Cribbins!

[TJ]

Apart from being a great title for a thread, does anyone else think Bernard Cribbins is a great undersung genius of comedy?

[Jemble Fred]

Genius? No, I don't. Good old Bernard's a great performer with a few nice songs under his belt. His input is third only to Hugh Laurie's and Peter Cook's in making 'Stick It Out' a bearable single. But I wasn't really aware of him as a writer at all.

Are you being, y'know, sarcastic?

[TJ]

Genius? No, I don't. Good old Bernard's a great performer with a few nice songs under his belt. His input is third only to Hugh Laurie's and Peter Cook's in making 'Stick It Out' a bearable single. But I wasn't really aware of him as a writer at all.

Are you being, y'know, sarcastic?

People are allowed to be good performers without writing anything. Thanks for entirely altering the tone of a thread that was supposed to be light-hearted and celebratory. With a bit of luck Neil might be able to salvage it...

[butnut]

This is all I have to say on the subject.

[Jemble Fred]

Thanks for entirely altering the tone of a thread that was supposed to be light-hearted and celebratory.

What? You asked whether we thought he was a genius, I replied in the negative, but gave an example of his work that I particularly enjoyed. How has that done any harm to the thread?

Bizarrely and unfortunately, a Bernard Cribbins thread called 'Cribbins!' was started a couple of days ago on the NotBBC place. Perhaps Bernard's got some new subconscious PR people working for him.

[Fuckwittio]

Bernard Cribbins is class, but I ain't seen him in anything for years. What's the great man been up to of late?


If he's dead, I apologise profusely.

[Jemble Fred]

Recently – Coronation Street and Blackball, which he's not bad in. I think Blackball's a great little TV Movie. It's just a shame they showed it in cinemas, leaving it open to ridiculous abuse from folk who expected more. I've yet to listen to Mel Smith's commentary on the DVD, though, which may be full of apologies.

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

Bizarrely and unfortunately, a Bernard Cribbins thread called 'Cribbins!' was started a couple of days ago on the NotBBC place. Perhaps Bernard's got some new subconscious PR people working for him.

Use that journalist know-how to put two and two together, Jimfrank!

Blackball has some really shoddy flaws. Why is Imelda Staunton there, for example? The Queen sequences are better than SotD, though.

Cribbins song of today is: I'M HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON!

[Jemble Fred]

Use that journalist know-how to put two and two together, Jimfrank!

But... but what it suggests would be the equivalent of Bill Gates using a Mac!

[alan strang]

Victor Lewis Smith did a great Bernard Cribbins parody in one of his Radio 1 shows. It was quite scathing but, as with the best of Lewis Smith's pisstakes, betrayed a fond interest in its subject matter.

Right, I Said, it's 1962
I'm gonna make a novelty record
To play on the BBC
Cretins and thickies, what live in Billericay
They will flock in droves to buy it
Even though it's shit.

I know the things that will appeal
To the stupid working classes
Sitting on their arses
I'll just make some funny noises
For the girls and boyses

Right, I said, make some easy money
Not much to laugh at
In 1962
There's Polio, Diphtheria
And lots of Gonhare-rea
Neumoconiosis
And a lot of Asbestosis
But there's Eric and there's Hattie
While we're stringing up Hanratty
For something he didn't do

So Charlie and me
Went orf to the lavatory
To have some illegal homosexuality

The following week the show was under-running (quite possibly because huge chunks were being cut out  by Johnny Beerling). Amusingly the gap was filled by two unannounced Bernard Cribbins songs.

I don't know much of his stuff but I've always liked the idea of him. Does anyone remember his appearence at the end of the Comic Relief 'Stick It Out' video (a song by Right Said Fred of course).

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

Man, I've got to listen to VLS' R1 series again. Those lyrics reminded me of the wonderful "oxyacetalene welder" bit in Gossip Calypso.

[Bert Thung]

Let's not forget he has the best guest appearance on Fawlty Towers.  

Well, maybe a tie with Mrs Richards.

[another Mr. Lizard]

Let's not forget he has the best guest appearance on Fawlty Towers.  

Well, maybe a tie with Mrs Richards.

Played by the great Joan Sanderson, who deserves a thread of her own - I recently watched the 'Rising Damp' box set, and she steals the episode where Rigsby and Miss Jones unwittingly answer one another's lonely hearts ads.

