Freddie Starr's Variety Madhouse - words fail

[checkoutgirl]

The escapologist bit is basically

"Don't put me in the bag. Don't put me in the bag. Don't put me in the bag."

*puts him in the bag and kicks him a few times*

"I really don't want to be in this bag"

*sketch ends*

Pretty amazing. No joke there really. No punchline. It seems to be let's start an escapologist bit but the twist is you are reluctant. What about an ending? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. If anyone doubted the importance of scripts and writers then watch this.

[checkoutgirl]

So if you're nonplussed by unchoreographed dicking about and would rather live in a world where bereaved receptionists do mediocre karaoke to a panel of tut-tutting millionaires every week, then good news.

I suppose Saturday night telly is and always was a bit of a wasteland. I would have watched the Freddie Star thing when I was a very little child but I'm not completely sure if I could say the same about Simon Cowell if I was born in 2004. It's possible. I've watched a lot more Blind Date than I'm comfortable with purely because we only had one telly at the time and my mother always had shall we say "rustic" tastes and an iron will about watching what she wanted.

[Otisberg]

Woeful - but clear almost immediately that Russ Abbot is much better than all of them.

[BlodwynPig]

The escapologist bit is basically

"Don't put me in the bag. Don't put me in the bag. Don't put me in the bag."

*puts him in the bag and kicks him a few times*

"I really don't want to be in this bag"

*sketch ends*

Pretty amazing. No joke there really. No punchline. It seems to be let's start an escapologist bit but the twist is you are reluctant. What about an ending? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. If anyone doubted the importance of scripts and writers then watch this.

I didn't see the escapologist bit, but he makes an appearance in the bag during the later strongman sketch.

I remember Russ Abbot's Madhouse/Funhouse? As a kid I think I found it entertaining, I guess in a Bumper Book of Seaside Jokes way. This Starr vehicle is TRIPE of the first order. I've found him funny at times in the 80s, but this is revelatory. Even with my nostalgia goggles on, its TRIPE.

[Alberon]

Pretty amazing. No joke there really. No punchline. It seems to be let's start an escapologist bit but the twist is you are reluctant. What about an ending? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. If anyone doubted the importance of scripts and writers then watch this.

I'd think that was unacceptable as off the cuff improv.

Most of Starr's routines seem to be little more than going on stage in a silly outfit, mugging around for two minutes and then fucking off. The lack of script, talent and wit is amazing.

[Steven]

Most of Starr's routines seem to be little more than going on stage in a silly outfit, mugging around for two minutes and then fucking off. The lack of script, talent and wit is amazing.

Not surprising seeing wasn't his 'big breakthrough' doing that silly Mick Jagger impression?

And fucking hell, this is uncomfortable, Starr on Parkinson trying to get over one on Muhammad Ali, it was making my skin crawl.

[Phil_A]

I think and hope that Blodwyn was being ironic. Sarcasm and black humour were all over 70s British comedy thanks to Monty Python. "The sketches don't have any punchlines" is likewise an odd criticism of comedy post-Python, although Freddie Starr seems to confuse a lot of people these days, there's that element of anarchic, childlike Milliganesque surrealism, but it's rubbed up against very broad, end-of-the-pier tomfoolery. Plus, I like that Starr subverts his "anything can happen and probably will!!" reputation by throwing in routines where nothing happens at all.

I suppose you've got to compare like for like. FSVM went out on ITV at 8.45 on Saturday night, which is where The X Factor has been for the last 15 years. So if you're nonplussed by unchoreographed dicking about and would rather live in a world where bereaved receptionists do mediocre karaoke to a panel of tut-tutting millionaires every week, then good news.

Hang on, no-one is making the case that Saturday Night TV is currently experiencing some kind of golden age, it's more that Starr's act, even by the standards of the time, was hopeless.

