Life and Laughing_ My Story - Michael McIntyre [16]
Apart from my parents’ room and the living room, the rest of our Hampstead flat is a bit of a blur. Strangely, comedy was already in the building as living in the flat above was the comedy writer John Junkin, who appeared with the Beatles in the film A Hard Day’s Night. I don’t ever remember him upright. He was always sitting, in fact almost lying, in his chair, and he seemed to have most of his life around his neck. His glasses were on a cord hanging around his neck, as were his lighter and a bottle opener. I think he might have also had a compass and maybe a medal for the longest time sat in one chair. Even as a toddler who could only grunt I thought, ‘That’s odd.’ The other bizarre thing in the Junkin household was the astonishing amount of Lucozade. This family was addicted to Lucozade. The whole flat had a sort of orange glow, like David Dickinson’s bathroom.
John was married to Jenny. Jenny and my mother became the best of friends almost immediately, chatting to each other, from their respective flats, through makeshift telephones made of plastic cups and string. My mother’s name was Kati, pronounced ‘Cottee’ (I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this before), but Jenny called her ‘Coke’, a nickname that stuck for some time. Looking back, it seems the Junkins were really into fizzy drinks, what with the Lucozade everywhere and calling my mum ‘Coke’. When Jenny fell on John, she too became pregnant and had a child called Annabelle, which was disappointing as my sister and I had a side bet she would be called 7-Up or Dr Pepper.
Soon after we moved into our dimly lit Hampstead flat underneath the Junkins’ Lucozade-glowing abode, my dad’s career in comedy began in earnest. Barry Cryer was hired to write for a zany and wildly talented radio DJ, Kenny Everett. Kenny was moving to television with The Kenny Everett Video Show on Thames TV. Barry, who had worked with my dad on Jokers Wild, brought him in to help with a segment of the show. The three of them hit it off immediately, and to such an extent that my dad was hired for the whole series. The chemistry between Kenny, Barry and my dad was perfect, and they laughed their way through series after series of a show that was getting up to 20 million viewers.
Kenny Everett, in Sid Snot guise, with Barry Cryer and my dad in their heyday, caught in a rare moment not laughing at each other’s jokes.
In those days there were only three channels, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. It must be impossible for teenagers, reading this book on their iPad, to fathom such a thing. It wasn’t really so bad. The only real difference is that in 1980 someone would ask, ‘What’s on TV tonight?’ and ten seconds later the reply would be ‘Nothing’, whereas in 2010 when someone asks, ‘What’s on TV tonight?’ it takes half an hour before somebody says, ‘Nothing.’
TV was so much simpler then. Today I can hardly keep up with technology. I’ve just got HD; now I’m told it’s all about 3D. 3D technology is truly amazing, and soon we will get to experience it in our own homes. The problem I have is that, sure it’s amazing if you’re watching Avatar. I’ve seen Avatar. It’s unbelievable – you feel like you can reach out and touch the Na’vi characters and are surrounded by the landscape of Pandora, and you can practically smell it. But do we really want to be sitting at home watching TV and feeling like we can reach out and touch Jeremy Kyle? I don’t want to feel surrounded by the Loose Women, and I certainly don’t want to feel I can practically smell Alan Titchmarsh.
For parents, TV is a salvation. It’s well-earned time off. ‘Sit down and watch this, kids, while I briefly return to a life I left behind.’ My four-year-old, Lucas, even has his own mini-DVD player, so while Oscar’s watching Teletubbies, he’ll be watching Finding Nemo on his portable. (When school was cancelled for a week during the snow, I think he watched