Part 4
Anyway back to another famous chewer. Some bastard had taken up a hobby setting fire to random allotment sheds, and after torching about ten his randomness took him to the next plot and shed where Chooga and our two chickens were sleeping. This had been going on for three weeks and the fuzz had done nothing about it despite complaints from other allotment owners. I thought it was time to take the law into my own hands so early one morning when I’d worked out that the culprit’s biorhythm to set fire to a shed was due, fully dressed in black from head to toe, I tiptoed along the winding gravel paths as quiet as I could and slowly inched my way backwards into a bush alongside a shed nearby my own. As I was inching backwards I hit a solid object. It was a rozzer, there with two others crouching down and competing with me in a contest to see who could be the most silent. Sure enough, after three inactive weeks, this was the early morning they decided to hold a stake out. Resisting the urge to pounce on me, I was treated to just a little more dignity by way of being verbally nabbed as the phantom twisted fire starter, frisked, and my details rang through to the cop shop. As there was no incriminating evidence, such as his oily rags, petrol and matches or any means of invoking a flame, I was let go. However about a year later when I was in casual conversation with another rozzer looking back on the firestarters episode – he was never caught - he confided that I was documented as their chief suspect. Talk about cooking your own goose, huh?
Listen. When you fall out of a cosmic cracker – or a low flying UFO, depends which version you prefer or believe – you can expect to engage in activities that find you in situations beyond the norm. In 1989 Mrs O’Shave heard a news item that told how the Russians were sending their slightly older submarines over to Whitley Bay on the North east Coast to a scrap yard to have them crushed. Here was an opportunity not to be missed, I mean, after all, the Ruskis didn’t want this lot of subs so why be a dog in a manger about it…if we asked them for at least one, why not let us have it? Even unlikelier, the missus actually knew of a fellow, and his name really was Davy Crockett, who could drive one, if driving is what you do, or pilot the thing, and had said to her if ever she needed any assistance in that area….! So yes, I put together what I thought was a reasonable plea in my letter which I sent to the Russian Embassy in London. Sooner rather than later, I received a nicely encouraging letter back from them saying that really this thing ought to be discussed down a line and I should ring this here number. Nicely encouraged then, I rang ‘em from my nearest call box and as it kept swallowing my pound coins as if it hadn’t been fed in years, I began to struggle and get relatively nowhere with the Russian voice speaking in his native tongue back to me, as I kept trying to have him understand ‘Me no speak Russian’. After about £15 I gave up. It would have been cheaper to have gone to Whitley Bay and argued with a Geordie there. Easy come, easy go, never went, never came.
Maybe just as well this was a brave failed venture or perhaps I could have been followed about for years afterwards by Nicky Head’s Soviet shadows who obliged him on his ‘Gone to Russia’ excursion. This hasn’t been our only intervention with Ruski’s tho’. The following year the O’Shave’s auditioned for the Tv show ‘Talkabout’ presented by Derren Brown’s now advisor Andrew O’Connor, and as our party piece we sneaked off and dressed up as Kossacks, beards hats and all, did their funny dance squatting and played ‘Those were the days’ on paper and combs. I think the producers were a little caught out and so we didn’t receive the conclusive call informing us of a slot on the show, despite being told to sit near a phone for two weeks. Just to put some Superpowers balance back into this episode, about a year later in 1990 there was a world climate summit being held in Rio, and the O’Shave’s wished to show their concern based on the fact that the missus’ grandmother had somehow married into the Red Indian Penobscot tribe, living near Maine in New England. This gave us great leeway to decide we should like to ride a horse up Downing Street dressed in full Indian regalia to protest about Greenhouse gas emissions. In deepest sympathy with our cause, the British coach company National Express actually, upon our request, gave us free tickets to travel to London in return for a bit of publicity for them. Not so lucky with British Airways who didn’t quite see why they should pay for us to go to Rio and back. Worth a try. We had to secure police permission to be allowed our stunt but we were more concerned about what should happen if the horse had a crap along the way and so offered should this be the case we’d hop off and shovel it up in an instant. The London constabulary tho’ seemed more concerned about security threats than a horse dump, and denied us permission.
I have to say Mrs O’Shave and I can get rather creative when faced with any small amount of boredom. The late 80’s saw us punt two excellent scripts out to Programming Head of Channel 4, Giles Pilbrow. The first was ‘Many happy returns’ a twee effort in which a beleaguered husband is constantly set about by his anxious wife who is convinced she keeps seeing his reincarnation and spitting image in portraits and photographs from the past, married to other women. Whether true or not we never learn but it ended when there was a ring at the door bell and upon the door's opening find an entourage of Tibetan Buddhist monks clambering to meet up with their reincarnated Dalai Lama – the husband of course. The second script we gave first refusal to trusty Tyne Tees and it was ‘Geordie Genocide – Daleks invade the North East’. I had always had a good relationship with ‘Tyne Tease’ apart from being slightly miffed once when Ant and Dec had a ’hard’ Father Xmas appear on their seasonal special. The Daleks were convinced that the Geordies were, instead, ‘G.O.D’s’ and so as a race they had to be exterminated. Opening scenes saw the destruction of the GOD’s power supply – Scottish and Newcastle Brewery and the Social Security – from their spaceship above. There was a lone Geordie on top of a pyramid high scrap heap, all that was left of the Social Security building in the total devastation that was once the North East, remonstrating ‘Me fuckin’ giro hasn’t come’. It ended badly for the Daleks when they became contaminated and took to wearing caps, walking whippets and had a fag out of their tin head, as they were off to see their nanna.
The Tyne Tees researchers never recovered from the script and it actually did move some to tears as it was fervently passed about the entire building. Pilbrow liked it too but calmly told us we had no chance with it as the creator of the daleks Terry Nation would never allow his maniacal pepperpots to be parodied and so we would never access an original let alone a dozen of them. The general consensus in TV Land was the same (plus Tyne Tees were tremendously skint) although I did put a request to Mr Nation all the same. Well, it was a bit of a threat. I told him that If he didn’t play ball I would inflict him with the curse of the Egyptian jigger fly on his big toe left foot. He never replies, but he did die soon afterwards. Blank wagic? I wouldn’t be surprise if either script turn up on the screen one day. People ask me why I danced around showbusiness and apart from me not being so boring as to crave fame and fortune and be so unoriginal as to indulge in same sex n drugs n rock n roll, I have to say that there are so many thieving bastards in showbiz that you are constantly having to look over your shoulder to see who is about to nick your work from you and get it out first. Rather like Hatt’s dad, I have been stung twice. Allow me to explain.
In 1988 the missus and I came up with a gem of an idea for a kids Tv show, ‘The Chinnogs’. We reversed the head so that the chin became the noggin and with a pair of eyes stuck on it became the head. I wished we had thought to do this by inverting the camera but I did it the hard way by balancing on my nut. Anyway, the shorthand version is that we met an appointment with the children’s department of Tyne Tees, took a pilot and she loved and wanted it instantly. Trouble was she would have to show it to her overall boss who was Trish Kinane (Now President of Entertainment Programming for American Idol, American X Factor and America’s Got Talent at Freemantle Media, North America) in London and so up came Trish to watch it with us and have to take the tape back with her to the city to show her husband. The pilot episode was ‘copyright protected’ by way of me having stored a dated copy of it, in my solicitor’s safe. Months went by and no expected reply of a ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ puzzled Tyne Tees who were keen to press on. And then one Friday night I was watching ‘Family Fortunes’ on the box and the ads came on, and there was our Chinnogs in a Scottish and Newcastle lager ad, the ‘Chinheads’. I wish the Daleks HAD exterminated their brewery.
The phone never stopped ringing as friends rang to congratulate us on selling the idea on and telling us how sneaky we’d been for not telling them. Mrs O’Shave gave me a proper enormous argument as she had thought I’d secretly sold her out! I was straight onto seeking lawyers on the Monday seeking an injunction on the ad but this was the most hectic week of the year, Xmas week, the entire situation was made worse because every time I found a solicitor they happened to either already represent Tyne Tees or S & N. I eventually did find one and was told that an immediate injunction would cost in excess of a grand. We traced the London ad agency responsible and entered into litigation. The advert also had a song as a soundtrack and it was to be released as a potential chart topper with the help of the ad, so it was all beginning to fall into place. The company denied theft and in their defence said that Benny Hill had done the head-chin inversion first, years ago, even though nobody could find any evidence let alone footage, and the bastards wanted to counter sue me for 200k to try and put our challenge off.
Now, as we were the Plaintiffs, a court hearing should have by law taken place in Newcastle, but for some reason – maybe a funny handshake – it was held in London and the Judge threw out the claim on the basis that ‘You can’t copyright a chin’. One funny story attached to this overall tale of woe was when I went to Newcastle to record Mr Rahman to introduce the pilot. Mr Rahman was a strange Indian who had adverts on local radio for his zip factory which his ad, starting with ‘Please listen’, informed us was ‘opposite the motorcycle shop.’ When we located his factory he appeared wearing a ginger wig that wasn’t fitted too well on his head and spun around a bit. He was happy to oblige my request which was to announce, ‘Welcome to the Chinnogs’, but each time he did it I had to stop recording as he wouldn’t stop saying,’ Welcome to the Chinnog’. Maybe they don’t have plural in India but I had to give up as there were about seven of ‘em in my show.
Rip off number two came in 1995 with another London TV backed show ‘Beadle’s Hotshots’ (should have been Hot shits’)’ presented by Jeremy Beadle. The idea was for members of the public to submit their own home made comedy clips, no more than one, and if used be paid £250. All well so far. Well, one Saturday night I was reading something whilst the show was on and I heard, ‘I’m that hard I….’. For a split microsecond your mind whirls and you think, ‘I’ve not sent them anything.’ But there he was, earning £250, Mr ‘Hard as Nails’. I filed him away instantly as a chancer who perhaps thought I had emigrated to a far flung foreign land, or even left the planet and that my intellectual property, as it is now called, was up for fair grabs. It was fast becoming a bigger rip off than my Pan’s thighs. One week later and the show is back on, and with it, again, Hard as Nails. Score so far; Hard As Nails £500, The Hard Not, A Penny. So against the rules the bastard had been on again toddling and pissing me off none too pleased to see a brief. A justifiably haughty letter was despatched to London Weekend Television informing that they were infringing copyright on my character. The reply came back announcing that they had never seen or heard of my cartoon character before, yes, they somehow thought I had said he had been an animation, and that there client’s character had been based on his father.
In the meanwhile, my brief’s advice was for us – meaning me – to have video footage of this clear rip off character. Despite believing that he couldn’t possibly be on three weeks in a row (£750) I set up the usually defunct video recorder. When the bastard did appear, I pressed down the buttons, only to find later and to confirm that I was crap at video recording, hence never using it previous, and I hadn’t any footage. The resolution, for us to press on any further, was to have footage, and, of course only LWT could provide us it. We couldn’t sue the rotter responsible because they protected his identity and said that we have to stick our writ on them – a top and financially well off London Tv broadcaster. My brief and I went to London’s Gray’s Inn, the Chambers of the Bar, to consult a barrister who explained that even though the twat may have nicked my format, any slight change meant that he was liable to get away with it. A bit like someone nicking Enfield’s ‘Loadsa Money’, and calling him ‘Loadsa Lolly.’
The problem remained, we need footage and of course when approached, LWT wouldn’t provide it. Pretty much end of story ‘cept the fooker appeared a fourth time and then it became plain, similar to the lager ad with my Chinnog rip off, what it had all been about. His final clip was being filmed at Silverstone motor racing track and it was all about building up an excuse to promote and advertise a forthcoming event there, back handers more than likely taking place to set it all up. Two years later I found out the name and area of the bastard who stole from me and located his number in the Tunbridge phone book. I rang him once and with no reply left him some advice on the answer phone. It reminded me of a letter I once wrote to a fella in London who sold bootlegs and who took my money but denied it had arrived. It went something like the next time Newcastle were in town me and the boys would be paying him a visit with our chair legs. Next thing, he closed down his record trade and had gone missing. I hope you got the similar ferkin’ message, Shaun.
