Could Jim Davidson ever make a comeback?

[Maybe Im Doing It Wrong]

Er, which Bruce Forsyth is this?

Bruce "give us a twirl, nice to see you, I'm in charge" Forsyth.

Never a particularly good singer or dancer. Never very funny. Never much of an actor. Never very good at anything really.

[Jemble Fred]

Well I've never really admired anything he's ever done either, but there's no way you can get to the heights he's reached in showbusiness and still be 'talentless', even if it his ultimate talent comes down to being able to present TV shows. I have a feeling he'd rather be remembered as a great dancer, singer or comic, but successfully presenting live and hectic TV shows still requires lots of talent.

[Jake Thingray]

I have a feeling he'd rather be remembered as a great dancer, singer or comic,

True. Jonathan Meades once wrote that, around the time Brucie did a one-man show on Broadway that died the death, he wasn't just desperate to be known as the British equivalent of Sammy Davis Jr, it was said he wouldn't be satisfied until Sammy Davis started being referred to as the American Bruce Forsyth.

[2 Light Ales Please]

I've never had too much of a problem with the beady-eyed old letch, I've always just seen him as a benign throwback to the 'golden-age' of variety.  Besides his chauvinistic image, I wouldn't say that Brucie is particularly offensive, just a bit shit and out of touch.  I certainly don't see anything nasty in him.

[Maybe Im Doing It Wrong]

Well I've never really admired anything he's ever done either, but there's no way you can get to the heights he's reached in showbusiness and still be 'talentless', even if it his ultimate talent comes down to being able to present TV shows. I have a feeling he'd rather be remembered as a great dancer, singer or comic, but successfully presenting live and hectic TV shows still requires lots of talent.

I don't think "talent" is quite the right word. I suppose it takes some ability. What it mainly takes is confidence I suppose.

I think you're all too young to remember what a horrible old Thatcherite cunt Brucie was back in the 80s. I certainly remember him droning on about trades unions and "scroungers."

[Gavin]

I've never had too much of a problem with the beady-eyed old letch, I've always just seen him as a benign throwback to the 'golden-age' of variety.  Besides his chauvinistic image, I wouldn't say that Brucie is particularly offensive, just a bit shit and out of touch.  I certainly don't see anything nasty in him.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-388318/Brucie-snubbed-racist-curry-joke.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1218955/Strictly-Come-Dancings-Bruce-Forsyth-says-nation-sense-humour-defends-Anton-Du-Bekes-slip-up.html

[2 Light Ales Please]

I'm no Bruce Forsyth apologist, but I still don't think those Daily Mail articles are proof that he's malicious.  Like I said earlier, he is out of touch and he's not funny, but I still don't think he's a cunt.  The quote from the first article confirms this: "You could say that Bruce was being old-fashioned and racist. But he was just being funny - he wasn't being malicious.  If you take it out of context, it is easy to be offended by it."

[Maybe Im Doing It Wrong]

Brucie always makes me think of this Roger McGough poem

THE HOST

He can sing and dance
Play piano, trumpet and guitar.
An amateur hypnotist
A passable ventriloquist
Can even walk a tightrope
(But not far). When contracted,
Can lend a hand to sleight-of
And juggling. Has never acted,
But is, none the less, a Star.

He has a young wife. His third.
(Ex-au pair and former
Swedish Beauty Queen)
And an ideal home
In the ideal home counties.
His friends are household
Names of stage and screen,
And his hobbies are golf,
And helping children of those
Less fortunate than himself
Get to the seaside.

Having been born again. And again.
He believes in God. And God
Certainly believes in him.
Each night before going to bed
He kneels in his den
And says a little prayer:
'Thank you Lord, for my work and play,
Please help me make it in the U.S.A.'

Then still kneeling, with head bowed,
He tries out new material
(Cleaned up, but only slightly).
And the Almighty laughs out loud
Especially at jokes about rabbis
And the Pope. Just one encore
Then time for beddy-byes.
So he stands, and he bows,
Blows a kiss to his Saviour,
Then dances upstairs to divide Scandinavia.

