I'm absolutely delighted to bring you an interview with the very talented, clever and all round lovely chap, Julian Dutton. Julian has many strings to his bow - he's an actor, a writer an impressionist and a voice artist. Julian's work spans theatre, radio and television and during his varied career he was won both a BAFTA and a British Comedy Award.
Julian's current project is a one man show based on the life and career of that wonderful British character actor John Le Mesurier. Entitled "Do You Think That's Wise?" the show is touring the UK throughout 2018 and 2019 and is about to head to the Edinburgh Festival. And it couldn't be better timed in this, the 50th anniversary year of Dad's Army.
First of all I'd love
to know how you got started in the business.
My parents were actors and my brother’s an actor (Simon
Dutton) so it seemed utterly normal for me to follow that path. So I began as
an actor – the usual stuff, rep, touring, a stint in the West End etc. – but I was
always drawn to comedy. This next sentence makes me sound like I’m 95, but I
did catch the very tail end of variety in my younger days - I did panto toured
in a variety show in the northern working-men’s clubs, a concert-party in
Fulham etc., and was always gravitating towards the variety/comedy/stand-up
side of the business. I think it’s a certain temperament that makes you want to
write or perform comedy. Call it neurotic, call it psychotic, but you play the
cards you’re dealt. So when I chose to pursue comedy - in particular when I
began writing & performing comedy shows for BBC Radio in 1990 and later, TV
- I really did find myself ‘at home,’ and have loved it ever since.
Can you tell me a bit
more about your one man show "Do You Think That's Wise?" and how it
all came about?
I co-created and co-wrote a TV series called The Big
Impression with Alistair McGowan & Ronni Ancona and we did a series of
Dad’s Army sketches, which I wrote & performed in as John Le Mesurier, with
Alistair as Pike. Also, in my stand-up act I’d do Le Mes and was always
surprised how well the bit went down, even with young student audiences. It
dawned on me that he had never fallen out of the British public’s
consciousness, young and old. I’d always meant to try a full-length show about
him, and now I’m actually the same age as he was when he got the part in Dad’s
Army! This, plus the fact of being the 50th anniversary of the
series, made 2018 the perfect time to create a show and take it on the road. And
I’ve been bowled over by the reception – the previews have gone very well – and
I’d like to thank everyone for coming to them because when an audience sees a
preview they’re essentially watching a rehearsal of a work-in-progress. A UK
tour is being set up for the Autumn & Winter so I’ll be playing theatres
all over the country, which is tremendously exciting. Also, there’ve been some
very exciting ‘long-form impressionist’ shows in recent years – David Benson’s
Kenneth Williams show, and Jack Lane’s tribute to Norman Wisdom, Wisdom of a Fool – and these contributed
to inspiring me to create the Le Mesurier show.
You are playing the
Edinburgh Festival this Summer - what are your thoughts on that?
Well I cannot wait – it’s one of the most amazing
experiences any performer can go through. The last time I performed there I was
doing cabaret, so it’ll be a good challenge to present a play. It’s a
marvellous place to run in a show – I’m doing every single day of the Festival
including Sundays at the Cabaret Voltaire – a lovely venue in the heart of the
Old Town – at 1.10pm, which is a very civilised time.
I was lucky enough to
interview John Le Mesurier's son Robin a couple of years ago. He spoke really
fondly of both the actor and the man. How much of his background and life away
from our screens will come across in your show?
I try to present both the public and the private man. I had
to, to be honest with the subject really. I had two choices when creating this
show. I could have done an ‘Audience With’- type show, with Le Mesurier telling
funny stories, snippets from films, TV shows, etc. Or I could write a play that
really tells his story. I chose the latter. Although he tells some very funny
stories and was a marvellous raconteur, I knew that the ‘Audience With’-type
show wouldn’t work; a) because he wasn’t a stand-up, and b) because I don’t
think he would have done that show for ITV - unlike, say, Kenneth Williams.
