Jools Holland - Too Cool for Cats

I was in the sixth form when Squeeze appeared on Top of the Pops early in 1979 miming along to ‘Cool For Cats’. We bunch of teenage boys loved lyrics such as “Funny how their misses always look the bleedin’ same” and, living in Essex, it wasn’t difficult to imitate Chris Difford’s South London deadpan delivery. But who was that weird bloke with hat and cigar on the toy keyboards? We didn’t know at the time but the comic character turned out to be a certain Jools Holland. 

From ‘Cool for Cats’ to ‘Up the Junction’ and ‘Another Nail in My Heart’, in studio or on video, the 21 year-old Jools would always add some joyful humour to proceedings. Yet I could never imagine him hosting a much-respected music show in the future. 

Suddenly he vanished from the Squeeze line-up, apparently leaving his old mates to go solo. But the next time I saw him was not fronting another quirky New Wave band but fronting an engaging documentary on tour with another group, broadcast as The Police: Around the World. It was a revelation for me. I already liked The Police, then one of the biggest bands on the planet, but it was Holland’s energy, enthusiasm and convention-defying interviewing style which made it such an entertaining programme. Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland played along, of course, and the latter has since become one of my favourite music documentary presenters in his own right. 

All this larking about with other pop stars served as a successful trial for is subsequent presenter gig, on Channel 4’s inaugural ‘yoof’ show The Tube from 1982. Its Friday early evening slot made regular viewing problematic for a London commuter like me but I made a special effort if there was one of my favourite bands due to perform. It was broadcast live so boasted the potential for chaos. Co-host Paula Yates just seemed to be stoned all the time but Jools just goofed about with a mere modicum of professionalism but his laid-back charisma] carried him through. There were some memorable live music performances but, having been groomed by Top of the Pops, the contrast in format was probably too great for me. 

In the Eighties, Jools was certainly one of the hippest guys on the box, a key figure on trendy new Channel 4. He also made a few cameo appearances on the Beeb’s The Young Ones and French and Saunders. However, by the Nineties, he was cultivating a more mature image. His Squeeze years were put behind him and he was now the maestro of boogie-woogie piano, with his hugely popular Rhythm and Blues Orchestra founded in 1994. 

This shift ran in parallel with the arrival of BBC2’s Friday night show Later… with Jools Holland. While the host was very much in charge, despite that deliberately disorderly manner, the programmes were very much focussed on music. Living on my own, Later… became a regular for me, the opening act determining whether or not I stayed up, knowing they would be back at the end. The middle-of-the-bill performers often strained my powers of loyalty to the limit; there’s only so much bluegrass slide guitar or Botswanan nose flute I could stomach but there was, and still is, no doubting the impressive eclectic mix of music genres booked. 

The opening ‘jam’ and introductions in each episode of Later… , encompassing the circular studio layout set the scene. It wasn’t live but was sufficiently unpredictable in tone to feel like it – in a good way. The live music would be punctuated by less-than-polished interviews with musicians or celebs in the audience and Holland would always have the opportunity to tickle the ivories. While I liked the notion of being introduced to new acts, it was the familiar faces which appealed the most. I have fond memories of golden oldies like Ian Dury  and also the still-relevant legends including those notoriously wary of interviews, including Morrissey in 2004. 

Jools Holland’s Hootenanny has also become a staple of BBC2’s New Year’s Eve schedule. I no longer watch every year, but I do remember venturing into a Television Centre studio observation gallery one late November afternoon and witnessing Jools rehearsing (yes, he rehearsed!) a setpiece for the Hootenanny. What? The show was recorded? Ah, the wonders of TV! 

These days he may be a more portly sixty-something but he can still illuminate an otherwise dull programme. Only a few months ago my attention was drawn to the screen during the otherwise tedious Celebrity Gogglebox when he shared a witty observant with viewing partner Vic Reeves. Ah, he’s still got it.

Jimmy Nail - Howay the lad!

Any self-respecting thesaurus, encyclopaedia or online search engine would surely append any reference to “mean, moody Geordie” with “see Jimmy Nail”. Apparently he found fame as an actor almost by accident given his lack of professional training. However, presence and personality, plus a colourful personal backstory, seemed to provide adequate compensation when it came to his early roles. 

