The "Frost On..." series with David Frost

[Mel O'Drama]

These were to be a bit of a stopgap for me in between series, and I wasn't planning to comment on them, but the episodes are proving so fascinating that here we are.

These series were made at a time when Frost had just signed a huge contract in the States for The David Frost show which aired three nights a week. And yet he still jetted back to the UK each weekend to do three consecutive evenings: Frost On Friday, Frost On Saturday, and Frost On Sunday.

It's going to be rather an incomplete experience, since I never bought Frost On Friday while it was in print and many episodes of the series I have bought have long since vanished from the face of the earth. This leaves me with the remaining episodes of Frost On Saturday and Frost On Sunday, plus one solitary episode of Frost On Friday in which he interviews Noël Coward.

David Frost is someone whose face is familiar to me and who I remember being a presence during the Eighties. There was TV-am, of course. Oh, and Through The Keyhole, which is where I'd have seen him the most. But somewhere at the back of my consciousness was the knowledge on some level that he was also a proper journalist. I'm seem to recall a series of his running late on a Sunday evening, probably past my bedtime. It might even have been repeats of his earlier work.

Even at a young age, there was an avuncular kind of quality to him that drew me in. Watching these first few episodes from 1968 he's very charismatic indeed. Looking at pictures of him, he's not classically good looking, but on film he just has something. His bright, cheeky smile melts me. It's easy to see why Diahann Carroll fell for him shortly after this.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Watching the very first episode of Frost On Saturday from August 1968, it's difficult to tell who is more charismatic: Frost or his sole interviewee, Bob Hope. I must confess to some reticence going into this episode. Watching a forty minute grainy, black and white interview with someone I'm not particularly familiar didn't fill me with excitement. As it turns out, there's a reason (beyond having a good agent) why Bob Hope got an entire show to himself. He's quite magnetic and extremely funny. The banter between the two is great and they even take time out for Hope to teach Frost how to putt and drive in a little studio setup. Hope putts three or four consecutive golf balls to the exact spot they need to be. On live TV while being interviewed. Impressive.

This was at a time when the UK's language and culture was less influenced by the US, and the American guests can't help feeling very American. Hope's relatives from Hitchin have all been given front row seats on his request, and have turned out to support him (they first met during a visit to Britain during WWII, as we see in archive footage), and when one reserved gentleman earnestly says a few quiet words on behalf of the family ("Christmas is coming", heckles Hope when the chap takes a while to get started) it's difficult to imagine how they could possibly be related.

Likewise, Stan Freberg feels not so much like an American guest but like a Brit's steretypical idea of an American (think the guest demanding Waldorf Salad in Fawlty Towers). Some of his advertisements are screened and it's easy to see how innovative and prescient he is as they look incredibly contemporary and actually satirise the very idea of marketing which, as he says, has got him into trouble and made him persona non grata with some people. It's fascinating to see the polite British audience reacting to these clips and Freberg's wry delivery, not quite sure when or if to laugh.

Later in the show, having apparently been seated somewhere in the audience, Freberg storms the stage during a John Lennon/Yoko Ono interview (the sacrilege) to loudly complain about the lack of air conditioning. And it does indeed look extremely hot. Frost is sweating visibly through the entire show. Yoko intermittently dabs her face with a handkerchief during her interview. Even the polite audience seems to murmur in approval in response to Freberg's very un-British complaint. Frost diplomatically (and possibly even dishonestly) tells Freberg his comments will be considered, and that's that.

John Lennon is another of those people I've never seen much of in interviews and like Bob Hope, it's easy to see what all the fuss is about. He's incredibly chatty and down-to-earth. Talking about meeting Yoko at her art exhibition he quips that most art gallery owners see a Beatle and think that they have more money than taste ("like a Texan") and will buy any old junk. Yoko (apparently) didn't know who he was and asked him for a sum of money to knock a nail into a canvas. He compromised by knocking an imaginary nail into the piece in exchange for an imaginary banknote.

