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The Descent of the ‘Little’ Man’ in British Comedy

This chapter traces the descent of the ‘little man’ character(s) played by Drake from his nearest contemporary, Norman Wisdom, to one of the earliest cinematic slapstick clowns, Charlie Chaplin. The chapter considers the root of the ‘little man’ in the English clowns of the seventeenth century, but, it also acknowledges ancient Greek Theatre to explain how the tragi- comic nature of the ‘little man’ character reveals a common ancestry and served a similar psycho-socio-political function for popular audiences in the twentieth century as the low characters did in ancient Greek comedy.

The chapter also considers how the ‘big’ personality and the sense of humour of the diminutive comic inhabits (and determines the personality of) the ‘little man’ character(s) he played, and how it was essential to their comic appeal. By comparing Drake with Arthur Askey, for example, we are able to see, not just how the personality of their ‘little man’ character(s) is different, but why their humour is different too. The ‘little man’ character(s) they play are as different as the clowns that play them because their individual sense of humour satisfies a different psychological purpose for them - and that, of course, determines the type of comedy they present and the kind of audiences they attract who share their sense of humour.

The chapter also explores how that the ‘naughty but nice’ nature of the ‘little man’ comic character is revealed to be a reflection of the good and evil nature in every man’s archetypal psychopathology. By looking at the precedent in Hollywood of evil characters in horror and gangster movies played by diminutive actors, the appeal of the ‘little man’ clown character is seen to be more complicated, but more comprehensive, because the comedy is more psychologically invested with the dual nature of the human mind as it was constructed in portrayals of the type(s) in cinema. Similarly, the fighting spirit of these little gangsters, ghouls and slapstick clowns mirrors the psychological defence mechanism of every man in his struggle for survival in a world that often threatens to crush his individuality and sense of self-worth.

The ‘little man’s’ fighting spirit somehow looks larger than the giants he is fighting in the double-sided mirror of comedy and horror because it reflects the wish-fulfilment of every man

who wants to believe he is a David who can defeat his Goliath. The great appeal of the ‘little man’ clown character is his knockabout comedy. He is constantly knocked down, but he is never knocked out, on the contrary, he keeps getting up to face his problems, and the more gigantic those problems are, that is, to say the bigger the opponent is, the bigger the laughs are by comparison. The biggest laughs the silent slapstick ‘little man’ clown gets is when he jumps up and kicks the big man up the arse after being beaten senseless by him, but it can be done in a verbal battle too (as the duelogues between Mr. Pugh and Charlie in The Worker

show). The fighting spirit of the ‘little man’ in comedy is compared with his dramatic counterpart, the trigger-happy wisecracking gangster type, such as those played by the diminutive actor Cagney,177 but it is also visibly magnified in the muscle-bound meathead character of Rocky Balboa played by Stallone in the Rocky films in the 1980s; as the film reviewer, John Marriott (2006:1035) reminds us, Rocky is a ‘classic Hollywood story of the ‘little man’ winning big’.

Other manifestations of the comic ‘little man’ type are visible today in American cartoons such as Futurama and The Simpsons in the shows ‘star’ characters Fry178 and Homer. Here, as we might expect, the type is represented as a fool not a hero. But, his self-deprecating humour makes him a harmless comic anti-hero; a kind of unarmed in-law to his outlaw gangster brother who arms himself with the kind of warped sense of humour that matches his own wicked desire for gunning down his own kind, which perversely turns him into an anti-hero. Is it not precisely because these ‘little man’ gangsters have a hysterical sense of humour at all, that they seem more human and therefore more monstrous?

Hysterical laughter is a symptom of twentieth century man’s most neurotic fear - madness. The audience are expected to laugh at the callous jokes the gangster makes as he guns down his victims because they are wearing the bullet proof vest of sanity, but their laughter is an echo of the murderous impulse they are trying to conceal behind it.