As documented in this 1995 South Bank Show interview with a blow-dried Melvyn Bragg, he overcame an adolescent preoccupation with arson, alcohol and general rebellion to channel it into a successful career in the entertainment industry. Even his stage name Nail was the product of a nickname after he trod on one whilst working in a glass factory. 

According to IMDB the then 29 year-old Jimmy’s first TV appearance was in the thought-provoking 1983 Cold War drama Spy Ship which I quite enjoyed. I’ve no idea what kind of character he played, but I can hazard a fairly confident guess! A mere two days later came his arrival in a new ITV comedy-drama: a television legend was born. 

With the established comedy pedigree of writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, Auf Wiedersehen Pet demanded our attention. However, hour-long episodes without a laughter track, shot on video, featuring a largely unknown ensemble cast meant instant success wasn’t guaranteed. I was also surprised such a series was on ITV. It’s entirely plausible that an early-Eighties BBC would have rejected the premise of a bunch of tradesman swapping Thatcherite unemployment for some hard graft and Deutschmarks as too working–class. However, ITV quickly had a hit. 

‘Pet’ ran for only two series initially but it was revived by the Beeb in the new millennium for three more, by which time most of the cast had carved out considerable careers. For example, Kevin Whately has become well-known for portraying decent, thoughtful types, Chris Fairbank for playing the opposite, Timothy Spall for top-notch British films and Tim Healy is a versatile comedy character actor par excellence. Yet for all their thespian talent it was the authenticity of Jimmy Nail which made his Oz the heart of the show. 

Strong as the Tyne Bridge, craggy as an outcrop of Northumbrian dolerite and just as thick, Oz was pure unreconstructed Northern male and we loved him for it. He was relentlessly politically incorrect, not averse to riling the Dusseldorf locals without even realising it. Spall’s innocent Brummie Barry and Gary Holton’s womanising chancer Wayne had their moments, but most of the laugh-out-loud scenes and lines tended to involve Nail’s Oz. 

When after a sixteen-year gap, AWP locations were switched to Arizona and Cuba I had doubts about whether the old magic would still be there. However, the writers and cast succeeded in giving the characters more maturity whilst retaining the prime ingredients of what made them so brilliant in the first place. Oz was still a proud Geordie but even he sometimes had a brain cell advantage over Moxey, as illustrated by this hilarious conversation, with its perfectly set up punchline.                                                                         

Back in the Eighties, when Jimmy Nail wasn’t involved in constructing buildings he was knocking them down. In ’85 he had a cameo, typecast as a truculent demolition worker in the Tom Sharpe farce Blott on the Landscape. 

However, just when I thought I’d sussed out Jimmy Nail’s limitations he suddenly wound up on Top of the Pops! Crooning Love Don’t Live Here Any More all the way to number three in the charts, I was seeing another facet to Jimmy Nail and in 1991 he returned to our screens in altogether new guise. 

With long, straggly hair complementing that ‘Roman nose’ and a leaner, meaner, chiselled look, Nail was now Spender. Yes, he was just another in a long line of maverick cops but the series featured a raft of North East character actors such as Sammy Johnson and Berwick Kaler and, whilst often quite dark in tone was much more entertaining than Get Carter! It ran for three popular series and has been unfairly neglected in the TV detective nostalgia rankings. I thought it was great. 

If Spender was something of a Jimmy Nail vanity project, then Crocodile Shoes took it to another level. Dennis Waterman’s jokey reputation as star, theme writer and singer is all well and good but when the man from Newcastle created, produced, co-wrote and starred in the series AND sung the ‘feem tune’ it felt like Nail could do no wrong. His serious musical intentions had already been laid out in the Spender era when he topped the charts with Ain’t No Doubt  but the series about a factory worker Jed trying to make it as a country music singer-songwriter was obviously designed to run parallel with Jimmy Nail’s own ambitions. 

Crocodile Shoes did have an element of crime fiction (did he kill his agent?) but it was more a kind of rags-to-riches-and-back-again story with a huge helping of Nashville whining about whiskey, wimmin ‘n’ woe. As you may have gathered, I’m no fan of the genre but that Nail charisma and authentic Tyneside patter carried me through both series. Mind you, I wasn’t one of the million people who bought the album….. 

