It’s The Way He Told ‘Em!

I have been immensely lucky with the help and advice I have been given since I first showed an interest in becoming a stand up comedian. I am often asked who my favourite comedians are and who the biggest influences have been. Occasionally a comedian will come under both those banners. 

Today I am going to talk about Frank Carson. 

I first met Frank Carson when I was a teenager waiting in various television Green Rooms while Dad worked and it was a decade later that Frank and I became mates. Good mates too. Frank had agreed to headline a show I had created (with help from my Dad and the Flying Music Company) called Make ‘Em Laugh which toured twice. I think we did maybe fifty nights plus a couple of days rehearsing. It meant plenty of time with Frank Carson. 

I became his unofficial driver and minder for the tours and for days on end we were inseparable. I learned so much from a comedian who is often missed out when the greats are spoken about. Frank was funny. Some said he never came off stage but really he never went on stage. To me he was the same in front of an audience or not. He was simply funny. He had funny bones. He was so lighteningly quick  and topical as well. One of his own catch phrases summed him up perfectly, 

“It’s the way I tell ‘em.” He often used that line at the end of his jokes.

I loved him. 

Frank called me once.

“Have you got a suit?” he asked.

I told him I did have a suit and he told me to put it on as he was going to pick me up in an hour. I had nothing planned but even if I was busy I’d have gotten out of it: this was Frank calling after all. A car pulled up and off we went in the direction of Highbury. Frank was taking me to watch Arsenal against Manchester United and from the VIP box too!

During the preshow meal I was chatting with Arsenal’s double winning captain Frank McLintock when we were interrupted by the MC.

“Are you ready for your spot Paul?”

“Spot?” I asked as Frank’s signature laugh rang in my ears.

“Yep, you’re doing ten to open for Frank Carson!”

More laughs from Frank. I panicked,  I like time to prepare a spot, whatever the length of it might be. I had maybe five minutes to get ready and wasted a couple of them searching for a pen. Dad had just written a radio show for Bradley Walsh and I’d helped out with the technical side of some football jokes, so that was in my head, a minute or so to say hello and I was halfway there.

“How do you want to be introduced?” the host asked me.

“Frank Carson’s favourite comedian.”

“Nice intro,” Frank told me and off I went. I got laughs, plenty of them and all in the right place. It went well mostly because I’d had no time to let any nerves get to me. I sat down, relieved and Frank gave me a look and told me:

“That wasn’t supposed to happen!” It was his time to step up now and when the MC asked him how he wanted to be introduced he told him.

“Paul Adams’s favourite comedian!”

A proper pro. 

On our numerous drives from gig to gig around the country we always played the ‘licence plate game’. You don’t know it? It’s simple. You make a sentence out of the three letters at the end of a licence plate. This was back in the ‘90s remember so number plates were configured with a letter, two or three numbers then three more letters. For example A123 FCC you’d make the sentence ‘Follow Classic Adams’. Easy right?

We never tired of this game but it ended forever one night as we walked from the stage door to my car. I had a Nissan Micra, white, with the registration A123 ACL. In all the time we’d been playing this game we’d never used my registration. I pointed and Frank said whatever he said, I can’t remember his offering but mine ended the game. Forever.

“Another Carson Laugh!”

“My work here is done.” Frank said and laughed heartily. 

I miss that laugh. I miss that man.