11:44,360
I expect you've heard of me. No.

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Trevor? What do you want, Trevor?

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00:11:50,280 --> 00:11:52,840
I want for nothing,
save your comfort.

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00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:54,320
Thank you.

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00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:59,400
We of the Brotherhood of St Vitus
bring succour to the sick.

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00:12:00,440 --> 00:12:04,600
Are you sick, my friend?
I am, yes. What's wrong with you?

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00:12:06,320 --> 00:12:08,440
'And they said, "Yeah,
make a pilot,'

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00:12:08,440 --> 00:12:10,840
"off you go."

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00:12:10,840 --> 00:12:15,200
So we made a pilot. There were
a number of really great sketches

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00:12:15,200 --> 00:12:18,520
in it, one of which was two guys
on a polar expedition.

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00:12:19,760 --> 00:12:23,080
Oh, John, John.
Oh, this is it. We are in luck.

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00:12:29,240 --> 00:12:31,560
Of course the crevasse is
deep to the east.

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00:12:31,560 --> 00:12:34,760
If you head west about
half a mile over the ridge,

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there's a crossing point.

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We can be at the South Pole in
36 hours. 36 hours, I'm so excited!

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00:12:44,040 --> 00:12:46,360
You said you'd be back at 6.30.

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00:12:49,400 --> 00:12:51,840
I got caught in a blizzard, John.

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00:12:51,840 --> 00:12:57,320
Caught in a blizzard? John, we are
17 miles from the South Pole.

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I don't think we need to worry about
the niceties of punctuality.

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00:13:00,520 --> 00:13:03,480
I'm not worried about the niceties
of punctuality.

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I just don't think you should say
6.30

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00:13:05,240 --> 00:13:07,440
if you don't mean it, that's all.

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00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:09,720
That went quite well,
and then we were off.

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And we made the first series
of Smith & Jones in about 1983.

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Something around that time.

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00:13:16,240 --> 00:13:19,960
I went down to Harley Street
yesterday. Oh, yeah.

232
00:13:19,960 --> 00:13:22,720
Yeah, down where all
the clinics are. Oh.

233
00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:27,200
I go down there quite often,
actually. Do you?

234
00:13:27,200 --> 00:13:30,760
Oh, yeah, to the...you know,
the artificial inseminatory.

235
00:13:30,760 --> 00:13:31,640
LAUGHTER

236
00:13:33,560 --> 00:13:36,040
Sperm bank, you know.

237
00:13:36,040 --> 00:13:39,240
Cos they've actually got the biggest
collection of sperms

238
00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:40,760
in the country down there.

239
00:13:42,840 --> 00:13:45,440
You go down there
and have a look at them, do you?

240
00:13:45,440 --> 00:13:46,400
LAUGHTER

241
00:13:47,720 --> 00:13:48,960
No, no.

242
00:13:49,920 --> 00:13:53,200
I mean, I go to stick
some in. Oh.

243
00:13:53,200 --> 00:13:57,440
I'm a donator. Oh, oh.

244
00:14:00,440 --> 00:14:01,960
How do you do that, then?

245
00:14:04,160 --> 00:14:07,800
Right from the first episode of
Alas Smith And Jones, Mel and Griff

246
00:14:07,800 --> 00:14:10,200
performed what would
become their signature sketch -

247
00:14:10,200 --> 00:14:11,880
the head-to-head.

248
00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:14,720
They were based on work we'd
already been doing, funnily enough,

249
00:14:14,720 --> 00:14:19,400
in advertising, as we set up a radio
advertising company called Talkback.

250
00:14:19,400 --> 00:14:22,640
It was an extremely useful tool
for corporate work with the, er...

251
00:14:22,640 --> 00:14:24,920
you'd drop in the name
of the client somewhere,

252
00:14:24,920 --> 00:14:28,440
and the very fact that these
were two slightly ill-informed,

253
00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:30,760
rather...you know, you could
say thick characters,

254
00:14:30,760 --> 00:14:34,040
meant it was an extremely useful
way of conveying information.

255
00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:37,040
And when we came to do
the television show I thought, er,

256
00:14:37,040 --> 00:14:39,080
let's try this structure.

257
00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:40,520
Two close-ups of two profiles,

258
00:14:40,520 --> 00:14:42,520
you know, almost touching
each other,

259
00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:44,040
black background, white shirts.

260
00:14:44,040 --> 00:14:47,480
It was... It was as radio as you
could possibly get on television.

261
00:14:47,480 --> 00:14:50,800
I mean, there's a lot of women
in the world. Yeah, right.

262
00:14:50,800 --> 00:14:54,720
And a lot of them, for various
reasons, they can't get pregnant. No.

263
00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:59,160
Because their husbands haven't
got it in 'em, see.

264
00:14:59,160 --> 00:15:00,400
What, not at all?

265
00:15:01,840 --> 00:15:03,360
Well, not as much as I have. No.

266
00:15:04,760 --> 00:15:06,280
When they stared reading it,

267
00:15:06,280 --> 00:15:10,000
it became obvious that there were
two sorts of stupidity.

268
00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:12,400
You know, Griff playing
a stupid person is very different

269
00:15:12,400 --> 00:15:14,280
from Mel playing a stupid person.

270
00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:17,480
And, er, there's something
sort of... Even though Griff

271
00:15:17,480 --> 00:15:21,120
sort of struggles with
concepts in his head,

272
00:15:21,120 --> 00:15:25,520
he actually questions Mel, who's all
sort of full of bullshit about
blah-blah.

273
00:15:25,520 --> 00:15:29,960
Do you know it is over 20 years
since Sergeant Pepper came out?

274
00:15:29,960 --> 00:15:34,480
Is it really? 20 years. Dear, oh,
dear. Makes you think, doesn't it?
It does.

275
00:15:34,480 --> 00:15:37,160
Makes me think I ought to buy it
some time.

276
00:15:37,160 --> 00:15:38,520
You never heard...

277
00:15:38,520 --> 00:15:41,400
Oh, it's only the best record
ever made. Is it?

278
00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:43,920
# It was 20 years ago today

279
00:15:43,920 --> 00:15:46,960
# Sergeant Pepper taught the band how
to play

280
00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:52,160
# It's going out of date... Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah. #

281
00:15:53,760 --> 00:15:57,160
Sounds marvellous.
Oh, it's brilliant. Brilliant.

282
00:15:57,160 --> 00:16:01,080
It was necessary for the two
characters to sit there

283
00:16:01,080 --> 00:16:04,600
in sort of blank incomprehension
for as long as

284
00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:08,680
effectively I decided that we
could...we could wait,

285
00:16:08,680 --> 00:16:13,040
and to know that Mel
would just go with it and vice versa

286
00:16:13,040 --> 00:16:16,240
was an absolutely essential quality.

287
00:16:16,240 --> 00:16:18,360
I was one of the beautiful people.

288
00:16:18,360 --> 00:16:19,640
LAUGHTER

289
00:16:29,920 --> 00:16:33,240
Were you really? I was, yes. It was
a bit before I met you, of course.

290
00:16:33,240 --> 00:16:34,960
Yeah, I think it must have been.

291
00:16:34,960 --> 00:16:36,120
LAUGHTER

292
00:16:36,120 --> 00:16:38,120
I think you believe those guys.

293
00:16:38,120 --> 00:16:41,160
I think you believe that
somewhere in some pub somewhere...

