24/01/1981 - BBC1 - Rowan Atkinson on Parkinson

the nine o'clock news jointly and separately they both delighted and horrified the nation with their anarchic humor out of this combination of talent has emerged a young man who's been called Britain's greatest comedy hope since John Cleese he's a strange mixture and an interesting psychological study in real life he's a farmer's son from Newcastle who is quiet to the point of being invisible on stage he often displays a kind of manic energy at him to be displayed as the semi lunatic simmering psychopath slipping away while this grace Russell go away bloody whining poor anyway really not kisses road road road road lacking surround right rod rod runenr on yeah Ron come on Joey sorry okay if you don't do it all do it what stop it all through [Music] what happened when you first tried that marvelously manic character out that it was on that night he was admitted that's not news yes it was I think probably in this very studio okay in this very studio that I first sat very nose in the Orcas cuz it's a very nerve-wracking thing to do I can tell you sit amongst those and wheedle people there just to be about to perform and I stood up and I was in the middle of I was spouting and this and this commissionaire came down from the back who hadn't been told of the fact that something strange member of the public was going to stand up and then shouted everyone so he came up and he stood in front of me sit all right just just just come quietly and I said and he was facing me away from the camera and this was all shown actually in the second edition of the first soon is all this happening and the camera was literally facing me so it wasn't facing him and the look of realization on his face when he discovered that he actually was his back at least was on television when you first start making people laugh but you give them from a very unlikely background actually for a for a comic entertainer yeah there's no there's no real show business heritage in my family at all strange except but my grandfather used to own cinemas and theaters in the North East England but so there wasn't any particular reason why I should have turned out the way I have is about I was about 11 and 12 I think somewhere around there that I remember standing up and doing some strange things and in the school changing rooms that used to drag people down and have them laughing at me and then and then the adolescent self-consciousness set in and I never dared stand up in front of my friends and try and make them laugh again and I've never done it to this day but what would what was it made them laugh as they facial expressions you pull faces do annotations really can't remember I don't think it was impressions of any kind I think it must have just been some some horrible apparition on my face but then I mean who were the influences on you in your career with the people you've looked at and learned from um I mean as far as I'm aware I've never I've never consciously learnt or from anyone or or consciously copied anyone as it were it's all just drifted into the into the subconscious and mainly I suppose Peter Sellers undoubtedly in terms of film I think John Cleese is still funniest man in Britain and he undoubtedly from you know about the age of 12 of 13 or so has influenced me I'm sure a fantastic man and of course all through through his career really through I'm sorry I'll read that again after the radio show 1960 remember and then through course Monty Python like John of course I mean there's a great deal of your humor is very visual humor you're so observed people so do observe people I mean or can you demonstrate how watching human behavior you can transfer that into human just yes it's just it's just the very ordinariness of life but that I so like watching I've never consciously again copied any any individual characterizations that you tend to do tend to be based on people who you might have seen 10 years ago but you can't remember for the life of you who who who they are and they've just some other mannerisms and things and just the idea of people I mean it sounds like a no cliche derived from from the cliche that you know truth is stranger than fiction and actually just the way you know the person sitting opposite to you on the train behaves like a very white cookie a demonstration of a very very ordinary very inoffensive person doing nothing but somehow being funny about it so he stands up and he's standing at minutes it's just that [Music] because one of the things about about that kind of comedy too is is in observing breaking the cliche again of how people respond in certain situations I mean I know that you do what about drunken mr. Brice which which reverses what people normally think about you know yes it's the it is it is a cliche about about trying to act drunk is that you feel as though you should act drunk and actually they say that the key to it is to act sober and just to try and be sober and it's just that it's just the fact that everyone exaggerates everything it's a certain extent and they're sitting about thanks yes you're right then it's just that it's just that you try and make things bigger a lot of the humor of course they've got this a manic quality about it worried about what if you are out of your said that the different started disturbing at the end of the evening you know they've been in the presence of this sort of lunatic on the stage which is quite an odds though with with the way you are me very quiet almost shy yes yes I mean but now the other truck I mean these are part of you is that the Dark Side of the Moon oh yes I never know mmm people say it must be because of some kind of repressed and strange childhood but I can assure you I had a very long I I have been normal and caring and very good childhood and I don't I don't quite it's just something I find that I can do in in a convincing way I mean a lot of people can just be