They're clearly passionate about their contemporary art, though Lennon himself scoffs at the very idea of art as a boxed in concept. As he explains, the three of them sitting there is art. As is the broken cup on display. Pragmatic Frost is amused and bemused by the whole thing. He is one of several invited to hammer a nail into a canvas. Two sweaty audience members reply with superlatives when asked how they felt. Frost replies that he felt like he's just knocked a nail into a piece of art. It's an interesting meeting of minds.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

In between the Hope and Lennon episodes of Saturday comes the inaugural episode of Frost On Sunday. As it turns out, this is one of the most fascinating pieces of live TV I've ever watched. The episode was nearly cancelled due to a technical strike, but the production team gritted their teeth, got all hands on deck and determined to deliver a show. The smaller than usual audience is crammed into a small studio normally used for sports results. Some are seated, but others seem to be sitting on the floor and a number of people can be seen standing pressed against the walls.

What I love about this episode is the real sense that "the show must go on" even when thins go wrong to such a degree that it feels satirical - like Noises Off. It just keeps going despite the numerous glitches and mishaps. Early in the episode, a man can be just be made out behind Frost apparently reading a newspaper, which seems both rude and peculiar. Then it becomes apparent that it's an extra from an upcoming sketch with the Two Ronnies awaiting his cue. During said sketch, a techie can be seen crouching in the background for a good part of the shot.

Later on, there's a random cutaway to an extreme close-up of Michael Palin awaiting his cue for a different sketch with Ronnie Barker (presumably setting up the camera without realising it's filming live. Fortunately he's not doing anything embarrassing).

My main reason for investing in these sets in the first place was to give completion to my Two Ronnies rewatch last year. Of course one of their best-known sketches had taken place two years before these Frost On... episodes in a 1966 episode of The Frost Report with the legendary Class sketch with John Cleese. It's a hard act to follow, but starting strong they've already given us a sketch which dissects Brits' sometimes Victorian attitudes to discussion of sex. It's great to see them together along with Josephine Tewson whose chemistry with Barker is completely evident here. They work so well together and there's no sense of even the slightest nerve at the chaos going on around them in the studio. During a sketch with Palin set in Barker's character's home, Palin admires the decor, and Barker apparently ad libs that he had it converted from an old sports hall. The audience loves it.

At one point during one of his introductory spiels, Frost stops his spiel to comment that he's nearly been garrotted as a camera moves into place behind him. At another he simply stops what he's saying and says "what?" to someone off camera, then duly moves to a different part of the studio as he's instructed. Just as we're about to go to the interview with Kenneth Williams and Ted Ray, Frost can be heard calling out that they still need a bit of rehearsal time, so the band and comedian (I'm assuming perhaps the warm-up guy) crack on with various impersonations until they're ready.

Frost himself is interesting here because he seems different here from in either of the two shows that flank it. His delivery is rather more knowing and unsubtle, and his quip rate is significantly higher than you'd expect. I'd guess it's nervous energy as he must be under an enormous degree of pressure for this, his first show of a new series, to work despite the almost insurmountable odds.

Nowhere is this more noticeable than in the interview with Kenneth Williams and Ted Ray. I'm sure Frost must have known that when Williams is underway, you simply do not interrupt him. However, he does that almost immediately with the question "Is that your real voice?" Williams responds perfectly well, but (perhaps self-consciously. Or perhaps feeling the need to get bigger in response) almost immediately starts leaning into his Snide characterisation instead of his normal speaking voice. At one point, Frost imitates him, not just once but several times in succession while Williams continues to speak. It looks rather rude, but I'm sure everyone would have known what they were up against and the camaraderie prevails. In what looks almost like a catharsis, everyone laughs just a bit too hard at the others' stories.

