In an article first published in a 2008 newsletter, actress Charlotte Mitchell looks back on her career – and says she never laughed so much as when she was working with Peter, Spike and Harry.
By Mike Brown
‘The Goon Show is the one thing I have done that I always think people will be impressed with’
IN THE making of The Goon Show, Spike, Peter and Harry, and the added talents of Michael Bentine in the first two series, seldom needed a real live actress in their stories. Their own wealth of vocal talent would easily suffice.
In Series 1 and 3, Christmas specials in the form of pantomimes were made and in both cases actress/singers were required in the talented shapes of Lizbeth Webb and Carole Carr. The radio actress Ellis Powell reprised her role as Mrs Dale (of diary fame) in a Series 3 show, but the first time Spike used an actress in character roles written for Goon Show stories was with Charlotte Mitchell. In fact, with Charlotte they got two for the price of one in her second Goon Show.
Born in Ipswich, Suffolk in July 1926, Charlotte was the daughter of a marine architect who died when she was very young. Her background is non-theatrical, yet her ambition was to become a dancer and, as she had had a good education, she paid her way through dancing school by teaching English to the little pupils. She moved on to do pantomime after a year, but badly hurt her knee in a dancing class, which ended any hope of becoming a professional dancer. They were now living in Oxford, and she told her mother and sister to their horror that she wanted to become an actress. Convinced that she could ‘make it’. Charlotte went to Bristol’s Little Theatre and got a job as assistant stage manager for £2.10s.0d per week, playing one-line parts and working six days a week when she was 18.
A year later she went to London to look for work, which eluded her for six months. But help came from a poet she had been writing to and sending poetry. Through him, she got into a revue in the West End and more jobs followed, writing and performing her own material in fringe theatres. Small film parts started in 1949 with The Romantic Age starring Mai Zetterling and Petula Clark, and during the next four years, with the help of a good agent, she found herself in such films as Lady Godiva Rides Again, Laughter in Paradise and The Man in the White Suit. She was now rubbing acting shoulders with the likes of Alastair Sim, Margaret Rutherford, Joyce Grenfell, Alec Guinness and Joan Greenwood. Her first good film part was in Curtain Up in 1953 with Robert Morley and Margaret Rutherford. This story of a provincial repertory troupe must have reminded Charlotte of her time in Bristol.
The Goon Show was now in full stride and, as more film work came in, she was offered a part with Peter Sellers in a television comedy series called And so to Bentley, written by Frank Muir and Dennis Norden. They had been brought together by the BBC radio producer Charles Maxwell as a writing team and the result was Take it from Here. That show began in 1948 and, with the death of Tommy Handley the following year, it quickly filled the comedy gap left by ITMA. By 1954, TIFH (pronounced TIFE) had reached its 200th edition in Series 7 and Jimmy Edwards, Dick Bentley and June Whitfield had become hugely popular.
And so to Bentley, a six-part series of sketch shows, marked Muir & Norden’s television debut and regular support came from Bill Fraser, Charlotte and Peter Sellers who was in the 5th series of The Goon Show at the same time. The show aired fortnightly from October to December in 1954. It was Charlotte’s friendship with Peter which gained her a part in a Goon Show that December. The show in question was Ye Bandit of Sherwood Forest (Series 5, No.14), recorded on the 19th and broadcast on 28 December 1954. Spike wrote her in with the well constructed role of Maid Marion.
Her chance came again in January 1956. The Goon Show was halfway through its 6th series and a good Spike/Eric script (one of three in this series) provided her with a well written character in Tales of Montmartre (Series 6, No.18).
She was married to the actor and writer Philip Guard who had made his first film appearance in 1946 aged 18, and had been Will Scarlet in an early television Robin Hood. Philip would go on to work on stage, and on television with Herbert Wise, one of our most prolific and successful directors. Charlotte was pregnant with their second child during this Goon Show. Dominic Guard was born in June 1956 and holds the world record for being the youngest person to take part in a Goon Show, but his memory of the occasion is somewhat hazy!