Appearing on Tv shows has been of no real interest to me y’know. Remembered the most for my appearances on ‘The Tube’ as The Hard, Mr Starey-Oot and Mr Ordinary Powder, I will point out there have been a number of near miss appearances on other national top shows. (Not counting my appearance in the background at an ‘Antiques Roadshow’, something I had always wanted to do since seeing Michael Roll (no, he doesn’t have bro’ called Fig) do it at a show in Bristol. Just stand behind Fiona like I did and you’re bound to be in with a shout.) Esther Rantzen’s ‘That’s Life’ hummed and ha-ed, mostly hummed, when I sent them a tape of me stroking bees. Mrs O’Shave taught me how to after declaring I could no longer run a mile or swat at nearby ones out of fear thus looking like I was having an epileptic seizure to onlookers across the road. All I had to do was calmly approach them upon their honey procuring business on a bush and stroke them gently, the only advice being that eventually they would raise a back leg which indicated arousal and that I should quit when winning.
Clive Anderson’s Channel 4 ‘Talkback’ was a biggish show in 1992 and young Irish colleen Anne-Marie Thorogood flew to Newcastle from London and caught a pricey cab fare to our house to discuss what we had punted them. Mrs O’Shave is a dab eye at noticing the remarkable, sometimes astounding similarity in historical sketches, portraits and photos of people from the past who look the double of celebrities amongst us today. (The idea behind our ‘Many Happy Returns’ script) We had even found a match for Clive and, spookily, he too had been a barrister like Clive once had, but a hundred years earlier. I can’t remember them all but I think Ben Elton looked quite passable as some illustrations of Samuel Pepys. It was a great angle for a slot on the show and a further impressed Anne-Marie paid us down to London to meet with her producer. Unfazed about the prospect of having to sword fence with an piss-taking Anderson (although we would have been stitched up by editing as I originally thought the show was live but it was recorded in the morning for edited night transmission), we were offered a fifteen minute slot, with one clause. We had to say we were promoting reincarnation. Well, as we weren’t we weren’t prepared to, and that was that. I suppose had we, then the show would have been repeated. Get it, reincarnation and repeat?
Speaking of such things, I don’t believe in the doctrine of reincarnation as it is taught, but I will tell you this. I am the spitting image of a very famous person in history, his parents looked like mine and some of my close friends looked like his. When I read a biography written about this person it was like reading about myself and he had even wore a false elongated nose whilst at masked balls. I’m not going to tell you who this figure is, but in my estimation he was the first pop star in history. Talking of spooky things reminds me that I was also pencilled in for an appearance on the Russell Harty show back in 1981 when I had sent them a wad of photos, taken by Geldwink incidentally, that clearly showed real faeries on them. Naively, I didn’t spot that the undercurrent of this item would have been that Russell himself was a fairy, of a different kind you understand.
Mind, truthfully, Mrs O’Shave and I HAVE lived in a genuine Elf field. Only this is an Extremely Low Frequency field, owing to an electric powerhouse being six inches off our living room wall. We were the first people in the North East to have it checked out by the Electricity Board, the electrical field being measured, as another family in the country at the time had a good legal case to claim that the proximity of the transformer had caused their young daughter to contract leukaemia, and their transformer had been sixteen yards off her bedroom wall. Turned out the magnetic field stretched half way down our street, funnelling out as it went, but passing right through our living room. Mrs O’Shave, who is far more sensitive than I, would tell me she could see flickering in the room and would have instant headaches and the hair would stand up at the back of our necks, all of which can be explained by living in a strong magnetic and electrical field. The Leccy Board told us we weren’t in any proveable danger, (as they were bound to) and even today such debates rage on. Our story surfaced in the Sunday Times. Meanwhile, back in Tv Land, what is a brilliant idea on Monday morning isn’t such a great idea by the time Friday comes around ie they’ve found better ones midweek , and so my fairy pix pitch for Russ fizzled out too. Great pix tho’ and quite genuine.
I’ll digress for a moment to keep the theme otherworldly and tell you in 1994 The O’Shaves found themselves in a situation that only they could have. Babysitting for grandkids over the Xmas, we got snowed in at a haunted lunatic asylum. Yes, you read that right, and all that was missing was Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. The disused 18th century asylum had been bought by ‘Bungalow’ Bill Wiggins, one time husband of screen queen Joan Collins and he was having it converted into luxury flats. Our relatives were caretaking the property, of which about 10% were luxury penthouses and the other 90% the old asylum. At one point down a corridor, the percentages met and it was like walking into another dimension during the eerie night lighting as you made your way to the nearest toilet. We were in a penthouse room, unaware at the time that this place was haunted big time. The first night we had just put out the bedroom light when after about three minutes there was a terrific crash at the bottom of the bed.
Recovering from our both jumping, neither of us spoke for a couple of minutes, there was nothing physical at the bottom of bed let alone anything that could have provided such a crash. We were upstairs so I pathetically suggested that what we had heard was a flag blowing in the wind on the balcony outside. The following night we had our boy stay in another room down the corridor and in the morning he reported seeing what he described as a ’floating black bin liner’ in his room. We hadn’t mentioned anything about our experience by the way. On the third night, Christmas Eve, the snow fell and I took a look out in the huge grounds appreciating the white carpet of silence. It was rudely interrupted by the echoing sound of a bugle being played but despite looking everywhere for the source I couldn’t find who was playing it and there was nobody about. I reasoned it must have been an Xmas reveller with the sound drifting over but learned quite innocently in a conversation weeks afterwards that long ago an inmate of the asylum escaped one Xmas Eve and was knocked down and killed crossing the road outside. His only solace whilst a captive inmate had been the bugle he would play all day long! I also learned that the previous husband and wife live-in caretakers had done a runner at the dead of night in their pyjamas, clearing off never to return.
Once I had a sofa bed in my bedroom but you would never know it was as it only looked like a sofa, but it ingeniously folded out if you knew how. This meant I could sneak somebody small inside of it and fold it all up. The number of times I would have someone in my room to hear my sofa talking and fail looking for evidence of any tape recorder. They would ask it a question and it would answer. Some victims ran off, and once I stuck a pin in the sofa and the fella inside provided the scream! Nobody ever sussed that bestest ever sofa. End of digression and back to the Tv shows that never were, and can you believe they were, Big Brother, X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent? I must have been off my rocker when I went to a Leeds hotel to audition for BB in 2002. My intention was to get in the house, be unspeakably obnoxious to one and all and get booted out all in the same week, reminding me of a local Tv character I once played, the one-off Johnny Worser. Despite arriving in the final 25 for regional heats and being told to sit by the phone (where have I experienced that before?) no call was forthcoming, and, boy, upon reflection am I glad. Surely I should have thought out that if I had made it to the nation’s screens, a thousand viewers up North would have earned some blood money selling their stories true or otherwise, dishing the dirt on…yes, it’s Wavis O’Shave that’s in the house, exclusive shock horror. Imagine the reaction and reception I would have gotten upon being booted out to face the tabloid allegations awaiting me!
A serious lapse and error in judgement on my behalf, the BB idea. The audition itself was crap, all in attendance having to reply to what they would do in scenarios plucked out of a passed around hat, questions asked them by other attendant auditionees, and role playing group scenarios. The X-Factor seemed more like fun when it was auditioning for its first series in 2004. For me, I thought facing The Cowell would be a great opportunity for some outrage but it wasn’t long in another Leeds hotel that the penny should have dropped when it was announced to some relieved, mostly disappointed, ensemble that the judge’s weren’t there that day – Simon, Sharon and Louis - and that we would be judged by one of Thames’ own judges. Just two of ‘em. What if one said yea and tuther nay? Penalties? You will of course all know by now that you never get to see the Tv judges when you attend the auditions. Only after getting past uncelebrity judges and then having to get through another audition and then come back another day for one more, do you get to see Si and Co. Well, I sang Bowie’s ‘Kooks’ from the Hunky Dory album and when I looked over at the judge I knew that I had met him before but couldn’t place where. It was only back home that I realised it had been one of the Stars In Their Eyes Team who had visited my home when I was being filmed for segments of my 1996 appearance. He had bought me a tall cypress tree for my garden and I guess that was as many favours as he had in mind for me, when my X-Factor audition received only a warm reception and a ‘Thank you, but not today.’
You’d have thought I would have learned my lesson but no, I was back the next year up at St James’ Park Newcastle for another crack. The first crack had also provided me with another being in my specs, which I had taken off and put in my pocket for my song. They broke when I was sitting down in the Green area. Second time around I thought I would play the contrived wacky card as I had seen it work throughout the first screened series. Me, of all people, ‘pretending’ to be wacky!!? So, I wore half a wig and sang ‘Kooks’ again, lying face down on the floor. ‘Not what we’re looking for, but nice to have met you.’ They invited auditionees to argue with the usual bland judges decisions and so if you had any gripes you were to locate a camera and share it. I was straight in for the kill, keeping, as I had all day, a straight face, to accuse the judges of being ‘Wiggist’.
All that was shown of my appearance up North that day was me doing the orchestrated crossed arms bit outside in amongst a thousand others doing the same inane motion, but I did appear reasonably clearly in the bottom left of the Tv screen for about four seconds, so I can justifiably say that I HAVE appeared on the X-Factor. If there is one show possibly bigger than that one it might just be Britain’s Got Talent, and the opportunity presented me to be involved after the Guinness Book of Records 2010 dropped on my lap. I mused that it was high time that I should perhaps try to break an existing record and it was a toss up between the furtherest distance you can blow a Malteser using a straw (21’), how many eggs you can hold in one hand (23) and how many pairs of underpants you can wear all at the same time (129). Although coming to terms with realising that time management in my life wasn’t realistically going to allow me time to concentrate on any of these three, I knew it would have been the undies one.
Now, it was either blank wagic at its best, or simply what the psychologists call Jung’s theory of the Collective Unconscious, but shortly afterwards I received an email from Geldwink who said he was up to something exciting that he knew I would approve of. In his next email he mentioned Guinness and I mentioned underpants and our exclusive identical waveylength was identified. Offering myself as his psychological Trainer, as this record has its drawbacks especially your knackers drawing back and the increasing number of undies threatening to cut off your blood supply. Gelders as ’Geordie Pantsman’ went on to create and earn a new world record with 211 pairs and to audition in Glasgow for BGT. He made it onto the show except he didn’t. Contradiction? Clips from his recorded show in front of Michael, Amanda and The Hoff were used for weeks during adverts for the series, but, for some unknown reason, his actual full appearance and three buzzers never made it to the nations screens, which was more than a shame especially as I would have liked to have seen him being rolled off stage like a barrel by Ant and Dec.
In 2012 he went one step further with 302 pairs on to beat the woman who beat him at 259 (with no knackers to squash) but the adjudicators at this event were too drunk on Guinness they lost count. Not really, a few undies slipped below his knee and so the tight (not as tight as his 302 pairs) buggers refused to acknowledge his new world record. For some years, and in front of impressed witnesses, I would suddenly have a penchant to scoff 16 fully dressed hot dogs, tomato sauce onions, dressing, all in one go, and it always timed at 31 minutes and a few seconds. This strange blip and blank wagical saucery has now retreated back to where it first came from, having done it about ten times. So maybe I did miss my own Guinness vocation.
So, lots of near misses regarding sneaking onto your Tv screens unexpectedly, but of course there were the two success stories. Firstly, the top watched programme in the Uk in 1989 with about 15 million viewers was The Noel Edmonds Saturday Roadshow, and The O’Shave’s bagged themselves 15 quality minutes on it, although not strictly as the O’Shave’s, but for those who know us, well, yes it was us minus the O’Shave logo. It all started when the series hits the screen in autumn and part of the show was called ‘Giftbusters’. Viewers were invited to spring a surprise on someone they knew and if lucky the show would oblige. When they were plugging this item, the missus simply said to me in probable fun more than necessity that she could do with some new knickers. With that I sneaked off to pen a plea to Noel and his crew and before I sneakily knew it they managed to contact me via Lex the Mex’s landline who passed the sneaky message on.
