"Did you write that?...Very Funny."


Radio Interview with Galton & Simpson
Kevin:
Well if you listened to BBC Radio Northampton just a few days ago you may well have heard us have a chat to Jimmy Perry, the creator and writer of TV sit-coms Dad's Army and Hi-De-Hi. Well today it gets even better because we're going to meet probably one of the most famous script-writing teams ever.

Ray Galton and Alan Simpson met completely by accident back in August 1948 when they were both being treated for TB. Now the story goes that they created a little radio room in a linen cupboard and that's when that comedy magic started to sparkle. And, of course, the rest is history because Ray and Alan both went on to huge success with the legendary Tony Hancock and then just as famously with Steptoe & Son. And of course the really good news too, for Hancock fans especially, is that BBC2 have recently started repeating the original TV episodes of 'Hancock'.

So, Ray and Alan, a very good morning to you, it's nice to see you.

Alan:
Good morning
Kevin:
Morning
Ray:
Well you've said it all now...
Kevin:
D' you reckon?
Ray:
...we can go home now. (laughter)
Kevin:
D' you know, when you watch TV and watch Hancock and Steptoe & Son still being repeated now do you still have a soft spot for those good old days?
Ray:
Yes, I'm beginning to think that the swinging sixties is better now than I thought it was. I thought we were working all the time and didn't see any of it but...mind you I'm talking about something else really aren't I - I'm not talking about work, I'm just talking about the atmosphere that was around at that time
Alan:
Well, we were in the office most of the time weren't we? All through the sixties I mean we used to work about 15 hours a day...
Kevin:
Crikey. Because, I guess the pressure was really on because when Hancock was at the top of his career, you were...were you just banging them out like a sausage factory almost?
Alan:
We would work...we found out recently that, we didn't realise at the time, but in '58, '59, '60 we were writing round about 40 shows a year - that's 4 - 0
Kevin:
Crikey
Ray:
...and had holidays! Which I don't now
Alan:
Of course, nowadays if you did 10 a year you'd think you were being hard done by
Kevin:
You're not telling me you can't afford a holiday now?
(wry laughter)
Alan:
The point was, the less work you do the longer it takes, that's the point. Nobody told us you couldn't do 40 shows a year so we just did it.
Kevin:
Did you always find it easy to work together?
Ray:
Yes I think so but we had no experience of working with anyone else either so we had to get on together
Alan:
Well we started that way. You see, most writers meet through being writers...
Ray:
...and journalists generally, but as we met in the sanatorium that's how we started and that's how we finished up (see the Galton & Simpson interview in Issue 2 of The Internet Ham)
Alan:
We were only 18 at the time so, y' know, we hadn't had a chance to...that was the first writing we ever did
Kevin:
I read this story that Alan did all the typing and Ray paced up and down, have you learned to type yet Ray?
Ray:
No! No!
Alan:
He always...
Ray:
...and I, even better, I haven't gone on to electronics either. It's still...
Alan:
...hand written
Ray:
...a guided pencil
Kevin:
Yeah, is that true though that Alan, you sat at the, and...
Alan:
...that's right. Well, you see, after I left the sanatorium I had a job in a shipping office for about 18 months typing out customer's forms so I learned to type you see. And Ray, being on the dole, didn't have occasion to learn to type so as long as one of us could do it, that's all that mattered
Kevin:
So Ray, did you just pace up and down just worrying the whole time?
Ray:
Yes...
Alan:
He certainly worried
Ray:
...yes, I mean, it was either pacing up and down or lying on the floor. Lying on the floor used to take a long time but you had a tendency to drop and fall asleep so that wasn't so good. Pacing up and down - it's rather difficult to sleep.
Alan:
What we used to do...I didn't type anything down until we'd agreed with it you see, so if Ray was lying on the floor and he suddenly heard the typewriter go he'd say, "What? What?" and he'd be up, looking to see what was going down
Ray:
Unless I snored he wouldn't know I was asleep so that was that
Kevin:
What about though, I mean when inspiration was flowing it must have been brilliant you got on a real roll. What about the times when, y' know, a deadline was looming and it wasn't looking good?
Ray:
Oh...
Alan:
Oh, terrible
Ray:
...that happened too many times really but there was one famous occasion that, it wasn't with the Hancock, it was Comedy Playhouse. It was Friday and we should have finished the script by then and we hadn't even started one, we didn't have a glimmering of an idea and we were just lying on our office floor and the secretary buzzed up and said there's someone here to see you, it was Graham Stark actually, and sometimes, y' know, we put people off saying, "Oh we're busy" but we thought what the hell, y' know, yeah, let him come up and so he came up.