Charlotte was now well established as an all-round character actress with a talent for comedy roles. Film parts would crop up for the next 30 years including Blood on Satan’s Claw, a noted horror movie from Piers Haggard, and The French Lieutenant’s Woman with Meryl Streep. Her list of television pats is both long and varied. A good example being Whack-O!, which ran to eight series, the first writing talents of Muir & Norden and a huge success for Jimmy Edwards as the headmaster of a second-rate public school called Chiselbury. Charlotte played the school matron in series 5 in 1959. A colour series was made 11 years later in 1971.
Parts in many more television series, from Coronation Street to Casualty and Maigret to Inspector Morse, followed with her most recent being in Heartbeat as Granny Bellamy, in the late 1990s. But she is still fondly remembered for the part of Amy Winthrop in The Adventures of Black Beauty in the 1970s.
Acting has been her profession but writing, since her schooldays, has been her constant joy. She has produced stories, plays, revues and sketches. Her first published book of poetry was Twelve Burnt Saucepans in 1970, and the title indicated the meals ruined while she was writing the contents. Two more books of poems followed. Several very popular BBC Radio 4 programmes have resulted from her poetic work.
I visited Charlotte at her home in Chiswick, West London, and had a most interesting chat, surrounded by her many books and memorabilia, including photos of her taken and signed by Peter Sellers.
Q: Your first film was The Romantic Age in 1949. How did that happen?
A: Having done stand-up comedy in revues with some success, my agent got me some film work and that one was a very small part. I was just one of several girls.
Q: You were in films in the early 1950s that are still well remembered.
A: I had made a name for myself being funny onstage, so I tended to get film parts billed as ‘featuring Charlotte Mitchell’. I was really lucky, starting in films very young, which stood me in good stead. I’ve always been a character actress and when they were making Curtain Up and wanted someone to play the part of Daphne Ray, they said, “Get Charlotte, she’ll have a go at it”, and I did.
Q: Did you have a good agent at the time?
A: Yes I did, from the very beginning. They were called Myron/Selznick, which became MCA, then Kenneth Carten, etc.
Q: What do you remember of working with Glenn Ford in Time Bomb in 1953?
A: I only had one line to say to him, but he was very sweet to me.
Q: Were you doing radio work in the mid-1950s?
A: Yes, I worked terribly hard then. I was doing radio work from an early age.
Q: What was your first television work?
A: It was probably a long forgotten variety show of some sort. I was in a few of them doing comedy turns, but the first telly work of note for me was And so to Bentley.
Q: What theatre work were you doing?
A: I was doing shows like Oranges and Lemons with Max Adrian and Elisabeth Welch for theatre producer Laurie Lister. I worked with Betty Marsden and wrote sketches for a revue called Airs on a Shoestring for Flanders & Swan, at the Royal Court Theatre, amongst many other things. Later in my career, theatre work included Sir John Gielgud’s production of The Cherry Orchard with Trevor Howard and A Winter’s Tale with John Gielgud. I did a season with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1985.
Q: Were you aware of The Goon Show in the early 19505 and, if so, did you listen to them at the time?
A: Yes I did. I always loved them, so I listened when I could. I thought the scripts were amazing and from them were born all these subsequent things like Monty Python. I don’t mean that they stole from the Goons, but they were free to do that kind of thing.
Q: How did you first meet Peter Sellers?
A: That was in And so to Bentley. I’d never met him prior to that. I remember saying to Frank Muir, “You watch Peter, he is going to be a big film star.” I remember Frank saying, “He will always be a wonderful supporting character actor, but not a film star.” But I was sure he was going to be a big star, and he was. Though he was a difficult and troubled person.
Q: How would you describe Peter?
A: I only knew him at the time of The Goon Show. He was lovely and a dear friend and always very funny, but there was something troubled about him. I didn’t know how much then, but I certainly found out as years went by. But I was happy in that company with people like Peter Jones, Dick Bentley, Bill Fraser and Peter Sellers. I got the part of Maid Marion because Peter had said let’s take a chance and get Charlotte. My agent rang up with the part for me. Though I met Peter in a corridor years later and he walked straight past me. He was a big star by then.
Q: Did he like to be the centre of attention and not be overshadowed?
