Morecambe And Wise: The Garage Tapes

I'm Rimsky-Korsakov. I've got a brother at home - he's got a cold on his chest. We call him Nasty-Chestikov. Boom-boom. My girlfriend used to be in a circus. She chewed hammers. Was she professional? No, hammer-chewer.

Shall I stop now? In the early 1950s a comedy new wave was breaking on the shores of the Light Programme. Spike Milligan and Michael Bentine were breaking all the rules in Crazy People, later The Goon Show, while the improvised In All Directions featured Peters Ustinov and Jones in a Beckettesque road movie, driving round in a perpetual search for Copthorne Avenue.

But some of the emerging talent cleaved to more traditional comic values, as evidenced in my intro. Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise's idols were Abbott and Costello and the Marx Brothers, and it showed in their rat-a-tat routines. Apart from playing the perfect straight man, Wise took it upon himself to be the duo's archivist, and he recorded a stack of material which lay in suitcases in his garage for decades. "I don't think he ever played them back," his widow, Doreen, told Jon Culshaw in Morecambe and Wise: The Garage Tapes. "He just knew he should keep them." A wise decision, given the BBC's historic penchant for wiping stuff.

The elements we know and love from the TV shows are all there: the bad playlets, the song and dance routines, the guest stars ripe for mickey-taking, though not the stellar names of later shows. Then, it was the likes of Jack Jackson, Brylcreemed trumpeter and Housewives' Choice disc-spinner, or Brian Rees, star of The Adventures of PC 49 ("surely you remember his catchphrase 'Oh, my Sunday helmet!' "). It feels like aeons ago, not just half a century.

When the pair first tried to break into TV, in 1954, it was a disaster. For the rest of his career Eric carried round the Express review: "Is that a television I see in the corner of my living room? No, it's the box the BBC buried Morecambe and Wise in last night."

Review: Morecambe and Wise The Garage Tapes

Much of the material that Jon Culshaw played in Morecambe and Wise: the Garage Tapes provided ample evidence for an opinion I have held for years - namely, that Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise were of their time because they just weren't very funny.

The discovery by Doreen Wise of a forgotten stash of early Morecambe and Wise performances in the eaves of her garage was hailed by the BBC as comedy gold. Well, up to a point, maybe. While no-one is saying The Garage Tapes should have stayed in the garage, these early performances on shows like Variety Bandbox and Variety Fanfare raise only the weakest of smiles. Heavily reliant on wordplay and delivered with a curious, mid-Atlantic twang, their sketches dwell on tales of yore like Robin Hood. "How did you fall in with outlaws? I fell out with in-laws." The most interesting thing the programme revealed was the strength of the two men's relationship. It was Ernie who had the ability to spot what was special about Eric. "I never heard Eric criticise Ernie or allow anyone else to say anything about Ernie," said Joan Morecambe. "All either of them wanted was a nice little home, a nice wife and a nice car." Rather touchingly, that's pretty much what they got.

Morecambe and Wise: The Garage Tapes

It was fascinating to hear the young comedians developing their own voice, timing and style as a duo, writes Elisabeth Mahoney.

Radio 4 listeners have been hearing trailers for this show for days so they may well think, when they settle to the whole thing, that they've already heard the best bits. Jon Culshaw opens the very case that contained old tapes and acetate recordings of Morecambe and Wise's early broadcasts form the 1950s. Ernie's widow, Doreen, found them in their garage and took them to independent producer David Prest who, with Stewart Henderson, crafted them into this essay on the development of the duo's comic style from variety act to TV stardom.

Eric and Ernie, still bringing us sunshine

Long-lost recordings of Morecambe and Wise, found in a garage by Ernie's widow, shed new light on the comedy duo's early years.

Found at last: the lost gems of Morecambe & Wise

Radio 4 is to air early sketches that had been thought missing for 60 years. Michael Hogan reports.

Morecambe and Wise: the garage tapes

Editor's note: David Prest of BBC Radio 4 independent supplier Whistledown unearths a comedy gold-mine - SB.

Radio 4 to air newly found Morecambe & Wise recordings

An unheard treasure trove of vintage recordings by comedy greats Morecambe and Wise is to be aired for the first time by Radio 4, it was announced today.

Lost tapes of Morecambe and Wise found in garage

For more than half a century they were lost to the world - recordings of Morecambe and Wise at the very beginning of their broadcasting career. But when Wise's widow Doreen decided to clear out her garage before moving house, she found comedy treasure. Here is an exclusive preview of some of the material.