The electronic gates slide open to reveal a gorgeous Portuguese villa, a swimming pool and a beansprout of a man. \u201cYou\u2019ve made me feel very important,\u201d says Russ Abbot with a smile. \u201cCome in!\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s more than 30 years since Abbot, aged 78, dominated Saturday night TV with his sketches, songs and impersonations. He appealed to all sorts. Kids, parents and grandparents united around the TV \u2013 first for Russ Abbot\u2019s Madhouse, which ran from 1980 to 1985, then The Russ Abbot Show, from 1986 to 1991. He was joined by the inimitable Bella Emberg and a cast of young comics, including Les Dennis, Dustin Gee and Michael Barrymore. But make no mistake, it was Abbot\u2019s show and the 80s was his decade. At his peak, he attracted 18 million viewers an episode.<\/p>\n
When TV commissioners tired of his brand of sketch comedy, he did stints in the sitcoms Boomers and Last of the Summer Wine and played it straight in the moving TV drama September Song. There was a run of West End musical smashes \u2013 Fagin in Oliver!, Roger de Bris in The Producers, Alfred P Doolittle in My Fair Lady. Then, in 2016, he quietly retired. For the past seven years, he has split his time between Barbados and the Algarve, where I find him today.<\/p>\n
Abbot and Trish have been married for 60 years. Photograph: David Levene\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Abbot introduces me to his wife, Trish, who has a smart silver bob and a northern accent. How long have you two been married, I ask her. \u201cSixty years,\u201d she says quietly. \u201cNot even the Train Robbers got that!\u201d Trish, 80, giggles.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re standing in a large, airy hall. On a table are figurines of Laurel and Hardy \u2013 Abbot\u2019s heroes. Upstairs, I can make out lots of framed photos. He takes me on a tour. There are pics of him with the great entertainers of his era (Brucey, Elton, Tarby, Shaky) and the royals (Philip, Anne, Charles). We pass the silver discs from his brief period as Britain\u2019s unlikeliest pop star (who can forget Atmosphere?). \u201cThat\u2019s a certificate acknowledging the biggest box office in summer season history,\u201d he says, like an accountant conducting an audit of his success. \u201cAnd that\u2019s whatshisname.\u201d He squints at a picture. \u201cLive Aid. Bob Geldof.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pride of place is a photo of him dressed as Cooperman, with Tommy Cooper. Cooperman was one of Abbot\u2019s more surreal mashup characters \u2013 Superman meets the brilliantly bumbling comic giant, who died on stage in 1984. He adored Cooper. \u201cIt was so funny at the funeral. All the faces were there. Max Bygraves, Eric Sykes, me. And when the cortege came in, we\u2019d forgotten he\u2019d got a younger brother who looked just like him. He walked in and we\u2019re like: \u2018Oh God! Another Tommy prank.\u2019 When the curtain closed on the coffin, I thought: he\u2019s going to come out in a minute because he was such a practical joker.\u201d<\/p>\n
With his band the Black Abbots, with whom he won Opportunity Knocks. Photograph: Anwar Hussein\/Alamy<\/p>\n
He pauses. Now he sounds emotional. \u201cAfter the funeral, we were walking out paying our respects to his wife, Gwen, and she said to me: \u2018He thought you were the cat\u2019s whiskers!\u2019 I filled up. Amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
More photos. Dennis and Gee, the double act who memorably impersonated Coronation Street\u2019s Mavis Riley and Vera Duckworth on his show. Gee died in 1986, at 43. \u201cSo talented. Died too young.\u201d We come to a picture of Abbot dressed as CU Jimmy, the incomprehensible, ranting Scottish stereotype that he\u2019d struggle to get away with today. He says the character was based on his Scottish mother, whose accent got thicker the nearer the family got to Scotland for their holidays. He impersonates her \u2013 and she sounds as incoherent as Jimmy.<\/p>\n
Abbot\u2019s mother, Elizabeth, was in domestic service to the Duke of Westminster at Eaton Hall in Cheshire when she met his father, Don Roberts, a tanker driver for Pratt\u2019s Oil who went on to become an area manager. Young Russell Roberts was a bright lad who went to Chester Grammar. But he became obsessed with drumming, flunked his O-levels and left school at 16 to join a band called the Black Abbots. He supplemented his income with a job as a stagehand at the Royalty theatre in Chester, where the band had a residency.<\/p>\n