And he just happened to mention that he'd seen a very funny little item in one of the papers the other day. It was about 2 cars being been stuck up a lane in Cornwall, a narrow lane, and neither of them would back up. So we said "That's it, that's it. Alright, all round the pub". And we came in on Saturday morning and Alan's shoulder was out of place for about 4 weeks after that - because we didn't stop typing, it was straight through from beginning to end of the script. I think we wrote the script in 4 hours

Alan:
That's absolutely right...
Kevin:
Wow
Alan:
...9 'o'clock till 1 'o'clock. Sometimes we took 3 weeks to write a script, that's the quickest we've ever done. You see, Ray and I we had a system: if somebody suggested something and the other one didn't agree or didn't like it he said nothing so we never actually got into the stage of saying, "Well that's a load of rubbish"...y' know
Kevin:
Oh I see, so...
Alan:
Silence meant the bloke didn't agree with it
Kevin:
So the other one just went off in a huff then?
Alan:
Well no, we just sort of stayed there but one day it went for about 3 or 4 days with neither of us saying anything apart from "Good morning" when we came in and after about 4 days it transpired that we both though it was the other one's turn...
Kevin:
Yeah
Ray:
...to say...
Alan:
...to say something.
Ray:
...hello!
Kevin:
Because I can tell by the way you're speaking, you're still the very best of mates. Has it always been like that?
Alan:
Oh yes, forty...I mean, what is it... 19...God almighty 1948. Well, you add it up
Kevin:
It's not a bad partnership, I tell you that
Alan:
It's 48 years isn't it
Kevin:
I wanna clear up this story about the first time you met Hancock, the story goes that you never spoke to each other
Alan:
Well it wasn't quite like that. You see, we didn't have occasion to speak to each other; we were in the same show but the one part that we didn't write was the part that Tony was in. So, I mean we didn't see him at rehearsals or...
Ray:
And his first words to us were in connection with the script and it was one sketch that he'd just seen in rehearsal and he said to us, "Did you write that? "So we said, "Yes", thinking he might say "Well, what a load of rubbish!" and he said, "Very funny" and walked on. And that was the first time we had words and met him really
Alan:
And the second time was a much nicer thing he asked us if we would write a script for him, 'Worker's Playtime' or something like that, it was a five minute 'single'
Kevin:
So how big was he when you first met him then? I mean, was he a star already?
Alan:
Well he was sort of, shall we say he was 80% a star, I mean he w...
Ray:
..on the verge, on the verge.
Alan:
Yeah, he was well known on radio he was quite a sort of a feature player on 'Educating Archie'...
Kevin:
That's right
Alan:
...which was a radio show built around a ventriloquist's dummy
Kevin:
That's the one that Eric Sykes wrote wasn't it?
Alan:
Absolutely right, Eric Sykes and Sid Collin wrote that and Tony was one of his tutors; Max Bygraves did it one year, Harry Secombe I remember
Ray:
...Robert Morton...yes, they all did it
Alan:
...and Tony, that's when he first started emerging
Ray:
It was like the Windmill Theatre of the air
Alan:
Yeah, with a nude ventriloquist's dummy
Kevin:
Did he ever scare you particularly?
Alan:
No. Where did you get that from?
Kevin:
No, it's just the thought that y' know, I mean you were very young at that time
Ray:
Oh we were scared of everyone, oh we were scared of everyone...
Alan:
...oh yes, yeah...
Ray:
...even the doorman, yes. Especially the doorman, yes
Alan:
Especially the one-armed doorman at the White City he was very sinister. No, I mean yeah, from that point of view we were very young, I mean we were writing professionally at 21 and Tony was about 6 years older than us but we got on. I mean we were never sort of, what shall we say, social intimates you know, we didn't go out wining and dining with him, you know, we left that to Sid
Kevin:
What about this other bit as well because I know you used to put lots of real Hancock into the scripts. Did he ever cut lines that he thought were maybe just a bit too close to the bone, too close to the truth?
Alan:
Now and again if he, I mean he didn't like anything overtly smutty or anything like that, not that we wrote that way
Ray:
No, I mean we soon found what he liked and what he didn't like anyway. But no he didn't contribute he left it all to us. he thought that it was his job to act and it was our job to write so he didn't poke his nose into the writing thing he just did it. In fact, you know he was such a good reader that he would say lines and get a laugh and say, "Why did I get a laugh on that?" because he didn't understand the joke
Kevin:
Yeah, People s...
Ray:
And so we said, "Why didn't you ask us before?" but you know he just trusted us I suppose
Alan:
He was a wonderful sight reader, you know he used to...the first sight of a script he'd read it aloud and get every intonation, every reading , every rhythm absolutely right first time you know, I mean even Laurence Olivier never did that
Kevin:
I know, I was going to ask you about that cos he's a legend actually for making the first sight of the script the best take , you know the first take's always the best
(general sound of agreement)
Ray:
Yeah
Alan:
Quite often. Particularly you know as I said with read-throughs. The only other comedian we ever worked with who could do that was Bernard Braden, another perfect reader
Ray:
I think Tommy Handley was a great er...
Alan:
...yeah...
Ray:
...and Ted Ray...but no, Hancock's inflections and readings were correct from just picking the script up
Kevin:
Did you ever in your wildest dreams imagine that 'Hancock' would be as big as it became?
