On the day that my review of a disappointing Ken Dodd show was published, I was back in the Theatre Royal (actually I was in the Concert Hall next door, oddly enough where the Empire used to stand, the theatre where Ken Dodd played his first professional show) for some more old school comedy entertainment. The Good Old Days was an old fashioned variety show with a master of ceremonies at the side of the stage to introduce the acts and to entertain during the changeovers. The headline act was a name I hadn't heard for a long time, The Grumbleweeds.
My recollection of The Grumbleweeds is a vague one, I remember an early evening television show when I was a child. It was on a Saturday but it wasn't (if my memory serves) in the big-hitter slot that these days hosts X-Factor or Britain's Got Talent. The Grumbleweeds were on in the early Saturday teatime slot and by my recollection featured sketches, impressions, and songs. On stage they were hilarious, such a relief as I wasn't really sure what to expect. The timing was spot on and there was no lull in their performance. It occurred to me that James Brandon (the younger man in the picture on the left) can't have been in the group when they were on television, I initially thought he might be the son of Robin Covill when he said a line about growing up to be a Grumbleweed but I was wrong.
The group used to be a five piece, eventually dwindling to Covill and the late Graham Walker. After Walker's passing in 2013 it looked like the act might be over. Bookings were honoured by Robin Covill, who has said in interviews (I did some research when I came home from the afternoon show) that he found solo work difficult because he was used to having thinking time. This new incarnation of the act is something that I'm not sure (even with my knowledge of comedy) has been done before. Rather than simply replacing Graham Walker with a new comic, Robin Covill switched roles and replaced Walker while James Brandon has replaced Robin. In a way this means that Robin has had to re-learn the act.
Graham Walker was a funny looking man, a naturally comical appearance alongside Robin Covill's handsome distinguished features. James Brandon is younger and again a good looking man, so the transition Robin made was far more than reading the opposite set of lines than he was used to, he has to turn himself into a comically grotesque figure with wild hair and a stooped, gurning face. As this show was new to me it made no difference until I found this video a bit later on YouTube of the act with Graham Walker still alive. It was remarkable to me as I had just watched these sketches being performed with the suave straight man in the place of the comic, some of the segments of the video were exactly as I had just seen them with the roles changed. Not that I am dissing them for using the same act, before television ate up material a comedian could make a living with one act.
Some further YouTube browsing led me to a full TV show from 1988 that I decided to watch. It made me wonder how The Grumbleweeds have seemingly been forgotten about. They don't appear on list programmes counting down the best comedy sketch shows, yet going on the evidence of this programme they should have done so much more. This show aired six years before The Fast Show appeared on BBC2 and the similarity is uncanny. We are living in a time of multiple television channels with nothing worth watching 90% of the time, and the bigger mainstream channels don't want to invest in anything more adventurous than cookery shows and dopey 'reality' television. Surely there is room somewhere on television for The Grumbleweeds?
===
Thank you in advance for donating using the PayPal button at the top of this page. It all goes towards creating podcasts, sketches, documentaries, films and more, all of which I will make available for free in return for your generosity.
