41. He has to allow you to do your bit

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Also:  It's Saturday Night 2. An autograph before you go 3. A new kind of game show 4. A rising exasperation with the quantity of dirt 5. The whole thing suddenly fell apart 6. Synthetic propensity 7. It was destined to be an anti-climax 8. This is your show now 9. The awesome scale of our wastefulness 10. Hands up those who couldn't care less 11. Together We’ll Be Ok 12. Decide the shape of ITV in the 1980s 13. Alan is too commercial 14. It worked like a dream 15. Older men, doing school boy tricks 16. Killing the Golden Goose 17. People love us to be sexy 18. The manure is worth more than the cattle 19. They were big in the States and we noted that 20. I’m still aggressive and I’m still handing out the insults 21. A new style of lunatic humour 22. The Habitat-bean-bag-hessian-wallpaper brigade 23. Thoroughly sinful 24. All carrots should be scraped, sliced and cooked 25. Back then it was radical stuff 26. Whatever they do, we can do it better 27. You'll have to take us as you find us 28. Entertainment that keeps on the move 29. It's the public that has to pay 30. The last we saw of either of them was their sad faces 31. Just shoot the bastard 32. Britain could clearly be facing its darkest hour 33. Any enthusiasm we may have had for continuing discussions is waning 34. It was considered by LWT and then put in a bottom drawer 35. Watch the redoubtable Terry take off 36. I thought it might be terrible and I wouldn’t enjoy it at all 37. Kamikaze Mastermind 38. We haven’t moved into luxury 39. We are investing in people 40. Delivered impeccably 41. He has to allow you to do your bit 42. All the anticipation of the great emotive point 43. If you want Russ Abbot to do it, then you have to accept me and my ideas 44. Let’s get straight into this 45. Unedifying Greed 46. We’ve got the fucking lot! 47. Scope for humour and danger 48. Pure Megablast 49. There’s lots of killing, but not much else 50. I wanted to make sure it was going to be disastrous 51. Oh dear – Auntie’s playing bingo! 52. A Shrivelled Little Thing 53. I shouldn’t have accepted it 54. We would be the spoilsports 55. The Most Sexless Person In Television 56. They’d have strung me up if I hadn’t chosen him 57. Is there some way to play with the internal constituent parts? 58. The most important entertainment programme of my time 59. The plumply pretty female duo 60. The audience just sort of started to freeze on him 61. More pilots than British Airways 62. There's going to come a time when you'll have to go to the BBC 63. A slightly pretentious manifesto 64. Things Look Very Precarious 65. It’s no good doing all the same old people all the time 66. That’s just not funny Bobby, it's corny - just don’t do that 67. Well bottom’s not funny 68. We Are The Funnymen 69. The powers that be listened to Denis 70. Stretchers never go up stairs 71. I was in obscurity until this series 72. I don’t care if he doesn’t like me 73. There’s such a passion for nostalgia right now 74. I Heard A Seat In The Stalls Go ‘Gerdonk!' 75. This is your show, folks, and I do mean you 76. There’s good news for perplexed fans of 3-2-1! 77. Taking on Blind Date would be a real challenge 78. You wanna bet on it? 79. The yarns worked their tried and tested magic 80. The Charge-And-Shout Brigade 81. I sat for a moment in silence, then turned in my chair and left the stage 82. We just weren't allowed into UK terrestrial television 83. Beadle’s A Prick 84. The interviewer always has to know when it's best to keep his or her mouth shut 85. Can you come up with a good solution for the Murder Weekend mystery? 86. He's not a goody- goody hero 87. The Sexism, The Dolly Birds, The Catchphrases 88. The feel of Saturday night 89. 1990 Who would employ an ex-alky with lowered self-esteem 90. It were a right smack in the face 91. Look Straight Into My Eyes And Everything Will Be Alright, That's A Promise 92. That's the last thing I was expecting, Jim 93. The characters and situations are real 94. Oh Man, There Go All My Women Fans 95. A Double Order of Talent 96. If there is an air of spontaneity about it, it’ll be genuine 97. NTV brings you ... empty rooms! 98. You’re BBC, you shouldn’t be here 99. If this doesn’t work out, we’re both snookered! 100. The humour of Beadle comes through humiliating people! 101. To allow such bilge on TV is an insult to the audience 102. Like a cup of cold sick 103. A litre of gin, ecstasy and crack cocaine 104. A reliable tent pole for Saturday evenings 105. It is in the cutlery drawer 106. Welcome to the new Saturday night 107. Congratulations, you have got the fucking Gen Game 108. The programme has done extremely badly and will be dropped after this series 109. Building the excitement and tension to a crescendo 110. He gives us our spirit of unity; we’d all like to strangle him 111. The worst programme currently on terrestrial television 112. I award the city state of Milton Keynes 100 credits! 113. There’s nothing that makes people scream, ‘Did you see that?’ 114. It was of a standard frankly well below what the public would want 115. Waxing An Ape Is My Ambition 116. Don’t Get Mad, Get Even 117. The penalty shoot-out is the greatest ever endgame 118. 200 black boxes are strapped to the back of a cross-section of the nation 119. Better For You, Better For All Of Us 120. I mean who on earth thought that was a good idea? 121. I’m sure the tune was in there somewhere 122. This Time, You Decide 123. King of trash, that’s me 124. It’s about rejection now 125. They lost what Popstars was all about 126. Win the ads 127. A name in search of a series 128. Getting grief from the papers 129. I’m so pleased to be back on television 130. Saturday nights haven't been this interesting for 10 years 131. It’s the Usual Nonsense 132. The trip of a lifetime Epilogue: Why Haven't You Written a Series of Articles on Tuesday Night Telly?