294
00:16:41,160 --> 00:16:45,680
obviously a very dark, black pub,
there are two people,

295
00:16:45,680 --> 00:16:48,880
who sit down over a pint
and talk like that.

296
00:16:48,880 --> 00:16:52,200
There was an element of the fact

297
00:16:52,200 --> 00:16:54,760
that Mel did play the, um...

298
00:16:56,240 --> 00:16:59,840
..the sort of straightforward,
you know,

299
00:16:59,840 --> 00:17:04,760
er, Sun reading, beer swilling,

300
00:17:04,760 --> 00:17:08,200
easy-going bloke and
I played the more...

301
00:17:11,160 --> 00:17:14,920
..stretched, sort of stressed-out,
neurotic character,

302
00:17:14,920 --> 00:17:17,920
which we did a lot, and that worked
quite well for us,

303
00:17:17,920 --> 00:17:19,960
and it was pretty well true as well.

304
00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:24,440
We gave you this project, you see,
because you had given us

305
00:17:24,440 --> 00:17:28,680
the impression that you had a major
record of construction

306
00:17:28,680 --> 00:17:30,560
engineering work
throughout the world.

307
00:17:30,560 --> 00:17:33,520
I mean, didn't you get
the contract for the Aswan Dam?

308
00:17:33,520 --> 00:17:35,880
Yeah, we did, yeah. We were all set,
raring to go,

309
00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:38,040
bloody van broke down,
didn't it?

310
00:17:38,040 --> 00:17:40,680
So you've never actually built
anything at all, have you?

311
00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:44,760
Hold on a minute. We refurbished
the entire Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal?

312
00:17:44,760 --> 00:17:48,600
Well, it WAS the Taj Mahal. It's
the Laughing Poppadom now, I think.

313
00:17:48,600 --> 00:17:50,800
Mel could do sort of
authority figures

314
00:17:50,800 --> 00:17:53,920
and the very opposite of authority
figures, you know. As you say,

315
00:17:53,920 --> 00:17:57,720
he could do a police inspector,
he could do, you know, a tramp.

316
00:17:57,720 --> 00:18:01,240
Er, but...but to me it always
came across as Mel doing it.

317
00:18:03,240 --> 00:18:06,680
Gentlemen of the press, I would
like to brief you as to the latest

318
00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:08,920
developments, which are considerable,

319
00:18:08,920 --> 00:18:12,360
in the hunt for the killer at large
in the Suffolk region.

320
00:18:14,880 --> 00:18:16,480
In the Sussex region.

321
00:18:17,880 --> 00:18:21,840
Rory had a sort of bead on the way
Mel could play

322
00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:27,000
that Inspector Bribeasy character
very well, very well.

323
00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:32,680
That was a classic sort of Mel...
sort of in control of his, er...

324
00:18:33,920 --> 00:18:36,880
..his...inner stupidity.

325
00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:40,000
One of the most important clues
so far received

326
00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:42,720
was yesterday at operational
headquarters,

327
00:18:42,720 --> 00:18:46,880
a cassette tape with this letter.

328
00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:50,600
"Dear, Mr Clever Copper..."

329
00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:54,680
I think he's referring to me there.

330
00:18:54,680 --> 00:18:57,680
The idea of a policeman on the beat,
or...you know, or a flustered,

331
00:18:57,680 --> 00:19:00,760
thick copper,
that doesn't happen any more.

332
00:19:00,760 --> 00:19:04,920
I think the police are into PR
enough to know that they don't have,

333
00:19:04,920 --> 00:19:08,320
er, Mel Smith lookalike officers
making mistakes in front of
the press.

334
00:19:08,320 --> 00:19:09,640
Sam Block, The Times.

335
00:19:09,640 --> 00:19:12,480
Is it true that some of your offices
have had a close encounter

336
00:19:12,480 --> 00:19:13,640
with the Hedgehog?

337
00:19:25,280 --> 00:19:26,720
Yes.

338
00:19:28,040 --> 00:19:30,600
Is it in fact true that a senior
police officer has spoken

339
00:19:30,600 --> 00:19:34,240
to him face-to-face? Yes.
Then why hasn't he been caught?

340
00:19:34,240 --> 00:19:35,760
ALL ASK QUESTIONS

341
00:19:35,760 --> 00:19:38,800
Look, we couldn't nab him. Why not?

342
00:19:38,800 --> 00:19:40,320
Because he's a Mason!

343
00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:44,800
'I played to the idea that I was
the uptight,'

344
00:19:44,800 --> 00:19:48,840
neurotic one, and Mel was
the easy-going, um, er, slob.

345
00:19:49,880 --> 00:19:51,680
It was very Odd Couple.

346
00:19:53,120 --> 00:19:55,160
Is the soap up your end, by the way?

347
00:20:03,320 --> 00:20:06,320
Pardon.
Is the soap up your end?

348
00:20:11,200 --> 00:20:12,480
No, I don't think so.

349
00:20:14,080 --> 00:20:16,880
You see, I know that Mel always
wanted to go off and play

350
00:20:16,880 --> 00:20:18,920
and do the Odd Couple.

351
00:20:18,920 --> 00:20:22,960
And I resisted it, because I thought
it was a bit of a cliche, almost,

352
00:20:22,960 --> 00:20:26,360
for us to do it. I imagined at some
point we'd do it later

353
00:20:26,360 --> 00:20:28,840
but I don't suppose we ever will
do it now.

354
00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:42,680
What is it, then?
I mean, what, what...

355
00:20:42,680 --> 00:20:45,360
you just don't like touching
other men?

356
00:20:45,360 --> 00:20:49,000
No, it's not that. What is it, then?
I just don't like touching you.

357
00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:54,080
We did the kiss originally
as a piece in TV.

358
00:20:54,080 --> 00:20:56,240
GRIFF GRUNTS

359
00:21:00,600 --> 00:21:03,960
Everywhere I went people would
say how horrible it must have been

360
00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:08,800
for me kissing Mel, but I...
I'm not quite sure why they

361
00:21:08,800 --> 00:21:13,760
thought it was horrible for me but
not horrible for him to kiss me!

362
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:17,200
You have got to
open up, Griff, open up!

363
00:21:21,440 --> 00:21:26,000
GRIFF PROTESTS

364
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:27,160
So...

365
00:21:27,160 --> 00:21:31,200
But it was horrible for me to kiss
Mel because he ate a lot of curry,

366
00:21:31,200 --> 00:21:34,480
smoked cigars and drank quite a lot

367
00:21:34,480 --> 00:21:38,720
and he was quite
an aggressive kisser.

368
00:21:38,720 --> 00:21:40,360
He never held himself back.

369
00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:48,280
What did you think?
Taramasalata, wasn't it? It was.

370
00:21:50,360 --> 00:21:54,400
We both like the same jokes, we
both roar with laughter at the
same jokes.

371
00:21:54,400 --> 00:21:58,520
Did you have a look at the
portfolio? I had a look at the
portfolio. And...

372
00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:00,680
Well, I'm obviously very interested.

373
00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:03,800
It's going to be...

374
00:22:03,800 --> 00:22:07,000
a very, very interesting new
departure for us.

375
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:09,200
Do you think we're going
to find the money?

376
00:22:09,200 --> 00:22:12,080
I don't think the finance is any
problem in itself

377
00:22:12,080 --> 00:22:13,720
but I'm just little bit...

