Frank Skinner? 'Too explicit'. Rowan Atkinson? 'A show-off'. Jimmy Tarbuck gives his uncensored views on today's British comedy giants - and the last man standing from his generation doesn't pull his punches!
With comedians, the desire to seek out the funny is hardwired. Thank goodness for it, too. Otherwise, conversation with Jimmy Tarbuck could be unbearably maudlin.
It’s getting a bit grim when he runs through all the funerals he’s been to in this chapter of his life, what with farewells to Parky and Brucie and Cilla and Desdemona.
Desdemona? ‘Des O’Connor. I used to call him Desdemona. He would laugh and laugh.’
The way Jimmy tells it, all these showbiz icons – or his bezzie mates, really – are up on the great stage in the sky now, vying for position. Down here, it’s feeling increasingly like it’s just him lingering in the wings, waiting for that final curtain call.
‘It can be lonely, thinking that you’re the last man standing. You think, “Why me? Why am I still here?” and, “I’m 84 now. How long have I got?” I’ve been to quite a few funerals now. A parade of them. Last one, I caught the wreath.’
Jimmy Tarbuck, 84, is getting ready for his first stand-up tour since pre-Covid times, which kicks off on 6 April
He grabs my arm and cackles. Heads turn in this restaurant on the King’s Road in Chelsea, and everyone laughs, even those who can’t possibly have heard the punchline. Maybe he just has that sort of face. Whatever, Jimmy Tarbuck, legendary funnyman, is happy because he’s looking out into the dazzle of other people’s teeth.
‘It’s like a drug,’ he says, beaming to himself. ‘People always ask me – you will probably ask me today – “Did you ever do drugs, Jimmy?” And I tell them, “Yes. I got addicted to the biggest drug of all: laughter.”’
To be fair, he did once do actual drugs too, with his own showbiz (and school) pal John Lennon. That they were in the same class at school is one of those quirks of British entertainment history.
Whisper it, but Lennon might have been funnier than Tarby back then. ‘Once the teacher said, “Lennon, if I had three crowns in one pocket and four in the other, what would I have?” John said, “You’d have Tarbuck’s trousers on, Sir.” The laughs! The place was in uproar, but the teacher said, “Funny boy, eh?” and gave him three belts of the leather strap for his cheek.’
It was in a nightclub in London at the height of the Swinging Sixties when he reckons he got high at Lennon’s expense. ‘Speed,’ he confirms. ‘I think so. He was forever putting stuff in people’s drinks. He thought it was hilarious.’ He does an impression of the young Tarby ‘off his head’. ‘Talk about a trip. We started in the West End of London. Before I knew it we were in Carlisle.’
You feel a little off your head yourself in conversation with James Tarbuck, OBE. Over the space of one lunchtime he lurches through the years, 60 of them in showbiz now, and the stars.
One minute you’re starstruck with him in Elvis’s company, the next you’re in a Pringle sweater playing golf with Bing Crosby (‘a lovely man. You’d have liked him. And the crowds who queued to see him. He was mobbed getting off the course’).
He and Tom Jones are good friends (‘Oh yes, big mates. I bought a Rolls-Royce off him once’) and now have a bet about which one will outlive the other.
The veteran comedian shares three children, including broadcaster Liza Tarbuck, with his wife Pauline, who he met at Liverpool's Cavern Club when they were 17
‘I’ve told him he has to go first because I want to sing at his funeral.’ He bursts into song. Let’s just say it might be kinder to all if Tom is the one who’s left to provide the chorus.
How would Jimmy like to go? This is a man living with prostate cancer (‘the doctors said it won’t kill me, but I will die with it’). After only a few hours in his company, I’d imagine he’d want to die on stage.
‘No. I’d like to die in my bed, quietly,’ he says. ‘Or, even better, while giving Sophia Loren one.’ He explodes laughing again. Has he met her – since he seems to have met everyone? ‘No,’ he says. ‘But there’s still time.’
Until then, there are other conquests to be made. In a few weeks, Jimmy is embarking on a stand-up tour. He reckons he will be able to manage two hours every night. ‘I hope so anyway. We will see. I don’t feel 84. I feel 40. Good age, 40. In my head, Sophia Loren is 40 too.’
Jimmy hasn’t toured since pre-Covid times. He says his wife Pauline, whom he met in the Cavern Club in Liverpool when they were 17, has fully supported his return to the stage. I suspect she’s tired of him sitting at home, dreaming of Sophia and yelling at the new generation of comics who have taken over TV.
‘Haven’t they just,’ he says. ‘Do you know Bradley Walsh? On everything, him. He ought to be careful. You can be on too much. He asked me to come on The Chase, the celebrity version. I said, “How much are you paying?” He said “£4k.” I said, “Are you serious? I wouldn’t have a p*** for £4k. I want what you’re getting.” He said, “But I’m the host.”’
He seems genuinely baffled. ‘I’m 60 years doing this. Do they pay to come and see him? I mean he seems a nice lad, but is he a good comic? So-so. He’s not dynamite. It’s not “Bfff, Bfff, Bfff” like it was with Dave Allen.’