Apart from those ‘Pet’ revivals and a single run of the Beeb’s Parents of the Band (which neither I nor the vast majority of the population watched) that has been it for Jimmy Nail the TV star. For all his high-profile collaborators and associations with fellow Tynesiders Sting and Mark Knopfler he never quite hit the heights as a singer-songwriter and his Broadway career performing in Sting’s musical The Last Ship was embarrassingly short-lived. 

Nevertheless, despite his long-time absence, Jimmy Nail remains for me a British small-screen legend. The loping detective Spender was an engaging character but his galumphing big-hearted brickie Oz will always have a place in my heart. Poles apart from my own sentiments and politics, just reading the name makes me smile recalling those superb scenes in Auf Wiedersehen Pet which I could happily watch all day, every day.

Dennis Waterman - actor, singer and feem tune writer

Since Little Britain captured what we were all thinking in the Noughties and caricatured him as a boy demanding of his agent that he always “write the feem tune, sing the feem tune”, dear old Dennis Waterman’s previous reputation as loveable London tough guy has been almost forgotten. On one hand this is a shame, but on t’other it reminds us that there was always much more to him than roles beating up ‘lags’ and hounding ‘slags’.

I’m not sure whether Waterman could dominate a series on his own; even when ostensibly the star he was often upstaged. But that’s not to denigrate him. He’s been a brilliant supporting character actor, be it in drama, comedy or as himself, an authentic Sarf Londoner. 

In the 1960s he was a child actor on TV, stage and film and before he hit the big time as Sergeant Carter in 1975 I must have seen him in small parts on big series. In 1972 I was allowed to stay up late to watch the BBC’s Colditz. It was quite stagey but as a WW2 prison drama that just ratcheted up the tension, it was absorbing. In one episode a 24 year-old Dennis appeared complete with dodgy German accent and oily hair-do as an SS officer in a scene with Robert Wagner. A few years later he was in more familiar garb and voice as a Cockney geezer truck driver nicking a top-secret weapon in ITV’s Special Branch, but this was all preparation for his stint on the other side of the fence in London’s Flying Squad. 

To teenage schoolboys like me The Sweeney was essential viewing and my friends soon had me watching. It wasn’t all punch-ups and “Get yer trousers on, you’re nicked”; it was real drama with proper acting and everything. Even Dad enjoyed it! However, the wasteground shootouts and boozer battles were always welcome. There were lighter moments, too. Even Morecambe and Wise made an appearance. 

For all Waterman’s youth it was usually John Thaw’s rugged Regan who had the birds after him and I never found Dennis convincing as a muscular macho type. What did I know? In real life he’d been in the ring himself and boxing was in the blood. This was used in the back story (and opening titles) of his next TV character Terry McCann in Minder. If The Sweeney and its immediate replacement The Professionals had been a hot topic for school conversation, Minder was a popular subject amongst undergraduates at Exeter. It wasn’t the same, though. 

Minder may have featured Dennis Waterman in numerous chases, bouts of fisticuffs and uneasy relationships with ‘the local plod’ but it was much lighter fare. Thames TV teamed him with George Cole, then best known for playing spiv Flash ‘Arry in the ‘50s St Trinians films, and it was the older statesman’s Arthur Daley who began to steal the scenes and hog the funniest lines. ‘Terence’ was dodgy dealer Arfur’s bodyguard and general gopher and, while he obviously wanted more from life, was ultimately content with his meagre pay despite knowing his boss took advantage of his good nature and loyalty. 

At least in this series, there was no John Thaw to distract the ladies. In an early episode of Minder he was smitten by the sultry Rula Lenska, for whom Waterman would eventually leave his second wife, and Terry always had an eye for a pretty face, the posher the totty the better. However, the highlights of the programme tended to be the amusing exchanges between Terry and Arthur. 

The series also started the whole business of writing and singing the signature tune. Although he had recorded an album in the Seventies, Dennis soared to three in the charts in 1980 with the jaunty “I Could Be So Good For You”. He seemed to promote it on every TV show going but – credit where credit’s due – he actually sang live on one Top of the Pops. A million times better than the official vomit-inducing video which was cornier than the plains of Nebraska. 

By now the dye was cast. He was on vocal duties again for ITV’s series with Jan Francis, Stay Lucky and around the same time over the credits of Bob Larbey’s amiable sitcom with Sam Kelly and Joan Sims, On The Up. The latter featured Dennis as a Clapham boy (so far, so true to life) who became a self-made millionaire. Again, while he was the undoubted lead, it was Joan’s “Just the one” which was the programme’s enduring catchphrase. 