378
00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:19,160
Would you like to see the menu, sir?
I think Chef knows our order, Henry,
thank you. Wine list? Er, yes.

379
00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:23,880
'So however different we were, all
our interests were different,'

380
00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:29,320
but nonetheless if push came to
shove, if somebody stuck a fairly

381
00:22:29,320 --> 00:22:36,000
straightforward joke in front of us,
we would find that pretty hilarious.

382
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:38,040
HE MURMURS

383
00:22:41,800 --> 00:22:47,680
No, no, no! Just one, just one.
No, no.

384
00:22:47,680 --> 00:22:51,040
AEROPLANE NOISE

385
00:22:55,560 --> 00:22:57,520
Will there be anything else,
gentlemen?

386
00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:04,720
Just the bill, I think,
Henry. Just the bill, sir.

387
00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:08,120
We must have done about 60 hours, of
course that's far too much.

388
00:23:08,120 --> 00:23:12,720
You know, you are...Marmite.

389
00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:16,080
You're spreading yourself
fairly thin

390
00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:20,520
but when it worked, and
it was there, it was terrific.

391
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:23,280
The most extraordinary thing about
Britain today is how quickly it's

392
00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:26,800
moving towards the classless society.
Yah, because here at the BBC

393
00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:30,040
it's actually a positive advantage
to be working-class,

394
00:23:30,040 --> 00:23:33,280
as Mel has found out. Because he
is... I beg your pardon?

395
00:23:33,280 --> 00:23:36,600
Because he's a working-class man,
the salt of the earth, who's...

396
00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:40,160
Sorry, excuse me just for a
second. I'm not working-class.

397
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:47,520
I'm middle-class. OK, fine.

398
00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:48,920
Well, if you say so, fine.

399
00:23:50,960 --> 00:23:52,640
No, it's not...

400
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:55,840
nothing to do with "if I say so",
Griff. I come from a perfectly...

401
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:59,520
ordinary middle-class family. Fine,
OK, middle-class.

402
00:23:59,520 --> 00:24:02,040
With the accent on ordinary,
I should think.

403
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:09,600
Mel Smith was born in London,
in 1952.

404
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:12,520
His father Ken, who was originally
from Country Durham,

405
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:14,080
married Mel's mother, Vera,

406
00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:16,960
and took over her family
greengrocer's in West London.

407
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:18,920
Mel and his younger sister, Lesley,

408
00:24:18,920 --> 00:24:22,400
lived with their parents
above the family shop in Chiswick.

409
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:23,720
When they married,

410
00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:29,200
Ken had convinced Vera that the way
to go forward was to

411
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:33,360
change from being
a greengrocer to a bookmaker's.

412
00:24:33,360 --> 00:24:36,080
They started in a modest flat

413
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:39,720
then moved up to a nice
semidetached house.

414
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:41,240
And did very well for themselves.

415
00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:43,640
His father was quite quiet.

416
00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:46,280
He wouldn't say anything
unless it was worth saying.

417
00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:49,080
Mum was much more gregarious.

418
00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:53,320
I never met Mel's dad, who I think
died before we really got together,

419
00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:56,160
but Mel's mum,
I knew Vera, I knew her very well.

420
00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:58,200
She was, er...she was fantastic.

421
00:24:58,200 --> 00:25:02,480
Hugely supportive of Mel, great fun,
and liked to laugh.

422
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:05,920
Hold on! You like this, The Only
Way Is Up? I love it.

423
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:07,800
LAUGHTER

424
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:10,000
Up, up, up.

425
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:13,120
MEL LAUGHS

426
00:25:13,120 --> 00:25:15,280
Look at your mother, Lesley.

427
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:19,960
Terrible. She's old. It's sad,
sad to watch.

428
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:24,400
It is sad, sad to watch.
But she loves it!

429
00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:27,800
I remember him telling about...
him telling me about his mother.

430
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:29,520
He'd been very amused by this.

431
00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:32,080
He'd been round to see her
the day before, I think, and she had

432
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:35,600
been reading in the Daily Mail
about the Loony Left in Lambeth.

433
00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:39,720
And she said, "Apparently, Mel,
if you're a lesbian amputee

434
00:25:39,720 --> 00:25:42,360
"you can
have free hang-gliding lessons.

435
00:25:42,360 --> 00:25:45,960
She absolutely believed every
word of the Daily Mail.

436
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,920
In 1964, the academically bright Mel

437
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:01,480
got into Latymer Upper School
in Hammersmith.

438
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:09,680
This is the original hall
of Latymer Upper.

439
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:14,160
And it's used for assemblies and in
Mel's time the stage behind us was

440
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:19,640
vastly expanded by groups of boys
with lights and curtains

441
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:23,560
and so it's a much bigger
stage, slightly ramshackle.

442
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:28,200
His enthusiasm for theatre and
acting seemed to...

443
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:31,000
spring fully formed from nowhere.

444
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:35,320
He showed an absolute
remarkable maturity,

445
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:38,960
and as a 17-year-old gave
a marvellous portrayal

446
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:40,560
as Falstaff.

447
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:44,440
Mel had the audience eating out of
his hand really

448
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:47,440
in the way he spoke his lines.

449
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:52,600
And how he was calm and gentle
and then bashing away, shouting

450
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:55,280
and screaming and doing all sorts
of Nine O'Clock News type things

451
00:26:55,280 --> 00:27:00,160
at times. It's a very moving
play, that,

452
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,440
and people said, "That's the
making of an actor."

453
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:13,920
Every year he was the captain
of the year's team,

454
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:17,600
all the way from the second form
right up to the sixth form, and

455
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:21,600
at the sixth-form level he was the
captain of the school First XV.

456
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:26,720
He formed odd quirky clubs. He
formed the Latymer Walking Society.

457
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:30,760
That was a group that, at lunchtime,
walked around the school

458
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:33,400
very, very quickly,
for no other reason

459
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:36,240
than it seemed like a good idea
at the time.

460
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:40,360
Latymer meant a great deal
to Mel.

461
00:27:40,360 --> 00:27:44,360
It allowed him to expand, it allowed
him in a sense to be naughty,

462
00:27:44,360 --> 00:27:47,480
perhaps sometimes encouraged him
to be naughty.

463
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:49,240
It made him work very hard.

464
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:59,000
In 1971, Mel won a place to study
experimental psychology

465
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:00,400
at New College, Oxford.

466
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:04,640
# All right, everybody

467
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:08,240
# Let your hair down

468
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:10,760
# Want to see everybody get up off
their seat

469
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:12,600
# Clap your hands, stamp your feet

470
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:13,880
# Get down, get with it

471
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:16,640
# I said get down, get with it... #

472
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:18,560
For a lot of people, including me,

473
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:20,920
you go to university
and it's the first time you're

474
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:24,320
sort of independent, when you're
finding your way around the world.

475
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:29,280
And Mel looked like a man
who absolutely knew his way around
the world and back again.

476
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:32,280
# I said get down and get with it

477
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:36,360
# It's been a long, long time... #

478
00:28:36,360 --> 00:28:40,000
We're in the King's Arms, which is
a stone's throw

479
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:44,120
from where Mel and I used to live,
and it's where we came

480
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:46,600
most mornings if we weren't off
to the races.

481
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:48,760
He was a hugely prodigious drinker.