As for Cribbins, his was by far the best of the celebrity guest appearances in the past few months of 'Coronation Street' (which also deserves a thread of its own - I've been an avid fan for decades and it's rarely been better than it is at the moment) - he even got to shag Tracey Barlow...

No 'genius' for sure, but a nice, avuncular chap with a somewhat laid-back comedy style and a gift for humourous songs, which should make him welcome in these parts. The sort of bloke whom I bet few people in showbiz have anything bad to say about.

[WoShade]

Let's not forget his sterling voice work on the Wombles. Most of us could probably muster up one or maybe two Wombles, but...an entire burrow.

Respect.

[Neil]

He is indeed awesome!  I spent a couple of years trying to get his stuff, but could only get hold of the obvious few tracks (Right Said Fred, Winkle PIcker Shoes Blues and The Hole In The Ground).  Then Nik Horne spotted my plea for more on here, and hosted Gossip Calypso, which was just as brilliant.  I ended up getting A Combination Of Cribbins off eBay, which kept me going for a while, but finally a CD compilation of loads of his stuff has come out, yay!   Beats dicking around with mono LPs.  They have left off the Paddington Bear Theme though, what's that about?  Here's an mp3 of it, I think it's hugely enjoyable.  

Cribbins song of today is: I'M HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON!

Ha, oddly enough I was just telling Darrell last week that he'd love the Danny Kaye movie of the same name.  His stuff is good too, you can see the obvious influence he had on Tom Lehrer (and Cribbins, I suppose, as he covers a fair number of his tracks, e.g. Inch Worm, Thumbelina, Ugly Duckling etc.)

Danny Kaye - The Vessel With The Pestle (Not a song, but a classic movie moment I had to share.)
Danny Kaye - Tongue Twister

Has anyone heard the Snowman CD with Cribbins doing the narration?  IMDB notes that Cribbins does the voice of the Snowman in an episode of "I, Lovett"!

[TJ]

He is indeed awesome!  I spent a couple of years trying to get his stuff, but could only get hold of the obvious few tracks (Right Said Fred, Winkle PIcker Shoes Blues and The Hole In The Ground).  Then Nik Horne spotted my plea for more on here, and hosted Gossip Calypso, which was just as brilliant.  I ended up getting A Combination Of Cribbins off eBay, which kept me going for a while, but finally a CD compilation of loads of his stuff has come out, yay!   Beats dicking around with mono LPs.  They have left off the Paddington Bear Theme though, what's that about?  Here's an mp3 of it, I think it's hugely enjoyable.  

I think that was for a different record label to his other stuff, which would explain its absence. Has anyone else noticed that 'Quietly Bonkers' is also missing from the CD?

He also did a number of "Jackanory" albums for BBC Records, including "The Wizard Of Oz" which keeps going for ridiculous amounts on auction sites. I think there was a BBC Records "Womble Stories" album too.

Cribbins song of today is: I'M HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON!

Ha, oddly enough I was just telling Darrell last week that he'd love the Danny Kaye movie of the same name.[/quote]

All of the covers of songs from the film on the Cribbins CD are great, especially 'The King's New Clothes' which I'd been trying to put a name to for years, having not seen the film since the early 1980s (it used to show up all the time back then, as did the now-elusive "The Pied Piper" starring Donovan) but remembering the melody and not the words.

Most of those songs show what a versatile performer he is - the way he emphasises words and slips between 'voices' really lifts the lyrics, which would otherwise probably be rather mundane.

[Neil]

I think that was for a different record label to his other stuff, which would explain its absence. Has anyone else noticed that 'Quietly Bonkers' is also missing from the CD?

Shame that, another corker, I'll upload that too, here.

He also did a number of "Jackanory" albums for BBC Records, including "The Wizard Of Oz" which keeps going for ridiculous amounts on auction sites. I think there was a BBC Records "Womble Stories" album too.

Does that explain all the Danny Kaye covers then?!  Were they recorded for such an album?  

I have extremely vague memories of watching Bernard Cribbins stuff when I was about 7 or 8, in P3 or whatever.  Can't work out what it was though, almost certainly not The Railway Children.  I'll have to do some Googling later.  Cracking voice...I wish he'd stuck around in Coronation Street a bit longer.

"I hope you break yer knicker elastic!"

