12:33pm Thursday 4th February 2010
Viv Hardwick finds out why Bob Goulding opted to create a one man show dedicated to “the one with the glasses” Eric Morecambe.
PETRIFIED is the word that Bob Goulding uses to describe his feelings about deciding to take on the all-time great of comedy, Eric Morecambe, for a one-man show.
“I don’t think I could have played him as an impersonation or an impression, the best way I can describe this is that I’m doing a biopic. I’m playing Eric’s story as him and I’m not just playing him, I’m also playing his mother, June his wife, Ernie Wise and all of his managers that have cropped up throughout all his life,” explains 36-year-old Golding about Morecambe which comes to Durham’s Gala Theare on Tuesday.
The actor says that the technical demands on him when he first took Morecambe to the Edinburgh Festival meant that he was so busy learning lines that he didn’t really consider the pressure of having the shadow of a national treasure on his shoulders.
“I also had to learn about 150 sound cues, remember the same number of props and also song lyrics which turned out to be more scary than the material in front of me. It was weeks before it hit me how much this man meant to audiences and then the pressure was extremely intimidating. Luckily I’ve had director Guy Masterson’s (who started the project by remarking on Goulding likeness to Eric back in 1997) and Tim Whitnall’s wonderful words to allow me to cope with the celebrity built up by Eric. He was very much a one-off and there will never be another like him to be honest,”
says Goulding.
He feels his combination of looking a lot like Eric and acting out his life is probably the key to the success of Morecambe, which will be touring all this year having done well in London and gained Goulding an invitation to the Royal Variety Performance.
“I know that the Play Wot I Wrote is out there but it claims not to be Morecambe and Wise and doesn’t use any of the original material. There is also a Morecambe and Wise tribute but that again doesn’t use much of the scripts because of copyright,” says Goulding who admits that it took the Royal Variety Performance audience about ten minutes to warm to his appearance as Eric.
“It took about that long for them to realise I wasn’t doing an impersonation. When it sank in then I was getting polite chuckles and applause, but I’m in a show where people are waiting to see Bette Midler and Whoopi Goldberg. I was just a tiny thing in comparison to the rest of the line-up,” he says.
Asked about his favourite Morecambe and Wise moment, Golding goes for the wonderful “Mr Preview” sketch where Eric became the pianist for the Greig piano concerto with Andre Previn conducting. “Normally, Eric would rehearse for two weeks meticulously but Previn was unable to attend until the last moment. You can see in the sketch that Eric is worried because he doesn’t know if it’ll be funny. You can see the weight lifting off his shoulders when it gets to the part where Previn says he’s left his baton behind and has to go and fetch it and then comes in right on cue by saying ‘in Chicago’. Eric was so relieved to discover that Previn had got comic timing,” he explains.
Eric’s daughter, Gail, has been to see the show four times and Goulding’s had discussions with Eric’s wife about the way her husband should be portrayed. In spite of media stories that Eric was defying medical advice to continue to perform, Goulding was told that the great comedian actually listened carefully to his doctors.
“The trouble is everyone knew him and they all expected him to make them laugh whenever he appeared. He was one of those people who could change the entire atmosphere in a room.
One of the great traits we British have is the ability to be sillier than any other part of the world. It’s probably our greatest gift. I think if Gordon Brown could learn to be sillier then Labour would stand a good chance of getting re-elected this year,” says Golding.
He’s going to be heading for Durham using another famous figure of comedy for help. His satnav has the voice of John Cleese. “It sounds about the same as others except he’ll suddenly say ‘turn sharp right’ and then add ‘ooh’, so it’s pretty subtle,” he laughs.
Asked about future plans, the father-of-three reckons a good holiday is in order after a list of touring that will take him deep into the autumn.... “and then something like Kenny Lynch The Musical” he says showing that Eric’s silly streak really is rubbing off on him.
■ Morecambe (the Man What Brought Us Sunshine), Durham Gala Theatre, Tuesday, £14. Box Office: 0191-332-4041 galadurham.co.uk
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