They soon became a comedy band, with Abbot dismounting the drums to tell daft jokes. The band won the talent show Opportunity Knocks six weeks in a row, became huge in the working men\u2019s clubs, but never had a hit record. By 1973, Abbot was appearing on the TV standup comedy show The Comedians and his manager, Mike Hughes, didn\u2019t think Russell Roberts had a ring to it. He suggested he become Russ Abbot. \u201cHe said: \u2018Think about it, if your bill is in alphabetical order, you\u2019ll always be top of the bill.\u2019 He said: \u2018Abba could top you, but that\u2019s about it.\u2019 That\u2019s clever, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n
In Russ Abbot\u2019s Madhouse in the 1980s. Photograph: ITV\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
By the late 1970s, Abbot was well known as a comic and starred in the original Madhouse series with the more famous Freddie Starr. After 17 years as a Black Abbot, he left to go solo. Within months, Russ Abbot\u2019s Madhouse started on ITV (The Russ Abbot Show would move during its run to the BBC) and he was a Saturday night fixture.<\/p>\n
We join Trish outside in the shade. She\u2019s made us coffee and piled a plate with digestive biscuits. Did life change when he became a household name? \u201cNo.\u201d He looks at her for confirmation. \u201cJust in the sense we moved up the ladder homewise, didn\u2019t we, Trish? So we started in the caravan. Trish\u2019s dad had a win on the pools that paid for the caravan as a wedding present. Then my dad got us a place with \u00a31-a-week rent. Two up, two down. Then we got a \u00a310,000 bungalow and sold it for twice the price.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYep,\u201d says Trish.<\/p>\n
\u2018Then we moved down south, we moved to Wentworth. We looked at this nice house \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that was it, yes,\u201d says Trish.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe bought it, cash.\u201d<\/p>\n
Were loads of women interested in you? \u201cNot really, no,\u201d he says. There\u2019s a glint in his eye. \u201cOh, I suppose in my drumming days. Early.\u201d The glint vanishes. \u201cActually, it was more the singers. Because I was just the drummer in the back.\u201d He tells me how he met Trish. \u201cShe came to the stage door of the British Legion in Ellesmere Port as I was packing my drums up. We had a bass player in those days called Paul Dodd. He ended up a policeman. Trish says: \u2018Is the bass player around?\u2019 I said: \u2018No, he\u2019s gone, love.\u2019 She said: \u2018Oh, that\u2019s a shame, I wanted to say hello to him.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Did you fancy the bass player, I ask Trish.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
So you got the wrong bloke?<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I got him instead.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI said: come on, I\u2019ll buy you a drink. Then I said: let me give you a lift home. She said: I only live across the road. I said: you can\u2019t walk alone at this time of night. So I left with a kiss and a cuddle. And it all started from there, didn\u2019t it, Trish?\u201d<\/p>\n
Did she find him funny? \u201cOh no. Very normal. Lovely brothers, lovely mum and dad. Just normal, like the boy next door.\u201d Did she like comedy? \u201cOh God, no!\u201d Actually, she says, there was one occasion when he really made her laugh. \u201cHe opened the garden fete and chopped his nose off instead of cutting the ribbon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Genuinely?<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, he was rushed to hospital. That\u2019s what made me laugh.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI had stitches all round my nose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trish is in stitches at the memory.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that wasn\u2019t intentionally funny,\u201d Abbot protests.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d says Trish, still hooting. \u201cBut it was very funny, Russell. And we\u2019ve laughed ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n