177 _{There are many others, from Edward G. Robinson as Cesare Enrico Bandello in Little Caesar (1931), to the}

weedy little bespectacled gangster in the British Telecom (BT) 118118.com televisionadvertisement who is thrown over a balcony by his bodyguards for not remembering which number to dial in an emergency.

178 _{The name chosen for the character Fry is a verbal joke, a pun. Freud would have classified the joke as a}

‘doubleentendre with an allusion’ (115) because it plays on the derogatory common phrase “small fry” (where ‘smallness is related to what has to be represented, and can be seen to proceed from it’ (121). It defines the character socially as a ‘little man’ who is sexually immature because ‘fry’ are newly hatched fish, and it is also an example of what Freud calls a ‘characterizing’ joke. This joking technique is used by the scriptwriter Talbot Rothwell in many of the Carry On films especially when a name is used to define a character’s (rampant or repressed) sexuality.

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The descent of the neurotic ‘little man’ character into adult cartoon comedy is proof of the character’s popular appeal today; their frustrations even make them victims of slapstick gags like Drake’s ‘little man’ characters were. They take a beating for the spectator. It is debatable whether the cartoon ‘little man’ fool fulfils a different psychological purpose than Drake’s comic clown did from the mid-50s to the early 1970s, but tracing that descent is interesting because it allows us to question whether the type has changed very much at all, and whether the type still represents the satisfaction of the audience’s wish-fulfilment; where each man kills the thing he loves with a well-aimed joke. Lee Evans (who is probably the most popular standup comic of his generation) has this to say: ‘I started doing physical comedy, because I was like a moving target. You know what British audience’s are like – “He’s shit, kill him! My upbringing taught me to keep moving.”179 He has often been compared to Wisdom but he does not regard him as an influence.180

Tracing the descent of a ‘little man’ comic like Drake is not difficult. Immediately, a line from Wisdom, his ‘main rival’ says Spicer (2001:107) (though not really) straight back to Chaplin, can be drawn. Obviously, the common trait they all share is that they are descended from that branch of comics called clowns. ‘The English people have always adored their clowns’ says Priestley (1934:22); ‘As soon as the stage was set up in this country, there was fooling’ (22). Priestley traces the lineage of the clown from as far back as the mediaeval histories where he says ‘humour is forever breaking in’ (22) - a phrase that perfectly describes the disruptive affect and rebellious nature of the clown breaking down the doors of life we often take too seriously – to the most famous clown of cinema in his day, Chaplin; ‘the little man whose face and figure and characteristic gestures and grimaces would be instantly recognised in Europe and America…wherever, in fact, the moving pictures have gone‘(42) he says.

Bakhtin’s study of mediaeval comedy and the carnival is particularly useful here. Horton (1991) says ‘Bakhtin’s perspective enables us to see the carnivalesque backgrounds of comics’ (13). One of those perspectives, as Clark and Holquist (1984) explain, is that Bakhtin’s ‘notion of carnival is connected with the grotesque’ body (303). The body is, according to Bakhtin ‘a measuring device’ (303). But it does not measure the effects of those

179 _{IMDb Personal quote http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0262968/bio#quotes}

180 _{‘I saw his films as a kid. It surprises me because if you watch my act it’s nothing like his really’.}

See article ‘All I’ve ever felt on stage is pain’ Daily Telegraph, 25 October 2004.

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beatings or the amount of battering the body can cope with because no marks are left on it, (even the pain registered on Charlie’s face is in anticipation of it). What it measures is the immortality of the human spirit, ‘the body’s need of a type of clock if it is to be aware of its timelessness’ (303). The comic wears his grotesque body but he never wears it out. It gives him immortality because it is as unchanging as the human spirit that wills it to survive.

Another perspective relates to the performance space and audience participation. Horton says, ‘there is much in common between pre-Oedipal and carnivalesque comedy’ (13) – its all inclusiveness – and ‘the sanctioned freedom where almost any behaviour is permitted’ (13). Similarly, Clark and Holquist explain that ‘[T]hose attending a carnival do not merely constitute a crowd; rather the people are seen as a whole, organized in a way that defies socio- economic and political organisation’ (302). They point out that according to Bakhtin, “[A]ll were considered equal during carnival. Here, in the town square, [in the cinema or tuning in at home] a special form of free and familiar contact reigned among people who were usually divided by the barriers of caste, property, profession, and age” (10).