[Jake Thingray]

Very good! I'm sure Donald Churchill and Joe McGrath's short-lived sitcom, GOOD NIGHT AND GOD BLESS, included Brucie among the set of parts the main character was constructed from, although McGrath had previously worked with Monkhouse, starmakers.

[Little Hoover]

The only reason Bruce Forsyth is a cunt is because he refuses to die.

[Maybe Im Doing It Wrong]

I suppose the thing about Brucie is that he comes from that old light entertainment tradition whereby if you could sing "Fly Me To The Moon" vaguely in key and tell a few jokes cribbed from Bob Hope with a reasonable attempt at conviction, you got a 30-40 year career out of it (see also Tarby, Lynchy, Tom O'Connery, etc.)

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Davidson will probably make a comeback in 20 years time, when he's old enough to count as a venerable national treasure - which is what happened to the equally unpleasant, right-wing, and talentless Bruce Forsyth.

Equally unpleasant? I've no idea about Forsyth's personal politics and views (to my knowledge, he's never said anything dodgy in interviews), but he's never peddled racist, misogynist, homophobic, hateful material. Also, at his peak, he had a great deal of charm, presence and natural comic ability, which Davidson never did. Lumping Forsyth in with Davidson is bonkers, frankly. 

[Maybe Im Doing It Wrong]

Well he never made me laugh.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Well he never made me laugh.

Fine, but he's hardly a vile, rancid cunt in the Davidson mould.

[SavageHedgehog]

Yeah, I've never particularly wanted to defend "Brucie" before (although I did used to love that bit in The Price is Right where that yodelling stick figure went up a cliff according to how far out the guesses are) but when he's put on par with Davidson there's little choice. Tarby I could understand, I mean this is a man who pulically baked Thatcher a birthday cake for heaven's sake, but even he would ultimately have to be described as harmless next to Jim

[biggytitbo]

I agree its completly bizarre  labelling brucie with Davidson. Davidson is obviously a man with some severe emotional and mental problems, whereas brucie is merely a seemingly nice man with a genuine talent for old fashioned showbiz and audience interaction thats kept him going for 50 years through thick and thin and varying taste and styles

[23 Daves]

I'm sorely tempted to go and see this play if only because a friend of mine wrote a very similar script about twelve years ago which he never managed to get taken on.  It was about a racist/homophobic comedian, partly based on Davidson, partly based on Manning, whose son turns out to be gay, and not only that but a public figure who embarrasses his father.  That Davidson himself is now doing a production like this is obviously something I'm bound to find eerie.

As for his career, it's fucked, but I've always found it astonishing he ever had one in the first place.  There was never any warmth or charm about his work, his gags were piss-weak, and in a live show where Zippy and George from Rainbow were onstage with him, they actually came across as the more charismatic entities with a better sense of comic timing.  The man is a bafflement to me - he's like some kind of angry London bus driver who lucked out.  He's the kind of person who actually makes me feel glad the year is 2011, who makes me feel that perhaps we might have moved on a tiny bit. 

I saw him in panto once as a kid, and even as a seven year old I found the bit at the end where he invited a kid on stage with him and gave him some sweets odd and uncomfortable, almost exactly like that scene in "Knowing Me Knowing Yule" where Alan Partridge visits the children in hospital.  Lots of awkward silences and a strange edge to the whole thing.  I think at the time I interpreted it as meaning that Davidson actually really didn't want to give the sweets away because he wanted to keep them for himself during the journey home, and strangely, even as a grown man I'm not ruling out that possibility (although obviously his own awkwardness at dealing with a mini-pleb would probably be the actual reason).  He has never, ever exuded any warmth at all.  He's like Ian Beale with delusions of a comedy career. 

[An tSaoi]

He's like Ian Beale with delusions of a comedy career. 

Funnily enough, Ian Beale is a Davidson fan on EastEnders.

[Hollow]

I hope not, I hate everything about him.
Seriously just a wanker comedian for wankers.
I hope he dies soon....of arse cancer.