482
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:52,080
People who were interested
in the theatre used to come in here

483
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:54,440
and Mel would just basically
hold court.

484
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:04,200
He was a man who did
lots of productions.

485
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:08,480
He also appeared in quite
a few things.

486
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:12,520
He was a man who rose very
quickly within the ranks.

487
00:29:12,520 --> 00:29:17,000
MUSIC: "I'm Free" by The Who

488
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:23,480
Numbers 6 and 7 New College Lane.

489
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:28,000
As you can see, it's where
Edmund Halley had his observatory.

490
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:33,400
And I used to have the rooms
on this side,

491
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:36,720
going in this entrance,
and Mel had the rooms on this side.

492
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:42,200
I came back one night and there was
a party going on next door,

493
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:44,400
and they were playing Tommy.

494
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:48,120
I pretty soon realised it was
actually my copy of Tommy.

495
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:51,120
They'd broken into my rooms
and pinched my record

496
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:55,720
so I stormed round next
door in a high state of pique,

497
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:59,520
and hammered on the door,
and Mel opened the door,

498
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:03,720
thrust a large gin and tonic
into my hand, and that was it.

499
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:05,720
Friends for life, really.

500
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:15,720
Right, so this was Mel's room.

501
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:20,480
My room was behind dividing
doors here, which have
since been plastered over.

502
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:24,040
Bed in the same position.
Can't remember where the desk was.

503
00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:26,760
Nice to see a bottle of Pimm's
on the mantelpiece.

504
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:31,280
We used to spend most of our time in
my room because it's rather bigger
than this room.

505
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,800
I think he liked to make a mess
in my patch rather than his own.

506
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:41,080
We're talking about 41 years ago,
42 years ago I met Mel.

507
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:47,800
A huge sense of sadness that I'm not
going to see him any more.

508
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:49,440
Huge.

509
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:03,440
I think his attendance record
was appalling.

510
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:07,880
I don't think the experimental
psychology labs
had seen much of him.

511
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:12,400
And they asked him
if he was going to...

512
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:16,480
put his head down
and work for his finals,

513
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:20,840
or whether he was going to spend
all his time directing and acting.

514
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:23,520
And I think he chose the latter.

515
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:33,040
In 1973, having decided not
to complete his degree at Oxford,

516
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:35,160
Mel returned to London to take up
a job

517
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:38,160
as assistant director
at the Royal Court Theatre.

518
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:40,000
I actually worked on Not I here,

519
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:43,440
which is a 20-minute monologue
written by Samuel Beckett,

520
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:46,520
coming from a mouth very,
very tightly lit, stage left.

521
00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:50,800
Stage right, there's this cloaked
figure, so dimly lit

522
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:52,800
that people often didn't notice
he was there.

523
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:56,240
Cloak and cowl, who at about three
occasions during the play

524
00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:58,080
had to go like this, you see.

525
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:01,040
Two or three times in the show,
like this.

526
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:06,320
I was assistant director on the show
and we spent the whole day
auditioning people

527
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:09,920
for the part of the guy in the cloak.
It was unbelievable.

528
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:13,800
On the audition, we had a queue of
really quite good actors coming in,

529
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:16,840
and I used to sit stage left doing
the whole monologue.

530
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:19,800
SHOUTS UNINTELLIGIBLY

531
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:22,840
Like that, while these actors used
to stand there going...

532
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:27,440
It was the most embarrassing thing
I'd ever done in my whole life.

533
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:34,440
During the mid-'70s, Mel continued
to take assistant directing jobs

534
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:39,120
in theatres around the country until
he met up with actor Bob Goody.

535
00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:42,520
For the next few years, they wrote
and performed
several productions together,

536
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:44,800
including 'Ave You 'Eard The One
About Joey Baker

537
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:48,040
and The Gambler, which was later
revived in the West End.

538
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:54,120
By 1979, they'd attracted
the attention of TV.

539
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:55,760
# Wotcha, Bob.

540
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:57,520
# Wotcha, Mel

541
00:32:57,520 --> 00:32:59,600
# Wotcha been up to?

542
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:01,200
# Can't you tell? #

543
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:04,520
We came up with this
sort of strange sketch show

544
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:08,320
where we played Mel and Bob and, um,
Mel was the slightly serious one.

545
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:10,800
The sort of round, serious one.

546
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:13,840
I was the tall, crazy one who was
desperate about books,

547
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:17,680
a bit like a grown-up child, and
we lived in a television studio

548
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:21,800
and we shared a big double bed,
a bit like Morecambe and Wise.

549
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:24,600
Got some dodgy mail
but we got away with it.

550
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:26,880
Bob! Get back in the bed!

551
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:28,920
We did a Blue Peter send-up
every week,

552
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:31,520
which I think was called
Let's Look At A Book.

553
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:34,600
What you were about to witness was
television at its most terrifying.

554
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:37,880
Note the sickly grin,
the glazed expression
and the cuddly stuffed Labrador.

555
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:40,680
Don't go on at me, Fatso!
Oh, come on, Bob.

556
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:44,120
Mel, you're rotten, you are!
It's a popular bit of the programme.

557
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:48,120
I've been flooded with letters
saying how exciting and informative

558
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:50,080
and clever I am.

559
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:52,840
Bob, 17 postcards from
your Auntie Dot all saying,

560
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:56,520
"keep up the good work" hardly puts
you in the superstar bracket.

561
00:33:56,520 --> 00:34:01,360
And we also did
a Christmas special.

562
00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:04,840
Smith And Goody On Ice, which was...

563
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:06,880
which was hysterical.

564
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:10,000
Hi, Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas!

565
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:11,800
To all of those of you watching,

566
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:15,200
all those in France
and certain bits of Canada, Bon Noel!

567
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:19,280
I could have done more stuff with
Mel, and I'd love to have done,

568
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,120
but sketch comedy wasn't... I did it
with Smith and Goody,

569
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:25,560
but it wasn't my great forte.
I'm more of an actor...

570
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:28,240
Sort of a comic actor
but not a sketch comedian.

571
00:34:28,240 --> 00:34:31,240
But once Not The Nine O'Clock News
took off,

572
00:34:31,240 --> 00:34:34,280
Mel could do it all, really.

573
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:37,520
So, yeah, it was a shame,
but, never...

574
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:39,560
That's the way it goes.

575
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:42,600
Thanks, mate. Thanks, pal.
See you, all right?

576
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:49,640
Extraordinary.

577
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:52,800
I wrote a play around the same
time, called American Days,

578
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:55,600
which needed
the part of an ageing rock star.

579
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:58,800
On the last night of the play,
he said he was about

580
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:01,280
to do this show called
Not The Nine O'Clock News.

581
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:04,360
He said, "I have no idea if it's
going to last but I do know,"

582
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:07,720
he said, "Stephen,
that I'm going to be world famous."

583
00:35:07,720 --> 00:35:09,720
And I looked at him
somewhat doubtfully,

584
00:35:09,720 --> 00:35:13,200
cos there was this large man that
was basically a character actor

585
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:17,520
and sometime theatre director,
and said, "But of course, Mel."

586
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,960
Um, and then within a year or so
he was very, very famous.

587
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:29,320
In 1979, Mel put theatre and
children's television to one side

588
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:33,400
and began his rise to stardom in
Not The Nine O'Clock News.