A televised ‘live’ comedy show like Drake’s does indeed share something with mediaeval

pantomime and Renaissance carnivals. If we accept Clark and Holquist’s summary that: At carnival time, the unique sense of time and space causes

individuals to feel they are a part of the collectivity, at which point they cease to be themselves. It is at this point that, through costume and mask, the individual exchanges bodies and is renewed. At the same time there arises a heightened awareness of one’s sensual, material, bodily unity and community (302).

And, if we accept that Priestley’s family tree proves that Chaplin and ‘Comedians of this kind [are] true descendants [of those medieval clowns] and have always been the idols of the English people’ (1934:38), then we must celebrate Drake’s rightful place in the pantheon of fools, as Douglas did, when she said: ‘The man who shares the virtues of those great clowns of former days, and the man who most deserves to be crowned ‘Clown of the Twentieth Century’ is Charlie Drake’ (c.1961:74).

Douglas recognises that Drake is a modern variation of the medieval clown and that these ‘New Look’ clowns ‘coincided with the development of the little screen’ (Douglas 74). Priestley said: ‘However new the art that presents it may be’ (45) they serve the same purpose as the medieval clowns did in carnivals. They have always entertained ordinary people, with

‘low comedy’ and ‘horseplay’ (45) - ‘the quality of the one tells us of the quality of the other’- he says (45). By horseplay Priestley means rough boisterous play, which is a synonym for knockabout or slapstick comedy.By low comedy he means coarse or infantile comedy that is meant to entertain the lower classes, which corresponds with the light entertainment programmes that are meant to entertain television’s mass audiences (whose violent impulses have to be satiated somehow). The period in time is irrelevant; in every age the clown has to be beaten senseless by a patriarchal representative of society (the father-figure of authority) who is the nation’s public defender against unacceptable morals and bestial behaviour. But even if the ‘little’ fool is a counterfeit foil for freedoms, it is essential that he is portrayed as a champion of chaos, causing apparent mayhem and laughing in the face of his executioner as he is led to the gallows to be taught his place in society. As Priestley says, the ‘man undone in law the day before (the saddest case that can be) might for his two pence have burst himself with laughing, and ended all miseries’ (24). Here lies the psychological determinants for laughter; the law that censors it and death that ends it. The focus of all carnival (slapstick) humour is the body, its functions, its frailty, and its fight against the threat of death by miraculous renewal.181 The clown always cheats death, cheerfully, inexplicably, but expectantly, because however much he is beaten again, and again, and again, he bounces back with a grin not a grimace on his face. The slapstick clown is seldom if ever able to talk his way out of trouble like the wise fool. Chaplin, working in silent films, mimed his way in and out of trouble. ‘Clowns had a habit of “gagging” (23) says Priestley. Even Charlie, who often mesmerises Mr. Pugh with his tall stories, always manages to put his foot in his own mouth, which, of course, precipitates some act of self-flagellation disguised in the typical kick-up- the-arse gag expected of the slapstick tradition. In an episode of The Worker ‘I Just Don’t Want To Get Involved’182 he tries desperately not to get involved in discussions where he has to explain his behaviour to others, preferring instead to stay silent (which of course only increases the threat of physical violence to him).

Drake’s facial features (like all clowns) are not really silent though; ‘Drake has been described as ‘looking like a Botticelli angel with a stomach ache’ as Douglas (c.1961:77) reminds us. This New Look face of the twentieth century clown, as we have already noted, is a tool of the trade that has a long tradition. Priestley (1934) picks out Doggett and John Rich

181 _{For an Orwellian/Bakhtinian interpretation of this see Chapter 3, ‘From carnival to crumpet: Low comedy in}

the 1970s’ in Hunt (1998: 34-44).

