>> With Kenny, you never knew what you were going to get. He became a huge star. Everybody knew who Kenny Everett was. At one point, a third of the UK population was watching The Kenny Everett Show. 50 million viewers every week. That’s massive. He was one of the most popular entertainers in the history of British TV.
He was a household name. His jokes were being told in playgrounds around Britain. I know they were in mine. Pushing the boundaries of taste. They’re wearing virtually nothing. How did he get away with that name? His second name’s Snot. And mastering the technology. If you watched him in the studio, >> >> it was like a a ballet. He just loved it.
All in the name of family entertainment. He was zany. He was like Zebedee, bouncing around. >> Coming into your living room and making you feel like he was there in person, performing to you. >> >> But nowadays, cuddly Ken’s shows are never on the TV. He’s been quietly forgotten about.
Some might say canceled. He was this great, dazzling, original TV force, but the content was so old-fashioned. >> Should some of his stuff never have been broadcast in the first place? There’s sexist language, racist language, homophobic language, none of which would be acceptable now. And I think, in all honesty, shouldn’t have been acceptable then.
But we’re also going to be showing some of his classic moments. >> Oh my god, it’s brilliant. As well as a few things that you just can’t show now. It always made me feel a bit weird back then. To a generation gap of old-school fans. You just watched it. If it was funny, we laughed. And Gen Z. The idea of watching that with my family makes me feel uncomfortable.
As we celebrate an anarchic one-off in the best possible taste, of course. >> >> It’s 8:00 on 4th of March, 1982. Families are settling down to watch the telly, and the always controversial Kenny Everett is serving up his latest slice of light entertainment in the form of the stunningly named Cupid Stunt.
Can I tell you about my new film? I play Florence Nightingale. The nurse? And it’s called Balaclava Gang Bang. Cupid Stunt. One of the most famous characters, if you ask me, in terms of British comedy. Cupid Stunt. Huh. Cupid Stunt, sort of happy mischief. I fall flat during the Charge of the Light Brigade, and I’m with my lamp, working my way through the soldier.
Cupid Stunt is possibly Kenny Everett’s best-known and best-remembered character. Of course, the name is a spoonerism, which we can’t even say today. Before Sharon Stone, there was stupid you know no. Cupid Stunt. I have to say that name very carefully. How did he get away with that name? >> And the first thing you know, I’m standing there stark naked in the middle of the battlefield, and the guys are going off everywhere.
Firing in all directions. He didn’t like the makeup at all. He loved the character, but he didn’t like the makeup. They cram in so many uh sexual innuendos. And they see me standing there, and I hold up my lamp, AND I SHOUT, “THE FIRST ONE GETS IT!” SOME OF THE jokes that he snuck through were >> >> disgusting, pornographic even.
Kind of thing that you would never be able to say on British TV back then in any other context, but he gets away with it cuz he’s Kenny Everett. He’s wearing women’s clothes, which wasn’t unusual on English television back then for men to do just that, but he’s still got the beard. He’s not trying to fool anybody.
>> [laughter] >> But I’m telling you the plot. Naughty but nice. You’ll love it. It’s all DONE IN THE BEST POSSIBLE TASTE. AND EVERY sketch ends with a kind of The legs way. And all done in the best possible taste. So, where did it all begin for Kenny? Well, for a start, that wasn’t his real name. >> >> Maurice Cole was born on Christmas Day 1944 in Seaforth, near Liverpool.
Kenny Everett grew up in Merseyside. It’s a strongly and proudly working-class town. If you had grown up in the ’40s and ’50s in Liverpool as a as a guy who was a you know, a bit kind of weedy >> >> and and different, a bit of a misfit. And also, gay. I think it must have been quite tough. There is one story which really sums Kenny up.
But he he befriended the school bully because he could make the school bully laugh. His mom Lily ran a sweet shop, and his dad Tom worked on the tugboats on the River Mersey. At age 12, he got a place at a boarding school where they trained boys to be Catholic missionaries. I was in the St. Peter Claver, Stillington Junior Missionary Brigade, practicing to be a priest.
We used to borrow our way down into the cellars and steal altar wine. We were only about 13 years old. It seemed too good to miss. >> [laughter] >> But apparently, that’s a heinous crime. And what I didn’t realize is the people I was confessing to owned the place. Being brought up a Catholic in that era brings all sorts of mildly repressive thoughts.
It’s almost impossible to believe that he started training to be a missionary. But the thing is, the Catholics get you young, as I know. I suspect his his Catholicism was probably part of the very complex web of his personality. Catholicism gives you a lot of authority to rebel against. But at home, Kenny had found his first true love, radio.
Don’t call it radio, it’s wireless. So, I had a paper round and with the proceeds I bought two tape machines. I used to make silly programs for my friends. And you wired up the house with loudspeakers and pretended to be the radio to your mum. Yes, I banned her from listening to the BBC. She had to listen to my channel.
I only had an audience of two. As a teenager, Kenny was in his bedroom making radio. Making radio on reel-to-reel tape recorders, which were quite exotic items in those days. That’s not a normal pursuit for a kid of that era. And I remember him telling me he went up to the BBC when he was a little boy and looked through the gates and thought, “One day I’ll work here.
” He was obsessed with radio from a young age, as I think many people who end up working in radio are. But he took it to to extremes. You know, he was bought a tape recorder by his dad and then he gets a second one, which means that he can transfer things from one to another. He can play things backwards.
He can start doing all of those incredibly complicated things cuz it was complicated to do back then. Now on a computer you could do this easily, but back then that was hours of editing and splicing and cutting and he was doing that from a really early age. And Kenny’s dream came true. In 1967, he was one of the first DJs on the BBC’s new station Radio 1.
BBC radio, that’s the style had been so formal and stiff and with Kenny Everett it’s anything but. It’s mad. It’s lively. Excuse me, sir. Basement pillar. I just want to know if you want any revive 45 cuz I’m going down in the basement. Excuse me, sir. Yes, what is it? Basement pillar. I know. I just want to know if you want any revive 45.
