When Variety Is The Spice Of Life

Much-loved actor-comedian Roy Hudd is starring in a Woman of No Importance at Cheltenham’s Everyman theatre this month. Katie Jarvis spoke to him about music-hall songs, variety theatre, the genius of Ken Dodd… and finally finding each other

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Ooh!” says Roy Hudd’s lovely wife, Debbie, apologetically.

“Did you ring a couple of minutes ago? I’m so sorry –bit of a mix-up. I answered it at the same time as Roy and put it down.”

She hands the phone over to her husband.

“Hello!” says Roy Hudd; same warm voice – permanently on the brink of a chuckle – as broadcast the News Huddlines for over 26 years on the crest of the Radio 2 waves.

“Oh, I’m so glad I’ve managed finally to get you!” I say, relieved.

“We’ve got each other now,” Roy Hudd reassures me, “and I’ll be leaving the wife tomorrow.”

Croydon Empire, early 1950s. A pint-size Roy Hudd is sitting in a seat in the gallery with his Gran – squeezed in under the roof – ready for the 6.15 show. “Any higher and I’ll get a nosebleed,” his Gran always says. Today – quite possibly – she’s gone without a meal to scrape the money for a ticket. But, even if she hadn’t quite managed those few coins, they’d have stood at the end of the alley, just down from the theatre, ready to watch glamorous performers – ‘heavily made-up ladies and handsome camel haired overcoated, brown trilby-hatted men’ – exit the stage door. (Though none earns as much praise from Gran for their outfits as the lads from the drag shows.)

She’s a shrewd audience, is Gran. Loves the comics more than anything: “I don’t want miserable singers singing about all the terrible problems they’re having. I want to come out smiling!” Gran predicted early on the success of Max Bygraves, Frankie Howerd and Harry Secombe. Roy knew a comedian had made it whenever she bestowed on him her highest praise: “Silly sod,” she’d say, fondly.