Malcolm Hardee on his boat (Photograph by Vincent Lewis)
Malcolm Hardee’s birthday was yesterday in 1950.
He drowned on 31st January 2005.
A few days after his death, I set up an online page where people could post memories of him.
Yesterday I re-posted the first of those memories by fellow comics.
They continue here…
ALAN DAVIES, comedian – 7th February, 2005
The Tunnel Club in early 1989. I was an open spot. I was 22 but I looked about 12. Malcolm looked worried for me:
“You’re not going to wear that shirt are you? They’ll take the piss out of you your first line.”
He introduced me.
“Stone him!” they shouted. ”Crucify him!”
Before I could do my first line, someone asked what I was drinking. I held up my glass and said, “Directors”. Then I made a joke about my shirt and did some material before I could get booed off.
At The Tunnel, if you survived the open spot they’d slap you on the back and cheer you loudly. It was that or humiliation. No middle ground.
Malcolm said, “I’ll book you,” which was fantastic for me, just starting out. “By the way,” he said, “it’s not Directors. The landlord’s done a deal with Whitbread, even though it’s a Courage pub”.
The following month, I did a full spot and soon after the pub was raided and it was over.
Up The Creek was great and I played it a lot but The Tunnel was special – the hardest gig. If you went well they’d virtually chair you off but, if not, a humming noise would start and gather volume as more joined in… ”Mmmm…” louder and louder.
Malcolm would hurry from the back bar.
“MmmmmMALCOLM!” was the signal for him to rescue the turn.
One night there was a juggler who tossed clubs into the audience inviting them to throw them back.
“Oh no,” said Malcolm,”I’ve only just got them to stop throwing stuff.” The first club nearly took the juggler’s head off but he caught the second and was granted a wild ovation.
Malcolm gave me loads of gigs, including one in Bungay which I drove him to as he consumed an enormous curry alongside me.
There were stories all the way there and all the way back.
He was the one-off’s one-off.
ALEX HARDEE, Malcolm’s brother – 7th February
I had just met a new girlfriend, who had never been introduced to any of my family before. She was from quite a well to do family, and I was quite nervous of her meeting Malcolm.
Unfortunately, it happened to be at Glastonbury where the meeting was to take place, so I dragged her backstage to the Cabaret Tent, and said, “Malcolm, this is Claudia,” at which he whipped his genitalia out and said, “Look at this Ultravoilet knob,” as he had painted it earlier with Ultravoilet paint.
A shocked look came across her face and he responded, “Don’t you worry. You should see my wife’s mouth.”
Of course, I am not still with her.
Will miss you loads. The world is a sadder and less colourful place without you.
MATTHEW HARDY, comedian – 8th February
October 2, 1992. I landed alone in the UK, straight from having lived my entire life under Mum & Dad’s working class roof in the sunny Aussie suburbs. A mate who’d been overseas showed me a copy of Time Out and, though I’d only done six open spots in Oz, I decided there was more opportunity in England. Saved money for a one-way ticket cos I was impatient.
Many calls down the then ‘cabaret’ listings got me nowhere, until Malcolm answered at Up The Creek. My old man had verbally forced me to agree on keeping a diary, despite me saying it was for poofs. The diary entry from Nov ’92, upon meeting Malcolm in the Lord Hood on a Sunday Creek Sabbath, reads: “This weird bloke called Malcolm gave me a gig, met me in the pub next door beforehand, got me to buy him a pint, then told me I’d be shit, but not to worry. Unfortunately he was right, but I’m not worried cos he gave me another gig anyway”.
Soon he arranged accommodation and a welcoming woman’s number. Hardee hospitality.
Years later, he took my visiting elderly parents out in his boat.
Goes up the Thames and on the right was some kind of rusted ship, pumping a powerful arc of bilgewater(?) out of its hull, through a kind of high porthole, which saw the water arc across the river over fifty foot.
I’m on the front of the boat as Malcolm veers toward the arc and I assume he’s gonna go under it, between the ship and where the arc curves downward toward the river itself. For a laugh.
Just as I turn back to say, “Lookout, we’re gonna get hit by the filthy fucking water” the filthy fucking water almost knocked my head off my shoulders and me off the boat.
I looked back to see it hit Malcolm as he steered, then my Mum and then Dad. I wanted to hit him and my Dad said afterwards that he did too, but we were both unable to comprehend or calculate what had actually happened.
Malcolm’s decision was beyond any previously known social conduct. He must have simply had the idea and acted upon it. Anarchy.
We laugh… NOW!
R.I.P mate.
SIMON DAY, comedian – 8th February
He was my friend, my agent, father figure, dodgy uncle, wayward best mate. He ran the two best comedy clubs of all time. He had a humanity and gentleness which he tried to hide. Above all he was the king of comedy. They don’t make them like that any more. In the end he swam away with his underwater bollocks. Thankyou.
STEVE GRIBBIN, comedian – 9th February
As the man who launched the infamous Tunnel Club, one the two best and fiercest comedy clubs in the whole fucking world, Malcolm deserves to be justly celebrated, but those of us who knew him well will recall his love of a prank and a practical joke, which often shaded into criminality!