Why? Cuz I’m going down in the basement. Oh, okay. And I’m going to stop filling them up. It’s a big yes or no. >> Oh, God. Right. What a mess you are. Is it? Oh. Two days it takes, you know, to get that lot together. He’s mixing his his own stuff. He’s doing his own jingles. He’s He’s got lots of different voices.
People wanted to hear Kenny Everett. It wasn’t just a chance encounter with a dial they were twisting. I used to listen to him because at school everyone >> >> know he was the cool DJ, you know, and everyone be listening to his shows. What he has about warmth. The warmth is what connects you with the audience and you’ve either got it or you haven’t.
His voice would draw you in and then a jester like him could take you anywhere. If you watched him in the studio, it was like a ballet and he knew exactly where everything was and he he loved it. He was in charge. He knew when the joke was going to come. He’d make spend hours preparing the show, making sketches and doing voice and and he just he just loved it.
Radio was his first love, but television would soon lure him away and with Kenny there would always come controversy. Hot gossip wore very revealing outfits. They were highly sexualized. How did they get away with this? They’re wearing virtually nothing. It’s 1978 and something enormous is about to happen.
Welcome to the Kenny Everett Video Show. It’s going to be great. The Kenny Everett Video Show was something you sort of fell upon with shouts of glee because this was going to be different. >> Suddenly there was this guy on the television and people were talking about him at school. We’ve got the video tapes.
We’ve got the machine to show them on. It’s going to be fab. And video as you know is Latin for I see and that’s what this show is all about. We’re going to bring you tons of stuff that you can see. Radio will be a thing of the past. No one, I don’t think, has quite so effectively set out their stall in the first 30 seconds of the opening show of their first television series.
>> I think Tim’s wanted a music show. Like, oh lovely, we’ve got Top of the Pops, so we’ll have to do something like Top of the Pops. So, they hired what to them was a swinging DJ to do it. Within 20 seconds, he’s burnt his radio bridges. He said, radio, it’s a thing of the past. >> What you have to understand about The Kenny Everett is, it’s pre-video, it’s pre-MTV.
As there weren’t many pop videos being made, the visuals for songs were often provided by the show’s own dance troupe, Hot Gossip. It’s time for the naughty bit. A lot of great mail about the naughty bit. Lots of people think it’s really and great. He really enjoyed the fact that they were the naughty bits. Um and always introduced them as such.
>> So, here it comes. A naughty bit. With creasing thighs in it. And wobbling, lumpy bits. And people going all over the place with their bodies. >> >> It’s that sort of like, look, we know we’re serving you up this titillation, uh which perhaps we shouldn’t be doing because it’s it is a bit wicked and you know, we’re pushing it to the extreme.
Hot Gossip were, you know, a tonic for the boys. >> Hot Gossip wore very revealing outfits. They were highly sexualized. >> This one is extra naughty. So, eyeballs at the ready. He plays with all of that stuff. He sort of talks about, oh, you’re going to get excited here. I mean, a lot of it is is sort of old-school smutty.
He was like the little man in the Victorian seaside postcard, eyes on stalks, you know, looking at all the curvaceous, beautiful women. >> >> Hot Gossip were fantastic. They were the most beautiful, bendy, poetic dancers. They had very, um, dynamic outfits. For me, who grew up in the ’70s, we already had Top of the Pops and we had Pan’s People.
So, it was a very easy [clears throat] shift from going from Pan’s People, who were slightly naughty, to Hot Gossip, who were hummina hummina even naughtier. The dance troupe had been discovered in a London cabaret club. A lot of them were classically trained and doing this completely, at the time, revolutionary choreography.
Hot Gossip were fantastic and they were great punctuation for for Kenny’s show. Fairly lascivious choreography by Arlene Phillips. And these girls, young, very attractive, of course, writhing around. How would Hot Gossip go down with today’s Gen Z viewers? Obviously, the women are showing a lot of skin and I guess that’s the naughty, um, essence that he was going for.
I like provocative. That immediately made me think, like, Baywatch kind of Yeah. >> sexualized women and then like the big man in the kind of hard jumpsuit. >> >> There was a lot of women showing flesh from the top region all the way down to the bottom region. The idea of watching that with my family makes me feel uncomfortable.
No one would know where to look, you know? It would be like, do I look at my dad, my mom, or the floor? The end result was quite raunchy and raunchy for 7:00 in the evening, but it was exactly what people of that age did in all the clubs, for God’s sake. So, what’s the difference? Obviously, Hot Gossip drew the ratings, particularly, you know, the male ratings at the time.
And Kenny realized that and and started to playing on it. Enjoyed underlining the kind of the shocking effect they were having. This next item carries a government health warning. It’s a Thames naughty bit. It was more about a sort of seaside postcard idea of lechery than him being lecherous himself. >> I think we all knew that he didn’t particularly get off on, you know, sexy women writhing around with very revealing clothes.
So, at the time, they were just impossibly glamorous. Great dancers and beautiful clothes and beautiful hair. And now, when you watch them, you think, How did they get away with this? They’re wearing virtually nothing. To see that on TV in a time where you definitely would be okay to stay up, even though it’s a school night, you could stay up and watch that.
Um, that was it was eye-opening. I would imagine an awful lot of 13, 14-year-old boys were big Kenny Everett fans because of Hot Gossip. Having scantily clad women dancing around on television boosted ratings, but it also garnered lots of complaints. There was a kind of war going on within society at the time.
We wanted more freedom, but then an older generation wanted to go back to Victorian values. A new adversary emerged to do battle with Kenny. Mary Whitehouse was, to those of us in the business, pain in the neck number one. She would complain over anything. Mary Whitehouse was like a sort of puritanical serial complainer.
She was a of the National Viewers and Listeners organization and she was on this crusade against the permissive society. Obviously, Kenny the Kenny Everett Show rubbed her up the wrong way with its writhing dancers and ceaseless innuendo. Mary Whitehouse was our greatest publicity agent.
She was our PR department. She moaned and groaned about everything. Mary Whitehouse tried to have the show banned and was outraged by the show and he’s They were so thrilled. It was just the best thing that happened cuz it made it so cool. What a pleasant surprise. Up to now, the show has been almost acceptable apart from one or two of the groups.