Could I get the wife down to London next Tuesday? What? Female Piorot incarnate? How? What excuse? The sneaky excuse was that I had won a competition and that the prize was a free hotel treat and trip around the sights of London. Luckily, we did enter a lot of compers in those days and although I swore because of the volume of them I couldn’t recall sending this particular one in or what it was, I’d won. More than a lame excuse, but it worked. The show told me I had to have us booked into a swish Kensington hotel they’d sorted and that they would pick us up at noon the next day in a chauffeur driven roller, and that was ALL they told me so I really didn’t know what to expect next. Mrs tried at the last minute to get out of going, swearing she had toothache but off we went me periodically having to go down into reception to sneakily ring the show to confirm all was on course. Sneaking off to make mysterious calls and then report back vague and sheepish had Mrs O’Shave thinking that I really was a Russian spy and for some reason I was going to have her assassinated – she really was getting her absent knickers in a twist. She always did reckon that whenever I waited outside a shop for her, got bored and hung about like a suspicious loiterer, that I looked every bit a Czechoslovakian spy, so this Russian hit man wasn’t as absurd a notion as she would think.
I’d already ‘met’ Noel once before with Anti-Pop when he made an appearance at a shop directly below the label’s ‘offices’. He was sat in the back of a flash car with the windows up when we dodged past his security to shout after him brandishing a copy of Anna Ford’s bum. He took no notice. Anyway, at high noon the roller turned up and off we went for our tour of the sights. Soon, the car pulled us up at the even swisher Savoy Hotel. The film crew were everywhere to greet our arrival, and Mrs O’Shave commented, ‘There must be someone famous turning up’. Next we hear as if from out of thin air, but actually from the furry mikes on long sticks above us, a voice addressing the arrival of Mrs O’Shave with ‘Have you got any knickers on?’ Somehow – knowing that I was dead meat – I got her out of the car and with assistance from producer Guy Freeman who was actually holding her up and from running away, we took the carpeted stairway down into a level where there awaiting us was a rooster red made up Noel, he being the owner of the mystery aerial question. He led us swiftly into a main hall and awaiting us was a fashion show especially put on by lingerie supremo Janet Reger. After all the totty models had brushed past my nose in quite revealing tops and bottoms, Mrs Slocum herself, the real Mollie Sugden, bigged up the missus and I was named as the culprit. The still flabbergasted and ‘I’ll kill you later ’wife was then invited to take home with her any three items she had seen at this private screening. Turns out that this particular Giftbusters had been the costliest ever put on by the show. When we were heading back to the train station in the taxi, wifey asked me a rather blatantly daft question, ‘This isn’t going on the telly is it?’ It did, in front of 15 million.
Almost as if exacting unconscious revenge, ‘Stars in their Eyes’ was her idea. For at least five years she would say ‘ Go on, do him’, in a reference to me being able to do a fairly good impersonation of my friend Steve Harley. Mind, I can do an even better Johnny Rotten. So in the sixth year just having watched a bloke do a lousy impression of Benny Hill, I gave in. I couldn’t be worse than that bloke. The next is history. Passing a Newcastle audition, I did the same in Manchester was invited on the show – ironic that in my knock out group there was a Toyah impersonator - and Steve sprang his own surprise by sending me his own guitar to use and let me keep it (and the case). When I appeared through the steam filled pyramid doors – and I’ll tell you, you can see nowt as you come through – the audience erupted. The warm up comedian thought I’d taken ill and had been replaced by someone else. Nobody could believe it was the same person although all the show had done was return me back to what I liked like when I was 23. Absolute time travel. Now, I’m not a bad loser and I only agreed to do the show on the understanding that this would be a one-off, (bit of a giveaway that, eh?) but after it was all over, back at the hotel, both the winner who had been Mario Lanza and his family came over to me and candidly admitted that they couldn’t believe Mario had won as I was clearly the winner. Was this why the producer had bought me a cypress tree for my garden, in guilt? Now I know this and you wouldn’t, but the absolute truth is that when the show was transmitted they docked the volume of my applause down and increased the volume on Mario’s What does that tell you? And, if you ever thought the ‘public vote’ on such shows is genuine, forget it! It will only be adhered to if it meets with what the producer wants! Welcome to Tinsel Town folks, now sing - There’s no business like show business, there’s no business I know...everything about it is appalling etc.
Admittedly, I hadn’t appeared as Wavis but that was the fun element for me as I hadn’t told a soul that I was going to appear, consequently freaking out a large portion of the population of the North East when people saw me walk to meet Matthew Kelly, ‘Gulp, that’s Wavis – look!!’ Whilst on about the name game, producer Kieran Roberts (who is now Producer of ‘Coronation Street’ no less) actually named his first born son after my real Christian name as he said that I had made such an impression on him during our time spent together. Aw…shucks and blushes Kieran. I don’t mind saying that as I had to wear a wig for my performance, soon after the actual Steve Harley took to doing so for himself, a case of him wearing a syrup to look like me looking like him - so there’s another one I seemed to have inspired!
Recreating a moment of pop history on the show was fun and I have pounced the opportunity to have also recreated three comedy classic moments in real life, too. First, there was Milosh. This being a Czechoslovak hitch hiker (no, not a spy and I swear I hadn’t known him prior) who suddenly appeared sitting to me right in my own home one Friday night when I was glued to the screen. Partially aware of his huge and smelly presence whilst still glued to the screen he announced, ‘I am Milosh. I am from Czechoslovakia’. Oh, ok, I thought, carrying on watching the box, only to mildly think ‘Where’s he come from?’ He had appeared silently like a genie when it pops out of a lamp. Mrs O’Shave had spotted him outside looking for a couple he had once met years ago and so whilst hiking across Europe and in the North, he chanced upon calling on them. They were away, we knew and so the wife compassionately invited him and his amazingly smelly sandalled feet into our home.
During a meal we knocked up for him in our extended and compassionate kindness I began to circumnavigate about what we could talk about. At this time we had just finished writing our opus screen script ‘Zeitgeist’ which I’ll speak of later in which the fortitude of the Russian race is applauded. So it goes like this. Me to him; ‘I’ve just finished writing a script about the Russians. I’m really impressed by them’. Now, you have to recall that bit in Fawlty Towers when Basil is instructed not to mention the Germans. The minute I hit the word ‘Russians’, and then only to big them up, our Milos stood bolt upright from his chair. The meat dropped off the end of his fork, and he began a facial twitch and in a fit of instant distraught, anguishly snarled ‘The Russians, don’t mentioned the Russians! They parked a tank in my grandmother’s garden!’ And I’ve no doubt they had as they invaded Czechoslovakia in 1967, a fact my memory had sadly misplaced. It was a classic moment, Milos’ rant I mean, not the invasion. How we made up with him from that moment on, I don’t know, but we did and paid him a taxi fare so that he could erect a tent near the beach before moving on. Turns out, we learned that he was quite famous in his homeland, he was a musical Conductor and a Curator of the Prague Museum. Nice fellow it seemed, but unrivalled smelly feet.
Not too many years ago I was in a hotel at Milton Keynes as a guest for a SKY Tv show in another of my guises. It was a block booking and a few other people were also there due to appear. One of them was an American I knew whom I didn’t want to have to contend with that late night, having arrived fatigued and ready for sleep, so I dodged him in the full knowledge that he knew I’d be in the hotel somewhere. Feeling a little bit guilty, I thought it would be best to keep the dodging process up in the morning, as we were all due to be picked up by taxis to take us to the show. Sure enough, when I came down for breakfast there he was. I spotted him heading my way and so the moment was provided – that great Arthur Daley moment from ‘Minder’. In a swift and simple motion that is ridiculously designed and guaranteed to draw attention to you rather than deflect it, you walk past your object of dodge with the flat of your left hand covering your face at a right angle. And y’know, it only fookin’ worked, although I have to put it down to the oblivious galootness of my fellow guest. Still, I had at last enacted that classic ruse in a genuine and reasonably serious situation.
I’ve saved the best, and most satisfying, until last, and it involves the ‘King of Comedy’ - (Yawn, Zzzzzzzz) - Ricky Gervais no less. In 2004 he was appearing at a sold out Theatre Royal in Lincoln. Not far at all from Chez O’Shave, here was an opportunity that could not be missed. You may have seen the 1992 movie ‘The King Of Comedy’ starring Jerry Lewis and Robert de Niro. Lewis kinda plays a version of himself and is pestered by a hapless would-be comedian, Rupert Pupkin, played by Bob. Bob thinks Jerry could help him be recognised but Jez has no interest in associating with a loser. In one scene De Niro pursues an uninterested Jerry and presents him with one of his tapes in the hope that he will review it and recognising raw talent, contact him. The King of Comedy, as he was billed, reluctantly takes it and assures him that he will listen to the tape and get back, of which he has no intention whatsoever of doing either.
At this time, Gervais was more than loosely being bandied about as such a king of comedy, so you may guess what happens next. I had worked out exactly how to nab Ricky and it worked a treat, staking out the fire exit at the venue, awaiting in a car. Sure enough, after hearing the inside applause that signified the end of the show, the door flung open, security assembled around a revved up car and out came Jerry, I mean Ricky, er…. Jerry. I sprang into action and the recreation of the scene from cissy Scorsese’s movie was underway. ‘Jerry, Jerry!’ I shouted over approaching him and a startled security who were amazed to discover that their escape plot had been sussed. Gervais momentarily stopped although being persuaded not to by his mob. ‘Jerry…Jerry…I know you’re busy, but..er…er….(fake stuttering)….I’d like you to watch this disc…it’s me, Wavis O’Shave… and let me know what you…er...think.’ I handed him the Dvd in a jiffy bag, it containing some clips of mine from ‘The Tube.’ ‘ Yes, yes, ok I will...I’ll get back to you,’ replied Ricky who was – perhaps – wondering why he had been addressed as Jerry. ‘My address is on the disc,’ I concluded. ‘I’ve got to go’, and off he did into the car and off at great speed to London. And of course, did he get back to me? Did the King of Comedy get back to Rupert? Of course not. Point proven and scene recreated to a tee. Technically then, as De Niro went on in the movie to finally make it as King, then so too am I the ‘King of Comedy’. In the flick, Pupkin had to kidnap Jerry and hold him to ransom. Me, I’m not that interested. Mind, with my own car and accomplice outside the fire exit, maybe, at and with, a push, we could have. Oh, and in case Ricky ever wishes to deny this encounter ever happened, I had it recorded on a small device inside my coat pocket, now proudly on CD disc.
Had I been acknowledged King Of Comedy two years earlier them maybe I would have won the Asda Xmas cracker competition, the prize being a grand, plus having your mush on all their Xmas crackers for that year. I’d made it into the final 8 and had done so by coming up with a required 40 original jokes - wrote ‘em in two days. The Final was held in their Store at Asda HQ in Leeds that April and I have to report that it was another ‘Stars in Their Eyes’ job, the bloke who won was a reporter for the Daily Telegraph, and he and the other contestants were rattling off some jokes that we had all heard before, whereas mine were completely freshly purpose built and out of my head. Or ears.
If you thought that the intended VIZ Comic movie of mine was a disappointment, then here’s one to beat it, preceding it by some five years. It would eventually involve one of the biggest gaffes of my career and involving one of the biggest starlets on the planet! Tyne Tees Tv had invited me to attend a free script writing course and although I didn’t need coaching I passed it over to Mrs O’Shave who was interested. For solidarity I agreed I would go with her. Our Tutors would be Michael Eaton who had had minor success with his movie ‘Fellow Traveller’ and Emmerdale soap script writer Anne Tobin who had earlier written for Eastenders. Michael told me that when he came by train from Nottingham, then catching a taxi to take him to Tyne Tees, he was having a chat with the driver about stereotypes and the taxi man assured him Geordies did not wear flat caps and walk whippets about anymore. Right on cue, just as Mike was paying him the fare, flat capped Geordie came around the corner with his whippet. The task we were set by our tutors was to write a synopsis for a potential movie script of our own invention, come back in a few weeks and let them assess it.