The camaraderie is right across the board. Later in the episode the audience is filmed, and Michael Palin and Josephine Tewson can be clearly seen sitting in the audience, cheering Frost on heartily. It's clear that the guests from the sketches have nowhere to go in between sketches. The same is true of Frost himself. In between two music numbers, he can be seen seated on the floor in front of a camera applauding and smiling and winking and generally sending out waves of "you're doing great" to the singer. This destroys any "them and us" hierarchy between host, guests and audience and creates a unique family feel where everyone does their best to make it work.

The goodwill can be felt. And the result is quite electric.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Incidentally, I just looked in The Kenneth Williams Diaries and The Kenneth Williams Letters to see if he mentioned any background about this unique episode.


He doesn't diarise this specific appearance, but does mention it in a letter to Ted Ray's son, Andrew, written on 12 August 1968, some eight days after the live "strike" episode. It really shows what they were up against that night:

I did the David Frost Show with your Dad, It was good to see him again after all this time, and he was certainly very nice about you. The thing for which we had been engaged had to be cancelled cos they couldn't have the sets, etc. so Frost asked us to ad lib... Pickets were outside the building. They shouted at us as we went in 'Don't work with them Kenny! You belong to the union same as us' but I just smiled and said 'It's the money loveys' and went on in. Ted and I got loads of laughs and at the end Frost asked us if we would both do it again. We agreed. But they phoned and said that the strike this week was worse, and that the entire show has been cancelled.

His diaries do mention some other later Frost episodes, including a return appearance from John Lennon:

Sunday 15 June 1969
That Beatle who is married to an Asiatic lady was on the Frost Programme. The man is long haired & unprepossessing, with tin spectacles and this curious nasal Liverpudlian delivery: the appearance is either grotesque or quaint & the overall impression is one of great foolishness. He and his wife are often 'interviewed' from inside bags in order to achieve 'objectivity' and they have 'lie-ins' whereby they stay in bed for long periods & allow a certain number of people into the room. I think this man's name is Ringo Star or something [No - it's John Lennon*] but he began as a 'singer' and instrumentalist with this group called The Beatles and one searches in vain for any valid reason for his being interviewed at all. What this ex-pop-singr is doing pontificating about the state of humanity, I cannot imagine. It's mind-bending to listen to.

* KW's annotation.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I must confess to not being at all familiar with The Rolling Stones, nor - to my knowledge - can I recall ever having heard a single one of their tracks.

All the same, there was a sense of event surrounding their performance of Sympathy For The Devil at the beginning of an episode I watched last night. As David said, it was their first live appearance for over a year, and they do perform well. If it was completely live rather than lip-synced, I was very impressed with Jagger's voice as he was pitch perfect.

The track ended with Jagger kneeling on the floor, with the hand-held mic jammed between his knees, perform what can only be described as a musical version of auto fellatio by crouching into a foetal position over it while removing his top and then continuing to perform the various falsetto screams of the outro. At this point - barely five minutes in - Frost popped onto screen to announce a commercial break, leading me to wonder if things were threatening to get a bit too rock 'n' roll for TV.

The Stones' appearance was notable for seeming almost hilariously at odds with the surrounding material. The middle-aged, middle-class WASPs in the audience respond with a polite-but-muted applause. Then we see Frost flanked by four people mostly in their Sixties and Seventies and Frost introduces these mild-mannered people: Poet John Betjeman, parapsychologist Rosalind Heywood and Reverend H.A. Williams. And the theme? Death and dying. It makes the Stones' performance of Sympathy For The Devil seem even more perverse.

The final participant in this discussion is Nicol Williamson (whom I knew looked familiar but struggled to place as I watched. Of course, I now realise I watched him quite recently in a Columbo episode where his intensity made him a decent killer. He's no less intense here, in fact he gives a terrifyingly chaotic reading of a Beckett piece at great pace regarding a conversation with death, or St Peter or nothingness, which evolves into falsetto screams, echoing Jagger. He's truly fascinating here, being incredibly frank about his obsessive daily fear of dying. He's also very forthright, interrupting a lot, and there's a funny running theme with poor Betjeman who is often slow to respond when asked a question. Someone else starts speaking and a few seconds in, Betjeman jerks slightly and raises his hand to a cheek as if to signify he's found the required response, but of course it's too late so he ends up mostly unheard.