[laughter] So, what does Kenny Everett do? He lampoons Mary Whitehouse. He creates a character who’s clearly very based upon I don’t think he named Mary Whitehouse, but everyone knew it was her. Wig, glasses, same outfit. And but then, you know, no attempt to disguise his beard, either. And the dancers, those dancers, when will they stop? >> [laughter] >> And Lenny himself, that skin-tight shirt hugging his biceps, turning the head of a poor innocent girl. IT’S GOT TO STOP.
>> [laughter] >> PINKY! PINKY! WHERE ARE YOU? YOU GET INTO COMEDY BECAUSE YOU WANT TO GO against the grain. Kenny Everett, um I think owed a lot to Mary Whitehouse because she gave him a lot to to take the mickey out of and to kick back on and to rebel against. He’s a very free spirit. He’s a and he’s an improviser and you know, he a lot of the trouble he got into over the years was because he’s genuinely witty.
Hello. Just thought I’d have a little word with you before it starts. As to what not to watch in today’s show. Lots of disgusting bits. Like the front of the show, that’s got to go for a start. The idea of him imitating somebody who, let’s be honest, is Mary Whitehouse, ripping up a script. It’s rebellious. And the middle’s pretty bad, too.
And this end bit’s just positively a no-no. Well, that looks all right. She’s a killjoy. She hates everything. She can’t find anything in his show to like apart from this one tiny piece of paper. But Mary Whitehouse wasn’t the only one to complain. So, Kenny created another fictional critic to lampoon. lampoon.
Hello. Angry of Mayfair. NOW, LOOK. >> [laughter] >> THIS PROGRAM IS IN THE WORST possible taste. Angry of Mayfair was, in effect, a Kenny Everett talking about hypocrisy. >> BEFORE I’M FINISHED, THEY’LL TAKE THIS RUBBISH OFF. THEY’VE GOT TO LISTEN TO ME. AND YOU KNOW WHY? BECAUSE I REPRESENT THE SILENT MAJORITY.
>> [screaming] [laughter] >> HE WAS AN ILLUSTRATION ALMOST of of a lot of politicians at the time about the fact that they were very straight and family values, but actually behind the scenes when they turned round, they were not all that it seemed. Angry of Mayfair was based on my father, actually.
The way my father used to rant on. A lot of pansies, very wet. That’s my father. The sheer lack of understanding of the current situation. What do you make of all this? This stupid Everett fellow with all this silly rock music. What? Tell you what I think. They all need A JOLLY GOOD FLOGGING. TROUBLE IS, I THINK THEY’D ENJOY IT. >> [laughter] >> THIS VENEER OF respectability covers up the simmering hotbed of sensuality and lust.
Naughty bits. He has a thing about suspenders. But I have to say, I suspect British society had a thing about the about suspenders in the 1970s. There was a lot of them about. >> The satirical point of it is he’s so uptight and supposedly so overly moralistic and so on and judgemental. But actually, he has his own sort of guilty secret.
And like Angers of Mayfair, Kenny also had a secret. Kenny wasn’t really comfortable being um homosexual as he he used to call it. He really wanted to be straight. I think it was very difficult for gay men in the 70s and I think it was really hard to be honest about yourself in those days, which is terrible. >> >> When Kenny’s TV show began, he’d already been married for nearly 10 years.
Kenny met Lee Middleton at a party in 1966. And on paper, you would have thought why would this work? But I think they were so attracted to each other as human beings. They were they were kind of soulmates. Kenny and Lee ended up getting married because they fell in love as people. They fell in love. I thought maybe if I married this jolly lady, one day I’d wake up and look at her and I’d think, “Oh, I get it.
” You know, the shape and the lumps and the softness and everything and I suddenly it would all fall into place. But I realized a lot later that uh you’re you are what you’re born. If you’re born gay, then you’re gay forever. Cuz I’d been brought up to think that it was a huge sin. I thought I’m going to go to hell forever.
If Kenny’s life outside of TV was complex, on screen his cast of regular characters were winning huge audiences. Hello, my little frog’s legs. You probably wouldn’t get away with stereotypes like Marcel Wave now. Back in those days, an accent in itself was funny. I am not as young as I was. Which reminds me of the older riddle.
What is the difference between fear and panic? Fear is the first time you realize you can’t do it the second time, and panic is the second time you realize you can’t do it the first time. One of the stereotypes of of French culture is sophistication, and he’s a sort of burlesque of sophistication. So, he’s got the slicked hair and the cigarette holder and the kind of smoking jacket.
>> This is how we sometimes viewed our very close cousins across the English Channel. Quel dommage avoir un carioca pudding. I know French people French men like that. It’s not too off the mark. I’ve met people like Marcel Wave. One of Kenny’s most famous characters was inspired by the punk rockers of the ’70s.
Sid Snot was my favorite character cuz I loved the idea of a rocker on a motorbike. Hello, Sid Snot here. Don’t forget playing your [ __ ] loud and annoy your neighbors. Another good one is emptying your rubbish over the fence. >> [laughter] >> Sid Snot was Kenny cool. And a part I think it was a little part of Kenny who had a little tiny bit of not alter ego, but he would have liked to have genuinely had Sid Snot’s sass and and confidence.
He loved flicking the cigarette and trying to get it. And sometimes it would go in in one go, and he’d be so surprised he’d forget what the sketch was about. >> I remember Sid Snot really clearly. Number one, I’m a kid. His second name’s Snot. Hello, bums. Sid Snot here. You know some people get right up my nose.
You know what I mean? Oh, yesterday I went into this railway station booking office, and I says to the skeezer, “I want to buy a return ticket.” And he says, “Where to?” I says, “Back here, you pillock.” >> [laughter] >> It allowed him to sort of be one of the geezers, be all butch. I didn’t know at the time, but obviously, he’s now become my sartorial hero.
Hello, Vickers knickers. I was strolling down the road the other day, and I was stopped by a member of the fuzz. He said, “Where are you going?” I said, “Southall.” He said, “Where have you been?” I said, “Vauxhall.” He said, “What have you got in the bag?” I said, “Nothing.” >> [laughter] >> One of the most hackneyed jokes in the world, but it makes me laugh because it’s just so brilliantly delivered by Kenny.