We did just that and our movie we titled ‘Zeitgeist’, and, boy, was it controversial. Ironic that many years later an actual controversial movie with the same name did make it to the screens. When it came to our turn to have our 5 page synopsis discussed in front of all the others on the Course, strangely, our most controversial page, the last one, had gone missing and so we couldn’t be share our hypothesis that homosexuality – key to the movie – was an illness. Oo..er… broaching such a topic in an industry ruled by closet luvees I think we had touched a raw nerve. We had already caused a riot in the room when we had revealed our hypothesis…but hey, the O’Shave’s NOT being controversial? The next step was for us to submit our finalised script to both tutors forwarded to their own homes. Michael said parts of it angered him and Anne (who has appeared to have vanished off the face of the planet) deemed it a ‘master piece’ and ‘work of genius’ (mainly down to Mrs O’Shave I have to say) but suggesting (what we already knew) that we would have to find a ‘very brave Director’ to make it and to expect that some wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.
We sent it to Disney who returned it immediately informing us that it would have to be submitted on our behalf by an Agent, the letter contained an amazingly revealing typo – or Freudian slip – intimating the problems we would encounter with it…’policy’ becoming ‘police’…’Mind Police’, I assume. Strangeness associated with Zeitgeist continued when we sent it to a Director I thought would be brave enough not to turn his nose up at a barge pole, Ken Russell, one of the very few known for looking at unsolicited scripts. After not hearing from him for three months, his secretary told me this was indeed unheard of as his company always sent a confirmatory receipt upon scripts arriving. Later on I sent the synopsis to Ken’s mate Oliver Reed at his home in Guernsey clearly outlining that we were in search of a very brave person on board. No reply. Maybe Olly was out on his barge.
Getting the message, I tried another route and applied for funding from the European Script Fund whose sole existence is to help would-be movie makers get their project off the ground. The bottom line here was that they would help, but that first you would have to raise and bung them £8,000, which I didn’t have. So now what to do? Well, I did what anybody else would have done in such a situation. I, er, asked Annafrid Lyngstad, the raven haired beauty in Abba, to help. Have you, dear reader, gone deadly silent? It was quite straightforward in my mind. Here was a loaded lass I could ask with a promise to repay once we had gotten wheels in motion movie. The fact that I would use any excuse to approach perhaps my toppest ever ‘bit oh’ (and knowingly incur the impending wrath of Mrs O’Shave as a bi-product) is purely incidental.
My first problem was how to contact her and so I fished out an old Abba album and found the address of their recording studio, Polar Studios in Sweden. I wrote them asking if they could help and help they did pointing me in direction of Frida’s agent. I naturally and speedily contacted him and he agreed that he would forward any correspondence to the raven haired beaut. In the fullness of time I received a reply to my plea, which I had cornily wrapped up in the phrase ‘I have a dream…’. Maybe I should have put ‘Take a chance on me’ as well. Frida was intimating she may be up for it and asked me to send her the script to study!! The only factor in all this dream start was a tedious time lapse with her agent in the middle. He had to go. From her replies – yes, plural – I learned that she was living in Switzerland, so I inspiringly sent a letter to the Swiss Embassy in London asking if they knew of her address there. (Any old excuse to write to an Embassy). I couldn’t believe my ongoing luck when they forwarded the query to their Embassy in Manchester who wrote back to me and there was her full postal home address in Fribourg, Switzerland for me to feast my eyes on! They had led me to her door! In these days of stalkers, this must have been a never to be repeated offer…or error. Fribourg letterbox, here we come.
I sent Frida the script and prepared for the long or short wait, the £8,000 or not a Swiss penny. Now, what I have omitted thus far is to inform you, dear reader, of a little more of the required historical content of ‘Zeitgeist’, for it bigged up the Russians over the Germans, making the latter look like complete twats, and, you recall, making the meat jump off Milosh’s incensed fork. Now, had I done a little more recent historical research, I would have noticed that the same year I had contacted Frida she had married an actual German prince, qualifying herself as a bonafide member of royalty. So, I had sent her a script that, essentially, was telling her that her beloved was a twat and would she bung me eight grand for the diagnosis. The not too long silence from my Swiss Miss was broken by an epistle from her informing me that she was now, unfortunately, under a lot of stress - her actual typed words – although there was no reference to the script or it being instrumental in her condition. Oh, and that she would have to abandon any further involvement in the project. Fair do’s I suppose, although she may have been one of my favoured birds, history was never my favourite subject.
The DNA ‘Do Not Attempt’ thread had struck again, and although our ‘Zeitgeist’ was fated never to surface other than to donate a great Collective Unconscious movie title to someone else, I did at least get to sleep with Frida, out of all this. Well, not quite, but maybe, a bit. Allowing for the fact that her saliva would have been on the stamps that she personally licked to put on her letters to me, so too would her DNA, and so when I carefully peeled one off and slept with it, I must have been sleeping with her. This was more than adequate compensation for my loss and lasted me for years until I was recounting the entire saga with someone who perhaps enviously suggested to me that as a royal princess she may have had a stamp licking male butler.
With the ‘Tube’ years well behind me and having cemented both its and my place in cult Tv history, I was amused when along with the incoming ‘Noughties’ came something of a Wavis Renaissance, including a thinly disguised reconnaissance mission to my home for the sole purpose of seeking out material for Harry Enfield and me appearing as The hard in animated CGI on the Net. Incidentally, I featured on the very last ‘Tube’ episode, experiencing my ‘final felt nowt feeler’ having been clubbed on the head by my wife whom I had invited to play a club wielding receptionist. She was responsible for the fake stitches on my head applied at home from the idea that she came up with and that had the entire Tv crew worriedly believed to be real. The Renaissance started with my ‘Mauve shoes are awful’ being included on the USA compilation album Messthetics #4. ‘The World of Wavis O’Shave’ 2004 British compilation album and some ‘Uncooked Raveloni’, a limited online edition Cd of demos with a freebie dvd with ‘Tube’ clips, was soon followed by Falling ‘A’s own compilation, with my ‘Katie Derham’s bum’ Cd single sandwiched in between, the latter reviewed in the September issue of the UK’s top celeb mag ‘NOW’ with Wavey alongside Jordan and Pete, Rachel Stevens and Cindy Crawford.
The Katie Derham thing is a bit of a puzzle to me. Whereby I clearly did have the mild curry hots for Anna Ford, there is something in my DNA that just wants to aggravate Katie. She failed to respond when I sent her a copy of the tribute, although this did prompt Anna into contacting me to say ‘You can’t beat the original’. In 2006 I turned up as an entry on Wikipedia, although it was ignominiously removed by some young upstart student modifier who thought the entire page was a spoof and that Wavis O’Shave did not exist. It was returned when the twat was found to be in error but I have to say having been so suddenly removed from existence is the nearest I will ever experience to being exterminated by a Dalek. Whatever happened to Wavis O’Shave?’ also became a hot topic on the forum of top music mag MOJO, and postings hung around for months breaking a record at over 1500 views, until Terry Christian, he of the much later ‘Tube’ copycat C4 show ‘The Word ,’popped up calling Wavey and all his fans ‘tossers’. If it really was you Terry, I will have my day with you.
In 2009 I decided it was time for the first and last Wavis live show, and took up an offer to support an Oasis tribute band at Lincoln City Football ground. I became Mustapha Dhoorinc in full Islamic regalia, turban and long beard, all deftly hiding me up from recognition. I was pulled to the stage on a magic carpet on wheels which had tins of Tennants Super Strength attached to it on trailing strings, to my own wonderfully prepared and affected Islamic fanfare blaring through the speakers. Hopping up on stage, I downed a full big whisky bottle in under thirty seconds. Nobody could tell it was actually cold tea inside the bottle, and after about three minutes into the set I went into convincing staggering that sealed it for the audience, not that they had any doubt in the first place. Flanked by two terrorist dressed band members Paddy and Garry, we did ‘Mauve shoes are awful’, ‘Bit spray sir’, ‘The Ballad of the Pokeawillies’ – complete with bamboo canes to attack the gonads - and a techno version of ‘Katie Derham’s bum’. A London support band that was to come on after me said ‘How do you follow that?’, having been in stitches throughout, whilst headliners Noasis where in horror at what they had innocently allowed to happen, even though I did tone it down 65%.
‘Liam’, who had allowed me the slot, was in shock and ‘Noel’ had started smoking during it even though he didn’t smoke. A fight between Liam and Noel was close to erupting. Good for realism tho’, huh? Both my loyal band members fooked off leaving me stranded when I started my ‘dancing’ throughout the 8 minute techno track. Some of the audience laughed, some didn’t know what to be and some asked for a refund before Noasis came on, but there was some warm applause from a small band of Wavey fans at the front, bless ‘em. Thirty years on and here was my first and last gig all rolled into one, and I have to say I loved it, and, folks, yes, I DO still have it. The same year VIZ Comics original mob celebrated 30 years of the comic with a bootleg issue and a bit of a celeb bash up North. I was sent an invite, but naturally declined. However, I sent a representative on my behalf and when he was pissing next to Newcastle football legend Malcolm ‘Supermac’ Macdonald, Supermac revealed himself as a Wavis fan, clearly chuffed that here he was pissing next to someone who knew The Wavester. Absolute convoluted time travel, this. There was a young Wavey who once had Supermac as his hero and then almost 40 years later discovering that this amazing bandy legged marvel was now a fan of mine.
In April 2010 I was completely in artistic control of my own hour long radio show ‘An Evening with Wavis and Foffo’ playing 12 or so of my own tracks whilst chatting in between, for London’s Resonance FM, a brave station if ever there was. In 2011 I reached for the sky by responding to movie maker, Wavis fan, and ginger Philip Gardiner who arranged for me to be interviewed and recorded for three of his artsy and musical Mindscape Tv shows for SKY, four songs in all, Phil knowingly setting up the luvees who would be responsible for not knowing what the Wavester would do next, as I wouldn’t tell them. Suffice to say, a fair number of people who had never heard of Wavis will never ever forget that day…or the Pokeawillies. (Genesis guitar Steve Hackett and Arthur ‘Crazy world of’ Brown being a couple).
Phil also had an idea for a Wavis movie, which in reality he could have made happen had he not immaculately timed his long time coming fall out with his long term associates, thus the opportunity was fated again. In the same year North Eastern Films had agreed with me to shoot a Wavis comedy film, but this fell apart 24 hours before the camera was due to roll when the company director suddenly declared irreparable ‘personal problems’, leaving me wondering if somebody had perhaps had a negative ‘do you know what you’re doing?’ word in his ear. Contributors like Wavey fan David Quantick, script associate of Harry Hill, had already contributed an opening tribute, along with media fans. It just goes to show, this Life’s lesson. No matter how willing you are, no matter how justified it is, if it’s not in your personal DNA, you are NOT going to make a thing happen, for to do so would direct you along another route contradictory to the Agreement you signed in some heavenly starry realm in Time and Space prior to your tortuous impending earthly trial that at the end of your life you will be requested to write a sagely 500 word essay entitled; ‘Human Nature is, in the main, bizwizzpoo. Debate.’
And so, with that accumulated Wisdom, I think I will leave it there, this rendition of My Story. I told you at the start that we might encounter a lot of ‘no’s’ as a reply to some of my outlandish intentions, which my D(o)N(ot)A(ttempt) finds amusing given that I am quite well known for my choice of image association with a false ‘nose’, and of the more than few abrupt halts to earnest efforts I have encountered I can honestly say it has been a hoot(er) trying, and I haven’t been in the least disappointed. In fact I have felt nowt. I will say there are many episodes I have left out as sometimes the thin dividing line in my quad lives between when I am Wavis and when I am not eliminates many a story, often at least as bizarre as any involving Wavey. That might include how every year I record a tailor made hush-hush ‘under the counter’ Xmas single for various Company’s work force, Wavis Collector’s items if ever there was. My fave has been for a top cake producing firm in the Midlands, the staff sneaking copies of the disc past security by stuffing it down their wellies – this one had been ‘Make Cakes Not War’. Looking back at the majority of this Memoir content, there is nothing I would have changed and that includes currently awaiting clinical diag-noses that I am mildly and occasionally possessed by a Brigadier. Well, maybe with the exception of dezinite evidence that Frida DIDN’T employ a Butler.