Some people after watching a preview have said ‘wow, it’s quite serious, isn’t
it,’ as if that’s a bad thing! But I learned a very good lesson from something
Steve Coogan told me years ago, and that is that in any creative enterprise -
be it a play or a TV series or whatever – the creator must always be the one
that chooses what to do.
That’s not to say one must ignore all comments – some
of them may be valuable – but when push comes to shove there are no rights or
wrongs, there are only choices – and this the show I wanted to write, and as
its creator I am the only arbiter. So my play is full of funny stories, but
it’s written as a drama, and I’ve tried to give it the shape of a drama. It’s
set in a BBC dressing-room in 1972, when Dad’s Army has been going for three
series. Le Mesurier has just won a BAFTA for the Denis Potter play Traitor and
he’s waiting for a journalist to interview him; and as he waits, he looks back
on his life. I haven’t shied away from the darker things. We all have ups and
downs in our lives and it would have been wrong of me to avoid Le Mesurier’s.
But one thing I did learn from creating the show, and that is his remarkable
stoicism, his loyalty, his steadfastness, and his adherence to the ethics of
the English Gentleman. So I hope that comes across in the play. The aim of the
show is for people to go away not only thinking he was a wonderful performer,
but also a wonderful man.
In this, the 50th
anniversary year of Dad's Army, why do you think the series is still so
popular?
Where do I begin? It’s a masterpiece. Essentially, it’s a
dream of old England - a dream within the memory-span of many who first watched
it, but also Chaucer’s England, Shakespeare’s England. Alan Coren wrote a
fabulous piece on Dad’s Army in The Times in1974 (and I’m looking this up now,
not quoting from memory!) Basically, after defining the bumbling volunteers as
being firmly in the long line of comedy soldiers from Bardolph & Falstaff
to Laurel & Hardy in Blockheads,
he adds ‘but behind the daftness there is a certain valuable poignancy which is
not altogether explained by nostalgia. I suppose what I mean is that they would
have died, too, if the greater folly had demanded it.’
And that of course is the heart
of its success – we laugh at them, but we also love them. For despite their
idiocy, their pretension, their frailty, when the chips are down they are
heroic – or at least willing to try
to be. And the central relationship of Wilson & Mainwaring is of course the
engine of the show. Their rapport was magical. In his memoirs A Jobbing Actor Le Mesurier said:
‘Arthur and I got on very well… In fact, so well attuned were we that often an
exchanged glance between us was enough to make a point in the script.’ For me,
it is a flawless masterpiece of comic English literature up there with
Shakespeare and Dickens.
John Le Mesurier was
so much more than Dad's Army - his career was so wide-ranging. Do you have a
favourite out of all his performances?
I have to say I love him in everything he did, from his
Boulting Brother’s films to the Hancock’s Half Hours to the sitcom George &
the Dragon with Sid James to Denis Potter’s Traitor. His National Trust Officer
in Hancock’s ‘Lord Byron Lived Here’ was hilarious. Hancock is trying to
convince him that the romantic poet once inhabited 23 Railway Cuttings, and
quotes one of the poems he claims to have found scrawled on the wall: ‘O
wondrous moon, with silvery beam, that throws its light upon East Cheam,’ – and
Le Mes instantly replies ‘Oh, get out.’
His BAFTA-winning performance in Traitor is the jewel in the
crown of his serious work: harrowing yes, but it was so gratifying to see him
rewarded late in life, so justly, for a magnificent piece of acting.
You're both a writer
and a performer. Do you have a preference and if so, why?
I love writing and have been very lucky – I’ve written more
than 50 episodes of TV, about 250 episodes of radio comedy, and published 4
books. I’ve written for Griff Rhys Jones, Roy Hudd, Lee Hurst, Alistair
McGowan, Jon Culshaw, Lewis Macleod and many more – and it’s extraordinarily
satisfying to see something you’ve written successfully recreated. I’ve always made
sure I’m in everything I’ve written, and I have to say - if push comes to shove
– that performing is more enjoyable. I think performers get more respect! I’m
going to whinge a little now and say that the status of writers in this
business has suffered a bit in recent years. In Galton & Simpson’s day,
Esmonde & Larbey’s day, right up to – I think – the era of say, David
Renwick and One Foot in the Grave – the writer was afforded a freedom and
respect by commissioners and production people that simply doesn’t exist today.