While the conversation is rather heavy at times and gets into existential talk about afterlife and belief systems as well as the grim reality of dying a painful death, or dying in terror while trying to resist it, it's also incredibly fascinating to get such a subject out in the open.

Here's a little bit of it, with Williamson's powerful two-minute Beckett reading coming at 2:35...

​

The following episode with American comedian Alan King was recorded as part of Frost's US series, and it tells. There's clearly more money in the set and a bigger audience and it all looks glossier and grander. But there's also something artificial and static about it. It's not without its moments - King lets rip at Nixon and even Ronald Reagan (then Governor of California who has, King points out, "singlehandedly brought back capital punishment") - but ultimately King is not an entertaining or interesting enough subject to justify the entire running time being devoted to this one-to-one, and this felt like one of the longer forty minutes of my life.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

This series is certainly broadening my horizons. It seems every time I post about an episode there's another legend with whom I become familiar for the first time. Bob Hope; John Lennon; The Rolling Stones.

And now Noël Coward.

Of course I'm familiar with his work, and have seen many Coward pieces on stage and film, and along with his familiar songs they leave no doubt of his genius. But as to the man himself, I don't know that I've seen him interviewed before.

His quick witted, acid tongued reputation certainly precedes him. Half the famous quotes in existence seem to be Coward ones, or at least attributed to him. He even jokes about this during the course of this interview from an episode of Frost On Friday.

It comes across strongly that he's very aware of his own reputation and embraces it. He certainly didn't shy away from acknowledging his greatness, nor from Frost's suggestion that he's a star.

I expected him to be aloof, and he certainly is. He's also very devious in his answers. Every carefully considered response is a quip, or a soundbite. A sharp retort. More unexpected is the warmth that comes across. He seems to have a great connection with David Frost and also seems to be enjoying himself and the attention.

He'd be around 70 here, with over half a century of enormous success behind him. Part of me wonders if the edges have softened. Perhaps I'll seek out an earlier interview to see if I can get a sense of that. However, I really like the Coward I see here. There's a vulnerability to him which I think many people acquire as they become older. His recital of one of his songs at the piano, his voice showing signs of age but also of great emotion, brought tears to my eyes.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

The crime episode was fascinating for feeling very of its time in many ways while at the same time showing that things weren't as idyllic in the Sixties as some would have us believe today.

The car thieves section was both funny and a little frightening to think about how insecure cars were. The easiest car to break into was said to be the Mini because you just force the handle down and it unlocks. At time of filming, BMC had just introduced the new push button handle in response to this, and it must have been at least somewhat effective since that push button handle remained until original Mini production ended in 2000.

Meanwhile, a former car thief helped demonstrate how insecure cars were by driving a member of the audience's car into the studio, having broken into it in the car park. He claimed to have a key which would open most Fords, and said that the only thing which might deter him would be an alarm - a rarity at the time (the car driven into the studio actually had an alarm but it wasn't switched on). Other shady characters in the audience mentioned deterrents such as a vibrator(!), an immobiliser and the good old crook lock (remember them?!).

Not only were older cars laughably easy to break into (imagine someone trying to force the handle on a BMW MINI), but the public seemed very nonchalant about it when it happened. The car owner was slightly perplexed ("Where will I find my car?", he meekly wondered as he was sent back to his seat, his concerns brushed quickly aside by Frost's smiling charms), but not as outraged as one might expect. And the pickpocket stealing items from unsuspecting members of the audience to be produced, displayed and read out by Frost would probably never fly today. Can you imagine the lawsuits.


