Comedy Man

by D.J. Taylor

D.J. Taylor introduces the reader to comedy duo Ted King and Arthur Upward, who were for a brief period in the late 1970s, the best-loved comedians on British television. Ten million people watched the Upward & King Show every week and they rubbed shoulders with the stars for a few years - until the TV company pulled the plug. Twenty years later and prompted by a documentary being made about the famous partnership, Ted looks back on his years in the spotlight, always haunted by the fog-bound surroundings of his early life on the Norfolk coast. Taylor's vivid evocation of post-war English life ranges in time and place from rainswept Norfolk seafronts in the 50s, to 60s Soho clubland, from bombs exploding in Cyprus to Oswald Mosley's Daimler coursing through the East End.

352 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2002

About the author

David John Taylor (born 1960) is a critic, novelist and biographer. After attending school in Norwich, he read Modern History at St John's College, Oxford, and has received the 2003 Whitbread Biography Award for his life of George Orwell.

He lives in Norwich and contributes to The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, New Statesman and The Spectator among other publications.

He is married to the novelist Rachel Hore, and together they have three sons.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this as a palate-cleanser after wading through 'The Chymical Wedding', having read a lot of Taylor's reviews but until now not having given much attention to his fiction. I soon saw why I'd been so lax. This novel really wants to be a rewrite of Orwell's 'Coming Up for Air'; the account of growing up in Great Yarmouth either side of the Second World War is beautifully observed and richly evocative. The problem is that while 'Fatty' Bowling's story in Orwell's novel is poignant and central to the overall effect, this section feels like an extended introduction to what's going to happen. The result is that the novel is profoundly boring until the other half of the double act makes a belated entrance.
The novel then shifts gear, giving us a sense of the rise of the Upward and King comic duo. It's interesting but at times too knowing - there's no reference to Cook and Moore, for instance, though the dynamic between Taylor's comedians is very much that of 'Dud and Pete'. I can only assume this is deliberate. We get some parallels with Morecambe and Wise, a muted sense of the now deceased world of 'light entertainment' which they inhabited, and a strong sense that King doesn't know himself very well, let alone his comic partner. If Taylor had cut the first 100 pages or so, scaled back the 'when I was a lad, Norfolk was always like this' reminiscences, and focused more determinedly on the workings of the double-act, this could have been a minor classic. As it is, there's too much meandering, too many narrative leads which go nowhere, too much evidence of time spent reading Orwell, Gissing, Patrick Hamilton and (maybe) Alexander Barron, too many 'clever' literary allusions (would Upward - not Edward Upward, of course - really have read an Ezra Pound poem???) and intellectual self-satisfaction, and a general sense of the writer spending so much time getting the scenery right that he forgets to tell the story. Perhaps DJ Taylor should go back to being a DJ? I say I say, did you hear the one about the literary novelist who found out that writing fiction is harder than it looks?

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the form of a memoir, Ted King reflects on his life from boyhood in Great Yarmouth to fame as the straight man in the comedy duo Upward and King. Now retired, and with time to look back, he tells of his meeting with the charismatic Arthur Upward and how his life changed dramatically when he was invited to join him on stage. I found this a really compelling read, in spite of the fact that Ted comes over as a rather passive character, and I particularly enjoyed his account of his time at home with his parents in a small and unsuccessful shop at the coast. Atmospheric and evocative of a particular time and place, the author adds authenticity to his tale by including mention of real life acts (Morecambe and Wise etc) and by writing cod documents such as a rave review from Kenneth Tynan and an interview with Michael Parkinson. The only think that didn’t work for me was the inclusion of some scripts from the couple’s act which frankly weren’t at all funny and based on these it was hard to imagine why they became so popular. Nevertheless, as the trajectory of a comedian's life, I found myself drawn into the story and enjoyed the glimpse of the show-business world that it offers.

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have divided opinions about this book. D J Taylor is wonderful at capturing a particular time and place - specifically in this instance (in the first half or so of the book) post-war Norfolk. The sense of isolation, the play of light and weather over the flat land, the narrow horizons of the people, are all brilliantly evoked. I'm not quite so convinced by the plot or the main characters. Their relationship feels insufficiently drawn for me to really care about them, and the world in which the double act of Upward and King moves never really comes to life. What's missing most is a sense of their comedy, what it is that has endeared them to millions. Neither is their personal relationship really explored. That's not to say that this wasn't an enjoyable reading experience. There's plenty to relish in The Comedy Man and I was always keen to pick it up again, reading it in just a few days. C