Anyway back to another famous chewer. Some bastard had taken up a hobby setting fire to random allotment sheds, and after torching about ten his randomness took him to the next plot and shed where Chooga and our two chickens were sleeping. This had been going on for three weeks and the fuzz had done nothing about it despite complaints from other allotment owners. I thought it was time to take the law into my own hands so early one morning when I’d worked out that the culprit’s biorhythm to set fire to a shed was due, fully dressed in black from head to toe, I tiptoed along the winding gravel paths as quiet as I could and slowly inched my way backwards into a bush alongside a shed nearby my own. As I was inching backwards I hit a solid object. It was a rozzer, there with two others crouching down and competing with me in a contest to see who could be the most silent. Sure enough, after three inactive weeks, this was the early morning they decided to hold a stake out. Resisting the urge to pounce on me, I was treated to just a little more dignity by way of being verbally nabbed as the phantom twisted fire starter, frisked, and my details rang through to the cop shop. As there was no incriminating evidence, such as his oily rags, petrol and matches or any means of invoking a flame, I was let go. However about a year later when I was in casual conversation with another rozzer looking back on the firestarters episode – he was never caught - he confided that I was documented as their chief suspect. Talk about cooking your own goose, huh?
Listen. When you fall out of a cosmic cracker – or a low flying UFO, depends which version you prefer or believe – you can expect to engage in activities that find you in situations beyond the norm. In 1989 Mrs O’Shave heard a news item that told how the Russians were sending their slightly older submarines over to Whitley Bay on the North east Coast to a scrap yard to have them crushed. Here was an opportunity not to be missed, I mean, after all, the Ruskis didn’t want this lot of subs so why be a dog in a manger about it…if we asked them for at least one, why not let us have it? Even unlikelier, the missus actually knew of a fellow, and his name really was Davy Crockett, who could drive one, if driving is what you do, or pilot the thing, and had said to her if ever she needed any assistance in that area….! So yes, I put together what I thought was a reasonable plea in my letter which I sent to the Russian Embassy in London. Sooner rather than later, I received a nicely encouraging letter back from them saying that really this thing ought to be discussed down a line and I should ring this here number. Nicely encouraged then, I rang ‘em from my nearest call box and as it kept swallowing my pound coins as if it hadn’t been fed in years, I began to struggle and get relatively nowhere with the Russian voice speaking in his native tongue back to me, as I kept trying to have him understand ‘Me no speak Russian’. After about £15 I gave up. It would have been cheaper to have gone to Whitley Bay and argued with a Geordie there. Easy come, easy go, never went, never came.
Maybe just as well this was a brave failed venture or perhaps I could have been followed about for years afterwards by Nicky Head’s Soviet shadows who obliged him on his ‘Gone to Russia’ excursion. This hasn’t been our only intervention with Ruski’s tho’. The following year the O’Shave’s auditioned for the Tv show ‘Talkabout’ presented by Derren Brown’s now advisor Andrew O’Connor, and as our party piece we sneaked off and dressed up as Kossacks, beards hats and all, did their funny dance squatting and played ‘Those were the days’ on paper and combs. I think the producers were a little caught out and so we didn’t receive the conclusive call informing us of a slot on the show, despite being told to sit near a phone for two weeks. Just to put some Superpowers balance back into this episode, about a year later in 1990 there was a world climate summit being held in Rio, and the O’Shave’s wished to show their concern based on the fact that the missus’ grandmother had somehow married into the Red Indian Penobscot tribe, living near Maine in New England. This gave us great leeway to decide we should like to ride a horse up Downing Street dressed in full Indian regalia to protest about Greenhouse gas emissions. In deepest sympathy with our cause, the British coach company National Express actually, upon our request, gave us free tickets to travel to London in return for a bit of publicity for them. Not so lucky with British Airways who didn’t quite see why they should pay for us to go to Rio and back. Worth a try. We had to secure police permission to be allowed our stunt but we were more concerned about what should happen if the horse had a crap along the way and so offered should this be the case we’d hop off and shovel it up in an instant. The London constabulary tho’ seemed more concerned about security threats than a horse dump, and denied us permission.
I have to say Mrs O’Shave and I can get rather creative when faced with any small amount of boredom. The late 80’s saw us punt two excellent scripts out to Programming Head of Channel 4, Giles Pilbrow. The first was ‘Many happy returns’ a twee effort in which a beleaguered husband is constantly set about by his anxious wife who is convinced she keeps seeing his reincarnation and spitting image in portraits and photographs from the past, married to other women. Whether true or not we never learn but it ended when there was a ring at the door bell and upon the door's opening find an entourage of Tibetan Buddhist monks clambering to meet up with their reincarnated Dalai Lama – the husband of course. The second script we gave first refusal to trusty Tyne Tees and it was ‘Geordie Genocide – Daleks invade the North East’. I had always had a good relationship with ‘Tyne Tease’ apart from being slightly miffed once when Ant and Dec had a ’hard’ Father Xmas appear on their seasonal special. The Daleks were convinced that the Geordies were, instead, ‘G.O.D’s’ and so as a race they had to be exterminated. Opening scenes saw the destruction of the GOD’s power supply – Scottish and Newcastle Brewery and the Social Security – from their spaceship above. There was a lone Geordie on top of a pyramid high scrap heap, all that was left of the Social Security building in the total devastation that was once the North East, remonstrating ‘Me fuckin’ giro hasn’t come’. It ended badly for the Daleks when they became contaminated and took to wearing caps, walking whippets and had a fag out of their tin head, as they were off to see their nanna.
The Tyne Tees researchers never recovered from the script and it actually did move some to tears as it was fervently passed about the entire building. Pilbrow liked it too but calmly told us we had no chance with it as the creator of the daleks Terry Nation would never allow his maniacal pepperpots to be parodied and so we would never access an original let alone a dozen of them. The general consensus in TV Land was the same (plus Tyne Tees were tremendously skint) although I did put a request to Mr Nation all the same. Well, it was a bit of a threat. I told him that If he didn’t play ball I would inflict him with the curse of the Egyptian jigger fly on his big toe left foot. He never replies, but he did die soon afterwards. Blank wagic? I wouldn’t be surprise if either script turn up on the screen one day. People ask me why I danced around showbusiness and apart from me not being so boring as to crave fame and fortune and be so unoriginal as to indulge in same sex n drugs n rock n roll, I have to say that there are so many thieving bastards in showbiz that you are constantly having to look over your shoulder to see who is about to nick your work from you and get it out first. Rather like Hatt’s dad, I have been stung twice. Allow me to explain.
In 1988 the missus and I came up with a gem of an idea for a kids Tv show, ‘The Chinnogs’. We reversed the head so that the chin became the noggin and with a pair of eyes stuck on it became the head. I wished we had thought to do this by inverting the camera but I did it the hard way by balancing on my nut. Anyway, the shorthand version is that we met an appointment with the children’s department of Tyne Tees, took a pilot and she loved and wanted it instantly. Trouble was she would have to show it to her overall boss who was Trish Kinane (Now President of Entertainment Programming for American Idol, American X Factor and America’s Got Talent at Freemantle Media, North America) in London and so up came Trish to watch it with us and have to take the tape back with her to the city to show her husband. The pilot episode was ‘copyright protected’ by way of me having stored a dated copy of it, in my solicitor’s safe. Months went by and no expected reply of a ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ puzzled Tyne Tees who were keen to press on. And then one Friday night I was watching ‘Family Fortunes’ on the box and the ads came on, and there was our Chinnogs in a Scottish and Newcastle lager ad, the ‘Chinheads’. I wish the Daleks HAD exterminated their brewery.
The phone never stopped ringing as friends rang to congratulate us on selling the idea on and telling us how sneaky we’d been for not telling them. Mrs O’Shave gave me a proper enormous argument as she had thought I’d secretly sold her out! I was straight onto seeking lawyers on the Monday seeking an injunction on the ad but this was the most hectic week of the year, Xmas week, the entire situation was made worse because every time I found a solicitor they happened to either already represent Tyne Tees or S & N. I eventually did find one and was told that an immediate injunction would cost in excess of a grand. We traced the London ad agency responsible and entered into litigation. The advert also had a song as a soundtrack and it was to be released as a potential chart topper with the help of the ad, so it was all beginning to fall into place. The company denied theft and in their defence said that Benny Hill had done the head-chin inversion first, years ago, even though nobody could find any evidence let alone footage, and the bastards wanted to counter sue me for 200k to try and put our challenge off.
Now, as we were the Plaintiffs, a court hearing should have by law taken place in Newcastle, but for some reason – maybe a funny handshake – it was held in London and the Judge threw out the claim on the basis that ‘You can’t copyright a chin’. One funny story attached to this overall tale of woe was when I went to Newcastle to record Mr Rahman to introduce the pilot. Mr Rahman was a strange Indian who had adverts on local radio for his zip factory which his ad, starting with ‘Please listen’, informed us was ‘opposite the motorcycle shop.’ When we located his factory he appeared wearing a ginger wig that wasn’t fitted too well on his head and spun around a bit. He was happy to oblige my request which was to announce, ‘Welcome to the Chinnogs’, but each time he did it I had to stop recording as he wouldn’t stop saying,’ Welcome to the Chinnog’. Maybe they don’t have plural in India but I had to give up as there were about seven of ‘em in my show.
Rip off number two came in 1995 with another London TV backed show ‘Beadle’s Hotshots’ (should have been Hot shits’)’ presented by Jeremy Beadle. The idea was for members of the public to submit their own home made comedy clips, no more than one, and if used be paid £250. All well so far. Well, one Saturday night I was reading something whilst the show was on and I heard, ‘I’m that hard I….’. For a split microsecond your mind whirls and you think, ‘I’ve not sent them anything.’ But there he was, earning £250, Mr ‘Hard as Nails’. I filed him away instantly as a chancer who perhaps thought I had emigrated to a far flung foreign land, or even left the planet and that my intellectual property, as it is now called, was up for fair grabs. It was fast becoming a bigger rip off than my Pan’s thighs. One week later and the show is back on, and with it, again, Hard as Nails. Score so far; Hard As Nails £500, The Hard Not, A Penny. So against the rules the bastard had been on again toddling and pissing me off none too pleased to see a brief. A justifiably haughty letter was despatched to London Weekend Television informing that they were infringing copyright on my character. The reply came back announcing that they had never seen or heard of my cartoon character before, yes, they somehow thought I had said he had been an animation, and that there client’s character had been based on his father.
In the meanwhile, my brief’s advice was for us – meaning me – to have video footage of this clear rip off character. Despite believing that he couldn’t possibly be on three weeks in a row (£750) I set up the usually defunct video recorder. When the bastard did appear, I pressed down the buttons, only to find later and to confirm that I was crap at video recording, hence never using it previous, and I hadn’t any footage. The resolution, for us to press on any further, was to have footage, and, of course only LWT could provide us it. We couldn’t sue the rotter responsible because they protected his identity and said that we have to stick our writ on them – a top and financially well off London Tv broadcaster. My brief and I went to London’s Gray’s Inn, the Chambers of the Bar, to consult a barrister who explained that even though the twat may have nicked my format, any slight change meant that he was liable to get away with it. A bit like someone nicking Enfield’s ‘Loadsa Money’, and calling him ‘Loadsa Lolly.’
The problem remained, we need footage and of course when approached, LWT wouldn’t provide it. Pretty much end of story ‘cept the fooker appeared a fourth time and then it became plain, similar to the lager ad with my Chinnog rip off, what it had all been about. His final clip was being filmed at Silverstone motor racing track and it was all about building up an excuse to promote and advertise a forthcoming event there, back handers more than likely taking place to set it all up. Two years later I found out the name and area of the bastard who stole from me and located his number in the Tunbridge phone book. I rang him once and with no reply left him some advice on the answer phone. It reminded me of a letter I once wrote to a fella in London who sold bootlegs and who took my money but denied it had arrived. It went something like the next time Newcastle were in town me and the boys would be paying him a visit with our chair legs. Next thing, he closed down his record trade and had gone missing. I hope you got the similar ferkin’ message, Shaun.