589
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:37,040
SWEDISH ACCENTS: Good afternoon.
Can I help you, sir?

590
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:39,480
I would like some deodorant, please.

591
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:42,680
Ball or aerosol?

592
00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:46,240
Neither, I want it for my armpits.

593
00:35:46,240 --> 00:35:50,920
During the '80s,
Not The Nine O'Clock News
and then Alas Smith And Jones

594
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:53,720
projected Mel to the top of the
comedy A-list.

595
00:35:53,720 --> 00:35:57,200
At the same time, behind the camera,
he and Griff started

596
00:35:57,200 --> 00:36:02,080
what was to become the blueprint
for independent television
production companies, Talkback.

597
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:06,560
Mel and Griff started Talkback
with a lot of foresight, really.

598
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:09,440
They saw that by taking
their destiny into their own hands

599
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:12,400
and creating a production company
they could, you know,

600
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:15,720
control their future and
not just, as it were,

601
00:36:15,720 --> 00:36:18,360
be working for the broadcasters.

602
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:20,920
So we had a pinball machine,
we had a pool table,

603
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:23,400
and gradually we would then start
to be successful,

604
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:27,160
and the first thing that happened
when we got successful
was somebody would arrive

605
00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:29,240
and say we've got to get rid
of the pool table,

606
00:36:29,240 --> 00:36:31,760
because we need to put a desk in
there for somebody to work,

607
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:34,720
so we'd say goodbye. And then we'd
move to bigger offices

608
00:36:34,720 --> 00:36:36,520
and we'd buy another pool table,

609
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:38,800
and a jukebox and a couple of
pinball tables,

610
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:41,840
and they'd last for about six months
and then Peter Fincham would say,

611
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:44,720
"I don't think we can have all this
stuff around the office.

612
00:36:44,720 --> 00:36:46,920
"We've got to get rid of it."
So it would all go.

613
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:49,560
Their level of involvement
fluctuated.

614
00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:52,600
Griff's was greater than Mel's.
Griff was a great one for bounding

615
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:55,120
into the office at nine o'clock on
a Monday morning,

616
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:57,280
and saying we need to do this
and we must to that,

617
00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:00,360
and he had a grand plan, as it were,
to take over the world.

618
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:03,520
And Mel was terribly happy to
sit in the background, kind of.

619
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:06,120
My image of him, he would
always be puffing on a cigar.

620
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:08,960
So whatever he said,
you could see through a kind of...

621
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:11,080
or hear through
a haze of cigar smoke.

622
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:13,920
Mel kept meeting people in pubs,
that was one thing he'd do.

623
00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:16,600
He'd come back and say,
"I've met this guy in a pub

624
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:19,280
"and he's got a great idea,"
and we'd sit down

625
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:23,160
and find ourselves having to be in
bed slightly with this man in a pub.

626
00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:24,920
Time now, ladies and gentlemen.

627
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:26,720
Time now, drink up,
would you please?

628
00:37:26,720 --> 00:37:28,600
Let's have your glasses.

629
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:32,040
George.
Yes.

630
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:37,240
I'm letting a few of the regulars
stay behind for an after-hours
session. Know what I mean?

631
00:37:37,240 --> 00:37:39,960
Yeah, right. Yeah.

632
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:43,240
So would you mind drinking up and
pissing off?

633
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:48,400
The spirit of Talkback and what led
Talkback to making lots

634
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:52,320
of great comedy programmes through
the '90s for the likes of, you know,

635
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:55,360
Steve Coogan and Armando Iannucci
and Chris Morris,

636
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:58,680
people like that,
it all comes from Mel and Griff.

637
00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:01,680
And it all comes from
"Let's create a company

638
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:04,120
"that's a little bit
of an anti-company."

639
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:08,160
Mel and I had a sort of idea that
what you did was you had

640
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:10,000
a lot of lunch. Lot of lunch.

641
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:12,760
Lunch was very, very important
in our day.

642
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:16,480
We'd arrive just before
lunch and then we'd go for lunch.

643
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:20,240
I think it's fair to say that Griff
and Mel had very differing...

644
00:38:20,240 --> 00:38:23,880
leisure pursuits,
extracurricular activities.

645
00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:25,880
Griff would put in a very
hard day's work,

646
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:28,880
and his way to relax was immediately
go and do another hard day's work,

647
00:38:28,880 --> 00:38:30,760
straightaway,
on something different.

648
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:34,760
Whereas Mel, I think, used his
leisure time very, very productively.

649
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:37,200
I think he put
a lot of energy into relaxing.

650
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:39,640
And that's one of his great joys.

651
00:38:39,640 --> 00:38:42,080
I'd bring along a bottle of vodka
or something and we'd sit

652
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:43,920
and play poker, one on one.

653
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:46,920
And I remember this one night
we really got into playing poker

654
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:51,640
one on one and about £150 was going
back and forth between us.

655
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:56,320
And about five in the morning
he went, "Oh."

656
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:59,480
He said, "I've just remembered."
I said, "What?"

657
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:01,800
Absolutely paralytic by this point,

658
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:04,240
he said, "I'm on breakfast
television this morning."

659
00:39:04,240 --> 00:39:05,640
I said, "You're kidding me!"

660
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:08,800
He looked out the window and said,
"There's the car waiting for me."

661
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:12,160
I said, "You can't go on breakfast
television in this state!"

662
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:15,920
He said, "You're absolutely right,
can I borrow your shirt?"

663
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:17,640
Our guest reviewer of the papers

664
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:19,880
is Mel Smith
of Not The Nine O'Clock News fame,

665
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:22,920
who's just taken over the part of
Charley's Aunt from Griff Rhys Jones

666
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:25,480
and at short notice, I hear.
Yeah, two days.

667
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:27,360
How's it going?

668
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:30,040
Er, fine, actually.

669
00:39:30,040 --> 00:39:33,080
I remember lying on the sofa

670
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:36,720
watching him being
interviewed by Selena Scott, knowing

671
00:39:36,720 --> 00:39:43,400
he was as drunk as I was, and he was
witty, intelligent, funny, coherent.

672
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:47,960
Well, this man was an ox. I tell
you, he was made of sterner stuff.

673
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:50,840
Everyone used to use this
expression, getting Smithed.

674
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:52,920
"I was badly Smithed last night,"

675
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:57,040
because if you went out for a drink
it would turn into a very long night

676
00:39:57,040 --> 00:39:59,720
always ending up back at Mel's.

677
00:39:59,720 --> 00:40:04,360
Mel introduced me to many things.
The great drink the Greyhound,

678
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:08,040
Mel's favourite drink,
which was a measure of vodka -

679
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:10,080
I won't tell you how big
the measure was -

680
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:12,920
and fresh grapefruit juice,
which is actually a very nice drink.

681
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:15,800
And you know, by today's standard,
it's quite healthy as well.

682
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:19,000
It would have been
one of his five a day, definitely.

683
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:22,320
This has never, ever happened
to me before.

684
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:26,280
I think it's cos I must have had
much too much to drink.

685
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:28,520
I'm really sorry.

686
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:38,360
The staff knew them as Fatty
and Grumpy

687
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:40,920
and that was all you needed to know.

688
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:44,560
Mel, convivial, jolly, you know,

689
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:47,920
very rare to see Mel
lose his temper.

690
00:40:47,920 --> 00:40:49,400
I don't think I've ever seen it.

