Everybody Dies in Sunderland
by John Stoker
JOHN STOKER SHARES HIS MEMORIES OF THE COMEDY CLUBS OF SUNDERLAND AND THE COMEDIANS WHO PERFORMED THERE
On Monday April 26th 1976 Sid James collapsed on stage at the Empire Theatre in Sunderland. When the theatre manager rang the producer of the show to tell him that his star had just died, he received a familiar reply. “Everybody dies in Sunderland.” Unfortunately, Sid was really dead.
“If audiences in the theatres were bad, they could be equally as dreadful in the clubs.”
Over many years the Sunderland Empire had acquired the reputation of being “the comedian’s graveyard”. But it was challenged for that title by other theatres in the north-east. Des O’Connor remembered playing first house at the Palace Theatre in Newcastle one Monday night at the beginning of his career. He performed his act to a near silent house and when he finished there was silence until one member of the audience gave him a slow hand clap. Des went back to his dressing room and cried.
If audiences in the theatres were bad, they could be equally as dreadful in the clubs. Dick Irwin was a local comedian who had played the local circuit for over twenty years and, as we were working together on programmes for Metro Radio in the seventies, he invited me to watch him perform one Sunday lunchtime at a club in Sunderland. Following his introduction by the club secretary Dick did quarter of an hour to a sea of Sunday newspapers. When he finished there was a very modest round of applause. Dick left the stage to be followed by an “exotic dancer”. Suddenly all interest in the written news vanished and the room came alive.
I couldn’t help asking the club secretary why there was any need to book a comedian. He looked at me in amazement: “Why son, the lads have got to have their entertainment.”
Dick was more philosophical: “I’ve seen worse and I didn’t get paid off.” That was the one thing that club comedians feared most, being stopped before their act had finished and dragged from the stage as they had failed to raise enough laughs. Like many other comedians he was used to being interrupted in his act for other reasons such as the news that the meat pies had arrived and that the audience should get them while they were hot. But there had been worse. One night Dick was working a club in Newcastle and he was going pretty well. The audience was with him when suddenly a club official grabbed the microphone in the middle of one of his jokes.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” said the official, his voice cracking with emotion. “I’ve some very sad news for yer’s all. Your club treasurer, his wife and their two bairns have been involved in a serious accident. Their car was hit by a lorry and I’m sorry to say that they were all killed. So, I’d like yer’s all to stand up and give two minutes silence in memory of the family.”
The silence was only broken by much sobbing until the official raised his head and gave the microphone back to Dick with the words: “Alright Dick, away you go again.” For once Dick was at a loss for words.
On radio Dick was a natural interviewer as he chatted to people who were completely at ease with his style. One day he talked to a champion pigeon racer who showed him his prize bird. “He’s been wonderful, a real winner,” said the proud owner, “but he’s going to retire.”
“And he’ll be having a good rest,” added Dick. “Oh yes,” replied the owner. “Me wife makes a lovely pie.”
One of Dick’s rivals was Bobby Thompson who became something of a local legend. If he appeared in panto at the Sunderland Empire he would pack the place out and, being careful with his cash, he slept in his caravan in the theatre car park. All was going well with his career until Tyne Tees Television tried to turn him into a sitcom star. The series was a disaster and Bobby turned to drink as his work dried up. Thankfully a local agent revived his fortunes and he returned
to incredible success in the clubs generating a tax bill in excess of twenty thousand pounds in a single year. So why was he so successful?
“When they’re knocking on your door for their money just remember that the paint lasts longer than the skin.”
Bobby understood his audience and he empathised with them becoming not just an entertainer but a social commentator. He would begin his act with a statement: “There’s a lot of debt about. We call it debt, others call it credit. When they’re knocking on your door for their money just remember that the paint lasts longer than the skin.”
His act was full of the troubles of family life: “She comes home last night and yells ‘Bobby, I loves you.’ I thought where’s she getting the drink from. She told me I’ve got to talk to her mother. Only way I’m doing that is through a medium!”
One of the most memorable parts of his act concerned his supposed activities during the Second World War. “One night there was an air raid, and as we’re leaving the house she says she’s left her teeth behind. I told her they’re dropping bombs not pork sandwiches. When I was called up she said to her mother ‘You’ll miss him.’ Her mother said ‘I just hope the Germans don’t!’”
In Bobby’s world the entire country was an extension of the north-east and a wartime visit to Buckingham Palace revealed it to be inhabited by Geordie Royals. “I knocked on the front door as I didn’t want to go around the back because she might have had her washing out. I was lucky to find her in as it was Thursday and she usually went to her mother’s to collect her catalogue money. I said ‘Hello Mrs Sovereign, is George about?’ She said ‘He’s in the back Bob, cobbling his boots.’”
Both Dick and Bobby are long gone but the clubs have still survived even if the entertainment is now provided by a new breed of comedian determined to push the boundaries of comedy as far as they would go and beyond. You now had to be daring to be memorable.
A Catholic club booked one of the new comedians and got more than it bargained for. The comic leapt onto the stage to a healthy round of applause. He looked above him and saw the figure of Christ on the cross and said “Aye well, I see you got the bugger who stole your safe!”
Within a few moments he was bundled off the stage and shown the door. The times may have changed but the audience hadn’t.
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NorthernLife March/April/May 25
