Morecambe and Wise - Softcover

Men and women, young and old, lowbrows and highbrows – everybody used to watch The Morecambe & Wise Show. When the masses settled down to watch Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, the masses were, for once, massively entertained.

Who cannot recall the sight of a high-kicking Angela Rippon, or of an agitated André Previn (Mr Preview according to Eric Morecambe) or of Glenda Jackson as Cleopatra wrestling with the words of Ernie Wise's immortal scripts ('All men are fools, and what makes them so is having beauty like what I have got!'). Eric and Ernie always treated their special guests like members of the audience and the members of the audience like special guests.

This is not just a biography of Britain's best-loved double-act, it is also the biography of one of British television's best-loved shows. Morecambe and Wise worked together for more than forty years, honing skills drawn from the music-hall, Variety, radio, movies and television and then combining them to produce an award-winning show that became the jewel in the crown of BBC's light entertainment output.

Graham McCann's meticulous biography includes previously unpublished material from the BBC archives, as well as innumerable insights gleaned from interviews with many of the people who knew and worked with Morecambe and Wise. Amusing, judicious and impeccably researched, this much-needed book extends and enhances our understanding of, and admiration for, two great entertainers who ended up as national treasures.

Graham McCann is a lecturer in Social and Political Theory at Kings College, Cambridge. His previous books include: Marilyn Monroe: The Body in the Library (1988); Woody Allen: New Yorker (1990); Rebel Males: Clift, Brando & Dean, and a recent study of Theodore Adorno for Blackwells.