691
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:53,720
Griff is constantly cross,
constantly wired, very tense.

692
00:40:56,600 --> 00:41:00,760
We were making quite a lot of
training films, things like that.

693
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:06,760
And Mel, who had always wanted to
direct movies,

694
00:41:06,760 --> 00:41:11,280
started to take over the direction
of some of these things,

695
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:13,400
did a few of those.

696
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:16,080
And so...then started to
direct commercials.

697
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:18,040
We had a commercials company.

698
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:20,520
On with the quick-fire section,
fingers on the buzzers.

699
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:22,760
Who was Britain's last coalition
Prime Minister?

700
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:24,720
Winston Churchill.
Correct.

701
00:41:24,720 --> 00:41:27,440
Gozzers, pinkies and...
Types of fishing bait.

702
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:29,080
Correct. Who discovered...?

703
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:31,840
Louis Pasteur. Correct.
Where might...?

704
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:33,120
In your ear.
Correct. What...?

705
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:35,000
Seven.
How...?

706
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:37,160
Runner beans.
What...?

707
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:38,440
H2O.

708
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:42,040
'Ere, I bet he drinks...
Carling Black Label.

709
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:46,120
And then he moved from there to...
to making films,

710
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:48,760
because it was his great passion.

711
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:58,920
The solid truth about The Tall Guy
is that at the end of

712
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:01,120
Not The Nine O'Clock News
Mel said to me,

713
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:05,640
"If ever you write a film and don't
ask me to direct it, I'll kill you."

714
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:09,480
And I remembered that
when I wrote a film.

715
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:24,920
LOUD SNEEZING

716
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:27,920
Good evening, Mr Morrow.
Good evening, Dexter.

717
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:31,760
What a life. Blind and allergic
to his guide dog.

718
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:36,320
The best bit by far
in The Tall Guy

719
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:39,160
is the spoof musical,
The Elephant Man,

720
00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:42,760
and that's Mel's love/hate
of musicals.

721
00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:44,640
Mel really wanted to do that

722
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:49,480
because he didn't like Andrew Lloyd
Webber's stuff any more than I did,

723
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:51,880
but he did love Sondheim, as do I.

724
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:55,840
So it's a kind of hybrid, actually.
It's a send-up of both of them

725
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:59,280
but it's most venomous, I think,
ABOUT Andrew Lloyd Webber.

726
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:01,680
There's one song that's
terribly like him.

727
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:07,360
# I don't know how to reach him

728
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:11,240
# He's so distant, like a priest
or a monk

729
00:43:11,240 --> 00:43:17,520
# And just when I think he's staying

730
00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:26,040
# I find out he's packing
his trunk. #

731
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:33,600
We did a poster for Elephant.

732
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:37,640
And Mel said, "We want something
that looks as though

733
00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:42,160
"the RSC has put on a serious
production of The Elephant Man

734
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:47,520
"as a musical called Elephant,
and it needs to be pretentious."

735
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,840
And I said, "I can do pretentious
no problem whatsoever."

736
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:52,800
I remember doing it and thinking,

737
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:55,680
'Yeah, no, no, this is
exactly what the RSC would do

738
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:59,840
"for The Elephant Man Musical,
especially directed by Trevor Nunn.'

739
00:43:59,840 --> 00:44:04,200
Excuse me, you were brilliant.

740
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:06,680
You were just brilliant.
Thank you very much.

741
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:13,200
Lovely.

742
00:44:13,200 --> 00:44:15,040
The thing you have to remember

743
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:17,800
about Mel is that he wanted to be
a commercial film director,

744
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:20,920
and so he was aware that you had to
make commercially accessible movies.

745
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:24,600
He liked Hollywood. He wasn't averse
to the kind of Hollywood machine.

746
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:27,400
In fact, he very much wanted to be
a part of it in reality.

747
00:44:34,720 --> 00:44:38,320
In the early '90s, on the back
of the success of The Tall Guy

748
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:42,720
and his work in commercials, Mel and
his wife Pam moved to Los Angeles.

749
00:44:42,720 --> 00:44:44,960
The thing about Mel was
he kind of looked the part.

750
00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:47,720
He had enormous presence.
If he got the meetings,

751
00:44:47,720 --> 00:44:50,360
he invariably impressed the people
out there.

752
00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:57,480
Mel's first Hollywood film was
Radioland Murders.

753
00:44:57,480 --> 00:44:59,080
Produced by George Lucas,

754
00:44:59,080 --> 00:45:02,640
it paid homage to the screwball
comedies of the 1930s.

755
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:04,440
But the film flopped.

756
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:08,160
There's nothing like a film tanking
to take the wind out your sails.

757
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:10,680
I mean, it was a really
ghastly experience, you know,

758
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:12,600
cos these things just take
so long to make.

759
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:15,560
He so wanted to be a successful
movie director.

760
00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:17,240
That's what he wanted.

761
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:22,680
In 1997, three years after
the difficult experience

762
00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:25,480
of Radioland Murders,
Mel did direct

763
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:28,360
what was to become by far his most
successful film.

764
00:45:34,720 --> 00:45:37,480
There were quite high hopes for Bean
because the TV show

765
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:40,520
had already internationally been
such a big deal and so it was

766
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:45,000
definitely a way of Mel, you know,
kind of trying to guarantee a hit.

767
00:45:48,720 --> 00:45:52,240
Bean went on to make
over £150 million at the box office.

768
00:45:52,240 --> 00:45:55,040
Back in Britain,
Alas Smith And Jones

769
00:45:55,040 --> 00:45:58,320
and Mel and Griff's company were
going from strength to strength.

770
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:01,240
Ladies and customers,

771
00:46:01,240 --> 00:46:04,840
tonight we have a very important
announcement to make to you all.

772
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:08,600
Yes, we have been in consultation
with members of the government

773
00:46:08,600 --> 00:46:10,760
at the very lowest level,
and we are here to tell you

774
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:13,480
it's been decided to sell us off to
the country.

775
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:16,520
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the
privatisation of Smith and Jones.

776
00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:22,640
In 2000, Mel, Griff and fellow
company director Peter Fincham

777
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:26,040
sold Talkback Productions
for £62 million.

778
00:46:26,040 --> 00:46:31,680
When Mel and Griff and Peter sold
Talkback for ganillions...

779
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:36,600
..you sort of thought,
well, that's...

780
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:39,440
that's made Mel into what
he was already.

781
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:43,520
He was very comfortable with money,
he always, I think...

782
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:46,880
There was always a certain
amount of cash from the word go.

783
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:49,480
I think his granny... He would go up
to London and his granny

784
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:52,440
would sort of sort him out with
a few quid if he was a bit skint.

785
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:55,240
It's true that while we were
in the business of selling Talkback

786
00:46:55,240 --> 00:46:58,160
and before the deal was done
and the ink was dry,

787
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:01,800
he went out and bought himself a new
Rolls-Royce, which caused me

788
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:04,840
and Griff considerable consternation
because we were very nervous that

789
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:07,880
the deal would go wrong, and we
were, in a typical British way,

790
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:10,600
a bit embarrassed about the fact
that we were making a lot of money.

791
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:13,400
And the last thing that we wanted to
do was to kind of flash the cash.

792
00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:17,640
But Mel had absolutely no
compunctions about flashing
the cash at all.