It's all about intention though, isn't it. The Pythons set out with the idea of the subverting the medium in the same way the Goons had done on radio a decade before(although in the event Milligan got there first with Q) . Starr's shows were old-school variety to the core, with the only mildly subversive element being Starr himself. I don't get any hint of surrealism from him, his punchline-less sketches seem more like a product of not really putting the effort into to make an idea work comedically, just putting on a silly hat and going "Will this do?"

I will say in defence of that show, the other performers are clearly putting a lot more effort into their bits than Starr(and I did get some amusement from Abbott trying to make the other fella corpse during the scouting bit). The bit's when he's on screen are the worst parts.

[Steven]

Starr's shows were old-school variety to the core, with the only mildly subversive element being Starr himself. I don't get any hint of surrealism from him, his punchline-less sketches seem more like a product of not really putting the effort into to make an idea work comedically, just putting on a silly hat and going "Will this do?"

"Willthisdo?"

[Autopsy Turvey]

Hang on, no-one is making the case that Saturday Night TV is currently experiencing some kind of golden age, it's more that Starr's act, even by the standards of the time, was hopeless

If a modern day Freddie Starr's Variety Madhouse turned up at 8.45pm on ITV this Saturday it would be an astonishingly bold and imaginative leap in the dark, and would be considerably more entertaining than what went out last Saturday at the same time. Put Freddie Starr next to David Walliams, Miranda or James Corden and he's Buster bleeding Keaton. But in 1979, coming after a decade of Morecambe & Wise, Tommy Cooper, Les Dawson, Frankie Howerd, Brucie and the two Ronnies, people like Freddie Starr and Little & Large must have looked even more like charmless overpromoted chancers, precisely because of the standards of the time.

Except that I disagree that everyone else was putting more effort in. Freddie Starr's only trump card was his immense full-throttle physicality, resulting in a genuine frisson of danger that doesn't even remotely exist in TV comedy nowadays.

[Cuntbeaks]

Cocaine is a helluva drug

[Brundle-Fly]

If a modern day Freddie Starr's Variety Madhouse turned up at 8.45pm on ITV this Saturday it would be an astonishingly bold and imaginative leap in the dark, and would be considerably more entertaining than what went out last Saturday at the same time. Put Freddie Starr next to David Walliams, Miranda or James Corden and he's Buster bleeding Keaton. But in 1979, coming after a decade of Morecambe & Wise, Tommy Cooper, Les Dawson, Frankie Howerd, Brucie and the two Ronnies, people like Freddie Starr and Little & Large must have looked even more like charmless overpromoted chancers, precisely because of the standards of the time.

Except that I disagree that everyone else was putting more effort in. Freddie Starr's only trump card was his immense full-throttle physicality, resulting in a genuine frisson of danger that doesn't even remotely exist in TV comedy nowadays.

I think he was a great showman in his pomp. He was deemed extremely anarchic at the time. Partly because of his 1970s football herbert image. That caveman look was completely at odds with the Water Rats showbiz set that came before. He's like a member of the Faces who decided to do comedy.  It's just Starr didn't seem to have great artistic guidance or particularly good writers ever.

Another bit of that documentary was him incredulously complaining about a new TV game show called Touch The Truck as the nadir of contemporary light entertainment. Freddie then ended up appearing on that show about year later. It's a shit business.

I feel sorry what happened to him with the Yewtree stuff. No further action but life ruined.

[TheManOne]

Freddie Starr's life had been going off the rails for a decade before that. He's clearly a troubled man. While it will have obviously impacted on him personally, I don't think it's affected his career, which was dead anyway.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Freddie Starr's life had been going off the rails for a decade before that. He's clearly a troubled man. While it will have obviously impacted on him personally, I don't think it's affected his career, which was dead anyway.

He should never have eaten that hamster.

If you watch the end credits of that show , it says " devised by " that Mike Whatsisname feller, a la the way Mike Leigh's tv plays used to get credited ( or " made up by the actors as they go along, as parodied on the first series of " Alas, Smith and Jones" ). Nobody dares to make the suggestion that this stuff was actually " written."