Kenny was riding high, but soon he would meet his greatest collaborator, who’d take his controversy to a whole new level. We just looked at each other, and it was I don’t know what it was, and he said to me, “Ooh, finally, a fellow Martian.” In 1981, a young woman fresh out of stage school was given a small role in Kenny’s TV show.
>> >> When I first went to the BBC, uh they showed me to a dressing room, and a lot of beautiful underwear. And I thought, oh, how thorough. I mean, how that that they they’ve even provided uh beautiful underwear for me to wear under the costume. So, I uh I put the underwear on, and I waited and waited, and the costume lady came only to >> [laughter] >> check that I I my pins and bits and hooks were all done up, and that’s when it dawned on me that this was the outfit.
This was it, and uh Wasn’t that a great sketch? I think the show’s wonderful, don’t you? >> >> Oh, I say, I’ve dropped my flower. Shall I pick it up for you? >> What a good idea. >> [laughter] >> I I really been out in public in my underwear before or in a TV studio. So, I remember thinking, I’ll take a deep breath and I’ll pretend I’ve got a dress on.
Wasn’t that just great? >> [laughter] >> Let’s see it again in slow motion. Ooh, dear. What a good idea. >> [laughter] >> Feel like that’s like every woman’s nightmare. As in like that’s what you don’t want that to happen and then that’s like zooming in. She was just like something to look at. Like to be looked at.
Yeah, basically objectifies her, so not very pleasant. >> [laughter] >> Don’t get too close to the set. It steams up the camera. I think he was just zooming in on her chest. Not just once, twice. Chest, chest. We know who his audience is. It’s men. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, at the expense of women. The fact that I was always in underwear for no particular reason or was just the fun of it.
>> [laughter] >> I feel almost as I shouldn’t be laughing at it. When that was first screened, I would have just have laughed at that. But now I’m thinking, ooh, should I be laughing at that? But I still laugh. Yes, we know what family shows are all about. We know what you really want to see. I mean, why should we stay up all night trying to think of sketches where we squeeze in a girl with hardly anything on? We thought, why not just get them out here right away? This is showbiz.
Why not show it? Actually, I was wearing rather quite a lot of um underwear considering it was underwear, basques. And they’d always buy them uh one or two sizes too small just to make sure everything fit [laughter] or didn’t in a good way. >> I think we absolutely sensed that Kenny wasn’t really lustful towards the women.
This sort of slightly not childish but naive tongue-in-cheek way that he was about it softened it and sort of >> >> empowered Cleo quite a lot because she always looked like she was having a ball. >> >> It’s so striking today to have these sketches all built around just looking at her boobs specifically. Um, or knockers is is the word of of that day.
It’s the level of of daily sexism that was so so much part of life. I mean, I just feel like if this was on TV today, it’s like giving cancel culture. Like people would not let that run. Girls and boys will kind of think that that’s not really okay. I don’t think we would really stand for it, to be honest. I just think we’ve evolved.
You don’t need to sexualize a woman to be funny. It took a long while we finally recognized that women are not just to be categorized by body parts, put it that way. >> It wasn’t lascivious. There was nothing sleazy. It was all funny and it was funny and it was fun and people being silly. And I think that’s missing a lot today. I think silly is a terribly important thing to be able to be. Cleo Rocos is such fun.
I met her a few times at parties and she had that same anarchic streak that Kenny had. >> There was only ever meant to be on on one episode. He introduced himself and I introduced myself and he looked at me and we looked at we just looked at each other and it was I don’t know what it was. It was something and he said to me, “Ooh, finally, a fellow Martian.
” And from then on, we just had I don’t know, just the most incredible friendship and uh, times together. I think having somebody as part of the production who’s an ally and also a kind of co-conspirator must have been quite good for him. You described the SDP as a party for all seasons, a party without a policy and a political non-event.
Would you care to clarify that? Certainly. A party which comes into being purely because of the disillusion of members of other parties has no valid platform. >> Well, I beg to differ. Surely the middle road is something that’s been lacking in British politics for far too long. >> it was never about me being a politician.
It was always about >> [laughter] >> about a bit of a cleavage shot or you know, a stocking top and things, which again was funny and silly. When I speak to my constituents, I find that the last thing that they want is a so-called middle road. Cleo is completely in on the gag. She knows exactly what she’s doing. And so therefore, we don’t feel that she’s a victim.
I never really thought about the camera always being in focus or as Kenny used to call it, you know, chesticles. Um, I didn’t I didn’t It was It was just the This was the humor. This was the fun. We’ve been talking about the current state of British politics and you’ve been looking at a great pair of knockers. >> [laughter] >> We’ve been talking about politics and you’ve been looking at a pair of knockers.
He’s laughing at himself and the viewers as much as he is anything else. Cleo. Ooh. For a generation Cleo was our first hint of female sexuality. I probably, as a 17-year-old boy, would have laughed my head off at that or would have just sat and ogled that. Now, I feel uncomfortable with it. And that’s the change that we perhaps all made.
You can look back now and say, “Okay, at 7:00 on the BBC or ITV, you are not going to get Cleo knockers in a V-neck and the and the camera closing in on her admittedly magnificent cleavage.” And I think we have to call that progress. Um just ignore the fact that it’s partly because all the porn in the world is available elsewhere, and uh a woman’s cleavage in a V-neck does not even register the Richter scale of arousal probably by now.
>> >> The popularity of Kenny’s TV show, his years as a DJ, and his outrageous antics made him cool. Even the biggest pop stars were game for a laugh with Kenny. It wasn’t like Top of the Pops, where you were on the show if you were in the charts. You were on the Kenny Everett show because you wanted to be on the show.
When Sting would come to do a sketch, nobody was precious. People weren’t like that. When they met Kenny, everyone lost any If they had any, they lost any of their sort of do-you-know-who-I-am-ness. That all went out the window. >> Hi, Sting. Hi, Kenny. Well? What? Aren’t you going to interview me? Sting was such a massive pop star then, and the fact that he was on a comedy show shows what a gigantic star Kenny Everett was.