793
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:21,160
Once he made a lot of money,
he sort of invited

794
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:24,360
everybody to have huge
lunches or whatever.

795
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:26,760
Or he'd invite us
to a box at the races.

796
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:28,920
He was very generous with it.

797
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:32,320
I suspect that took away
a bit of the edge that was,

798
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:35,120
"I'm going to go to Hollywood
and make it big,"

799
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:38,280
because he'd sort of...made it big,
without trying, really.

800
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:41,400
And so I suspect that he thought
"I'll go and have..."

801
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,520
You know,
"I'll pop down the racecourse."

802
00:47:57,360 --> 00:48:00,160
I used to come racing all the time
with Mel

803
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:03,320
and then about 12 years ago,
something like that,

804
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:05,440
Mel said, "Let's do it together."

805
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:07,680
And so we started buying horses.

806
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:12,640
Mel and he arrived and Mel liked
a large vodka, so he had one.

807
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:16,120
I was very modest myself.
Of course, yeah.

808
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:18,560
Anthony didn't have
quite such a large one.

809
00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:21,800
But anyway, they liked the set-up

810
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:25,080
and let me go
and buy them a horse.

811
00:48:25,080 --> 00:48:28,720
Many a lunch one would have
and on the drive home...

812
00:48:28,720 --> 00:48:30,480
being driven, I hasten to add...

813
00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:33,400
we would...
one would say to the other,

814
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:37,560
"Did we just buy a horse?"
"I don't know, did we?"

815
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:45,200
And this is our star, called
the Cheka, and he's by Xaar,

816
00:48:45,200 --> 00:48:50,280
and Mel named him after the Cheka,
which was the secret service police

817
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:55,120
under Lenin, which he knew and not
very many other people knew,

818
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:59,600
but this boy has earned more money
than all of the others.

819
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:03,080
Well, actually, come to think of it,
all the others put together.

820
00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:18,080
We went back by train with
the cup, and this huge cup,

821
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:21,880
and we were sitting in the carriage
on the train,

822
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:23,920
and Mel said, "Well, you take care
of the cup,

823
00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:25,640
"I'll just go and get a drink."

824
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:28,200
And he came back three or four
minutes later

825
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:32,080
and he had bought
the whole trolley.

826
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:35,280
Um, and people would come up
and go...

827
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:38,440
and he'd just give them drinks
and he would...

828
00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:43,120
But we drank the whole train dry
on the way back from that victory.

829
00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:49,840
Fundamentally he was
a very bright guy.

830
00:49:49,840 --> 00:49:52,000
He was a big intellect,
but at the same time

831
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:54,440
he was obviously a famously big
bon viveur,

832
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:58,640
and there was a point in the '80s
where those two things
could quite happily coexist,

833
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:01,760
but inevitably, as everything has
become more corporate, you know,

834
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:05,960
certainly in Hollywood, it becomes
a lot harder to be that person.

835
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:09,320
I can remember him describing that
when he went out to dinner one day

836
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:13,320
and ordered a large vodka and tonic,
that everyone looked at him askance,

837
00:50:13,320 --> 00:50:16,600
that this obviously wasn't the way
to get films.

838
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:19,440
You know, you had
to pretend to be sort of teetotal.

839
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:22,200
Sober and not interested in alcohol.

840
00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:30,120
In 2001, Mel directed the film
High Heels And Low Lifes

841
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:32,520
and then Blackball
two years later.

842
00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:34,520
Both low-budget British comedies,

843
00:50:34,520 --> 00:50:37,080
neither reached the box-office
heights of Bean

844
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:40,080
and Mel's film directing career
began to tail off.

845
00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:42,080
To the astonishments of all
his mates,

846
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:45,080
he said, "I'm going back
in the theatre." And off he went.

847
00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:48,400
His whole life was about...
this leads to the next bit

848
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:50,840
and this gives me
the opportunity to do the next bit.

849
00:50:50,840 --> 00:50:53,760
And then it's interesting that after
the film directing,

850
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:56,040
where did he end up back again
but the theatre?

851
00:50:56,040 --> 00:50:59,720
He was in...Hairspray
and he was great in that

852
00:50:59,720 --> 00:51:02,160
and did a dance,
and it was a great thing.

853
00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:05,720
He came back after the first night,
and I went to see him,

854
00:51:05,720 --> 00:51:08,720
and he said what he was most
pleased with was the dance,

855
00:51:08,720 --> 00:51:14,560
because he knew that I would not be
able to do the dance that he did.

856
00:51:14,560 --> 00:51:16,280
And he was quite right.

857
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:18,800
# Cos the world keeps spinning
round and round

858
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:21,800
# My heart's keeping time
to the speed of sound

859
00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:26,360
# I was lost till I heard the drums,
then I found my way

860
00:51:26,360 --> 00:51:28,280
# Cos you can't stop the beat

861
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:30,320
# Ever since this old world began

862
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:33,160
# A woman found out if she shook it
she could shake up a man

863
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:37,120
# So I'm gonna shake and shimmy it
the best that I can today

864
00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:40,680
# You can't stop the motion
of the ocean... #

865
00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:45,560
Mel loved musicals.
He absolutely adored them. Yeah.

866
00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:49,240
Well, we did the Nancy Boys
all those years ago

867
00:51:49,240 --> 00:51:54,240
and the...choreographer was Bruno...

868
00:51:54,240 --> 00:51:59,720
Bruno Tonioli? What's it...?
Bruno, Bruno... anyway, yeah.

869
00:51:59,720 --> 00:52:02,000
So, um, we worked with the best.

870
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:04,840
MUSIC: "Atomic"
by Blondie

871
00:52:09,800 --> 00:52:13,800
Theatre was always very important
to Mel, and when he did stuff

872
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:16,880
he did it because he wanted to
rather than, as it were,

873
00:52:16,880 --> 00:52:20,680
because he had to or he felt it
would push him further up

874
00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:23,360
some imaginary ladder, you know.

875
00:52:23,360 --> 00:52:26,800
He played Churchill in Edinburgh
because he liked the script.

876
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:28,760
He was passionate about Allegiance.

877
00:52:28,760 --> 00:52:30,680
He was very proud of what
he did with that.

878
00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:33,440
And the Stephen Poliakoff play
that he did on television,

879
00:52:33,440 --> 00:52:36,000
I thought he was terribly good
in that.

880
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:39,480
I met Harold Voight from the Cecil
the other day.

881
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:44,480
He couldn't believe -
could absolutely not believe -

882
00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:47,720
that I had coloured musicians
staying in this hotel.

883
00:52:47,720 --> 00:52:49,960
Just down the road
at the Savoy Theatre,

884
00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:52,680
people are walking out of Othello
even as we speak,

885
00:52:52,680 --> 00:52:57,880
because the coloured actor...
what's his name...Robeson...
is kissing his Desdemona.

886
00:52:57,880 --> 00:53:02,560
And yet I give you
four months' work in this hotel!

887
00:53:02,560 --> 00:53:06,280
People are amazed at what I've done!

888
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:09,080
Even though for somebody who was
well known for not having

889
00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:12,280
the longest attention span,
I found as an actor, and especially

890
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:14,560
on Dancing On The Edge, that he was
very rigorous

891
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:16,160
and he really, really wanted...

892
00:53:16,160 --> 00:53:18,760
He would ask for more takes and say,
"I can do it better."