More often than not now a show is devised by a producer who then ‘brings in’
writers to write it up. And of course then they’re not considered co-creators.
Financially I’ve been very very fortunate – my last TV series Pompidou is currently
being shown all around the world on Netflix, for example. But artistically I
think writer’s freedoms have diminished. Writing can sometimes be very
frustrating – for example I had an animated feature film optioned by a company
that contractually said they would develop it, and then did nothing with it for
three years! Which was annoying to say the least. Basically, I would advise
every writer to make sure they work with good people, and with companies that
adhere to their contracts. I’ve never really pursued being a ‘writer for hire’
– what I’ve tended to do is create an idea and then doggedly pursue it until
someone commissions it. So I’ve had the satisfaction of having my own ideas be
commissioned – but as I say this route is becoming rarer and rarer. Many
sitcoms now are devised by a star and a producer and writers are brought in. So
being a writer AND performer is the best thing, I think – to broaden one’s
options. But there’s nothing like being on stage and an audience laughing – or
crying – and being gripped. That beats everything.
You have enjoyed a
prolific career writing and acting on the radio. What makes working in that
medium so attractive?
It’s a cliché, but radio is a great place for beginning a
comedy writing career, it’s innovative, experimental, and of course many of the
greatest TV comedies have started on radio from Hancock’s Half Hour to Little
Britain. I cut my teeth on radio in the 90’s and was lucky to be given several
of my own series – including my favourite, Truly,
Madly, Bletchley. All in all between 1990 and 1998 I wrote in the region of
250 half hour eps. And as said, I always make sure I perform in the things I
write. It’s all great apprenticeship – but of course, when you look back, you
realise it’s not just ‘apprenticeship’ because a lot of it is actually far
superior and funnier than much TV comedy. I think there’s nothing wrong at all
in considering radio comedy as a goal in itself.
When I started in radio there
was a scheme where two or three writers were given a bursary, a retainer, and
would work on many shows at once, which was fantastic because you worked on all
sorts of formats – sitcoms, sketches etc. – and of course worked with lots of
different producers. And you learned from other writers – I was awarded the
contract with Richard Herring and Stewart Lee. We used to work in the same
offices, and I have to say I learned a hell of a lot from their work ethic.
They were prolific. I think things were more open and anarchic then – everyone
was getting pilots going – Harry Hill, Alistair McGowan, Armando Ianucci, Chris
Morris. I do recall - and this is absolutely true - having an idea for a series
in the morning, showing it to a producer on a piece of A4 paper, the producer
took it upstairs straight to the Controller of BBC R4 – the Controller
commissioned a series of six episodes there and then, and I began writing the
series in the afternoon. That could never, ever, happen now. I think!
You worked with the
legendary Liz Fraser on the radio series Truly, Madly, Bletchley. What was she
like to work with?
Liz was absolutely wonderful. She’d been a heroine of mine
since childhood – I fell in love with all the glamorous stars of the 50’s and
60’s - I’m still in love with them. Her work with Tony Hancock and Peter
Sellers was marvellous of course, as were her Carry On appearances. We sent her
the pilot script of the series and I was overjoyed she said yes. As you might
expect she was consummately professional, very generous, and so encouraging –
she kept telling me how funny the show was, which was a fillip when a common
thing is to begin to lose faith in it as the recording date approaches. I’ve
seen her over the years since – most recently at an event celebrating Peter
Sellers' 90th birthday at the BFI, at which I gave a talk on his
visual comedy.
I understand you're
also a big fan of the Carry On films - as I write this blog I've got to ask
what your favourite film in the series is and if you have a favourite actor in
the team?
Oh yes, I’m a huge fan. John Le Mesurier was married to
Hattie Jacques of course and he talks fondly of knowing all the Carry On actors
– there were wonderful parties at their house in Earl’s Court.
