Aradio sketch parodying exotic travel during London’s post-war austerity encapsulated the wit of its creators,Denis Norden and Frank Muir. Its title, Bal-ham – Gateway to the South, boomed out by Peter Sellers in a faux American accent, satirised the dubious charms of the South London suburb. Written for a BBC Third Programme series in 1949, for a time the phrase was on everyone’s tongue.
Denis Norden, the scriptwriter and TV presenter, who has died at the age of 96, met his co-writer Frank Muir in 1947 and together produced over 300 programmes for the long running, mega-successful Take it from Here. During the 12 years of the show’s duration, the pair known as the two tall men of comedy, created such characters as The Glums and Mavis and wrote for Bernard Braden, Peter Ustinov and Jimmy Edwards, in his hit TV series Whacko.
Norden and Muir were among Britain’s leading post-war TV and radio comedy scriptwriters. Self-deprecating, with a touch of intellectual anxiety edging into his natural sense of fun, Norden was a towering figure, master of the anecdote, with an air of elegant surprise. Famous for his radio panel games such as My Word, (1956-88) and My Music (1967-93), he hosted the 20 year-running ITV “out-takes” series, It’ll be Alright on the Night. After a rocky start the show was adapted for international markets and heralded a new kind of currency in out-takes (previously junked catastrophies) which to Norden were grist to the mill of humour. He said “we are the Daddy of them all.”
Norden also wrote Hollywood scripts and presented ITV programmes for many years, such as the quiz, Looks Familiar and Laughter File.
The 50 year long working relationship between Norden and Muir was made in heaven. At their height ( and both men were well over 6ft tall) they were in constant demand for their comedic gifts. Even after they retired and Muir was writing his autobiography, A Kentish Lad, the two chatted several times a week recalling many shared experiences for the book, until Muir’s death in 1998. What made their partnership special was their differences and their similarities. Both were self-deprecating, providing a perfect foil for each other: Muir’s reticence for Norden’s satirical edge. Muir had a talent for administrative detail which, according to Norden –“Frank liked and was good at. I didn’t enjoy it and was bad at it.” Their writing partnership ended when Muir became a full time executive with BBC Light Entertainment, progenitor to London Weekend Television.
But many saw the break up of this partnership as a virtual marital breakdown, ignoring Norden’s long years of happy marriage to Avril Rosen since 1943, with whom he had two children, Nick, now an architect and Maggie, who moved from radio to media education.
Comedians are frequently regarded as secret depressives: not so Denis Norden. Although he did not consider himself particularly sociable, he was always quick to laugh at another’s jokes. All his life he enjoyed the natural rhythm and humour – even the oddity of certain words, analysing why some words are funny and others not.
Born in Hackney, east London to Orthodox parents, George, a dressmaker and Jenny née Lubell, Norden was educated at Craven Park Elementary School and the City of London School, where he was a contemporary of Kingsley Amis. He worked as a stagehand on leaving school and then moved into cinema management at 17, managing a cinema in Watford where he also organised variety shows. As a tall, skinny youth, bad at sports and excelling in English, he confessed: Every form of writing I have ever done – was because I wanted to get nine out of 10.”
Films were then the great hub of post-war entertainment and on leaving school in 1939 he worked for the Hyams brothers’ north London chain of cinemas, virtual palaces of fantasy. He wrote his first script for the BBC at the age of 19 before embarking on his long collaboration with Muir which began with Take it from Here.
The 1960s and 70s saw him writing such film scripts as the Paramount comedy The Bliss of Mrs Blossom, starring Shirley MacLaine and Richard Attenborough, the acclaimed United Artists rom com, Buona Sera Mrs Campbell, starring Gina Lollobrigida, Shelley Winters and Phil Silver and the 1971 comedy The Statue, with David Niven, Robert Vaughan and John Cleese.
He served in the RAF during the Second World War alongside Eric Sykes and Bill Fraser, writing shows for the troops. But on an “accidental visit to Bergen- Belsen” with Sykes in search of lighting for a show, he was shocked to discover emaciated prisoners and Jews who had been evacuated from concentration camps all over Europe.
After he was demobbed he worked for the Hyman Zahl Variety Agency supplying material for 163 radio comedians. “I enjoyed the challenge of making other people funny – and when you actually did something with the material the comedian didn’t think he could do – when he went on to get his laugh, then you felt you’d created a person.”
At 86 Norden suffered macular degeneration “I can’t read any more,” he told the JC’s Gerald Jacobs in a 2008 interview, “After all my life never going to sleep without a book.” But he managed to compile his recollections and anecdotes into an autobiography Clips from a Life. It also led to his preference for radio over the TV he found difficulty watching. “It’s astonishing how little of television is actually visual. Radio is a dialogue; television is a monologue.”
In a 1916 BBC interview he said: “Almost all comedy is of its time. You can’t expect audiences to laugh at what amused people 60 years ago. But people do still enjoy Balham – Gateway to the South. So that’s an achievement.”
He is survived by his children, Nick and Maggie and granddaughter Katie. His wife pre-deceased him two months ago.
GLORIA TESSLER
Denis Norden: born February 6, 1922. Died September 19, 2018