If you’re a major pop star and you went on the Kenny Everett show, >> >> there was this air of unpredictability. You didn’t quite know what was going to happen. >> Don’t you know there are millions of young girls out there drooling over your bodily particles? >> [laughter] >> And this This is our sex symbol request spot, ladies and gentlemen, for Barbara of Birmingham.
>> [laughter] >> We allowed them to do whatever they wanted in whichever way they wanted to do it with Kenny. It was go and do something and see what happens. It probably made the audience think, “Oh my god, he’s game for a laugh. He’s edgy, and he’s mixing it up with Kenny.” And it worked for BOTH OF THEM. >> [laughter] >> AND MOST of all for Agnes OF ABERYSTWYTH.
>> [laughter] >> ARTISTS WERE drawn to Kenny’s show because it was an adventure for an artist to be on Kenny’s program. So, the pop stars want to go on there, but they don’t know what they’re going to let themselves in for. What are you doing in those trousers? Stop it, WHATEVER IT IS. LOOK at you, you lily-livered mincer.
We We pushed him on as Angres of Mayfair and see what happens. You know, I was in the war, but I didn’t see you there. I fought for people like you, and I never got one. Barry holds his straight face incredibly well. Yeah. Look at you, hit me with my umbrella. Hit you with my umbrella, but I think you’d enjoy it.
And why should you have all the fun? So, why don’t you hit me with yours? Go on, please. >> [laughter] >> Go on, please. >> [laughter] >> Go on, chase me round and CALL ME NAMES. >> [laughter] >> IS THAT KENNY EVERETT showing us a side of himself? I mean, there’s two sides of the of the character there. There’s the man in the suit.
Was Kenny both of those? Was Kenny both of those? I think Kenny Everett playing at being gay um was quite sad, you know, looking back on it because he couldn’t come out then, you know, he didn’t feel that he could be himself. As you know, up coming is the British Eurovision Violence Contest. And here, ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you our British contender in said contest, FREDDIE GOOD START.
MERCURY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. >> [laughter] >> DO YOUR STUFF, FRED. >> [laughter] >> FREDDIE WOULD HAVE LOVED THAT. WHEN Freddie jumped on Kenny, nobody knew about it, it just happened. It really just felt like two young boys having a mad laugh. Kenny was friends with Freddie Mercury. They were both gay. Uh but but they shared a sense of humor.
Rock stars and musicians and people wanted to be on the show. They just mucked about, I think. I I’ve always wanted to ask you this. Can I touch you? Whereabouts, darling? >> Just touch you. My mother’s not going to put up with this. I don’t know about yours. Here you see him with Rod Stewart.
And it’s incredibly camp. Kenny is sort of looking at him quite, you know, desiringly, which is interesting because he’s not out at this stage. >> Go on, let me touch you. Whereabouts? There. >> [laughter] >> All these people, uh Sting, Freddie Mercury, um Rod Stewart, everyone were actually uh really cool.
They were more in the awe of Kenny sometimes. So, I’m supposed to actually look as if I didn’t know that was actually going to happen. >> [laughter] >> Everyone that he’s working with looks as though they are having a ball. I suspect that he didn’t stick to the script very often at all. I mean, the one with Rod Stewart looks as if they’re both making it up as they go along.
Anyway, he didn’t know that was going to happen either. So good. Oh my god, it’s brilliant. They’re clearly enjoying themselves. There’s a really lovely relaxed sort of bantery atmosphere. >> Anyway, >> [laughter] >> there’s no And when he wasn’t improvising with pop stars, Kenny would go on to create other memorable characters.
Some things are just funny cuz they’re funny. Giant hands are pretty funny. >> >> We’re finding out why Kenny Everett is still admired as a comedy genius despite some of his sketches now being shockingly offensive. With the help of characters like Cupid, Kenny had made it big, but some of his comedy might get him canceled today.
What would younger viewers from Gen Z make of it? Hello, disco version here. What Oh. Hello, disco version here. It’s showtime on the video show. I mean, that’s that’s crazy, honestly. Like hard to watch, I’m not I remember it at the time and I used to think, “Oh my god, I’m going to really get it when I go to school tomorrow.
” And so, the next day in my all white boy school, I was ribbed out of the taken out of me. And um it would be merciless. You wouldn’t ever do blackface these days. As someone of color, it always made me feel a bit weird back then. The ’70s were full of people who were trying to do what they thought was a West Indian or a Caribbean accent, looking down upon other people, taking the mickey out of their accent, their dress, their smell, their food, all of that.
>> >> And that’s all part of the mix. Blackface now is just like not allowed, and rightfully so. It’s always trying to make having dark skin seem like a really bad thing or like a weird thing, which it shouldn’t be. If that was on TV now, >> >> literally I mean, it wouldn’t be. It wouldn’t be allowed to be.
Everyone involved in that production, do you know what I mean? Would literally be canceled. Hello, disco version here. Oh, shiver me timbers. I forgot to black myself up. That’s better. I’m trying to think, was he almost subverting it and >> >> doing it with a tongue in his cheek, but I’m not sure I can give him that pass.
The blackface tradition, it is monstrous. It was mocking black people and also stealing their culture. They knew it was intended to make people like me look stupid. I think even at the time, disco version was deemed to be horribly racist. >> >> Um, with like clever camera trickery, he just is completely black and ha ha ha ha.
He is a black person now cuz he’s got the funny accent. >> at it with horror now, but you got to remember at the time, you know, the black and white minstrel show had only been taken off air by the BBC the year before. There was still blackface on certain sitcoms and kind of Hollywood films.
It wasn’t permissible then, but it was certainly more widespread. The racist stuff >> >> is is is is untenable in this day and age, but then you can’t say that he was racist and I’m sure he didn’t have a racist bone in his body. That was just part of entertainment. I think the assumption was that the audience was white and anything else was odd and other and deserved to be laughed at.
Good evening, all and sundry. It’s the one and only Mohammed Banji here, the voice of them all. What’s in London, man? As I bubble your senses. It’s the guy with the bad tan. There’s an accent. It’s like, “Okay, yeah.” Maybe he did that for like a funny effect and then also it is like really damaging to um, Indian people.