[Mango Chimes]

Fuck off, you cunts. The "Young man, at the YMCA" bit is wonderful.  Not so much the on-stage antics, but the repetition of the song is genuinely funny to me, so up yours.  The Houdini bit is entertaining for its absolutely baffling lack of punchline.  The scout bit goes on too long but has some good gags towards the end, and they play off each other quite nicely.  The next bit has some good drunk acting and a genuinely cheersome punchline.

I've not watched the rest, but this is fine verging on good.  The pacing is Old TV, but that aside.  I LIKE IT A BIT.

[Phil_A]

I think he was a great showman in his pomp. He was deemed extremely anarchic at the time. Partly because of his 1970s football herbert image. That caveman look was completely at odds with the Water Rats showbiz set that came before. He's like a member of the Faces who decided to do comedy.  It's just Starr didn't seem to have great artistic guidance or particularly good writers ever.

Another bit of that documentary was him incredulously complaining about a new TV game show called Touch The Truck as the nadir of contemporary light entertainment. Freddie then ended up appearing on that show about year later. It's a shit business.

I feel sorry what happened to him with the Yewtree stuff. No further action but life ruined.

Actually I think the show he did was The Crusher, Touch The Truck only lasted five episodes and wasn't recommissioned. But yeah, he looked like a huge hypocrite over it though.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Remember that old Freddie Starr sequence when he is a singer who keeps speeding up and slowing down?  That could have been quite good if the joke was that he was miming, and trying to keep up when the pre-recorded track goes wonky, but he played it like it's a bit of film going wonky from what I saw, which is much less witty.

[JoeyBananaduck]

Remember that old Freddie Starr sequence when he is a singer who keeps speeding up and slowing down?  That could have been quite good if the joke was that he was miming, and trying to keep up when the pre-recorded track goes wonky, but he played it like it's a bit of film going wonky from what I saw, which is much less witty.

They did the former gag - miming and trying to keep up with the tape that was buggered and speeding up/slowing down - in an episode of Saved By The Bell, of all things.

I still think the Freddie Starr version of the gag is one of his better ones. I think on one of the Des O'Connor episodes he did it with someone on an exercise bike, like they were powering him and their speeding up/slowing down caused his voice to do the same. Not too bad. Not as bad as anything on Variety Madhouse, that's for damn sure.

[JoeyBananaduck]

I suppose you've got to compare like for like. FSVM went out on ITV at 8.45 on Saturday night, which is where The X Factor has been for the last 15 years. So if you're nonplussed by unchoreographed dicking about and would rather live in a world where bereaved receptionists do mediocre karaoke to a panel of tut-tutting millionaires every week, then good news.

Very sadly true. A colourful attempt at something fun that fails is better than Cowell's shit any old day of the week. Anything is. Saturday night TV should feel like a night at a cabaret. I should add I don't actually dislike Freddie Starr's work - what little I remember. I loved stuff like Brian Conley's show as a kid. That was proper entertainment, hit and miss as it may have been.

Oh and completely irrelevant side-note: I never realised until now what a short arse Freddie is.

[Goldentony]

as soon as I saw this the first thing that came to mind was the documentary Phil A mentioned. My memory of it is blank except for the ending where he does that monologue to an empty theatre about the state of comedy and television, and only because of the section where he has a go at the then airing Channel 5 show 'Touch The Truck' where if you remember a load of fun mums and dads and one hippie who was hellbent on winning so he could crush it or something had to put their hands on a truck for as long as they could handle it while Dale Winton walked about asking them if they'd pissed themselves yet. Anyway, the thing is it came during a big emotional bit of his speech and his pronunciation of it came out as

"TUSSSHERTRUGKKK"

In the voice i'd associate with pissed scouse uncles. That sort of dejected can you believe this style "TUSHHerrTRUGGKK!! Tushhher BLEEDIN TRUCKKK!" and every time ive heard his name since, the only thing that comes to me within a second of hearing about him is TOUCHHHHHSHHHERRRTRUGGGCC

[JoeyBananaduck]

Fairly depressing: http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/freddie-starr-filmed-singing-elvis-9322995

[Brundle-Fly]

Fairly depressing: http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/freddie-starr-filmed-singing-elvis-9322995

It's the 'kick a dog while it's down' glee at his downfall in that non-story that it is more depressing.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

It's the 'kick a dog while it's down' glee at his downfall in that non-story that it is more depressing.