While 1983 saw Squire’s career briefly hit the stratosphere before descending back to Earth, Cannon and Ball’s star was still inexorably on the rise. 1982 had seen them pull in audiences of over 10 million for their fourth series for LWT, and take to the road for a solid nine months, earning the two comedians enough money to each purchase a Rolls Royce. When they weren’t performing they were making public appearances to appease their growing legion of fans. Following them around to gain an understanding of a typical day in the life, TV Times writer Linda Hawkins reported in 1982 “as the spotlight hits them, Cannon and Ball become different people. The mild, easy-going Tommy Cannon is suddenly irritable and impatient. The lively, quick-thinking Bobby Ball is transformed into a sort of manic imp, alternating pathos with aggression. The only time the masks slip is when something goes wrong … Cannon and Ball come off-stage to shouts of ‘More!’ Sweat rolling down their faces, they hurry through the autograph hunters to their dressing room to get ready to do it all over again.”

Just a few years on from Bruce Forsyth’s Big Night, the duo had become deeply entrenched into the entertainment industry. Their fifth series pulled in 12 million viewers and the twosome’s first (and only) feature film The Boys In Blue was shot. They had now worked with Little Richard, Englebert Humperdinck and Diana Dors; and could recall with some satisfaction that their show had provided much needed exposure to up and coming comedians including Lenny Henry, Bobby Davro, Dave Spikey and Brian Conley. Linda Hawkins again met with them at the end of the year. This time she observed a palpable change. “Cannon and Ball, recently voted the Variety Club showbusiness personalities of the year, are Britain’s most popular double act since Morecambe and Wise,” she noted. “This spring they set a record for the one-night variety acts by cramming 134 shows in 45 theatres into a 13-week tour. As we talk, they’ve just completed a similar autumn tour and are about to start work on their new TV series … so if they feel a little fatigued, no one can blame them.”

“Things have been going too fast for us,” Ball confessed. To Hawkins it was obvious the frenetic pace of the duo’s schedule as well as their reliance on each other could generate friction. “They’ve never forgotten the night long ago when another double act occupied the dressing-room next door, and they overheard the two men fighting. It’s never happened to Cannon and Ball, but they do have their arguments.” Still reeling from their sudden rise to success, the duo seemed – in 1983 – to be unable, or unwilling, to reveal just how difficult and tense their relationship had actually become. It wasn’t until 17 years later that Ball explained the full extent of the pressure they had been under.

“Our own career was now flourishing to the point of insanity,” he recalls, “but at a time when Tommy and I should been at our happiest, we weren’t. We had everything – a great career, big houses, personal assistants, and no money worries … One day Tommy was bored and went straight out and bought a boat. Sadly though, despite all we had, we didn’t have each other. Our friendship had started to deteriorate.”

“I think it was mainly pressure more than anything else,” says Cannon. “…The movie [The Boys in Blue] wasn’t good, and there were times when, you thought to yourself, ‘I don’t know how we’re getting through this movie,’ but we were professional enough to make sure it didn’t cut across our work. But a double act is a give and take situation, you have to allow the comic to do his bit, he has to allow you to do your bit and you’re being managed by people pushing you, shoving you in different directions up and down the ladders, until eventually it gets too much. We ended up blaming one another.”

Cannon grew closer and closer to their manager, who was displacing his comic partner from the decision-making process. He would make career suggestions to Ball, only to have the manager, coincidentally make the same suggestions just a day later. Things grew worse, and on one occasion the manager advised Ball “Tommy and I will do the business, you just go into a field and meditate”. Suspicion grew within the industry that the duo were no longer speaking and the added burden of having to appear ever more united in public just added further pressure to a – by now – intolerable situation.

“It was a sorry state of affairs and we were so unhappy,” remembers Ball. “I frequently wondered why I stayed and didn’t just walk away. I looked at Tommy and sometimes I felt I had been used … Matters reached the point where we could no longer stand each other’s company and avoided meeting each other whenever possible. How the public didn’t discover this, I shall never know.” During this time, Ball gained a reputation for being unpleasant to work with. When recording their television series, he would verbally abuse the production team and on one occasion actually hit a fellow performer on stage who he felt was upstaging him during curtain calls. Cannon and Ball became the subject of increasingly salacious rumours and accusations.

“We were away from home once for 48 weeks out of the year,” says Cannon, “so you can understand that pressure … we learned a lot through that.” For the last five years Cannon and Ball had been blazing a trail through Saturday night television, allowing acts of a similar disposition to follow in their wake. To surmount the problems that faced them they needed to innovate once again. As before, what they would do next would come to be imitated by many similar styled performers shortly thereafter. By the end of 1983 Cannon and Ball were unknowingly gearing up to find religion.

Next Monday: 1984: All the anticipation of the great emotive moment