very big in their expression and very extrovert in their in the way that they behave but to do it so you believe in a character if you like I was trying to do it within a character very much departed from my own and provided it's sort of provided its character acting in a way but it's extreme but it must be just this side of of of officer reality if you sounds hurtful but you know it must be believable yes and running and if you like I've I seem to have learnt them learnt a way of being over-the-top but believable yes there's really nothing your background suggests you were become a comedian was that or mean why did you become a king I couldn't do anything else why have you come a little I couldn't do anything else I didn't have much education as though but are you Luna round and you look kid no we were all jumping out of air raid shelters because our house got bombed we moved to Grandma's she got bombed I want you got bombed miss my aunt his sister got bombed my dad said this is getting personal hitler vs the o'connor's no I just later on found that up there be a complaint plug in a shoe factory which is what I did was not the greatest job it was my part of the interview I would tell you some stories but no I just now I found that it was the one thing that I could do was make people smart they see when I sang what about the verbal side of your humor uh now it's just banner do you have a writing you'd write write yourself but I want you again you pick up from from what you hear around you um quite a lot quite a lot again based a lot on on very ordinary situations I remember once being being in a post office about a year or so ago and the man in front of me we're in a queue and the management of me went up to the hole in the glass and said um could I have three O levels please second-class temps but you had this me because your share in common with with the Sara this thing about very rapidly going to the top I mean what two years ago you don't know and now you're uh you're a star now people recognize you wherever you go yes readjusting because I I don't envy anybody you'll get stardom at a young age I really don't know it's very difficult to cope with it yes it depends people who it is tricky it is tricky I think it's it's the people who it's yes it's like I was in a hamburger joints in London a week so go and I was and and in many ways it's because people expect if you are a well-known through television they don't expect you to be in a hamburger joint so the girl that was serving me the Hamburg n I I was just taking it and there was a girl working next to her and she suddenly turned to the girl next to her and I was literally two feet away and she said very loudly is this Rowan Atkinson no and because all this is happening this this is denial that you're who you are yeah is happening so close to you yeah it's a very it's a very disarming thing I mean I think it's people I mean people do know you and they come up and they say you know I like this what you do want that you do that's fine and and very and very flattering provided doesn't happen too often but it's the people who shouted you from from it from across the street it's the yeah give us a fierce Road that's not so good what about your parents I think they're very happy I mean I did stop my career as an electrical engineer which is what I did for six years at the University I think I stopped it at such a high degree of qualification I mean it's not that I ran away from school at the age of 16 to try and become a star and I was a master of science in engineering and and almost don't like by the time I I stopped to do it so they were perfectly happy that I should try it they had strange images of what people in show business were like and I think my mother in particular had had this image of extremely flashy with my starship to go like this and bow ties like that and people who slip you money like that which-which and I've met remarkably few of those people and I mean most of you that I've worked with and do it with um I'm not but I got news on whatever our actually just like me you know who come from similar backgrounds what about what about you Sarah though did your parents disapprove what happened to particular in the other days in the film industry where you this sort of sense you're a woman you know on display or are they were in a servant it was a preview of the servant and I didn't go to it my parents did of course and they came around to my house I had to be stormed in absolutely you're in my mother started she's darling you're not could do because I think was the first time actually I've been a naked breast on on the screen although it was very fleeting it wasn't there the meta very modest breath my mother said what am I going to do how can I explain there's at home I mean what will the servants say take it very badly and wealthy which is not the thing to be well I do find also that you the class is hanging us up bed fuller here a class to talk like that we've all lost sight of our roots everywhere Yorkshire born Yorkshire bread listen what about of course talking about Lewis losing sight of your Rousseau you of course - done like you've done to the rock man show yes that was it was fun actually I mean it was a strange it was a whole new world for me because it was the world of variety and it's a world I don't I didn't at least until the end no great deal about and people who come up to you and say yeah what play on music your own you think playing on music and of course we forget that in variety shows whenever someone comes on there's music like this so I had to choose some piece but the great thing about it enough he was meeting a smaller section of the royal family in the form of the Queen Mother and Prince Charles

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Keywords: michael parkinson

Id: F9ERWqay7vQ

Length: 15min 25sec (925 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 01 2018