Next up, the episode commemorating the first night of official colour transmissions felt appropriately celebratory. There was a glimpse of the future with a performance of Jesus Christ Superstar - still two years away from its first production (Frost said written by two talented "young men", squinting carefully at his clipboard to ensure he got the names Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber right). But mostly it was a retrospective, with the first two or three rows taken up by many familiar faces or, more accurately, familiar voices, since it was heavily focussed on favourite radio series at a time when the radio still meant something to people. There was June Whitfield, Dick Bentley and Jimmy Edwards from Take It From Here (June and Dick reenacted their famous characters Eth and Ron from The Glums. Plus Two Ton Tessie O'Shea (my God, she was full-on). Jon Pertwee was there, proudly announcing that The Navy Lark had just begun production of its Twelfth Series. Noele Gordon sat regally among them but, although name-checked, wasn't called to speak. I wonder how she felt about that.


It's always good to see Frankie Howerd, but I must confess that I never find him as interesting an interviewee as I always seem to anticipate. He has a very limited patter, I suspect mostly a persona there to shield his own need for privacy. There were a couple of almost spiky moments where he charmingly but firmly refused to answer a question on a controversial topic put to him by Frost ("Oh no you don't", Howerd countered, "I'm here to talk about me"). He went on to say that he'd seen situations where an unsuspecting interviewee sits happily down and ends up cornered and angry while Frost sits there shrugging and looking innocent). It was all very humorously done, but one senses Howerd was genuinely guarded and defensive, prepared for a bit of a battle with Frost. Perhaps that's why his interview ended up being rather short and uneventful. To give this a time setting, Howerd announced that he'd just finished making "a cultural film: Carry On Jungle Boy "(or, as it eventually ended up, Carry On Up The Jungle).

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Having watched Frost On Coward and all available episodes of Frost On Saturday, my chronological watch only leaves the second series of Frost On Sunday.

This programme feels far more variety-ish than Saturday, with the format now feeling very much like Round The Horne or something, with a faux news article, some gags, sketches and music (a mix of straight and funny) then more gags and jokes.

The Two Ronnies sketches with Josephine Tewson are mostly terrific, of course (in many ways this series is a precursor to The Two Ronnies series which would begin the following year). They're playing a broad variety of characters, with Tewson's versatility really shining here, her roles ranging from tarts to an old grey haired wife in spectacles to a hilarious (and slightly wicked) portrayal of Joan Bakewell.

Instead of proper interviews, there are now silly skits with Frost reading out fake news or reading out viewers' jokes. I find him terribly awkward during these sections, especially at times when he's trying a little too hard, with his little nods of agreement, or ad libs of statements like "It's true. It's true" in response to the audience's laughter. Many of the topical references go over my head, and there isn't anything else about them that's at all historically interesting. Frankly, I'd rather see him grilling someone in a serious interview.

The musical acts, too, tend to drag the pace right down. There are some terrific performers and songs (Gerri Granger was a nice discovery for me. Matt Monro appeared and I was shocked to discover he had a British accent since I'd always assumed he was American. but there are now three or four songs per episode and it's just too much. I don't care to sit down and watch a music performance unless I'm in a particular mood anyway.

Some of the novelty songs are enjoyable enough. I particularly enjoy the Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh songs, performed by Sam Costa and Richard Murdoch from the original radio series. I suspect this now-regular section came out of the Saturday episode commemorating the launch of colour TV in which the radio performers appeared and sang a little bit.

In "they'd never show this on TV again" territory, there was a Rolf Harris musical number with the retrospectively awkward title of Two Little Boys. I was expecting a novelty number from him and so was surprised to find it was actually a serious, rather poignant ballad.

In terms of other general entertainment, there's been Ray Alan with Lord Charles. Although I'm familiar with Alan, having seen him many times on TV over the years, I'd actually forgotten what he looked like due to his Just A Minute appearances where - for whatever reason - I'd got a very different image from his voice and recast him with Ray Brooks. He is certainly a very impressive ventriloquist.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Watching Frost On Sunday once a week is something I would no doubt have thoroughly enjoyed.

Watching an average two episodes per evening, however, feels extremely laborious, to the point I felt elated at thinking I could get through the remaining episodes last night, and rather narked when I realised that not only was there one more episode than I'd thought, but one of the remaining episodes was a full hour long.