Appearing on Tv shows has been of no real interest to me y’know. Remembered the most for my appearances on ‘The Tube’ as The Hard, Mr Starey-Oot and Mr Ordinary Powder, I will point out there have been a number of near miss appearances on other national top shows. (Not counting my appearance in the background at an ‘Antiques Roadshow’, something I had always wanted to do since seeing Michael Roll (no, he doesn’t have bro’ called Fig) do it at a show in Bristol. Just stand behind Fiona like I did and you’re bound to be in with a shout.) Esther Rantzen’s ‘That’s Life’ hummed and ha-ed, mostly hummed, when I sent them a tape of me stroking bees. Mrs O’Shave taught me how to after declaring I could no longer run a mile or swat at nearby ones out of fear thus looking like I was having an epileptic seizure to onlookers across the road. All I had to do was calmly approach them upon their honey procuring business on a bush and stroke them gently, the only advice being that eventually they would raise a back leg which indicated arousal and that I should quit when winning.
Clive Anderson’s Channel 4 ‘Talkback’ was a biggish show in 1992 and young Irish colleen Anne-Marie Thorogood flew to Newcastle from London and caught a pricey cab fare to our house to discuss what we had punted them. Mrs O’Shave is a dab eye at noticing the remarkable, sometimes astounding similarity in historical sketches, portraits and photos of people from the past who look the double of celebrities amongst us today. (The idea behind our ‘Many Happy Returns’ script) We had even found a match for Clive and, spookily, he too had been a barrister like Clive once had, but a hundred years earlier. I can’t remember them all but I think Ben Elton looked quite passable as some illustrations of Samuel Pepys. It was a great angle for a slot on the show and a further impressed Anne-Marie paid us down to London to meet with her producer. Unfazed about the prospect of having to sword fence with an piss-taking Anderson (although we would have been stitched up by editing as I originally thought the show was live but it was recorded in the morning for edited night transmission), we were offered a fifteen minute slot, with one clause. We had to say we were promoting reincarnation. Well, as we weren’t we weren’t prepared to, and that was that. I suppose had we, then the show would have been repeated. Get it, reincarnation and repeat?
Speaking of such things, I don’t believe in the doctrine of reincarnation as it is taught, but I will tell you this. I am the spitting image of a very famous person in history, his parents looked like mine and some of my close friends looked like his. When I read a biography written about this person it was like reading about myself and he had even wore a false elongated nose whilst at masked balls. I’m not going to tell you who this figure is, but in my estimation he was the first pop star in history. Talking of spooky things reminds me that I was also pencilled in for an appearance on the Russell Harty show back in 1981 when I had sent them a wad of photos, taken by Geldwink incidentally, that clearly showed real faeries on them. Naively, I didn’t spot that the undercurrent of this item would have been that Russell himself was a fairy, of a different kind you understand.
Mind, truthfully, Mrs O’Shave and I HAVE lived in a genuine Elf field. Only this is an Extremely Low Frequency field, owing to an electric powerhouse being six inches off our living room wall. We were the first people in the North East to have it checked out by the Electricity Board, the electrical field being measured, as another family in the country at the time had a good legal case to claim that the proximity of the transformer had caused their young daughter to contract leukaemia, and their transformer had been sixteen yards off her bedroom wall. Turned out the magnetic field stretched half way down our street, funnelling out as it went, but passing right through our living room. Mrs O’Shave, who is far more sensitive than I, would tell me she could see flickering in the room and would have instant headaches and the hair would stand up at the back of our necks, all of which can be explained by living in a strong magnetic and electrical field. The Leccy Board told us we weren’t in any proveable danger, (as they were bound to) and even today such debates rage on. Our story surfaced in the Sunday Times. Meanwhile, back in Tv Land, what is a brilliant idea on Monday morning isn’t such a great idea by the time Friday comes around ie they’ve found better ones midweek , and so my fairy pix pitch for Russ fizzled out too. Great pix tho’ and quite genuine.
I’ll digress for a moment to keep the theme otherworldly and tell you in 1994 The O’Shaves found themselves in a situation that only they could have. Babysitting for grandkids over the Xmas, we got snowed in at a haunted lunatic asylum. Yes, you read that right, and all that was missing was Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. The disused 18th century asylum had been bought by ‘Bungalow’ Bill Wiggins, one time husband of screen queen Joan Collins and he was having it converted into luxury flats. Our relatives were caretaking the property, of which about 10% were luxury penthouses and the other 90% the old asylum. At one point down a corridor, the percentages met and it was like walking into another dimension during the eerie night lighting as you made your way to the nearest toilet. We were in a penthouse room, unaware at the time that this place was haunted big time. The first night we had just put out the bedroom light when after about three minutes there was a terrific crash at the bottom of the bed.
Recovering from our both jumping, neither of us spoke for a couple of minutes, there was nothing physical at the bottom of bed let alone anything that could have provided such a crash. We were upstairs so I pathetically suggested that what we had heard was a flag blowing in the wind on the balcony outside. The following night we had our boy stay in another room down the corridor and in the morning he reported seeing what he described as a ’floating black bin liner’ in his room. We hadn’t mentioned anything about our experience by the way. On the third night, Christmas Eve, the snow fell and I took a look out in the huge grounds appreciating the white carpet of silence. It was rudely interrupted by the echoing sound of a bugle being played but despite looking everywhere for the source I couldn’t find who was playing it and there was nobody about. I reasoned it must have been an Xmas reveller with the sound drifting over but learned quite innocently in a conversation weeks afterwards that long ago an inmate of the asylum escaped one Xmas Eve and was knocked down and killed crossing the road outside. His only solace whilst a captive inmate had been the bugle he would play all day long! I also learned that the previous husband and wife live-in caretakers had done a runner at the dead of night in their pyjamas, clearing off never to return.
Once I had a sofa bed in my bedroom but you would never know it was as it only looked like a sofa, but it ingeniously folded out if you knew how. This meant I could sneak somebody small inside of it and fold it all up. The number of times I would have someone in my room to hear my sofa talking and fail looking for evidence of any tape recorder. They would ask it a question and it would answer. Some victims ran off, and once I stuck a pin in the sofa and the fella inside provided the scream! Nobody ever sussed that bestest ever sofa. End of digression and back to the Tv shows that never were, and can you believe they were, Big Brother, X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent? I must have been off my rocker when I went to a Leeds hotel to audition for BB in 2002. My intention was to get in the house, be unspeakably obnoxious to one and all and get booted out all in the same week, reminding me of a local Tv character I once played, the one-off Johnny Worser. Despite arriving in the final 25 for regional heats and being told to sit by the phone (where have I experienced that before?) no call was forthcoming, and, boy, upon reflection am I glad. Surely I should have thought out that if I had made it to the nation’s screens, a thousand viewers up North would have earned some blood money selling their stories true or otherwise, dishing the dirt on…yes, it’s Wavis O’Shave that’s in the house, exclusive shock horror. Imagine the reaction and reception I would have gotten upon being booted out to face the tabloid allegations awaiting me!
A serious lapse and error in judgement on my behalf, the BB idea. The audition itself was crap, all in attendance having to reply to what they would do in scenarios plucked out of a passed around hat, questions asked them by other attendant auditionees, and role playing group scenarios. The X-Factor seemed more like fun when it was auditioning for its first series in 2004. For me, I thought facing The Cowell would be a great opportunity for some outrage but it wasn’t long in another Leeds hotel that the penny should have dropped when it was announced to some relieved, mostly disappointed, ensemble that the judge’s weren’t there that day – Simon, Sharon and Louis - and that we would be judged by one of Thames’ own judges. Just two of ‘em. What if one said yea and tuther nay? Penalties? You will of course all know by now that you never get to see the Tv judges when you attend the auditions. Only after getting past uncelebrity judges and then having to get through another audition and then come back another day for one more, do you get to see Si and Co. Well, I sang Bowie’s ‘Kooks’ from the Hunky Dory album and when I looked over at the judge I knew that I had met him before but couldn’t place where. It was only back home that I realised it had been one of the Stars In Their Eyes Team who had visited my home when I was being filmed for segments of my 1996 appearance. He had bought me a tall cypress tree for my garden and I guess that was as many favours as he had in mind for me, when my X-Factor audition received only a warm reception and a ‘Thank you, but not today.’
You’d have thought I would have learned my lesson but no, I was back the next year up at St James’ Park Newcastle for another crack. The first crack had also provided me with another being in my specs, which I had taken off and put in my pocket for my song. They broke when I was sitting down in the Green area. Second time around I thought I would play the contrived wacky card as I had seen it work throughout the first screened series. Me, of all people, ‘pretending’ to be wacky!!? So, I wore half a wig and sang ‘Kooks’ again, lying face down on the floor. ‘Not what we’re looking for, but nice to have met you.’ They invited auditionees to argue with the usual bland judges decisions and so if you had any gripes you were to locate a camera and share it. I was straight in for the kill, keeping, as I had all day, a straight face, to accuse the judges of being ‘Wiggist’.
All that was shown of my appearance up North that day was me doing the orchestrated crossed arms bit outside in amongst a thousand others doing the same inane motion, but I did appear reasonably clearly in the bottom left of the Tv screen for about four seconds, so I can justifiably say that I HAVE appeared on the X-Factor. If there is one show possibly bigger than that one it might just be Britain’s Got Talent, and the opportunity presented me to be involved after the Guinness Book of Records 2010 dropped on my lap. I mused that it was high time that I should perhaps try to break an existing record and it was a toss up between the furtherest distance you can blow a Malteser using a straw (21’), how many eggs you can hold in one hand (23) and how many pairs of underpants you can wear all at the same time (129). Although coming to terms with realising that time management in my life wasn’t realistically going to allow me time to concentrate on any of these three, I knew it would have been the undies one.
Now, it was either blank wagic at its best, or simply what the psychologists call Jung’s theory of the Collective Unconscious, but shortly afterwards I received an email from Geldwink who said he was up to something exciting that he knew I would approve of. In his next email he mentioned Guinness and I mentioned underpants and our exclusive identical waveylength was identified. Offering myself as his psychological Trainer, as this record has its drawbacks especially your knackers drawing back and the increasing number of undies threatening to cut off your blood supply. Gelders as ’Geordie Pantsman’ went on to create and earn a new world record with 211 pairs and to audition in Glasgow for BGT. He made it onto the show except he didn’t. Contradiction? Clips from his recorded show in front of Michael, Amanda and The Hoff were used for weeks during adverts for the series, but, for some unknown reason, his actual full appearance and three buzzers never made it to the nations screens, which was more than a shame especially as I would have liked to have seen him being rolled off stage like a barrel by Ant and Dec.
In 2012 he went one step further with 302 pairs on to beat the woman who beat him at 259 (with no knackers to squash) but the adjudicators at this event were too drunk on Guinness they lost count. Not really, a few undies slipped below his knee and so the tight (not as tight as his 302 pairs) buggers refused to acknowledge his new world record. For some years, and in front of impressed witnesses, I would suddenly have a penchant to scoff 16 fully dressed hot dogs, tomato sauce onions, dressing, all in one go, and it always timed at 31 minutes and a few seconds. This strange blip and blank wagical saucery has now retreated back to where it first came from, having done it about ten times. So maybe I did miss my own Guinness vocation.
So, lots of near misses regarding sneaking onto your Tv screens unexpectedly, but of course there were the two success stories. Firstly, the top watched programme in the Uk in 1989 with about 15 million viewers was The Noel Edmonds Saturday Roadshow, and The O’Shave’s bagged themselves 15 quality minutes on it, although not strictly as the O’Shave’s, but for those who know us, well, yes it was us minus the O’Shave logo. It all started when the series hits the screen in autumn and part of the show was called ‘Giftbusters’. Viewers were invited to spring a surprise on someone they knew and if lucky the show would oblige. When they were plugging this item, the missus simply said to me in probable fun more than necessity that she could do with some new knickers. With that I sneaked off to pen a plea to Noel and his crew and before I sneakily knew it they managed to contact me via Lex the Mex’s landline who passed the sneaky message on.