[phalmachine]

I was thinking of starting a thread about BC, but I wasn't sure what people thought of him.  I'm from Oldham, and he's Oldham's most famous son, so I wasn't sure if it was a regional thing.

The last I heard, people were fighting to work with him.  About the time he was filming Black Ball, Lemon Jelly were trying to book him to do some musical stuff because they loved his novelty records.

What did everyone think of his performance in that Dr. Who film? I havent seen it in years so can't really comment.  Has he ever done any straight acting? I imagine like a lot of (old) comics he'd do a good job of it.

Cribbins plays Lear! I can see it now.

[Silver SurferGhost]

He's a very underrated straight actor, but then I don't think he's done too much.
Y'know how those Radio Four Afternoon Theatre's are either quite amazing or silly middle-class melodramas (mostly leaning toward the latter) ? I only ever catch them by chance as a consequence and then only half-listen to them, but a couple of years ago I caught Cribbins in one called I Confess, a monologue where he played an angst-ridden Catholic priest. It was much better than the synopsis makes it sound, in fact it was one of the most riveting forty-five minutes of any drama in any medium I've ever heard. If only I could have taped it. And of course they've never (to my knowledge) repeated it, while the cosy middle-class fluff gets three airings.
It made me forgive him for his excruciating turn almost thirty years earlier as a homicidal comedy robot in Space 1999, let's put it that way.
.

[kidsick5000]

As for Cribbins, his was by far the best of the celebrity guest appearances in the past few months of 'Coronation Street' (which also deserves a thread of its own - I've been an avid fan for decades and it's rarely been better than it is at the moment) - he even got to shag Tracey Barlow...

That last bit is a joke, right?

[Neil]

Why should it be a joke?  Because it's not a real drama if Mike Leigh hasn't had anything to do with the writing?

Anyway...  Here's another cracking track:

Bernard Cribbins - Gossip Calypso

[another Mr. Lizard]

As for Cribbins, his was by far the best of the celebrity guest appearances in the past few months of 'Coronation Street' (which also deserves a thread of its own - I've been an avid fan for decades and it's rarely been better than it is at the moment) - he even got to shag Tracey Barlow...

That last bit is a joke, right?

No joke.

Cribbins played a gardener at a big posh house, who pretended to be a millionaire, leading gold-digger Tracey to spend the night with him. Cribbins, Steve McDonald, and Roy Cropper were then all in the frame as potential dads when Tracey found out she was pregnant.

[Gazeuse]

I think he's brilliant and deserves 'genius' status just for his Wombles v/o.

I don't think anyone's mentioned his appearance in "Two Way Stretch" with Peter Sellers and Irene Handl...Fantastic.

He ws also a great interviewee...I seem to remember a great interview (Or two) with him on Pebble Mill At One.

Look at this...

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0187754/

Quite a stunning body of work...Best character name...Albert Poop-Decker.

[neveragain]

Why should it be a joke?

I think s/he just meant the 'shag Tracey Barlow' bit could have been a joke, rather than saying that he (or she) thought Coronation Street wasn't proper drama. Thanks very much for all these soundclips you've been posting lately btw, they are without exception fantastic. And if it was you who put up the Saturday Night Fry's my extremest gratitudes go out to you as well, sir. Cheers.

As for the main discussion: Bernard Cribbins is a marvellous comic actor who doesn't get the respect or recognition he deserves.

[kidsick5000]

Why should it be a joke?

Bit late on this reply but...

Because the last time I checked, tracey Barlow was the fifteen year old daughter of Ken and Deidre Barlow.

Unless AML meant Deidre. A slightly more beleivable age gap.


As for Coronation Street not being good. It has had some of the best comic timing Ive ever seen.  Just not seen it for about 4 years

[Neil]

Ah, sorry, I thought you were going the other way.

[George>Spiggot]

Oh great i've got a chance to use my most favourite line from "The life and death of peter sellers". It's from an interview with one of the stunt men who used to double for sellers and did security for him when he married Britt. He talks about some regular stuff then drops this bomb

"...And then i was the usher at his (peter sellers) memorial service. I showed Olivier in who asked, "who are you going to put me next to?" I sat him down next to Bernard Cribbins."

Excellent chap and does the supporting "nice" parts very well - The Railway Children, The Water Babies, Two Way Stretch, You must be joking, Wrong arm of the law.


Respect the Cribbins.