182_{The Worker, series 2, episode 7, ITV (ATV), Saturday, 13 November, 1965.} 95

(“the father of English pantomime” whose stage name was Lun) from seventeenth century reviews. He quotes one contemporary reviewer of Doggett who says, “On the stage, he’s very Aspectabund, wearing farce on his face, his Thoughts deliberately framing his Utterance Congruous to his looks”, and he repeats Garrick’s versicle to describe Lun: ‘When Lun appeared, with matchless art and whim, / He gave the power of speech to every limb: / Tho’ masked and mute, conveyed his quick intent, / And told in frolic what he meant’ (29).

The veryAspectabund faces of clowns like Rich, like Doggett, like Drake, like Wisdom (who practised the art of pulling faces)183 reveals a peculiarity of the ‘English’ character; repression. Priestley explains why: ‘They live in such deep intimacy with their feelings that they find it difficult and distasteful to reveal them’ (19) verbally. But, is this psychological characteristic not more universal? Is the ‘little man’ clown not a substitute for the ‘little man’ symptom in all men? Is this not why the clown is popular all over the western world? Drake was invited to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show in America in 1968 because at that time Drake says, ‘America had no comic to love. All their comedians were stand-up people. The public could laugh at them, and so they should – the bulk of them were brilliant and their material superb – but there was no love. Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were the last men of warmth in the comedy field that they could love and they’d gone some time ago. I was up for grabs’ (1986:129). American might have found Drake funny because, as Douglas (c.1961) says, ‘Little Charlie has a battered, hopeless look about him’ (74) (and it was the home of slapstick after all) but does this reflect Priestley’s assertion that English audiences ‘prefer[ed] a droll chunk of personality’ (38) from their clowns, and why they ‘did not like a comedian to be different, but to be forever himself, or, if you will, to be more himself each time they see him’ (38)? Or does it reveal that their love of English clowns comes from the fact that little Charlie

183 _{‘I discovered the enjoyable art of pulling faces […] the more you practise, the more you can manipulate your}

skin into all sorts of monstrous looking masks. In the army I became a positive India Rubber Man, mainly to “take the Mickey” out of snooty officers and sadistic sergeants. I could pull the most horrendous faces – and lapse into child-like innocence when they whirled round to find out why everyone was laughing’ (Wisdom 2003:125). Wisdom reveals everything that defines the ‘little man’ clown here, as well as the psychological reasons behind what Nuttall & Carmichael call the ‘survival’ humour, (1977:37) that the ‘little man’ aka the ‘common man’ uses as a weapon to make war against authority figures: ‘By making our enemy small, inferior, despicable or comic, we achieve…the enjoyment of overcoming him-to which the third person

[audience]…bears witness by his laughter’ states Freud (Jokes 103). Drake’s own particular sense of humour is revealed in his autobiography when he recalls his time in the RAF. His humour is less good natured than Wisdom’s, (which was really observational - the purpose of which was to make his mates laugh, and to satisfy his own need to perform to an audience). Drake’s is more ‘hostile’ (Freud) and self-defensive. He did not need to share his humour; driven by an over-inflated ego that made him believe he was better than anyone else, it merely satisfied his natural inclination to ridicule those in authority to satisfy the idiosyncrasies of his own

incomparable inferiority complex.

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Chaplin was English and one of the biggest stars America has ever had? Wisdom was hugely popular in Albania. ‘Why Albania? Because they kept asking me back!’ explains Wisdom (2003:274) unable to comprehend why they loved him because his narcissistic ego is concerned only with the fact that they did, and Charlie Cairoli was hugely popular in England. Why England? Because he was Italian, and his broken English made him seem more buffoonish and child-like, and the lilting musical quality of his native tongue made audiences warm to him.

While the physical uniqueness of these clowns undoubtedly set them apart as individuals from every man, it was the simple everyday [extra]ordinariness of their ‘little man’ characters that made them an Everyman to popular audiences. A cursory glance at Aristotle’s Poetics would seem to confirm that clowns occupied the same social position in Ancient Greek theatre that