A COLLEAGUE told me to ask Jasper Carrott if he still woke up in a cold sweat when he dreamed about 'Funky Moped' and 'Magic Roundabout': the double A-side single which went top 10 in 1975 and remained in the British charts for almost four months.
“It was terrible,” our floppy-fringed English Teaboy/Commercial Manager, Ian Campbell, assured me, choking with laughter at the very memory. “He appeared on Top Of The Pops wearing this really naff white Saturday Night Fever suit. Oh God, it was awful.” Having been a mere babe-in-arms at the time, I had to take his word for it.
So I asked, and in his flattest Birmingham accent, a most indignant Jasper Carrott replied: "Actually, 'Magic Roundabout' was unique in the UK in that it made the charts on almost pure spoken word. I don't know of any other single that's ever done that . . . y'know, with no music whatsoever. It sold over half-a-million copies and it was never played on the radio."
Never? Not even once?
“Well, it was, but only late at night on local radio because it had the word 'piss' in it and people could snigger at it. But in the '70s it was an extremely provocative single, y'know. It got banned by the BBC and essentially, it was what made me.”
And how! Over 20 years later, Jasper Carrott remains a comedic institution in Britain, having performed live before millions and clocked up more television hours in the process than the BBC test card. So where does Jasper see himself in the cosmic comedy scheme of things? Is he a graduate of the Jimmy Tarbuck/Tom O'Connor school of gagsmithery, or does he find it easier to identify with old new-wavers such as Lenny Henry and Ben Elton?
“I would like to think that in the comic world, I'm an individual,” he muses. “I do my own thing and it's a one-off. I know it sounds clichéd, but I do what I want to do. I think the people that come and see me have the same sense of humour as I do and the same way of looking at life. Essentially, if I was getting paid #5 or #5,000, I'd still do the same thing. I don't fit in with the alternatives and I don't fit in with the other stuff, and that's good. People come to see me because they like the way that I look at life, it's as simple as that.”
go with the flow
Picture Jasper Carrott and the image will invariably be one of a man who is wide-eyed, bewildered and constantly bemused by the complexities and absurdities of the world in which he lives. His talent, however, lies in his ability to articulate these innermost thoughts. Basically, when it comes to stating the downright bleeding obvious in a very amusing way, few comedians are as perceptive as Jasper. Does he agree?
“I think you're right,” he laughs. “It's a big element of it: I don't understand life and I have no beliefs. I think people's beliefs change every day. You know, you can be a methodist one day, a Buddhist the next and a Catholic the day after that, because you assimilate information every day and react to it.
“With my comedy, I just take the days as they happen and look around and realise that I have no more idea about life now than I had 50-odd years ago. Life is incredibly simple, but thereby its simplicity creates its realism and complexities. It's a conundrum and I don't profess to be a philosopher. I just go with the flow and tend to be an observer more than a participant.”
Except, of course, when it comes to football. An ardent fan of Birmingham City, Jasper was once a director of the midlands football club currently gracing the mid-to-upper echelons of Nationwide League Division One.
“I was, yes,” he grimaces. “It really spoiled the game for me. It's something I should never have done because I went against a couple of principles and soon realised I'd made a big mistake. I did the best I could, though, but then they sacked Jim Smith, who I thought was a really good manager, so I thought there was only one course of action left open to me and that was to resign.
“And I have to say, I was glad to get away, I certainly wouldn't get involved in football at that level again. I remember one game against Liverpool, around the time that they were winning everything: league and cup doubles, European trophies, you name it. I was in the Liverpool directors' box in Anfield and at half-time we were 1-0 up. But as we left the box at half-time, the Liverpool directors got so much shit, I mean real shit! I remember thinking to myself: 'Good God! What do you have to do to satisfy these people?'. I realised, then, that football supporters are a breed and they're never happy. I saw the light that day, had the opportunity to walk away and I did.”
comedy whelps
Did Jasper ever get to engage in the kind of lewd directorial shenanigans that led to the recent resignations of Newcastle United's Freddie Shepherd and Douglas Hall?
“They certainly gave Bill Clinton a run for his money, didn't they?” he chuckles. “Unfortunately, the only thing I ever managed to do was to end up in a Christian Science reading room on one occasion when we played Doncaster.”
Of course, no conversation about Birmingham City would be complete without a word or two about Barry Fry, their rather eccentric ex-manager who currently plys his trade at third division Peterborough Utd.
“Barry Fry . . . oh my God!” Jasper exclaims. “At one stage he had 52 senior players on the books. He came to manage City and within six month's he had solved the unemployment problem in Birmingham. He cleared out the city's dole offices in one fell swoop!
“I mean, Barry's a great frontman, but I honestly can't say he was a great manager. There were times on the pitch when players didn't know each other's names. By the time somone had figured out who they wanted to pass the ball to, it was gone! Barry is a great character, but in this commercial age for football, it's going to be very hard to find a place for him.”
Of course, the fact that an army of up-and-coming comedy whelps is continuously snapping at this wily old dog's heels would suggest that there may no longer be a place for Jasper Carrott. Is this the case?
“I hope not,” he chuckles. “Of course it gets harder for me to surprise people because I've been around a long time. The problem I have is that comedy thrives on freshness and youth and obviously, I haven't got those going for me. What I have got, though, is experience and the ability to be excellent. What audiences on my current tour are getting is what Jasper Carrott does, and I think I really am surprising people with just how good the comedy is.”