[Edible]

He was interviewed by Stephen Nolan 4 or 5 years ago on Radio 5, and came across as a better spoken but probably more loathsome version of his stage persona.
He is most definitely a very right wing racist and hater of homosexuals.

I haven't heard the interview (or any other with Davidson for that matter) and, having never watched more than two minutes of his act at one time, it would be absurd if i were to try to make a judgment on Davidson's feelings towards Homosexuals.

but i just wanted to ask: do you think the common argument deployed against people who "accuse" others of being gay - Perhaps you accusing me is projection - also works when the shoes on the other foot? Perhaps your accusing him of homophobia is to mask the fact that you yourself are homophobic?

I'd also be interested to know whether you were able to deduce from that interview if  Davidson hates bisexual and pansexual people as well as homosexuals?

[Tiny Poster]

What a silly line of questioning.

[Famous Mortimer]

Someone not entirely dissimilar to him tried to allegedly buy some drugs off some mates of mine when they were on a training course night out in...Reading? I forget.

[Dead kate moss]

http://blogs.thestage.co.uk/podcasts/2011/02/jim-davidson-says-stand-up-and-be-counted-the-stag/

well worth a listen

Yes, that is well worth a listen. Davidson comes across as a thoughtful human being - and I say this because the media, like in that 100 Greatest Comics list, know he is a hate figure for much of their audience. They will stitch him up by only using the bitter stuff he says during the interview, and finish the segment off with some other comedian saying he's basically scum, haha... And almost everyone deserves better than that - I think Roy Chubby Brown, probably more vile on-stage and in real life, but allowed some weird undeserved ironic protection now.

I also liked how Davidson compares himself to Alf Garnett & Al Murray where a huge majority of his audience take him at face value... now he would say that wouldn't he, but interesting. And it does seem strange that nowadays Little Britain can make minorities look far worse than Davidson ever did...

[Paaaaul]

I haven't heard the interview (or any other with Davidson for that matter) and, having never watched more than two minutes of his act at one time, it would be absurd if i were to try to make a judgment on Davidson's feelings towards Homosexuals.

but i just wanted to ask: do you think the common argument deployed against people who "accuse" others of being gay - Perhaps you accusing me is projection - also works when the shoes on the other foot? Perhaps your accusing him of homophobia is to mask the fact that you yourself are homophobic?

I'd also be interested to know whether you were able to deduce from that interview if  Davidson hates bisexual and pansexual people as well as homosexuals?

I wasn't able to tell any of those things because I was referring to an interview with Roy 'Chubby' Brown.
I was able to establish the opinions that I posted before by listening to that interview, in which R'C'B was asked about his opinions on such topics as race and homosexuality, and he made them abundantly clear to the radio audience, and I remembered the interview because I thought he was ridiculously honest to the point of alienating any 'on the fence' fans.

Incidentally, around that time Stephen Nolan did also interview Jim Davidson who came across as a total money-grabbing prick, but was much more guarded around questions of race.

As for me. I am not remotely homophobic. Some of my best friends are benders.

[Edible]

What a silly line of questioning.

Yeah, they probably were a bit daft. but i'm glad  they were at least perceived as Questions. Because that's what they were. Not insults or accusations.

[Desi Rascal]

Yes, that is well worth a listen. Davidson comes across as a thoughtful human being - and I say this because the media, like in that 100 Greatest Comics list, know he is a hate figure for much of their audience. They will stitch him up by only using the bitter stuff he says during the interview, and finish the segment off with some other comedian saying he's basically scum, haha... And almost everyone deserves better than that - I think Roy Chubby Brown, probably more vile on-stage and in real life, but allowed some weird undeserved ironic protection now.

I also liked how Davidson compares himself to Alf Garnett & Al Murray where a huge majority of his audience take him at face value... now he would say that wouldn't he, but interesting. And it does seem strange that nowadays Little Britain can make minorities look far worse than Davidson ever did...

That encounter with Matt Blaize in a comedy club does seem to have had a profound effect upon him,i'd love to see Taxi For The Comedian too.

