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SHOW!

Hi there! Are you enjoying The Unforgettable..., an occasional ITV series looking at old clips of dead comedians? Of course you are! And if you're anything like me, you'll want to make your own half hour documentary about someone that they haven't done yet. Peter Sellers, Sid Caesar, Bob Holness, Stuart Maconie, Adolf Hitler, even yourself: now they can all be the subject of this nearly award-winning television series (no women please, they're simply not funny). Simply get hold of some old footage of said subject and intersperse it with clips of some semi-professional middle-aged British character actors (Spotlights on standby!) and get them to read these lines:

NARRATOR (DANIEL ABINERI): [NAME OF COMEDIAN] was a true comedy great. At his peak, his shows were watched by over 25 million people. But his life was full of tragedy and hardship. In the next half hour, we ask his family and friends about the man that became known as 'television's greatest clown'.

FRIEND: He was frequently bullied at school. He found that his natural sense of comedy was a defense mechanism.

WRITER ON SHOW: When [COMEDIAN'S FIRST NAME] and I left school we went into the army, and he went straight into the Variety Corps..

ARMY FRIEND: He used to do a drag routine which went down extremely well with the boys. The first time I saw him I knew he would go on to be a great success.

FRIEND: His show was truly innovative. It was the first to mock film and TV programmes of the time, and the first to acknowledge an audience.

NARRATOR: But in the liberating sixties and seventies, [NAME OF COMEDIAN]'s show was falling out of fashion.

FRIEND: Many ignored his shows. Thought they were 'out of date' and 'lowbrow' when actually, when you watch them, they were actually very sophisticated.

WRITER ON SHOW: I wrote some of my best material for those shows. The production of those sketches were some of the best I've ever seen. The critics just didn't like his success.

NARRATOR: But off-screen, [COMEDIAN'S NAME] lived a very private existence.

AGENT: He never came out with us after the shows, he just went straight home. I think he was a very lonely individual.

FRIEND: Many people thought he was a very lonely individual, but that wasn't the case. Everytime he saw me outside his house he would invite me in and make me a cup of tea. What I learned later was that his cup contained something stronger than tea.

OTHER FRIEND: Of course what nobody knew at the time was that he was an alchoholic.

WRITER ON SHOW: The drink did effect him. He forgot lines, stumbled over his words, one day he didn't turn up at the studio at all.

WIFE: I tried to get him to stop drinking, but he didn't. But one evening, after a stage performance where he dried completely, he turned to me afterwards and said "That's it, I'm going to give up drinking". And he did.

OTHER FRIEND: He went cold turkey for several months, and he was very brave. It was very difficult for everyone.

WIFE: He was a wonderful husband. Never treated me badly. Even when he had the affair.

MISTRESS: We had an affair for over 16 months before he decided to end it. He felt that to continue it was cruel to [WIFE'S NAME]. Throughout the whole time we saw each other all he could talk about was how much he loved her.

WIFE: People think I should have left him. But I stayed with him. And I forgave him. Because I loved him.

NARRATOR: But [COMEDIAN'S NAME] talent for comedy caused him trouble in other areas.

FRIEND: He always wanted to do some 'real' acting on stage but he couldn't be taken seriously by those who saw his show.

AGENT: I think that upset him. When he did [NAME OF SHAKESPEARE CHARACTER] at the National, he was laughed offstage. Not because the audience hated him, but because they were so used to his TV persona they assumed everything he did was... you know, funny.

NED SHERRIN: Many people think he was only a comedian. Not at all. I saw him at the National doing the best [NAME OF SHAKESPEARE CHARACTER] I ever saw.

OTHER FRIEND: It was after that that the depression started to come back..

WRITER OF SHOW: I think the depression really set in when [NAME OF TELEVISION COMPANY] dropped his show.

WIFE: When his show was dropped, that was the end for him. He became very depressed and rarely left the house after that.

NARRATOR: But depression wasn't his only problem. With his heart problems coming back, others around him feared for his deteriorating health.

FRIEND: His heart condition was getting worse. His doctor advised him to cut down on smoking and red meat, but he never did.

AGENT: I truly think he thought he nothing to live for once his show was cancelled and spent the last few years of his life slowly killing himself.

OTHER FRIEND: He went back on the drink. I told him not to but he did. To me, that was the beginning of the end.

WIFE: When he died it was quite a shock. We knew it would happen but we couldn't quite believe it when it did.

WRITER OF SHOW: He died as he wanted to: with his career at it's peak.

FRIEND: I think he's up in heaven now, deeply happy at the fact that so many people, young and old, are watching his shows today, and enjoying them as much as they always did.

NARRATOR: [NAME OF COMEDIAN]'s early death may have been a great loss to the world of comedy, but with his show show being repeated daily all over the world, [NAME OF COMEDIAN] has finally received the recognition he always deserved. He lives on in our our hearts, and all our TV sets, as 'television's greatest clown'.

There's the script, all you need is the comedian. Happy grave-robbing!

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