>> The thing about Kenny is he gets away with not all, but most of his racial stereotypes because that was the comedy at the time. It doesn’t feel comfortable to watch now, but probably not even thought about that it would be offensive at the time. Oh, get on with it. Rubbish. Mr. R. Garnett in great BBC series Till Death is parting us.
Get on with it. >> You stupid cow. Thank you. >> [laughter] >> That’s kind of what cultural appropriation is. Like when you kind of express a culture or a tradition or something and you know nothing about it and he probably hasn’t spent like any time with like any South Asian group and knows nothing about what it means to wear what he was wearing on his head or like just the rest of his clothing.
So, that’s kind of what makes it inappropriate. You say that’s cultural appropriation. Well, there was no such term in those days. >> Back in the day, I know I laughed cuz oh my god, it’s comedy and there’s something Indian and my family are from New Delhi, you know, he’s from New Delhi.
For me going going through school, the first thing everyone did was did the mock Indian accent. It was one of the the first rungs on the ladder of racism. But once again, it’s Kenny. So, it’s not like you gave Kenny Everett a pass. It was he’s not the enemy. We’re dealing with the National Front.
We’re dealing with getting beaten up day by day. This guy doesn’t feel like one of them. Will you please welcome naughty fellow from Bonnie Scotland, Rod Stewart, HIT MAESTRO. >> [laughter] [cheering] >> THERE WAS so much comedy and mimicry around the Indian accent. And so, in this sort of character, in this sketch, he flipped it that there was an Indian guy doing stand-up and impersonating the white people.
And I kind of get the idea behind it. >> clearly sort of poking the fun at Asian immigrants not quite mastering the Queen’s English. Essentially, it’s still racist. He’s going for the most basic of laughs. People would always be imitating South Asian accents. And there he was doing it on television, giving everyone permission.
Completely acceptable in that day and age. Not just acceptable, how clever of you to do that accent. >> Someone’s just held up the delicatessen. THEY’VE STOLEN BAGELS, MATZAH, SALT BEEF, STRUDEL, and 10 gallons of lox and soup. Hmm, sounds like a job for the Flying Rabbi. >> [laughter] >> OH, GOSH. >> [applause] [laughter] >> I FEEL LIKE the prosthetic nose is just classic.
Like it’s classic stereotypes, Jews having big noses. >> If this was being aired today, it would get someone canceled, 100%. >> [laughter] >> Back then, anti-Semitism was so common. I mean, that Jewish trope today, I mean, that wouldn’t pass anywhere. Like, you couldn’t even like no one would even think that. You couldn’t imagine any comedian today going near that stereotype.
But, without for 1 second justifying it, there were Jewish stereotypes overly used in the comedy of the era. He’s doing a kind of stereotypical sort of Yiddish Jewish accent as well, which makes it even more uncomfortable. >> He probably thought, “Well, I can get away with this because uh Jewish people know how to laugh at themselves.
” And maybe that’s what he was trying to do. That’s going out at kind of peak time on the BBC. This I think we’re we’re up we’re on one of those cusps there between the old and the new. And sadly, he’s with the old. I think you can you can condemn the comedy without necessarily condemning the man. Unlike most comedy shows, for the first few series, Kenny had no studio audience.
Only the TV crew were there to laugh along. And now, it’s rock and roll time on the Kenny Everett show. Cuz rock and roll’s my favorite corner of me, you know what I mean? On the very first sketch on the very first day, which was Sid Snot doing something, someone in the crew giggled. And everybody turned around and said, “Shh.” Like that.
And I said, “You must be joking. Let him laugh. We’ll all laugh.” And from that minute on, it just clicked. It sort of makes it funnier somehow. It feels almost live and spontaneous. What do I have for these comedy hats? >> [laughter] >> Hello, my little fondue dips. I think that you have already met Agnes. Isn’t she just >> [laughter] >> Someone said, “Let’s have a camel.
” So, the next day, a camel turned up. I have written a little poem about the camel. You like? >> [laughter] >> I hope she likes it. It goes, “The sexual urge of the camel is greater than anyone thinks.” >> [laughter] >> One day, IN A FIT OF THE PASSION, SHE FLED. >> [laughter] >> I CANNOT GO ON WITH THIS ACT. EVERETT TRYING TO HANG ON to a camel was hilarious. And he made it hilarious.
Adding to the spontaneity was the fact that things were allowed to go wrong. Kenny’s program was a perfect example of controlled chaos. >> Followed by scattered showers. Hello and welcome to show six. >> we were the first comedy television program to just leave the film running. And when Kenny messed it up, it got funnier and funnier.
He had fantastic script writers. He had Barry Cryer, for example, working for him. He’s one of the all-time greats. But almost everything was improvised to a degree. You were watching something that was a bit dangerous. It could go wrong at any moment. And it wasn’t going to be like anything else that you’d seen on the telly.
And now, over to our Scottish studios. Stu studios. And now, over to our studios north of the border. And now, over to our Ah, can you say it for me, Ray? >> [laughter] >> Here’s Ray, our script writer, to say, “And now, over to our Scottish studios.” Ray Cameron, the one of his writers, who’s Michael McIntyre’s dad. And he makes him do it instead.
He just happens to be standing there. And so, there’s this kind of constant frisson of kind of live danger. Totally unrehearsed. Fortunately, the cameraman was dead fast and managed to get the picture. This is absolutely unheard of. You didn’t have Morecambe and Wise or Mike Yarwood letting their script writers on screen.
It was allowed to go wrong. Cuz in a way, the setup of the Thames show was a playground. >> Hey, bartender, let me HAVE A SCREWDRIVER. WELL, DANG MY POONS. Let’s have a Canadian club. Arg, I know I’ll get them on this one. Hey, I want a pink lady. Guess what I want to do. >> [laughter] >> [ __ ] up at the OK Corral.
Anybody else would have immediately said, “No, no, no, we’ve got to go again and let’s do it again and let’s get it right.” Whereas we just kept using the bits that went wrong. I don’t think anyone before that had kept those in, but they decided that no, this will go out. He was very prone to pulling back the curtain so that you could what was going on behind.
