Watch My Lips - Keith Harris and Orville!

« previous page

“I did Billy Smart's Easter Circus and Christmas Circus every year for four years and the Minstrels before that. My first TV performance was when I was seventeen on a show called Let's Laugh which was the forerunner to The Comedians . At the same time I auditioned for Opportunity Knocks. Trouble was I appeared on it the same week as Let's Laugh and that came out first so Opportunity Knocks weren't very pleased that I'd already been on a TV show. I had Freddy the Frog then; he said he was going to be Prime Minister because he was always in deep water and he had a big mouth. We lost by 27 votes to a young boy trumpeter who many years later was playing in my band in the pit. I had my own TV show, Cuddles and Company (in the 1970's).

On that I had Dominic the Dog and Daphne who was a shark in a tank of water. My ideas came from animals, I was always looking for ‘the one' that was going to take off. I never really wanted to be known as Keith Harris and Orville. I was Keith Harris ‘the entertainer' and this was part of what I did. Ventriloquism never topped the bills anymore; there was always one on the bill, often to close the first half. I wanted to say look: I sing, I dance, I do impressions, I do everything and this is something else I do. The reason I picked ventriloquism was because working the theatre's as a kid, there were a few ventriloquists who were pretty old by then. I thought if I take it up as my main act, by the time they die I'll be able to step into their shoes.

“My Uncle and Aunt were both in showbiz. My Father could sing so when he came out of the army, they said there was a vacancy in the show. He went for the audition and got in. He met my Mum, a dancer and wardrobe mistress, on a show called No, No Nannette .

“As a boy I was always making puppet theatres; I loved everything to do with theatre. Unfortunately I had many years of bad schooling. I didn't have a teacher for two years, and the headmaster ended up in prison. I was in a class with all the rough and tough kids who were trouble-makers. There was me in my little Lord Fontleroy suit, and I was shoved in there because I couldn't read or write. I was dyslexic but it wasn't recognised as anything apart from ‘being thick'. But my mind was always full of being on the stage. I would leave school and go straight to the theatre. At weekends I'd work the clubs with my Dad, earning a few quid, getting recognition.

I knew that's what I wanted to do. They couldn't get any teacher to handle this class, so of course, nobody came. It was only when some of my Mum's pupils from the dancing school she ran said they don't have teachers, they don't do anything that she went down there and made hell with them. The headmaster used to get me up to his office with a book and say, ‘Read that' and when I couldn't he'd cane me. I was lucky to have the theatre as my focus. The kids at school didn't know what I did. I was quite a timid little boy, but on stage I was king, the main man. Even in my teenage years I was a quiet person but as soon as I got on there I was completely different because I could control that and I was good at my art which always surprised people. I suppose I was born into it. I joined my Dad's act when I was six. I used to sit on his knee – he was the ventriloquist and I was his dummy. That's where I learnt all my timing.”

continued »

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7