I could bang on for hours about how the Carry Ons are the
natural heirs to Roman comedy, Restoration farces, and the healthy, bawdy
vulgarity of music-hall and variety. I’m a bit of an evangelist about them
actually. I think there’s a lot snobbishness about them. It makes me laugh when
I read about theatrical people aiming to put on ‘working class theatre’ in arts
centres in towns and cities up and down the country, when the ‘working-class’
once had a perfectly marvellous form of entertainment in music-hall and variety
in theatres the length and breadth of the land – and the Carry Ons are most
definitely a continuation of that working-class tradition. One wonders how many
working-class people go to theatres today to watch the latest ‘working-class’
drama? One suspects the audience are mostly middle-class.
A favourite? Well, as I love Fifties comedy I adore the
Norman Hudis Carry Ons, from Sergeant to Cruising – because they catch the tail-end
of the Ealing ethos. I do love the Rothwell era – Spying, Cleo, Doctor etc. –
but there’s a warmth about the first six, when everyone was finding their feet,
in the flush of (relative) youth, as it were. To pick a favourite is so
difficult, but if I had to I’d choose Carry On Cruising. Sid James was
marvellous in it – playing against type as an officer – and though it lacks
Hawtrey, there are some lovely cameos – Esma Cannon in the bar, the lovely Liz
Fraser at her most seductive etc.
A favourite actor in the whole team? That’s pretty
impossible! Everyone shone. I can name my favourite SUPPORTING Carry On actor (though
he was in so many that to call him ‘supporting’ might be unjust) and that’s
Peter Butterworth: he always turned in marvellous work - his preacher in Khyber
is hilarious.
Why do you think the
Carry Ons are still so popular 60 years after they first hit cinema screens?
For many of the reasons I’ve cited above, actually – they’re
utterly unpretentious, and locked into a fertile, rich seam of British comedy –
bawdy farce. Because sex is funny – and men pursuing sex is the biggest joke of
human life and history. Now, of course, it’s no longer ‘respectable’ to
consider that funny! So the Carry Ons have become a kind of ‘guilty pleasure’ –
which is of course nonsense. My mother was an ardent feminist and she loved the
Carry Ons. You see, a man saying ‘phwoarr’ to a passing woman, is funny. But
now that can’t happen in comedy – even if men are still saying ‘phwoarr’ inside
their heads. The problem with sanitising comedy is that those foibles, flaws
and sexisms don’t disappear – they just get bottled up. In today’s climate
we’re all meant to be “getting along with each other”- genders, races etc.
We’ve all got to be “nice.” But of course that’s not funny - and it’s not how
the world is. It’s a death-blow to comedy to bottle all that up. The laughter
of foibles, sexisms, and dare I say it racisms (who cannot say that Rigsby is
not still funny?) was, I think, a great cultural release – and a telling of
truth. Which is my long-winded way of explaining why, for me, the Carry Ons are
still perennially popular – because they were the last comedy films to show,
brazenly, the idiocies, sexisms and foibles of people: that is why people still
love them - they are a breath of fresh air. They are honest. They are true.
They are consummately performed by many of the finest broad comic actors of the
era – and they are funny.
Where can we find out
more about you and where you'll be performing?
- and more and more theatres are booking the show every day,
so hopefully I’ll be playing a theatre in most parts of the country!
Finally, what's up
next for you?
Well 2018 and the first part of 2019 will be focussed on
John Le Mesurier, but I’ve always got about three projects on the go - I’ve
just written a sitcom script which I’m pitching now, and I’m planning a new
book. But the main plate I’ll be spinning is Do You Think That’s Wise? I’ve rewritten it after every preview, and
it’s building as every week goes by. I’m working very hard to make it a worthy
tribute to the man himself.
I'd like to thank Julian very much for taking the time to provide such considered and thoughtful responses to my questions and I wish him all the very best with his excellent show.
"Do You Think That's Wise?" will be on at Cabaret Voltaire as part of the Edinburgh Festival from 2nd to 26th August.
And a big thank you to Sam Westerby for helping to set up the interview and for providing the wonderful photos.