FWIW Chubby Brown gets a rough ride around these parts and i agree with you i think that Ting Tong character in Little Britain is completely hateful.

[Artemis]

Interesting podcast, but I'm not buying into any kind of reformation of Davidson. His position seems to be that people 'are who they are' and rather than accept that his stuff was actually pretty nasty stuff, he makes these pretty empty 'observations' about how he felt safer with a white audience and so on, passing comment like he's some kind of old-school master rather than just a dubious little cunt whose success (at stand up) is largely down to there being quite a few other dubious little cunts out there who like to feel validated in their dubious cuntish prejudice.

The way he views comedy is also depressingly rigid and inflexible. He's basically saying "I am who I am and I've had my day even though I'm better than most other comics". Well sure, a comic shouldn't go chasing the crowd by bending their act into the shape of whatever hoop they think the public is holding up, but then a good comic's act should naturally evolve and become more refined and carefully crafted. Davidson's never done anything but clumsily stomp on stage and spout out his predictable, repetitive routine. Look at his act twenty years ago and his act today and you'll find precious little development, just a man who's blaming 'the way things are' for putting no effort or reflection into his work.

His comment that he "knows what's going to cause offence" doesn't tally at all with his previous attempted comebacks which have been scuppered because he said things without knowing the offence they would (and did) cause, so his claims that he "knows about comedy" don't ring true, as if his stand up didn't already confirm that.

"I can't go through life apologising for things that I wouldn't have apologised for years ago" is a stupid, badly thought out position as well. I mean, why can't you? He wouldn't need to do it endlessly, just release a statement, maybe even write a book, and admit that making black people noises and pretending to tell them to 'fuck off back to Africa' for laughs wasn't actually that clever and he's sorry for it. If he was good enough, and he did know something about comedy, than he'd know how to incorporate that into his stage routine and create something quite compelling. The truth is, of course, that without his background, not to mention his joke repertoire, he hasn't actually got very much to offer, so he needs it. It's just a shame that he's so keen to distance himself from the character instead of allowing it to reflect a more insightful, thoughtful man.

[Desi Rascal]

^ Well put

Having read his blog his main motivation for putting on this small production rather than Sinderella 3 is economical, which chimes with his podcast admission that there is still an audience for his material they just can't afford to pack out the theatres anymore.

I think Matt Blazes credit as a co-writer might make this worth checking out, but i am wary of the sub-plot about Blaizes' character seducing Davidsons wife, sounds a bit of a "after our wimmen eh lads?"racist cliché but hey could be pleasantly surprised,what if it turned out all the right-on types were in some way flawed and horrible people and Davidson's character was basically a nice guy that had done a lot for charidee
i'm ready to have my minded blown Mr Davidson.

.

[MrSpecialPants]

Not quite, the late night series, Stand Up Jim Davidson, was in 1990, and it was the last thing he did for ITV, then he moved to the Beeb to do Big Break, and in the first one I remember he said "This is my first show for the BBC and if it doesn't work, we're both snookered!". Big Break was such a huge hit at the start, the first one got sixteen million viewers. The worst thing about that show was that they recorded a million at a time and they'd fling them out for years on end so you'd still get episodes in 2000 with 1997 copyright dates.

When both shows ended, he did Jim Davidson's Commercial Breakdown, and in the Radio Times they interviewed him and he said his only telly work was reading the autocue between funny clips. He was on Merton's first series of Room 101, the precise moment that went crap, putting Motown in, the bastard.

God I remember that episode of Room 101, the only thing I can remember Davidson putting in though was quiche because it was lefty food. What I remember most is Merton trying his best to hide his utter contempt and failing quite badly.

[Ignatius_S]

Not quite, the late night series, Stand Up Jim Davidson, was in 1990, and it was the last thing he did for ITV...

Thanks for that - I couldn't quite remember, I had a feeling that was after Big Break had started but I wouldn't have sworn to it - thinking about it, it'\s a bit unlikely that the Beeb would have been very happy about him doing something for 'the other side'.