You beat me to it, Brundle. Taking the piss out of Freddie Starr's shit comedy is one (entirely valid) thing, but that article basically wanks itself raw at the sad spectacle of a severely depressed man at a low ebb. It's horrible.

[biggytitbo]

I liked when he throw maggots on minor celebrities during his Audience with. Thats comedy.

[Autopsy Turvey]

The Costa Del Sol is at least arguably a more glamorous location for Elvis karaoke than Jollees, Stoke in 1981:



Released by the same label that a year later put out Hex Enduction Hour by The Fall.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

They can't even spell Odisee.  What would King Odiousness think?

Anyway, 2001, Space Odyssey was an instrumental piece, if we're talking about the theme to the film, unless they've mixed that up with Bowie's Space Oddity.

[Tony Yeboah]

I liked when he throw maggots on minor celebrities during his Audience with. Thats comedy.

The box he was holding had a layer of maggots on top of some rice and I think he was only supposed to throw the rice, but ended up throwing the maggots anyway. He doesn't seem like a nice bloke, or a particularly funny one, but he did add a genuine sense of danger and unpredicatability to mainstream TV shows that you don't get much of now. Peter Kay crawling behind a weatherman isn't quite the same.

[Autopsy Turvey]

Yes it's the Also Sprach Zarathustra intro I presume. It's a bit of a bodge job, I like that they've put Lord You Gave Me?, like they're being honest about having no idea what the song (You Gave Me A Mountain) is called. And no one has ever called the last song 'USA Trilogy'.

[AVR2]

Found on Russ Abbot's own site. Apparently Starr himself was unhappy with the quality of the material:

"Russ's success is based almost entirely on Russ Abbot's Madhouse. Yet that show wasn't devised with him in mind and actually began in 1979 under the name of Freddie Starr's Variety Madhouse. According to Abbot, three pilot shows of that series were made, each with different casts before a supposedly workable formula was hit upon.

However it was far from a happy production, with Freddie Starr in particular causing a rumpus and complaining about what he felt was poor material ('You are a complete idiot!' / 'No I'm not, I've got a tooth missing'). When Starr walked off the set in protest a new team was put together with Russ, a supporting artiste in the original series, promoted to leader of the gang. Comedy actors of the calibre of Jeffrey Holland were brought in to provide a better balance to the line-up and although Tracey Ullman was considered for a part, the female roles went to Susie Blake, Sherrie Hewson and the soon to become iconic Bella Emberg."

[Ignatius_S]

Found on Russ Abbot's own site. Apparently Starr himself was unhappy with the quality of the material:...

I think it's safe to remove 'apparently' as it's the story that has most currency.... As I was about to say:

Has there ever been a primetime "comedy" show as bafflingly shit as Freddie Starr's Variety Madhouse? Even the title sequence has me grasping for meaning....

I feel it's problematic judging a single episode from nearly 40 years ago without some context.

Firstly, Freddie Starr's Variety Madhouse is an example of a series that had a shaky start but settled into an incredibly successful show.

The chief claim to fame of Freddie Starr's Variety Madhouse – and indeed, I'm struggling to think of anytime I've heard mention of the programme divorced from this – is that after Starr quickly jumped ship, LWT renamed it Russ Abbot's Madhouse.