For the Beeb’s New Tricks, in which he appeared as Gerry for twelve years, Waterman ceded theme writing duties to the more experienced Mike Moran but it was the same old Dennis chirping away, albeit in his sixties. He seemed to be playing a geriatric version of Carter alongside James Bolam, Alun Armstrong and real-life old flame Amanda Redman, and the mix of careworn banter and occasionally serious crime-solving storylines proved a winning format. I lost interest after several series but Mum was a huge fan to the end. 

Waterman’s natural accent and personal background have often been to the fore, and his love of football has also influenced his choice of TV work. In the Nineties, he fronted the Beeb’s nostalgia series Match of the Seventies, while a decade earlier he largely funded and starred in a Tyne Tees film A Captain’s Tale, timed to coincide with the 1982 World Cup, about a Northumberland town club skippered by Dennis with a gallant attempt at a generic North-East accent. And, amidst my degree finals, a very enjoyable two hours it was, too. 

Not a dodgy deal in sight, and in ’86 his was an unexpected casting in the BBC1 adaptation of Fay Weldon’s Life and Loves of a She-Devil. His role of a posh wealthy bloke who leaves his wife for Patricia Hodge, motivating said ex to wreak an elaborate revenge, was hardly a crowd-pleaser; the women had the meatiest parts and Waterman’s was completely against type. It all made for gripping if, for me at least, uneasy viewing.

But he has forged a long and fruitful career as a crafty, resourceful Londoner handy with his fists and a sharp one-liner. He knows how to handle comedy. With The Sweeney at its peak in 1976 he and John Thaw guested in the prestigious Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show, a few weeks after another light-hearted skit with Basil Brush! 

He doesn’t always take himself seriously either, which is just as well given David Walliams’ regular portrayal of Dennis as a high-voiced junior schoolboy in Little Britain back in the Noughties. He would enter his agent’s office to learn of his role offers, forever asking whether he’ll be “writing the feem tune, singing the feem tune”. I can’t find it on YouTube but I recall the sketch broadcast from the 2006 live tour in which the real Waterman interrupts Walliams and Matt Lucas in mid-caricature. It was hilarious. Nobody, not least even the comedians themselves, really understands why the ex-Minder is played as a falsetto-voiced boy but I have to confess the persistent theme song topic is thoroughly deserving of parody. 

John Thaw may have garnered more awards in starring roles but in my opinion it’s his loyal sergeant Dennis Waterman who has been the more engaging and enduring TV personality.

Beard, Banjo and Banter - Sir Billy Connolly

1975 was a strange year for pop music. Pitched against the Bay City Rollers, Rod Stewart, Queen et al, we had various novelty records. The Goodies and Jasper Carrott went Top 5 with their ‘Funky Gibbon’ and ‘Funky Moped’, while Windsor Davies and Don Estelle added some TV frivolity to an otherwise straight rendition of ‘Whispering Grass’, all the way to number one. Then, in November, along came a weird-looking Scot, providing alternative lyrics to Tammy Wynette’s recent hit ‘D.I.V.O.R.C.E.’. It, too, topped the UK charts and the performer certainly added a new dimension to Top of the Pops. 

His name was Billy Connolly, and he quickly became a nationwide media darling. His hit song wasn’t that funny – certainly not as hilarious as he seemed to think during his live TOTP act – but to a fourteen year-old he was a revelation. Actually I had seen him on television already not once but twice, although I’m not sure I’d made the connection straightaway. Earlier that year I’d almost certainly watched his leather-jacketed, vulgar debut on Parkinson in which we were introduced to Billy Connolly the comedian and one-time folk singer, already well-known in Scotland. In the autumn I’d also been shocked yet enthralled by Peter McDougall’s hard-hitting Play For Today, Just Another Saturday. Focussed on the sectarian divide in Glasgow prised open by the provocative Protestant marches, the drama featured Billy playing a version of himself, complete with what was, to the English, an almost incomprehensible accent.

So within a few short months I was appraised of this amazing entertainer who was to demonstrate many more strings to his bow (banjo?), of which more later. In the world of drama, he proved himself a very capable cinema star and in ’93 returned to the small screen in another McDougall dark comedy, Down Among The Big Boys. This time Billy played the lead role, as a seasoned armed robber, but his natural sense of fun also came in handy. 