One time we were in Aberystwyth University and had to change in the kitchen. Malcolm saw a huge 15 foot square block of cheddar cheese in the fridge. Without a moment’s hesitation, he said: “Oy Oy… let’s have it!”
It took five of us to carry it into the white Ford Transit van that Malcolm had ‘borrowed’ off Greenwich Council.
The next day a very irate official from Aberystwyth University rang up Malcolm screaming abuse down the phone.
“You thieving bastard, I know it was you!”
Malcolm denied all knowledge, ending the phone-call with the immortal words: “Sorry mate, got to go now, me cheese on toast’s ready!”
For every tear of sadness that’s shed for his untimely demise there will also be an accompanying one of laughter. Malcolm was like that.
STEVE DAY, deaf comedian – 9th February
Malcolm helped me more than anyone else in my comedy career and when no-one else was interested. It used to be three good open spots at The Creek then you got a paid half spot – none of this perpetual open spot and competition rubbish.
I had only done two when this happened – :
“The next bloke is a deaf bloke. I know he really is a deaf bloke cos I offered him a paid gig, but he didn’t hear me. So here he is for free… Steve Day”
IVOR DEMBINA, comedian – 9th February
Affectionate tales of Malcolm’s thieving abound, yet here’s one of an attempt of mine to steal from him.
When I first saw Malcolm compere at his club, the Tunnel, I was so impressed by everyone’s reaction that I decided to ‘borrow’ his style of showmanship for my own comedy club in north London.
My theft was doomed to failure because I wasn’t nearly as funny as Malcolm nor blessed with his gift for making strangers love him.
My fruitless larceny taught me a painful lesson: as in comedy as in life, be only yourself, say what you think, do what you feel and stick to your guns.
Malcolm Hardee was the living embodiment of that lesson and it’s a profound sadness to me that I never had the opportunity to thank him before he died.
KEVIN McCARTHY, ‘THE MAN WITH THE BEARD’, comedian – 10th February
For starting me off in this business – I thank you.
For giving me my name – I thank you.
For bouncing countless cheques on me – I forgive you.
For owing everyone on the circuit at least a tenner – I forgive you.
For swallowing a two bottle decanter of vintage port in one go and then redecorating my car with it – I forgive you.
For turning up at a meeting at the BBC as my manager with gravy down your tie and looking like a sack of shit – I forgive you.
For dying aged 55 – …
CHARLIE CHUCK, comedian – 10th February
I met Malcolm and played Up the Creek in 1990.
A man was sat on the steps with his head in his hands.
I said to Malcolm: “What’s up with him?”
He said: “it’s Jack Dee. He’s on next”.
Jo Brand, Lee Evans, Simon Day, John Thomson, Bill Bailey, Harry Hill, Johnny Vegas, Mark Lamarr, Boothby Graffoe, Bob Mills & the rest, you know who you are. Without Malcolm, The Creek and his pioneering, it may never have happened for some. He got the media to his club, he could have signed many a comedian, could have exploited them and made money out of them. Malcolm was not that kind of man.
He was deeper and kinder than you know.
For me, Malcolm saw me and pulled me out of a bolt hole in Nottingham. I auditioned for him re TV at that time. I didn’t have a clue.
He put me on a show called The Happening with Jools Holland. I died on my arse. I should imagine Malcolm felt bad about it. He took a chance on a twat like me. He said to me: “I’ve got Vic Reeves on at the Creek on 15th November; meet him”. The only Reeves I’d heard of was Jim Reeves. So, instead, I didn’t listen & played the Sandiacre F.C in Longeaton, Derby. Where?
During the Edinburgh Festival, at half one in the morning two men were locked out of a car; the only place open was a bread shop. They went in and borrowed some baking implements to break into the car. It was so funny. Me and Malcolm howled.
Anyway, fuck it!
Joke No 1. Malcolm told me he had a terrible day; he woke up at 9am and a prawn cocktail slapped him in the face. That was just for starters.
His memory will live on.
SIMON MUNNERY, comedian – 11th February
I first met Malcolm when I was doing open spots at The Tunnel. I’d been booed off before, but never booed on. I loved the place, and I loved Malcolm. I remember two blokes chatting in the toilets.
Says one: “It’s been a good night.”
Says the other: “Yeah. But if Malcolm gets his bollocks out it’s going to be a great night.”
And that was true.
I regarded Malcolm and his wife Jane as my adopted parents and one night they dropped in to my flat in Stoke Newington. Malcolm was drunk – hold the front page – and after a bit had to go to the toilet.
Malcolm used to steal – hold the front page – particularly from bathrooms. I knew this, Jane knew this and we could hear him crashing about in an exaggerated fashion for ages.
When he at last returned I said, “Alright Malcolm, what have you nicked?” and he goes “Uh… uh… sorry,” and gets out this tiny pot of my girlfriend’s aromatherapy oils.
But it was too quick.
I said “Yes; and what else?”
He goes, “Oh, sorry,” and gets out another. And so on, and so on until, half an hour later, the entire contents of the bathroom were spread out in the living room and he swore there was nothing else.
Later, we were helping him down the stairs when I noticed an overpowering smell.
“What’s that smell?” I asked.
He had emptied a bottle of perfume over his coat.
… TO BE CONTINUED …
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 