He must have been stopped a lot over the years by fans. \u201cNo, not really,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was always a nod and a wink and a smile. There\u2019s one funny story. We went to the opening show of Miss Saigon.\u201d Trish is already giggling. \u201cWe go into the VIP area. We sit there and Trish nudges me. All these heads are turning. And I say: \u2018It\u2019s all right! The lights will go down in a minute.\u2019 I say: \u2018Trish, it\u2019s a compliment.\u2019 And she nudges me again and says: \u2018Look who\u2019s sitting next to me!\u2019 And it was Burt Lancaster. She fell about. Lovely story.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Cooperman getup, with his good friend Bella Emberg as Blunderwoman, in the late 1980s. Photograph: ITV\/Rex\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Abbot never considered himself a star. \u201cI always think I\u2019m playing that role of Russ Abbot. I go in the stage door as Russ Abbot and come out as Russell Roberts.\u201d And he was too reserved to play the big I am. \u201cI never used to like chatshows, because I was shy and I found them embarrassing. It\u2019s like, now I\u2019m retired, I\u2019m not so shy and I can talk about it because it\u2019s past.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trish has always been his biggest fan, he says. Then he corrects himself. \u201cTrish and my mum. She used to do handouts for the WI. I\u2019d sign the autograph and she\u2019d sign the back: \u2018Russ\u2019s mum!\u2019 She loved it!\u201d In her 70s, his mother got dementia. She went into a home, but Abbot didn\u2019t realise how bad it had got until he arranged for her to come to a show. \u201cTrish brought her up to the dressing room and Mum walked in and said: \u2018What a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much, I\u2019ve been so entertained. It was absolutely marvellous, and now to meet you in person.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI stood there and said: \u2018Mum, it\u2019s me,\u2019 and she said: \u2018I\u2019ll have to go now, my family\u2019s waiting for me.\u2019 So Trish took her back. I slammed the dressing room door three times. It was terrible. It\u2019s a terrible illness. She died about a year later. She was still a very elegant lady, very smartly dressed. She didn\u2019t act like she had dementia. She just couldn\u2019t remember who I was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abbot worked incredibly hard in his heyday. \u201cIn 1984, I worked 363 days.\u201d Meanwhile, Trish was working incredibly hard, too, bringing up their four children. \u201cTrish raised them all. I was always away, summer season tour or pantomime. Pantomimes, gosh! You\u2019d get home Christmas Eve, put the presents under the tree, go to bed, have breakfast, watch the kids open the toys and then go back to do a matinee.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Les Dennis in The Russ Abbot Show, circa 1991. Photograph: TV Times\/Future Publishing\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
But, he says, they were great times. He tells me of all the wonderful people he worked with. It sounds like an Oscar acceptance speech. Barry Cryer<\/a> wrote much of his material, but there was a whole team involved and there is not an actor, producer, writer or manager he misses out.<\/p>\n He was the ideas man, he says, rather than the wordsmith. \u201cI loved it. All the nonsense.\u201d He talks about the silly names they invented for characters. \u201cMy favourite was Miss Funnyfanny intead of Miss Moneypenny. I think that was my cousin Russell. I loved Basildon Bond because of the silliness of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Suddenly he\u2019s quoting a 40-year-old monologue from a sketch featuring his James Bond parody. \u2018My name\u2019s Bond. Basildon Bond, licence to kill and drive a heavy-goods vehicle. I\u2019d been away on holiday when I was summonsed back to headquarters to see my boss P \u2026 \u2018Was it a good holiday Bond?\u2019 I said: \u2018Yes, thank you, sir, I went away for a bit of peace and quiet. I found a nice little piece. I just hope she keeps quiet.\u2019 He said: \u2018Don\u2019t bother me with a silly little thing like that.\u2019 I said: \u2018It\u2019s funny, that\u2019s what she said.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He quotes the monologue word-perfect, in all its anachronistic glory. For all the inappropriateness, there\u2019s also an innocence to it, as there is to him. I notice he doesn\u2019t swear and I ask if he\u2019s religious. \u201cOh, I believe in God. I say my prayers every night.