Alan:
Well we certainly didn't think that they'd be showing them 35 years later put it that way; we're very grateful that they are. No, at the time we were writing for the...the last thing we did with Tony was in 1961 so the youngest existing show is 35 years old now
Ray:
Paraphrasing, you know, if we'd known they were gonna last this long we would have taken more care, but er...
Alan:
...well we didn't have time to take any more care...
Ray:
...no
Alan:
...as I say when we were doing 40 shows a year I can't believe it. I mean there's absolutely no way that that would be done today
Kevin:
Because I know you've both admitted that you're not all that technically minded in terms of computers and that these days but I'm sure you know about the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society...
Alan:
...Oh absolutely...
Kevin:
...on the Internet. Now can you understand why people are still so gob smacked and enamoured by the fella?
Alan:
Well the interesting thing about that is, more to the point, is the age of them. I think the average age of the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society is round about 30-35. And I just told you the last show we wrote was 35 years ago so most of them are fans of something that came before they were born which is interesting I think
Kevin:
It certainly is. I mean, are you impressed by technology these days, y' know, you get all these different sites at the touch of a button
Ray:
Well I like the idea that you know you can change peoples' names right the way through the script by just pressing, I mean this is real basic stuff but I mean, you just press one button and everything's changed and I like the idea that you can shift the script about so you can put bits in and take bits out. I like all that, that's fine. I like somebody else to do it for me, I like that
Alan:
And the speller's very good too isn't it, I mean it spells the words for you. The only trouble is that they're mostly American and so you find that colour is being spelled 'color' which I thing is a bit er...
Ray:
I believe they're starting criticising you now like they're saying "Well this is hardly a complete sentence Sir" or Madam, whichever the case may be
Kevin:
It's interesting...
Alan:
...the minute they start criticising the work, you know, you write and they go, "This script is not very good" and then I think we'll turn it in
Ray:
That's an old joke
Alan:
My typewriter never did that
Kevin:
It's interesting what you say about the spelling there because on the Internet you can actually look at some of the scripts which you've kindly, y' know, let people look at on there and I know that there's one of them that was actually I think never was recorded in the end and Alan's spelling of Aloysius was a mile off
Alan:
Well you see...you give me the spelling
Kevin:
It's, oh no don't do this, it's...
Alan:
Well no there are 2 ways of doing it: there's A L O Y T I U S (I think Alan meant to say an 's' rather that a 't')
Kevin:
...Yeah, ah, you're right..
Alan:
'Aloysius'
Kevin:
That's right
Alan:
And then there's Alouitious which I used to put down as A L O U I T I O U S
Kevin:
Because, Alan, it was you that went into some of the early Hancock radio shows as well wasn't it?
Alan:
Well we both did Ray and I, when they couldn't afford an actor, they didn't think it worthwhile getting an actor in, Ray and I used to do the 'rhubarb' parts
Kevin:
That's right, I remember that
Ray:
"What about the drains in Southhill Road?"
Alan:
That was his great performance that was
Kevin:
What about advice for new writers chaps because I mean everybody looks up to Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, do you feel sorry for people trying to break into the game these days?
Ray:
I think it's harder, I think it's harder, I think there are far more of us today. There didn't seem to be more than about a dozen to 20 in our day but now I mean there seems to be millions. I think everybody at University seems to think this is the road to riches and fame, so...
Alan:
Well nobody knew what a scriptwriter was when we started, I mean, it's honestly true. We went to the Barclays Bank in Streatham Common to, when we got our first cheque it was paid by the BBC and it was a Barclays cheque so we thought "Well we'll open an account at Barclays Bank, if it's good enough for the BBC it must be good enough for us". So we went to Streatham Common Barclays and he said, "Yes, what do you do for a living?" and we said, "We're scriptwriters" and he honestly thought we painted words on the front of shops - no idea what script writing was you see
Ray:
Yes, but then when he found out that we weren't and that we were actually writers he wasn't very keen about taking the account
Alan:
So the first thing we did the first cheque was to go to Peter Lewis and buy a typewriter, a little portable typewriter
Ray:
I only hope that today's BBC cheques would enable a new writer to buy a complete ICM (IBM) or whatever...
Kevin:
You never know, you never know
Alan:
...as I say, the point being of all this is the fact that you know there weren't many of us so it wasn't a known profession but now people know that you can make a good living out of it. So the only advice we can really give is to do what we did which is, we wrote a script and sent it in to the Script Editor of the BBC and he luckily liked it, we went up and had an interview and we sort of started writing jokes for Derek Roy, you know a bit here, a bit there and gradually progressed
Ray:
But you must keep at it, I should think too many people get discouraged too soon and that's no good you really have to make up your mind this is what you're going to do and just carry on, carry on until you get in
(break in radio interview - onto part 2)