Could I get the wife down to London next Tuesday? What? Female Piorot incarnate? How? What excuse? The sneaky excuse was that I had won a competition and that the prize was a free hotel treat and trip around the sights of London. Luckily, we did enter a lot of compers in those days and although I swore because of the volume of them I couldn’t recall sending this particular one in or what it was, I’d won. More than a lame excuse, but it worked. The show told me I had to have us booked into a swish Kensington hotel they’d sorted and that they would pick us up at noon the next day in a chauffeur driven roller, and that was ALL they told me so I really didn’t know what to expect next. Mrs tried at the last minute to get out of going, swearing she had toothache but off we went me periodically having to go down into reception to sneakily ring the show to confirm all was on course. Sneaking off to make mysterious calls and then report back vague and sheepish had Mrs O’Shave thinking that I really was a Russian spy and for some reason I was going to have her assassinated – she really was getting her absent knickers in a twist. She always did reckon that whenever I waited outside a shop for her, got bored and hung about like a suspicious loiterer, that I looked every bit a Czechoslovakian spy, so this Russian hit man wasn’t as absurd a notion as she would think.
I’d already ‘met’ Noel once before with Anti-Pop when he made an appearance at a shop directly below the label’s ‘offices’. He was sat in the back of a flash car with the windows up when we dodged past his security to shout after him brandishing a copy of Anna Ford’s bum. He took no notice. Anyway, at high noon the roller turned up and off we went for our tour of the sights. Soon, the car pulled us up at the even swisher Savoy Hotel. The film crew were everywhere to greet our arrival, and Mrs O’Shave commented, ‘There must be someone famous turning up’. Next we hear as if from out of thin air, but actually from the furry mikes on long sticks above us, a voice addressing the arrival of Mrs O’Shave with ‘Have you got any knickers on?’ Somehow – knowing that I was dead meat – I got her out of the car and with assistance from producer Guy Freeman who was actually holding her up and from running away, we took the carpeted stairway down into a level where there awaiting us was a rooster red made up Noel, he being the owner of the mystery aerial question. He led us swiftly into a main hall and awaiting us was a fashion show especially put on by lingerie supremo Janet Reger. After all the totty models had brushed past my nose in quite revealing tops and bottoms, Mrs Slocum herself, the real Mollie Sugden, bigged up the missus and I was named as the culprit. The still flabbergasted and ‘I’ll kill you later ’wife was then invited to take home with her any three items she had seen at this private screening. Turns out that this particular Giftbusters had been the costliest ever put on by the show. When we were heading back to the train station in the taxi, wifey asked me a rather blatantly daft question, ‘This isn’t going on the telly is it?’ It did, in front of 15 million.
Almost as if exacting unconscious revenge, ‘Stars in their Eyes’ was her idea. For at least five years she would say ‘ Go on, do him’, in a reference to me being able to do a fairly good impersonation of my friend Steve Harley. Mind, I can do an even better Johnny Rotten. So in the sixth year just having watched a bloke do a lousy impression of Benny Hill, I gave in. I couldn’t be worse than that bloke. The next is history. Passing a Newcastle audition, I did the same in Manchester was invited on the show – ironic that in my knock out group there was a Toyah impersonator - and Steve sprang his own surprise by sending me his own guitar to use and let me keep it (and the case). When I appeared through the steam filled pyramid doors – and I’ll tell you, you can see nowt as you come through – the audience erupted. The warm up comedian thought I’d taken ill and had been replaced by someone else. Nobody could believe it was the same person although all the show had done was return me back to what I liked like when I was 23. Absolute time travel. Now, I’m not a bad loser and I only agreed to do the show on the understanding that this would be a one-off, (bit of a giveaway that, eh?) but after it was all over, back at the hotel, both the winner who had been Mario Lanza and his family came over to me and candidly admitted that they couldn’t believe Mario had won as I was clearly the winner. Was this why the producer had bought me a cypress tree for my garden, in guilt? Now I know this and you wouldn’t, but the absolute truth is that when the show was transmitted they docked the volume of my applause down and increased the volume on Mario’s What does that tell you? And, if you ever thought the ‘public vote’ on such shows is genuine, forget it! It will only be adhered to if it meets with what the producer wants! Welcome to Tinsel Town folks, now sing - There’s no business like show business, there’s no business I know...everything about it is appalling etc.
Admittedly, I hadn’t appeared as Wavis but that was the fun element for me as I hadn’t told a soul that I was going to appear, consequently freaking out a large portion of the population of the North East when people saw me walk to meet Matthew Kelly, ‘Gulp, that’s Wavis – look!!’ Whilst on about the name game, producer Kieran Roberts (who is now Producer of ‘Coronation Street’ no less) actually named his first born son after my real Christian name as he said that I had made such an impression on him during our time spent together. Aw…shucks and blushes Kieran. I don’t mind saying that as I had to wear a wig for my performance, soon after the actual Steve Harley took to doing so for himself, a case of him wearing a syrup to look like me looking like him - so there’s another one I seemed to have inspired!
Recreating a moment of pop history on the show was fun and I have pounced the opportunity to have also recreated three comedy classic moments in real life, too. First, there was Milosh. This being a Czechoslovak hitch hiker (no, not a spy and I swear I hadn’t known him prior) who suddenly appeared sitting to me right in my own home one Friday night when I was glued to the screen. Partially aware of his huge and smelly presence whilst still glued to the screen he announced, ‘I am Milosh. I am from Czechoslovakia’. Oh, ok, I thought, carrying on watching the box, only to mildly think ‘Where’s he come from?’ He had appeared silently like a genie when it pops out of a lamp. Mrs O’Shave had spotted him outside looking for a couple he had once met years ago and so whilst hiking across Europe and in the North, he chanced upon calling on them. They were away, we knew and so the wife compassionately invited him and his amazingly smelly sandalled feet into our home.
During a meal we knocked up for him in our extended and compassionate kindness I began to circumnavigate about what we could talk about. At this time we had just finished writing our opus screen script ‘Zeitgeist’ which I’ll speak of later in which the fortitude of the Russian race is applauded. So it goes like this. Me to him; ‘I’ve just finished writing a script about the Russians. I’m really impressed by them’. Now, you have to recall that bit in Fawlty Towers when Basil is instructed not to mention the Germans. The minute I hit the word ‘Russians’, and then only to big them up, our Milos stood bolt upright from his chair. The meat dropped off the end of his fork, and he began a facial twitch and in a fit of instant distraught, anguishly snarled ‘The Russians, don’t mentioned the Russians! They parked a tank in my grandmother’s garden!’ And I’ve no doubt they had as they invaded Czechoslovakia in 1967, a fact my memory had sadly misplaced. It was a classic moment, Milos’ rant I mean, not the invasion. How we made up with him from that moment on, I don’t know, but we did and paid him a taxi fare so that he could erect a tent near the beach before moving on. Turns out, we learned that he was quite famous in his homeland, he was a musical Conductor and a Curator of the Prague Museum. Nice fellow it seemed, but unrivalled smelly feet.
Not too many years ago I was in a hotel at Milton Keynes as a guest for a SKY Tv show in another of my guises. It was a block booking and a few other people were also there due to appear. One of them was an American I knew whom I didn’t want to have to contend with that late night, having arrived fatigued and ready for sleep, so I dodged him in the full knowledge that he knew I’d be in the hotel somewhere. Feeling a little bit guilty, I thought it would be best to keep the dodging process up in the morning, as we were all due to be picked up by taxis to take us to the show. Sure enough, when I came down for breakfast there he was. I spotted him heading my way and so the moment was provided – that great Arthur Daley moment from ‘Minder’. In a swift and simple motion that is ridiculously designed and guaranteed to draw attention to you rather than deflect it, you walk past your object of dodge with the flat of your left hand covering your face at a right angle. And y’know, it only fookin’ worked, although I have to put it down to the oblivious galootness of my fellow guest. Still, I had at last enacted that classic ruse in a genuine and reasonably serious situation.
I’ve saved the best, and most satisfying, until last, and it involves the ‘King of Comedy’ - (Yawn, Zzzzzzzz) - Ricky Gervais no less. In 2004 he was appearing at a sold out Theatre Royal in Lincoln. Not far at all from Chez O’Shave, here was an opportunity that could not be missed. You may have seen the 1992 movie ‘The King Of Comedy’ starring Jerry Lewis and Robert de Niro. Lewis kinda plays a version of himself and is pestered by a hapless would-be comedian, Rupert Pupkin, played by Bob. Bob thinks Jerry could help him be recognised but Jez has no interest in associating with a loser. In one scene De Niro pursues an uninterested Jerry and presents him with one of his tapes in the hope that he will review it and recognising raw talent, contact him. The King of Comedy, as he was billed, reluctantly takes it and assures him that he will listen to the tape and get back, of which he has no intention whatsoever of doing either.
At this time, Gervais was more than loosely being bandied about as such a king of comedy, so you may guess what happens next. I had worked out exactly how to nab Ricky and it worked a treat, staking out the fire exit at the venue, awaiting in a car. Sure enough, after hearing the inside applause that signified the end of the show, the door flung open, security assembled around a revved up car and out came Jerry, I mean Ricky, er…. Jerry. I sprang into action and the recreation of the scene from cissy Scorsese’s movie was underway. ‘Jerry, Jerry!’ I shouted over approaching him and a startled security who were amazed to discover that their escape plot had been sussed. Gervais momentarily stopped although being persuaded not to by his mob. ‘Jerry…Jerry…I know you’re busy, but..er…er….(fake stuttering)….I’d like you to watch this disc…it’s me, Wavis O’Shave… and let me know what you…er...think.’ I handed him the Dvd in a jiffy bag, it containing some clips of mine from ‘The Tube.’ ‘ Yes, yes, ok I will...I’ll get back to you,’ replied Ricky who was – perhaps – wondering why he had been addressed as Jerry. ‘My address is on the disc,’ I concluded. ‘I’ve got to go’, and off he did into the car and off at great speed to London. And of course, did he get back to me? Did the King of Comedy get back to Rupert? Of course not. Point proven and scene recreated to a tee. Technically then, as De Niro went on in the movie to finally make it as King, then so too am I the ‘King of Comedy’. In the flick, Pupkin had to kidnap Jerry and hold him to ransom. Me, I’m not that interested. Mind, with my own car and accomplice outside the fire exit, maybe, at and with, a push, we could have. Oh, and in case Ricky ever wishes to deny this encounter ever happened, I had it recorded on a small device inside my coat pocket, now proudly on CD disc.
Had I been acknowledged King Of Comedy two years earlier them maybe I would have won the Asda Xmas cracker competition, the prize being a grand, plus having your mush on all their Xmas crackers for that year. I’d made it into the final 8 and had done so by coming up with a required 40 original jokes - wrote ‘em in two days. The Final was held in their Store at Asda HQ in Leeds that April and I have to report that it was another ‘Stars in Their Eyes’ job, the bloke who won was a reporter for the Daily Telegraph, and he and the other contestants were rattling off some jokes that we had all heard before, whereas mine were completely freshly purpose built and out of my head. Or ears.
If you thought that the intended VIZ Comic movie of mine was a disappointment, then here’s one to beat it, preceding it by some five years. It would eventually involve one of the biggest gaffes of my career and involving one of the biggest starlets on the planet! Tyne Tees Tv had invited me to attend a free script writing course and although I didn’t need coaching I passed it over to Mrs O’Shave who was interested. For solidarity I agreed I would go with her. Our Tutors would be Michael Eaton who had had minor success with his movie ‘Fellow Traveller’ and Emmerdale soap script writer Anne Tobin who had earlier written for Eastenders. Michael told me that when he came by train from Nottingham, then catching a taxi to take him to Tyne Tees, he was having a chat with the driver about stereotypes and the taxi man assured him Geordies did not wear flat caps and walk whippets about anymore. Right on cue, just as Mike was paying him the fare, flat capped Geordie came around the corner with his whippet. The task we were set by our tutors was to write a synopsis for a potential movie script of our own invention, come back in a few weeks and let them assess it.