\u201d<\/p>\n Abbot fell out of fashion in the 1990s, as did virtually all the standup rooted in working men\u2019s clubs and seaside summer seasons. Did he mind when his TV show got cancelled? \u201cI wasn\u2019t distressed or angry or anything. It came about when the head of entertainment gave an interview and said: \u2018The BBC\u2019s going to change. No more of this, no more of that,\u2019 and somebody said: \u2018Does that mean Russ Abbot?\u2019 and he said yes, meaning the sketch shows. So then it became \u2018BBC sacks Russ Abbot\u2019, but that didn\u2019t bother me. I thought: well, I\u2019ve had a very good run. Also, I\u2019d just cracked the West End, so I was doing everything I wanted to do without the stress of the TV shows.\u201d<\/p>\n Why did he fall out of fashion? \u201cIt was when the new wave came in. Alternative comedy. I thought, alternative comedy? What\u2019s it alternative to? If the thing\u2019s funny, it\u2019s funny. Political correctness came in, and you can\u2019t laugh at each other and you can\u2019t laugh at yourself. At the same time, a lot of comedy started going blue and I thought: I\u2019m not going down that road.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019ve had a wonderful career,\u2019 says Abbot. Photograph: David Levene\/The Guardian<\/p>\n So much of his show\u2019s humour was rooted in stereotyping and many of the jokes were at the expense of his great friend Emberg\u2019s weight. Did he understand why that was no longer acceptable? \u201cYes. Some of the scripts I used to look at myself and wonder. I\u2019d say: \u2018Bella, have you read the script?\u2019 and she\u2019d say: \u2018Yeah, I think it\u2019s funny\u2019. I\u2019d say: \u2018Are you sure?\u2019 and she\u2019d say: \u2018Yeah, why?\u2019 \u2018I\u2019m just asking your opinion,\u2019 and she\u2019d say: \u2018I think it\u2019s hilarious,\u2019 and I\u2019d say: \u2018So do I!\u2019\u201d Did she ever get upset? \u201cNo, she never got upset once.\u201d Emberg died in 2018 at 80. Of all the people he\u2019s worked with, he says he misses her most.<\/p>\n I loved it when Emberg as Blunderwoman lifted Abbot over her shoulders and carried him off. Even at his heaviest, he weighed only 12 and a half stone. Not much for a man over six foot tall. These days, Emberg would have had even less trouble. He\u2019s lost two and a half stone. He knows Trish is worried, but he\u2019s had every test going and nothing has been diagnosed. As for Trish, he says, she\u2019s had two strokes in the past year, so they are taking it easy. Which doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re not up to a round of golf. Abbot is a fine player and used to play off a handicap of 12, but he insists Trish is better than him. To be fair, so does she.<\/p>\n Stories circulated that Abbot retired because he was embittered that comedy had changed and no straight roles were being offered to him. It\u2019s true that he\u2019s not a great fan of today\u2019s comedy, he says, and he was disappointed when Boomers and Last of the Summer Wine were cancelled, but he insists the stories are nonsense. He actually retired because Hughes, his manager, was retiring and he thought it was a good time to call it quits and spend more time with Trish and have a social life.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen something on YouTube saying \u2018The tragedy of Russ Abbot\u2019 and \u2018He\u2019s run away to Portugal\u2019.\u201d He smiles.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just watched it once,\u201d says Trish. \u201cI said, don\u2019t watch it, Russell.\u201d<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t look much of a tragedy to me, I say, glancing out at the cloudless sky, swimming pool and topiaried bushes.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you,\u201d Trish says.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had a wonderful career,\u201d Abbot says. \u201cWonderful!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s always said that,\u201d Trish says.<\/p>\n And now you\u2019re enjoying a richly deserved retirement? \u201cAbsolutely,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n How would Trish feel if he decided to go back to work? Her eyes light up. \u201cHappy,\u201d she says. Why? \u201cI\u2019d like him to do something like Last of the Summer Wine. I think he does miss it, I\u2019ve got to say.\u201d<\/p>\n Abbot gives her a look. \u201cYeah!\u201d he says. \u201cBut not desperately, Trish.\u201d<\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The electronic gates slide open to reveal a gorgeous Portuguese villa, a swimming pool and a beansprout of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-602834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}