It also earned him a few early Eighties guest slots on The Kenny Everett Television Show and that fave show of mine and my fellow university students, Not The Nine o’Clock News. They include this amusing skit opposite his future wife Pamela Stephenson mangling her words as Janet Street-Porter, and as another formulaic guest being interviewed by a sycophantic Rowan Atkinson. Of course, Billy has been a chat show regular for yonks. Nobody appeared on more Michael Parkinson programmes, and when he was advertised as being on the bill, I knew I would definitely be staying up late after Match of the Day! There he was again on Saturday Night Clive in 1990 and Melvyn Bragg was guaranteed a huge audience for his South Bank Show when Connolly was the subject. 

I think I saw one such edition in 1979, then again in 1992 by which time he’d shaved off his distinctive beard. Billy Connolly was the ideal arts show guest. Besides a genial comic genius, he was riveting when describing his childhood, mining even the bleakest moments for humour. He has also always been particularly intelligent and articulate on more serious subjects such as mental health, happy to venture beyond the safe, crowd-pleasing anecdote. 

And yet what so many of us love about him is his straight-talking. I’m no fan of his old booze and cocaine lifestyle but he can always be relied upon for saying what many are thinking, however politically-incorrect, even on a live awards show. He has never been afraid to show his emotions either, as during a Live Aid break following one of the harrowing reports from Africa. Of course, being the trooper he is, Billy recovered sufficiently to introduce his friend Elton John. 

He may have experienced a poverty-stricken upbringing but by the mid-Eighties he seemed very much at home amongst the biggest names in global entertainment. I don’t think Elton was in the ITV studio but another of Billy’s landmark TV triumphs was on An Audience With…Billy Connolly, also in 1985. There have been many ‘Audience With…s’ since then, featuring a gallery of contemporary celebs (Ooh, there’s Angela Rippon and that bloke from ‘Bulman’!), but Connolly set the bar ludicrously high, at a level perhaps only Victoria Wood in her prime could reach. 

In the ‘90s he struck a deal with the Beeb to make a few series which melded beautifully Connolly the stand-up and Connolly the perfect travel companion. Michael Palin was terribly nice but you felt the Scot would take you further off the beaten track and do so with wry or withering comments. His ‘World Tour of Scotland’ was for me essential viewing. It showcased not only hilarious excerpts from his comedy tour but also his appreciation of the world beyond the theatres, especially the great outdoors, the wilder the better! Several years later, it was during his World Tour of England, Wales and Ireland that I first heard his observation that “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes”, a motivational remark which even merited a card on the wall of a Somerset County Council conference room. He was also informative and often used his own ancestry to lure us in to his adventures,

Billy’s love of folk music was never far from the surface, as on his travels around Australia, New Zealand and the USA, where he bestrode a motorised trike along Route 66 resembling a superannuated extra from ‘Easy Rider’. My only quibble concerns his obsession with playing the banjo. Now, I’m not dissing the instrument, nor Connolly’s clearly proficient playing, but he never misses a chance to whip it out in every pub, bothy or bar, even his freezing tent on A Scot in the Arctic. Stick to the jokes and history lessons, please, Bill! 

But that’s the wonderful thing about Billy Connolly. He just appears to be so at ease with people - the more unconventional the better – and he brings out the same in them. Of course he may be a very different person away from the camera but he never fails to entertain on the small screen. I have seen various leading comedians live on stage but Connolly is The One That Got Away. I still regret making the effort to secure a few tickets to watch the master in action. Given his Parkinson’s diagnosis, this regret will never be rectified. Kay, Izzard, Bishop, they all ‘own’ the auditorium but Billy seems the most effortless, and owns not just an audience as a single entity but each individual in it.

One of his most memorable TV performances came, with appropriate post-watershed language, on the night of BBC’s inaugural Comic Relief in 1986. Well before the Big Yin’s series Down Under, he was particularly insightful and mirthful on the subject of Australia, but it’s his whole joyous personality that’s on display. I can think of no other comedian who leaves me not only laughing but involuntarily imitating (extremely badly, of course) his Scottish accent, speech rhythms and beard strokes. I cannae help it, y’know…. That’s the magnetic personality unique to the living legend called Billy Connolly.