A: No, he was not at all like that when I knew him. I was the sort of actress who never minded just being a comedy feed in shows with the likes of Charlie Drake and Jimmy Edwards. I wouldn’t mind if they shot the back of my head. You can be funny even from the back of your head. I got a lot of work, but not into a starring position because I didn’t mind that. But many I’ve known don’t like being overshadowed.
Q: I’ve read that Peter could be very generous and warm-hearted, yet be unreliable and let people down.
A: I didn’t know him for long, only two or three years. He was just a one-off. All the comics I knew and worked with were peculiar in one way or another. They are all overpowering in a way and some like to be the centre of attention. Though, of course, Peter was so humorous.
Q: I have read the Roger Lewis biography of Peter Sellers and I’m aware that it upset a lot of people.
A: I think that he got a lot of half-truths from a lot of people and worked round the subject that way. He interviewed me and got dates wrong, the whole ambiance was wrong. He was very nice and had me chatting away, but ended up to the left of the truth. Nearly every play or piece of work we do, we can get quite keen on the other person and enjoy their company, but it’s not all that important. I resent people who get things out of proportion. A lot of damage can be done.
Q: Tell me of your Goon Show experiences.
A: I had never laughed so much, working with Peter and the others. We did the shows at the Camden Theatre and I was quite confident in those days, having had success at being funny. They did this incredible audience warm-up for ages and everyone was falling about laughing, and then you know the show is about to start. You think, “Oh my God, I wasn’t part of the warm-up.” You think about how smoothly they work together. I didn’t quite think this at the time, but when you did a Goon Show you were thrown in at the deep end, and it’s good experience as well as good fun. I was in this tiny group who knew exactly what the others would say and do. They could read each other’s minds and I came in wondering what the heck I was doing. Peter called me “a little ham” in the Robin Hood show and he was right, I was in comparison. It was very frightening to work with them for the first time. They shouldn’t have had women on the show. They did it best themselves. I was all right in the Montmartre show because somehow it worked, but in Robin Hood I was much too slow, I didn’t have their pace and I was a bit nervous in front of their audience. I can say this now that I’m so proud to have been in it. It’s the one thing I’ve done that I always think people will be most impressed with. When I tell them that I was in The Goon Show, they are always surprised.
Q: Tell me about Spike and Harry. What were they like to work with?
A: What a marvellous man Spike was, though a bit over the edge some of the time. Harry was a lovely man and the sane one. He kept them all sane. I think that Harry was the show’s linchpin. He was always so focused on what he was doing and so good natured. I remember telling my two boys lots of times that I was in The Goon Show and they didn’t believe me. I was with them at the BBC and we were leaving after recording a show I was in. I saw Harry coming towards us and it took his talents to convince them that I was a Goon Show guest after all. I liked Spike so much. He was so talented. Though they would play jokes on you! My favourite Peter Sellers film, by the way, is The Party made in 1968.
Q: Which other comedy actors have you most enjoyed working with?
A: After the Goons it’s Ian Carmichael, because we worked so well together.
Q: Did you know or work with Tony Hancock?
A: Never, on both counts, but I thought he was wonderful.
Q: How did you get to write The Kids from 47A along with Lynda La Plante for television?
A: I had a literary agent and sent the idea in. I had written two plays for Peter Eckersley at Granada Television. They were called Buns the Elephant and Summer and Winter. I was doing Persuasion [1971] at the time. ATV took up my idea for a series for children to be called We Can Manage. But they ended up changing it so much, even the title. Lynda wrote some of them and I ended up getting paid for each episode because it was my idea.
Q: How would you describe your own sense of humour? What makes you laugh?
A: My daughter makes me laugh. In fact my three children have a great sense of humour. I liked Steve Martin in Trains, Planes and Automobiles, and Ronnie Barker makes me laugh, and Fawlty Towers as well. I also love Buster Keaton. Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby is a big favourite too.
Charlotte is now retired from acting, but speaks of her long and distinguished career, spanning light comedy to Shakespeare, with unassuming charm. She now has more time to devote to her other passion, writing. I left her, with a signed copy of her newest book of poems, Just in Case – Poems in my pocket, and yes, the front cover is illustrated by her daughter Candy.
The Goon Show Preservation Society 