Culture

Chuckle time with Paul and Barry

In our Summer Comedy Special, the biggest comedy legends of old share their favourite gags and funny stories

Why do we like to be by the seaside? Apart from the sun (occasionally) and donkey-strewn sand, it is the ‘end-of-the-pier’ stand-ups who stand out. These staples of summer seasons still populate the nation’s collective memory so we thought we’d bring together some of the greats for our Summer Comedy Special.

Slapstick supremos Paul and Barry Elliott, better known as The Chuckle Brothers, won Opportunity Knocks in 1967 but the chuckles subsided until they resurfaced on kids’ TV with Chuckle Hounds in 1985. From there ChuckleVision was born and the iconic show ran for 21 series.

Here they tell us about a memorable incident that happened during the making of ChuckleVision

“One late autumn day we were filming for the BBC on our series ChuckleVision in a large field near a British army base. There was a cinder path on the outside of the field and around the building that the cameras were set up in. The director shouted “action” and we started the scene as the cameras and sound (on a boom mic) followed us.

“Suddenly we heard the very loud crunching of boots. As we turned around we saw a platoon from the army being put through their paces.

“As we looked at them, they looked at us, and the sergeant’s booming shout suddenly changed from “LEFT” (crunch as the boots went down!) to “To Me (Crunch) To You (Crunch)” and the squaddies all joined in to great laughter.

“We have never forgotten the day and we hope they haven’t as it was one of those magical unexpected moments!”

In our Summer Comedy Special some of the biggest comedy legends share their favourite gags and funny stories with us.

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