893
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:21,040
I think it was
a shock for people to see him

894
00:53:21,040 --> 00:53:24,480
having changed so much, because
he'd been in hospital on and off

895
00:53:24,480 --> 00:53:28,880
for quite a while and he had really
bad throat operations and things,

896
00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:30,480
so he wasn't, you know...

897
00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:32,600
his effervescent bubbling self,

898
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:34,800
but in a way I think that was
rather wonderful.

899
00:53:34,800 --> 00:53:37,600
I spent a lot of time with him at
Christmas when he was in hospital.

900
00:53:37,600 --> 00:53:39,320
He was ill over Christmas,

901
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:42,560
and he was in hospital for quite
a long time and, um...

902
00:53:42,560 --> 00:53:44,000
It was interesting actually,

903
00:53:44,000 --> 00:53:46,840
cos he did resolve while he was
in there to get really properly fit.

904
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:51,560
I think unfortunately he'd had
enough of being unwell, really.

905
00:53:51,560 --> 00:53:53,920
He was even thinking about cutting
down on the cigars

906
00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:55,840
and maybe the whiskies,
as it were.

907
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:59,360
And actually, last time
I saw him he wasn't even drinking.

908
00:53:59,360 --> 00:54:02,240
So, you know, he really...
he still had a zest for life.

909
00:54:02,240 --> 00:54:05,120
He was... On the set
of Dancing On The Edge,

910
00:54:05,120 --> 00:54:08,560
there was a serenity... Well,
certainly he may have been...

911
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:10,880
he may have been concealing things
from me,

912
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:13,840
but there was a serenity as
he sat there reading books

913
00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:17,680
and he was very happy to be
part of this show with this music

914
00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:21,400
and this creation of the 1930s
and...

915
00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:24,800
He seemed to be at peace
with that stage of his life,

916
00:54:24,800 --> 00:54:27,440
of being on a set and acting
this part.

917
00:54:30,400 --> 00:54:34,080
Good evening. Tributes have been
paid to the comedian Mel Smith,

918
00:54:34,080 --> 00:54:36,400
who's died suddenly at his home
in London

919
00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:38,640
after suffering a heart attack.
He was 60.

920
00:54:38,640 --> 00:54:41,240
I have to say...

921
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:49,560
..that it hasn't really...

922
00:54:52,640 --> 00:54:56,080
..sunk in, in a funny way.

923
00:54:56,080 --> 00:55:00,600
I spoke to him
on the night...on the night he died!

924
00:55:00,600 --> 00:55:04,160
He was checking
with me the time of the race

925
00:55:04,160 --> 00:55:07,320
that we had a horse running
the next day,

926
00:55:07,320 --> 00:55:12,760
and had we picked a jockey,
and which was that jockey,

927
00:55:12,760 --> 00:55:17,400
and he was absolutely 100%
on the ball,

928
00:55:17,400 --> 00:55:19,800
and he didn't wake up.

929
00:55:19,800 --> 00:55:23,520
In the early days, we would say,
well, we're not going to make 30.

930
00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:26,560
And then I got married
and settled down and the rest of it.

931
00:55:26,560 --> 00:55:29,400
And everyone would say, well,
Mel's not going to make 40.

932
00:55:29,400 --> 00:55:32,840
Then he's not going to make 50
and, you know,

933
00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:38,160
the fact that he was still going
strong at that age was a miracle.

934
00:55:38,160 --> 00:55:41,560
He would be furious if we all
sat here being maudlin about him.

935
00:55:41,560 --> 00:55:42,960
He'd be absolutely livid.

936
00:55:42,960 --> 00:55:45,040
So in a way you're not,
do you know what I mean?

937
00:55:45,040 --> 00:55:47,080
Hang on!

938
00:55:47,080 --> 00:55:51,120
What the...? What the hell's this
caption doing here?

939
00:55:51,120 --> 00:55:53,200
They're just testing it,
they've got to test it.

940
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:56,840
Why can't they test it some other
bloody time?! For God's sake, Griff!

941
00:55:56,840 --> 00:55:59,800
Watch the blood pressure!
There's nothing wrong with me,

942
00:55:59,800 --> 00:56:02,320
I'm fine! I think you'd just better
sit down.

943
00:56:02,320 --> 00:56:04,360
For Christ's sake!

944
00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:07,040
I'd keep that caption if I were you,
I think you might need it.

945
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:13,560
I did spend an awfully long time,
part of my life working with Mel.

946
00:56:13,560 --> 00:56:17,440
And it's only, strangely, when I sit
down and rationally think...

947
00:56:19,760 --> 00:56:24,680
..oh, gosh, you know, like,
he was in that coffin and he's

948
00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:28,320
actually sort of not around any
more, that some of the things that,

949
00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:31,960
um, that you had sort of imagined,
this is the most terrible cliche,

950
00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:35,560
but you had imagined that you might
do, or get together, or things...

951
00:56:35,560 --> 00:56:38,280
and it doesn't occur to you until
somebody says, "Will you do this?"

952
00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:41,320
And you go, "Well, I can't
really do that any more

953
00:56:41,320 --> 00:56:44,200
"because that's what
I used to do with Mel."

954
00:56:44,200 --> 00:56:48,440
And, er, in absolute truth,
the thing that I will,

955
00:56:48,440 --> 00:56:53,360
know I will never be able to do
again

956
00:56:53,360 --> 00:56:59,480
is sit on stage with Mel

957
00:56:59,480 --> 00:57:04,680
and make an audience laugh
to the degree

958
00:57:04,680 --> 00:57:10,440
that we could on a good
night with the right audience,

959
00:57:10,440 --> 00:57:14,040
probably having drunk enough.

960
00:57:14,040 --> 00:57:15,720
But sometimes it was like...

961
00:57:15,720 --> 00:57:19,080
It was pure,
it was a very pure experience.

962
00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:26,840
Isn't it lovely to see the old
place full again?

963
00:57:26,840 --> 00:57:29,920
Oh, yeah, isn't it marvellous?

964
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:33,800
Look at that! They've even put
some people up there
in the dangerous bit!

965
00:57:33,800 --> 00:57:36,960
The gods, they call that.

966
00:57:36,960 --> 00:57:39,080
Do they? Why do they call them that?

967
00:57:39,080 --> 00:57:43,440
They tear up your ticket, you walk
in and you say, "Oh, God, we're not
up here again."

968
00:57:43,440 --> 00:57:47,120
# I've drunk my fill

969
00:57:47,120 --> 00:57:52,480
# Of love's sweet fountain

970
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:58,960
# And I've savoured
each bittersweet thrill

971
00:57:58,960 --> 00:58:02,760
# Unfurled my flag

972
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:07,120
# On life's high mountain

973
00:58:07,120 --> 00:58:13,280
# And I've assailed
the unassailable hill

974
00:58:13,280 --> 00:58:16,960
# Yes, I have trekked

975
00:58:16,960 --> 00:58:20,400
# To the back of beyond

976
00:58:20,400 --> 00:58:24,080
# And I have swum

977
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:27,760
# The unswimmable pond

978
00:58:27,760 --> 00:58:31,200
# With each new day

979
00:58:31,200 --> 00:58:34,440
# The rising sun brings

980
00:58:39,120 --> 00:58:47,120
# I've sort of done things. #

981
00:58:49,280 --> 00:58:51,080
APPLAUSE