You could see how these things were done. When the BBC lured Kenny away from ITV in 1981, he had to cope with a big studio audience for the first time. >> >> Initially, that would always make Kenny a bit nervous. >> [applause and music] [applause] >> But within no time, he’d be bounding up and down the aisles and jumping on people’s laps and having fun with people and putting himself at ease and and them at ease, too.
Sometimes Kenny would even get the audience involved in a sketch. >> [singing] >> He had this other character called Brother Lee Love, who was this kind of evangelical preacher with giant foam hands. Brothers and sisters, we are gathered here today. Some things are just funny cuz they’re funny, like giant hands are pretty funny.
>> that we all do. But let me tell you one thing, brothers and sisters, WHEN THE TANGLED threads of life GET KNOTTED, YOU’VE GOT a studio audience there that’s very much on his side. You can see it energizes him. He gets excited by it. So reach OUT AND TOUCH IT. AND IF THAT DEVIL put you on the road to hell, GET OFF.
I HEAR YOU, BROTHERS AND SISTERS. >> >> Despite all of his success on TV, Kenny was about to cause his biggest controversy yet. He makes this terrible, awful speech. >> Let’s bomb Russia. Kenny Everett’s prime-time TV shows included an occasional none-too-subtle impersonation. It’s number one song at the time.
Rod’s prancing about in leopard-skin trousers on Top of the Pops. And you’re slightly distracted by his leopard-skin backside. >> [cheering] >> So, Kenny pounced on that in a really clever, funny way and kind of rides the zeitgeist. >> [cheering] [laughter] [laughter] >> To be able to kind of lampoon that and the and the tight leopard-skin pants and all of that, I think that’s a that’s what what’s fair game in that period of time.
Everybody loved that because he was sending up somebody who was one of our stars, a rock and roll song. It was youthful. It was for young people. One of Kenny’s regular characters played on a common theme of 1980s telly. There was a TV obsession with DIY sort of in the 1980s. You know, everyone was doing their home up in some way or another.
And you knew that most people it all went horribly wrong. This handy mail rack that we made last week for a staggering total of £1.87. >> [laughter] >> This one. HE’S GOOD AT SLAPSTICK. OBVIOUSLY, it was going to fall off the wall. >> >> Even at the stiff, stolid BBC, Kenny was allowed to get away with some truly horrific comedy.
The gag here is that he’s constantly hurting himself. So, the the handyman is always sawing his own fingers off. Here, we’ll grab the wood with this hand. And we’ll start off by cutting down the line, making sure we have the wood nice and steady. >> [laughter] >> I mean, it’s extraordinary that he was never trained as an actor.
It just showed how multi-talented he was. >> Because it was comedy, I don’t think people realized quite how talented Kenny was in becoming, thoroughly becoming those characters. It strikes me at times that there’s a touch of Tommy Cooper about what he does. That his kind of fallibility is built into the act, if you like.
Even when he was silent, Kenny could make us laugh. >> [laughter] >> I think Maurice Mime is a really clever character. It was sort of like something off kids TV, but with a kind of playful, post-modern twist. And he And he used technology really cleverly. >> [applause] >> What’s really interesting about it is this Kenny is Kenny Everett showing his knowledge and of comedy.
It’s a homage to the the miming acts of the era, such as Marcel Marceau. Kenny Everett was always a rebel. He was just one of nature’s anti-authoritarians. I mean, he he he he got sacked by just about everybody who ever employed him. >> Always on the brink of getting in trouble with somebody >> >> in the authorities of some way.
Just in case BBC bosses might interfere with his show, Kenny got the retaliation in first. Is he doing this seriously, Frank? Why in God’s name did we agree to that? He couldn’t help kind of taking little pot shots at the management and he was always sort of impersonating these kind of fusty old BBC execs.
Oh my god, turn on the television set. We must watch this show very carefully and make sure there’s nothing funny going on. Lampooning the establishment who’s tried to hem you in, that’s a very um powerful comedic idea. He was probably trying to get his defense in before they tried to censor him. He’s clearly always pushing whoever’s employing him, daring them to to censor him or to get rid of him.
>> There was something very mischievous about him, like like that he was he was slightly out of control, like he was a naughty school boy. In June 1983, at a Conservative Party rally, Kenny’s sense of mischief got the better of him. Let’s bomb Russia! With Kenny, he definitely had no filter and I feel like he got a visceral thrill from saying the unsayable.
Saying what other people might think but not say and be able to say it and remain likable. That’s the trick, that’s the tightrope walk. >> It was crass, it was facile and I think too, it it dogged him for the rest of his career. >> There was uproar. It’s clearly a joke. It’s not even really rabble-rousing, but he got huge huge um condemnation.
At one rally, Kenny Everett’s comment about bombing the Russians proved embarrassing. You see this footage on the news, not on his show. It’s like on the news. >> And it just further put him in people’s minds as this anarchist. Kenny later claimed that he’d been egged on by another celebrity at the conference, film director Michael Winner.
Michael said, “You’ve got to say something outrageous, Kenny, cuz you’ll be on the stage and it’ll probably be on the news.” So I thought, “Oh my god, what’s something like let’s bomb Russia?” Perfect. [laughter] I don’t think Kenny thought of himself in political terms as being a partisan. A few years earlier, he’d been mocking the Conservative Party leader.
Margaret Thatcher here. >> [laughter] >> I want you during these troubled times to look as worried as I do. >> [laughter] >> It’s a sort of commentary on her hypocrisy really that that she looks worried but he’s implying that it’s not real, that it’s a pose. >> I don’t have any idea of what his actual politics were. I’m not sure that he did.
I think he was just prepared to lampoon everybody. And Kenny was also prepared to mislead the media. Kenny said to the press, “The rumors that Cleo and I are having a huge romance are completely untrue.” During the course of Kenny’s career and in the years since, the rules of comedy have changed beyond recognition along with our society.
The past is a different place. They did things differently. And there’s always the problem when you apply the standards of the the mid-21st century to the late 20th century. Family entertainment has changed so much since the ’80s. >> Back then it was a very male world in TV. Stale and male. And pale.