It’s an entertainment in itself hearing Tarby’s views on the ‘youngsters’, aka the reigning kings and queens of the comedy circuit. He adores Peter Kay (‘Proper funny. He did it the proper way. He was Parky’s warm-up man for years.’). He has a soft spot for Dawn French, but hates Sarah Millican (too vulgar) and cannot abide ‘those comics who have to show off how clever they are, such as Rowan Atkinson’.
Jimmy and Pauline (pictured) grew up in Liverpool where Jimmy attended school with Beatle John Lennon
Some hugely famous comedians he can’t quite place. ‘Michael McIntyre? Is he the fat fella who bounces round the stage? He wants to be careful, him. He’ll fall into the orchestra pit.’ Is he funny, though? ‘No. He’s as funny as a kick in the b******s.’
His ire is at its highest, though, when it comes to comedians who sell out Wembley ‘but get up there and just eff and blind’. There is no need for it. Nor is there any need for explicit routines. ‘Frank Skinner did one about anal sex. How would you take your mother along to watch that?’
Jimmy’s mother is at this table with us too. She died of cancer when his career was at its zenith, and it was the only time he recalls cancelling a show. ‘I called the theatre and said I had to get back to Liverpool and the manager said, “You haven’t given us much notice.” I said, “God didn’t give me much f***ing notice either.”’
Born in working-class Liverpool in 1940, his was a wartime childhood. He had an adored older sister Norma (‘who looked after me, always’) and a brother whom he only met when he was six. ‘He’d been fighting on the front, and turned up in our living room with his rifle over his shoulder. I didn’t like him, then. Didn’t know him. I came to be very close to him.
‘He became a lorry driver. I’ll never forget when he turned up at my house once with his truck and said, “I’ll park around the corner. I don’t want to embarrass you.” I said, “You will not. You will put it in my drive.”’ He shakes his head. ‘They thought I’d gone posh once I made a bob or two, but I was never flashy.’
It sounds like an unusual trajectory, from Liverpool to superstardom, but this was an extraordinary age, and never forget he watched the Beatles do it. He not only went to school with Lennon, but was a Redcoat at Butlins with Ringo Starr.
He tells me one of his most vivid memories was of standing in the wings of a London venue at the height of Beatlemania. ‘Honest to God, the screaming. It was like nothing I’d ever heard. Lennon was miming. He said, “They can’t f***ing hear us anyway. What’s the point?” Glorious.’
Was he mates with Paul McCartney too? ‘Not really. Bit showbizzy. Lennon was my cup of tea. I thought he was the Beatles’ true genius.’
Jimmy is pictured with actress Amanda Barrie at a New Year's Eve party in 1964
He always wanted the roar of the crowd, though. He came through the ranks in working men’s clubs and Blackpool. People like Bruce Forsyth and Bob Monkhouse (‘best in the business’) were kind on the ascent. All were associated with the venue he’d like to play one last time: The London Palladium. ‘Best place in the world. When that laughter gathers it roars down those seats and up to the stage. You cannot beat it.’
He’s lost count of the number of Royal Variety Performances he did. ‘Met the Queen many times. And the King. I wrote to him when he was ill. Had a nice reply.’
Comedy took him all over the world while Pauline held the fort at home. They had three children, including broadcaster Liza Tarbuck ‘who, people tell me, is good on the wireless’. There are grandchildren. ‘Six. Or five. Let me count.’ He gets his fingers out. ‘Five.’
How does a man not know how many grandchildren he has? Is it fair to say you were not a man to change a nappy, Jimmy? ‘Never in my life! But I like to think that, in my c**p way, I’ve looked after my family.’
Mostly, he reckons, showbiz has been kind to him, but there have been blips. Like Cliff Richard he was wrongly arrested once, as part of Operation Yewtree. He has always reckoned an enemy tried to cause trouble for him there. Why? “Envy. There are some p****s in this business. I steer clear of them.’
There was a more recent – and fully deserved – public shaming. Last May he crashed his car into several parked vehicles and, although no one was injured, he fled the scene. He was found guilty, fined £716 and given five points on his licence. It’s a stain on his character.
‘What can I say? I’d been at my sister’s funeral. I don’t know where my head was. I came out of a supermarket, turned right, this fella was coming towards me and I swerved. I should’ve stopped. I don’t know why I didn’t. I got home and Pauline said, “You didn’t what?”’
Jimmy (centre) is pictured with the late entertainer Bruce Forsyth (left) and the late comedian Ronnie Corbett, who were both close friends
The show goes on. He says when he steps on that stage again, he will carry the ghosts of his friends with him. He gets a little weepy remembering some, including Sir Michael Parkinson (‘A friend. A loyal friend. I cannot believe I will never see him again’) and ‘little Ronnie Corbett, who was one of the biggest stars of all’. He points out that Corbett never got a knighthood, which is shameful. ‘He should have had a proper gong.’
Jimmy has an OBE but hasn’t had a ‘proper gong’ either. He might’ve put paid to getting one with his traffic misdemeanour, but would he like one? ‘I would, yes,’ he says, the ambition still very much in evidence.
- An Evening With Jimmy Tarbuck opens on 6 April at The Apex, Bury St Edmunds with shows across England and Wales. Tickets, dates and info: jimmytarbuck.com.