We did just that and our movie we titled ‘Zeitgeist’, and, boy, was it controversial. Ironic that many years later an actual controversial movie with the same name did make it to the screens. When it came to our turn to have our 5 page synopsis discussed in front of all the others on the Course, strangely, our most controversial page, the last one, had gone missing and so we couldn’t be share our hypothesis that homosexuality – key to the movie – was an illness. Oo..er… broaching such a topic in an industry ruled by closet luvees I think we had touched a raw nerve. We had already caused a riot in the room when we had revealed our hypothesis…but hey, the O’Shave’s NOT being controversial? The next step was for us to submit our finalised script to both tutors forwarded to their own homes. Michael said parts of it angered him and Anne (who has appeared to have vanished off the face of the planet) deemed it a ‘master piece’ and ‘work of genius’ (mainly down to Mrs O’Shave I have to say) but suggesting (what we already knew) that we would have to find a ‘very brave Director’ to make it and to expect that some wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.
We sent it to Disney who returned it immediately informing us that it would have to be submitted on our behalf by an Agent, the letter contained an amazingly revealing typo – or Freudian slip – intimating the problems we would encounter with it…’policy’ becoming ‘police’…’Mind Police’, I assume. Strangeness associated with Zeitgeist continued when we sent it to a Director I thought would be brave enough not to turn his nose up at a barge pole, Ken Russell, one of the very few known for looking at unsolicited scripts. After not hearing from him for three months, his secretary told me this was indeed unheard of as his company always sent a confirmatory receipt upon scripts arriving. Later on I sent the synopsis to Ken’s mate Oliver Reed at his home in Guernsey clearly outlining that we were in search of a very brave person on board. No reply. Maybe Olly was out on his barge.
Getting the message, I tried another route and applied for funding from the European Script Fund whose sole existence is to help would-be movie makers get their project off the ground. The bottom line here was that they would help, but that first you would have to raise and bung them £8,000, which I didn’t have. So now what to do? Well, I did what anybody else would have done in such a situation. I, er, asked Annafrid Lyngstad, the raven haired beauty in Abba, to help. Have you, dear reader, gone deadly silent? It was quite straightforward in my mind. Here was a loaded lass I could ask with a promise to repay once we had gotten wheels in motion movie. The fact that I would use any excuse to approach perhaps my toppest ever ‘bit oh’ (and knowingly incur the impending wrath of Mrs O’Shave as a bi-product) is purely incidental.
My first problem was how to contact her and so I fished out an old Abba album and found the address of their recording studio, Polar Studios in Sweden. I wrote them asking if they could help and help they did pointing me in direction of Frida’s agent. I naturally and speedily contacted him and he agreed that he would forward any correspondence to the raven haired beaut. In the fullness of time I received a reply to my plea, which I had cornily wrapped up in the phrase ‘I have a dream…’. Maybe I should have put ‘Take a chance on me’ as well. Frida was intimating she may be up for it and asked me to send her the script to study!! The only factor in all this dream start was a tedious time lapse with her agent in the middle. He had to go. From her replies – yes, plural – I learned that she was living in Switzerland, so I inspiringly sent a letter to the Swiss Embassy in London asking if they knew of her address there. (Any old excuse to write to an Embassy). I couldn’t believe my ongoing luck when they forwarded the query to their Embassy in Manchester who wrote back to me and there was her full postal home address in Fribourg, Switzerland for me to feast my eyes on! They had led me to her door! In these days of stalkers, this must have been a never to be repeated offer…or error. Fribourg letterbox, here we come.
I sent Frida the script and prepared for the long or short wait, the £8,000 or not a Swiss penny. Now, what I have omitted thus far is to inform you, dear reader, of a little more of the required historical content of ‘Zeitgeist’, for it bigged up the Russians over the Germans, making the latter look like complete twats, and, you recall, making the meat jump off Milosh’s incensed fork. Now, had I done a little more recent historical research, I would have noticed that the same year I had contacted Frida she had married an actual German prince, qualifying herself as a bonafide member of royalty. So, I had sent her a script that, essentially, was telling her that her beloved was a twat and would she bung me eight grand for the diagnosis. The not too long silence from my Swiss Miss was broken by an epistle from her informing me that she was now, unfortunately, under a lot of stress - her actual typed words – although there was no reference to the script or it being instrumental in her condition. Oh, and that she would have to abandon any further involvement in the project. Fair do’s I suppose, although she may have been one of my favoured birds, history was never my favourite subject.
The DNA ‘Do Not Attempt’ thread had struck again, and although our ‘Zeitgeist’ was fated never to surface other than to donate a great Collective Unconscious movie title to someone else, I did at least get to sleep with Frida, out of all this. Well, not quite, but maybe, a bit. Allowing for the fact that her saliva would have been on the stamps that she personally licked to put on her letters to me, so too would her DNA, and so when I carefully peeled one off and slept with it, I must have been sleeping with her. This was more than adequate compensation for my loss and lasted me for years until I was recounting the entire saga with someone who perhaps enviously suggested to me that as a royal princess she may have had a stamp licking male butler.
With the ‘Tube’ years well behind me and having cemented both its and my place in cult Tv history, I was amused when along with the incoming ‘Noughties’ came something of a Wavis Renaissance, including a thinly disguised reconnaissance mission to my home for the sole purpose of seeking out material for Harry Enfield and me appearing as The hard in animated CGI on the Net. Incidentally, I featured on the very last ‘Tube’ episode, experiencing my ‘final felt nowt feeler’ having been clubbed on the head by my wife whom I had invited to play a club wielding receptionist. She was responsible for the fake stitches on my head applied at home from the idea that she came up with and that had the entire Tv crew worriedly believed to be real. The Renaissance started with my ‘Mauve shoes are awful’ being included on the USA compilation album Messthetics #4. ‘The World of Wavis O’Shave’ 2004 British compilation album and some ‘Uncooked Raveloni’, a limited online edition Cd of demos with a freebie dvd with ‘Tube’ clips, was soon followed by Falling ‘A’s own compilation, with my ‘Katie Derham’s bum’ Cd single sandwiched in between, the latter reviewed in the September issue of the UK’s top celeb mag ‘NOW’ with Wavey alongside Jordan and Pete, Rachel Stevens and Cindy Crawford.
The Katie Derham thing is a bit of a puzzle to me. Whereby I clearly did have the mild curry hots for Anna Ford, there is something in my DNA that just wants to aggravate Katie. She failed to respond when I sent her a copy of the tribute, although this did prompt Anna into contacting me to say ‘You can’t beat the original’. In 2006 I turned up as an entry on Wikipedia, although it was ignominiously removed by some young upstart student modifier who thought the entire page was a spoof and that Wavis O’Shave did not exist. It was returned when the twat was found to be in error but I have to say having been so suddenly removed from existence is the nearest I will ever experience to being exterminated by a Dalek. Whatever happened to Wavis O’Shave?’ also became a hot topic on the forum of top music mag MOJO, and postings hung around for months breaking a record at over 1500 views, until Terry Christian, he of the much later ‘Tube’ copycat C4 show ‘The Word ,’popped up calling Wavey and all his fans ‘tossers’. If it really was you Terry, I will have my day with you.
In 2009 I decided it was time for the first and last Wavis live show, and took up an offer to support an Oasis tribute band at Lincoln City Football ground. I became Mustapha Dhoorinc in full Islamic regalia, turban and long beard, all deftly hiding me up from recognition. I was pulled to the stage on a magic carpet on wheels which had tins of Tennants Super Strength attached to it on trailing strings, to my own wonderfully prepared and affected Islamic fanfare blaring through the speakers. Hopping up on stage, I downed a full big whisky bottle in under thirty seconds. Nobody could tell it was actually cold tea inside the bottle, and after about three minutes into the set I went into convincing staggering that sealed it for the audience, not that they had any doubt in the first place. Flanked by two terrorist dressed band members Paddy and Garry, we did ‘Mauve shoes are awful’, ‘Bit spray sir’, ‘The Ballad of the Pokeawillies’ – complete with bamboo canes to attack the gonads - and a techno version of ‘Katie Derham’s bum’. A London support band that was to come on after me said ‘How do you follow that?’, having been in stitches throughout, whilst headliners Noasis where in horror at what they had innocently allowed to happen, even though I did tone it down 65%.
‘Liam’, who had allowed me the slot, was in shock and ‘Noel’ had started smoking during it even though he didn’t smoke. A fight between Liam and Noel was close to erupting. Good for realism tho’, huh? Both my loyal band members fooked off leaving me stranded when I started my ‘dancing’ throughout the 8 minute techno track. Some of the audience laughed, some didn’t know what to be and some asked for a refund before Noasis came on, but there was some warm applause from a small band of Wavey fans at the front, bless ‘em. Thirty years on and here was my first and last gig all rolled into one, and I have to say I loved it, and, folks, yes, I DO still have it. The same year VIZ Comics original mob celebrated 30 years of the comic with a bootleg issue and a bit of a celeb bash up North. I was sent an invite, but naturally declined. However, I sent a representative on my behalf and when he was pissing next to Newcastle football legend Malcolm ‘Supermac’ Macdonald, Supermac revealed himself as a Wavis fan, clearly chuffed that here he was pissing next to someone who knew The Wavester. Absolute convoluted time travel, this. There was a young Wavey who once had Supermac as his hero and then almost 40 years later discovering that this amazing bandy legged marvel was now a fan of mine.
In April 2010 I was completely in artistic control of my own hour long radio show ‘An Evening with Wavis and Foffo’ playing 12 or so of my own tracks whilst chatting in between, for London’s Resonance FM, a brave station if ever there was. In 2011 I reached for the sky by responding to movie maker, Wavis fan, and ginger Philip Gardiner who arranged for me to be interviewed and recorded for three of his artsy and musical Mindscape Tv shows for SKY, four songs in all, Phil knowingly setting up the luvees who would be responsible for not knowing what the Wavester would do next, as I wouldn’t tell them. Suffice to say, a fair number of people who had never heard of Wavis will never ever forget that day…or the Pokeawillies. (Genesis guitar Steve Hackett and Arthur ‘Crazy world of’ Brown being a couple).
Phil also had an idea for a Wavis movie, which in reality he could have made happen had he not immaculately timed his long time coming fall out with his long term associates, thus the opportunity was fated again. In the same year North Eastern Films had agreed with me to shoot a Wavis comedy film, but this fell apart 24 hours before the camera was due to roll when the company director suddenly declared irreparable ‘personal problems’, leaving me wondering if somebody had perhaps had a negative ‘do you know what you’re doing?’ word in his ear. Contributors like Wavey fan David Quantick, script associate of Harry Hill, had already contributed an opening tribute, along with media fans. It just goes to show, this Life’s lesson. No matter how willing you are, no matter how justified it is, if it’s not in your personal DNA, you are NOT going to make a thing happen, for to do so would direct you along another route contradictory to the Agreement you signed in some heavenly starry realm in Time and Space prior to your tortuous impending earthly trial that at the end of your life you will be requested to write a sagely 500 word essay entitled; ‘Human Nature is, in the main, bizwizzpoo. Debate.’
And so, with that accumulated Wisdom, I think I will leave it there, this rendition of My Story. I told you at the start that we might encounter a lot of ‘no’s’ as a reply to some of my outlandish intentions, which my D(o)N(ot)A(ttempt) finds amusing given that I am quite well known for my choice of image association with a false ‘nose’, and of the more than few abrupt halts to earnest efforts I have encountered I can honestly say it has been a hoot(er) trying, and I haven’t been in the least disappointed. In fact I have felt nowt. I will say there are many episodes I have left out as sometimes the thin dividing line in my quad lives between when I am Wavis and when I am not eliminates many a story, often at least as bizarre as any involving Wavey. That might include how every year I record a tailor made hush-hush ‘under the counter’ Xmas single for various Company’s work force, Wavis Collector’s items if ever there was. My fave has been for a top cake producing firm in the Midlands, the staff sneaking copies of the disc past security by stuffing it down their wellies – this one had been ‘Make Cakes Not War’. Looking back at the majority of this Memoir content, there is nothing I would have changed and that includes currently awaiting clinical diag-noses that I am mildly and occasionally possessed by a Brigadier. Well, maybe with the exception of dezinite evidence that Frida DIDN’T employ a Butler.