I could have probably made it more pleasant by watching one of the remaining episodes every couple of days in between another series, but I tend to treat my TV series like a meal and prefer to consume and digest one at a time.

Turns out the hour long episode was the most enjoyable, because it wasn't the show proper but an edited version of the British Film And Television Awards, hosted by Frost, which ran in place of Frost On Sunday on 8th March 1970, from the London Palladium. Lots of familiar faces included Maggie Smith, Laurence Olivier, Richard Attenborough, Wendy Craig, Shirley Maclaine, Jon Voight...

Something that fascinated me, particularly early on, was the lack of indulgence one sees around award ceremonies of every kind today. Guests came on stage one at a time, read out the names on the envelope and the name of the winner. Then the winner came up, was given their award and a kiss or handshake and ushered back down off the stage without getting to say a word. There were no close-ups of the expectant nominees faking grace and humility. No tearful speeches. No thanking God. None of the crap that has become the norm.

There was a bit more of this in the latter part. In fact I found myself irritated that Morecambe and Wise not only claimed the award that should have been Ronnie Barker's, they then came up and goofed around on stage for around five minutes while taking the award. Some of the bigger names had things to say (the Americans and the OBEs) as it went on. In fact, one old American guy came on at the end and went into a long-winded hesitant "a funny thing happened to me on the way to the Palladium" type spiel immediately after being told by David Frost that they were overrunning. After around ten minutes, I thought I detected waves of impatience from the polite audience.

There were some sketches and performance spots, with Rod McKuen singing Jean from The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, and the entire cast of Please Sir! accosting Frost and their own series' writer.

Meanwhile, in Frost proper, Des O'Connor appeared and did a bit of a skit with David.

The Two Ronnies sketches with Josephine Tewson continue to be a big draw. They've entered politically incorrect territory with Barker blacking up to play an Indian doctor (advising newlyweds Ronnie C. and Josephine) and a Native American chief. The latter particularly showed off Barker's wonderful deadpan, since he spent the entire sketch standing still, saying nothing but "How" in relevant places as Corbett told jokes, sang and did annoying ad libs, interacting with the audience to try (like a cheap cabaret artist) and get bigger laughs than was on the page. But while Corbett was all movement and noise, it was Barker who with his stillness and flashing eyes and his downturned mouth and his non-responses (even when Corbett got carried away and started nudging and prompting him) held the audience's full attention. What's more, Barker was also far funnier.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

The last two episodes were very enjoyable. Vincent Price was given a fair bit to do during his appearance, from a horror spoof with Barker, Tewson & Corbett to a wonderful interview in which he remembered highs and lows from his career with relaxed ease.

And who'd have thought I'd enjoy him singing a song called I've Got A Rainbow Working For Me quite as much as I did?

Even the standard singers were consistently good. The Four Tops were on top form. Salena Jones and Blue Mink were new names to me, and I was impressed, particularly with the latter whose voices were amazing and whose lyrics were... interesting.

The Ronnies and Jo Tewson continued to be terrific, and the very final sketch about Ronnie C. thinking everyone was Eamon Andrews out to get him on This Is Your Life featured a nice guest-appearance from Andrews himself, who, of course, was the only person Ronnie's character didn't think was Eamon Andrews.

The big twist was that Andrews was actually there to nab Corbett for This Is Your Life, and it was a thrill to watch because it felt as though I experienced it from the other side, the same way the audience would have done in 1970. I've never seen TIYL cross over into another show this way, and I really didn't expect this surprise setup to make it onto a DVD set for another series. And so it genuinely surprised me.

Here's the end of the sketch, which turned into the beginning of the real thing...

​

And so - until I source a copy of Frost On Friday, that's the series over for me. It's been a nice, diverse little time capsule. Would I be in a rush to binge watch it again? Definitely not. But next time round, if I pace myself and watch it in conjunction with other series, it has a lot going for it.