Reputedly, Freddie Starr's Variety Madhouse was a trouble production and Starr was unhappy with the quality of the writing. Given the material on show here, I don't think this is an unreasonable proposition.  Brundle-Fly made a good point about Starr's showmanship and it also very possible that he felt constrained by a family-friendly slot.

Putting the show into historical context, on of the YouTube comments made an excellent point:

A different sort of rubbish to today's rubbish. In years to come, people will look at Cowell's creations and wonder 'WTF?'. Indeed, some of us do this now. To London Weekend's credit, that same night brought the promising-sounding drama 'Two People', and the chat show 'Saturday Night People' - reasonably sophisticated, despite JSP's involvement. There's an episode of the latter online.

...(as opposed to the BBC's effort on Little and Large which is clearly bargain bin stuff)...

Little and Large wasn't a particularly cheap programme for the time and the Beeb famously headhunted the pair from ITV/

.,.. And is this really Bella Emberg's first step into the big time?

On a separate issue, Bella Emberg's wiki page is very sparse, concerned mostly with several small Doctor Who appearances rather than her prime time heydays which get one brief sentence...

By this time, Emberg had been part of Benny Hill's regular cast for years (probably a decade), so no.

Re: Wikipedia – there's a reason for that....

Wasn't it supposed to be a "modern" reboot of Wheeltappers and Shunters?

Nope. Wheeltappers was a variety show with lots of different performers and a gimmick that it was supposedly a working man's club. Freddie Starr's Variety Madhouse was more looking for a new Light Entertainment star, supported by a reliable cast.

I suppose Saturday night telly is and always was a bit of a wasteland...

Nope – for many, many years, Saturday evening was the programming that the BBC and 'the other side' fought most bitterly over and they pulled out all the stops.

Traditionally, it was a time that the entire family would stay in and watch television, meaning ratings were off the scale compared to today.

C4 broadcast a documentary, Who Killed Saturday Night TV?, which is worth a look as I feel it gives a good overview of that programming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j2qPRCM2-g Also, it has some good talking heads such as performers, such as Little & Large (who are very matter of fact about being cancelled) but particularly interesting (IMO) are contributions from people on the other said of the camera.

[Ignatius_S]

Hang on, no-one is making the case that Saturday Night TV is currently experiencing some kind of golden age, it's more that Starr's act, even by the standards of the time, was hopeless....

Starr's live act back then gets praised a lot but it never very well adapted/toned down for TV. A while ago, pretty sure that someone posted a quote by a performer, who I wouldn't have had pegged as a fan, saying how anarchic Starr was live.

As for the quality of this show, I'm more inclined that it wasn't especially woeful for the time.

... people like Freddie Starr and Little & Large must have looked even more like charmless overpromoted chancers, precisely because of the standards of the time....

I'm not sure that 'chancers' is entirely fairly as for me that suggests a lack of hard graft that those performers that came up the club circuit did. As mentioned above, L&L were headhunted by the Beeb, after they had success at ITV.

On that C4 documentary, one TV suit does make very unflattering comparisons with the likes of L&L with the 'greats', which I would agree with. However, it terms of where they got, feel that there's probably a stronger case to be made that they were over-promoted, rather than blagging a plum job quickly.

Fuck off, you cunts. The "Young man, at the YMCA" bit is wonderful.  Not so much the on-stage antics, but the repetition of the song is genuinely funny to me, so up yours.  The Houdini bit is entertaining for its absolutely baffling lack of punchline.  The scout bit goes on too long but has some good gags towards the end, and they play off each other quite nicely.  The next bit has some good drunk acting and a genuinely cheersome punchline.

I've not watched the rest, but this is fine verging on good.  The pacing is Old TV, but that aside.  I LIKE IT A BIT.

A nice counterpoint!

It's the 'kick a dog while it's down' glee at his downfall in that non-story that it is more depressing.

Absolutely agree with you and BoBB – images pulled off Facebook and a 'source' that's probably made-up, British journalism at its finest.