Bob Golding tells Laura Davis about the challenges of imitating a national treasure
WHERE would the strippers at breakfast gag be without Ernie there to catch and break the eggs? And the Andre Previn sketch would not be as silly, had Ernie not introduced him as Mr Preview.
It’s hard to imagine Morecambe alone on stage without Wise as the straightman to his clown, yet that’s exactly what is being asked of audiences at a certain one-man stage show.
Performed by Bob Golding, who has been physically compared to the bespectacled comedian throughout his life, Morecambe was an Edinburgh Festival hit last summer and won critical acclaim everywhere it’s been since.
Now he’s bringing the play, written for him by Tim Whitnall and directed by Guy Masterson, for a week-long run at the Liverpool Playhouse.
“I’m a huge fan, so to be asked to play Eric in this show was a real honour,” says the 39-year-old voice actor.
“For me to stand on stage and say I’m as funny as Eric Morecambe would just be completely wrong. I’m not and I never will be. But what I can do as an actor is try to tell the story about the man who had that talent.”
The first act covers Morecambe’s early years, growing up in the Lancashire seaside resort that was to inspire his stage name (his real one was John Eric Bartholomew).
His mother, Sadie, insisted on him attending dancing lessons and took him to perform in talent shows. It was at one of these, in Hoylake in 1939, that he met Ernest Wiseman.
“There’s a lot of stuff in the show we didn’t know about Eric’s life, like his mother being a guiding light professionally speaking as well as in the family,” says Golding.
“Then the second half is really giving the audience what they came to see, all the stuff we affiliate with Morecambe and Wise – the paper bag trick, Grieg’s piano concerto, there’s even a little nod to the breakfast sketch with The Stripper (David Rose’s 1962 piece of music).”
While he felt honoured to take on the role, Golding reveals he had too many other things to worry about to feel intimidated about playing a national treasure.
“People asked me how did you overcome the fear, but actually it was clouded at the beginning because all I was really worried about was learning the lines,” says the father-of-three, who grew up watching the Morecambe and Wise Show on his nan’s TV.
“There are 160 sound cues and about the same number of lighting cues and goodness knows how many props and hats and a couple of costume changes, not to mention the songs, the lyrics, the dance moves . . .
“Then it suddenly dawned on me that I’d better do him justice.”