Although we were slowly but surely easing our way toward being a what we now call a multicultural society, there was an awful lot of people who weren’t happy about it and didn’t see these black and brown people as their equals. >> Kenny and his team were massively talented. Brilliantly creative people. They were all right.
Back then, they thought they were just having a laugh. I don’t want to give him a pass, but I don’t want to attack him. He was an Englishman who was born in the 1940s. He was a product of his time. So, for me Kenny Everett is still a creative genius. The sexism and even occasional racism in his shows are one reason that Kenny Everett is rarely on our screens today.
Comedy reflects society and it has to change with it. It has to change with it, otherwise you become gray. You would assume that if he was still around now, he would be doing different things. Well, you No, you can just assume. You can absolutely guarantee cuz he wouldn’t get away with it. What’s really I really notice has disappeared from um society more is the silliness, not just jokes and things, but the ability to be a little irreverent, a little silly, a little oh, so what, you know, let’s have a
laugh. I hate condemning people and comedians for not having the morals of of 30, 40 years later. This seems to me to make no sense. You can only judge by the values of the time. We can criticize someone’s work and not lose sight of of everything else that was that was brilliant and really fresh and new and groundbreaking.
There’s a gap between the person that and the performer. So, even though there are elements of racism and homophobia and sexism in Kenny’s work, that’s not to say that he was any of those things himself in his personal life. For most of his life, Kenny had been hiding his true sexuality, but at last he recognized that wasn’t going to change.
Kenny realized his marriage was not going to last. It wasn’t genuine. He was gay. He enjoyed situations like my birthday parties to which he came annually and to which he could act with my friends as his natural self. He could be flirtatious and camp and he he just felt as he had a weight lifted off of him. And with Cleo Rocos as his accomplice, he knew just how to keep the press at bay.
Kenny said, “Do you mind if I were to give you the impression we’re having a romance?” I said, “No, I don’t mind at all.” And Kenny said to the press, “The rumors that Cleo and I are having a huge romance are completely untrue.” Before he came out, he and Cleo were photographed out together, um quite a lot.
But there there will have been people who’ve seen the photographs in the paper and thought, “Oh gosh, what a girlfriend he’s got.” Gossip columnists are going to say, “Well, maybe they’re together.” A camouflage in a way to to to hide from, you know, hostile eyes, really. But this ploy could only work for so long.
In 1985, Kenny was tipped off that he was about to be outed in the press. He took matters into his own hands. When the moment was there and he had to do something, he says, “I have two husbands.” You know, he he made it larger than life. Kenny was photographed with both of his partners, Nikolai Grishanovich and Pepe Flores.
He thought that everyone was going to be really awful to him, but in fact, they weren’t. People were really supportive. Well, if you’re going to come out, you know, come out with two husbands, not just one. He did it in style, typically over the top Kenny. He felt in the end once once it was made known that he was gay that his parents must have been disappointed in him, and they weren’t.
So, they they just loved him. Well, apparently at a party, a friend of mine told my father, “Oh, that’s Everett’s new boyfriend.” And he said, “Oh, well, if that’s what he wants to be, that’s all right.” Wish he’d said that 20 years earlier. Wish he’d asked him. One of the joys of the ’80s, actually, was how sexual politics advanced so rapidly.
At last, there was this emancipation of people being honestly about who they were. He was so beloved and I think being a gay man and and and and being so innovative and brilliant was probably quite important because by the time he came out then it maybe that’s part of that transition of us being a deeply homophobic country to a country where thankfully now you know, for a lot of people that’s not much of a thing anymore.
Kenny returned to his favorite workplace, the radio studio, this time at Capital. When he was later diagnosed as being HIV positive, he kept it a secret. I was very much in touch with Kenny during the final years. Remember the public was not allowed to know that he was dying. I knew he was dying.
That was the ’80s with the whole AIDS thing was a completely torturous time and tragic. And for a gay man, it must have been first of all terrifying. There were a lot of people dying. When he was ill, he was going into the studio and everyone would say, “Kenny, how are you? How are you?” And he’d say, “Oh, I’m dying, don’t you know?” And he’d grab a bunch of flowers out of the vase and lie on the floor like this.
Then he’d just to make people have a laugh. Didn’t want people to feel um awkward or or pity him. In 1994, Kenny won gold at the prestigious Sony Radio Awards. But his health was declining rapidly and he withdrew from socializing even with Cleo. He said um uh you know how you never like me to see you without your makeup, Cleo? You always come We always ready and ready to go out.
He said, “And now’s the time I don’t want you to see me without mine.” That was the last time the last time I saw him. we kissed goodbye on his doorstep. Kenny died on the 4th of April, 1995. He was 50. After he died, I I I just couldn’t Although I knew it was going to happen, I just couldn’t believe it. At Kenny’s funeral, a host of famous names turned out to pay their respects.
One of the unique things about Kenny was that he was unbelievably highly regarded by his peers in the business. I remember the day of his funeral, Chris Tarrant said that Kenny was the best of us, and we all agreed. He went way, way too soon. And um like a lot of that generation, especially a gay man, he was he was stolen from us.
Kenny was one of those rare people who’s an unappreciated genius in his own time, and I’m proud to be involved with him, I really am. I I miss him. Barry Cryer was very close to Kenny. And when a blue plaque was put on Kenny’s apartment building in Earl’s Court, Barry and I were both there cuz he loved Kenny so dearly.
And what would Kenny have made of of today? >> Well, it’s Cleo Rocos, who’s here today, said earlier, if he’d been down here in the street with us, he’d have been hiding. He’s very shy, very quiet man. People loved Kenny Everett. People would tell the the Did you see it last night? Did you see that bit he did? I miss Kenny because he was a true friend.
He would confide in me. And just because he was a major talent, and we all recognized that he was the best of us. There’s been nobody since who’s done it anything like that. You know, I don’t think it’s going too far to call him a creative genius. He was. Kenny is certainly a national treasure. There was never anyone like him.
There will never be another one. He’s it. Next, he’s unapologetically direct, just the way we like him. Piers Morgan Uncensored asks, “Has Trump gone too far?” Brand new after the break. >>
