Johnny Ball

Johnny Ball: "Comedy means not dull" interview

Written by: Georgy Jamieson
Published: Friday 28th March 2025

When you think of a number, then you think of Johnny Ball. He was a regular face on TV in the 1970s and 80s, with shows like Play School, Play Away, Cabbages And Kings and the BAFTA winning Think Of A Number. He inspired a whole generation to see maths and science as fun and used humour to draw you in and keep you entertained. I would watch Johnny's shows as a kid and love them, but while I was laughing and learning along, I had no idea that he'd previously been a Butlins Redcoat and had a career as a drummer and stand-up comic in some of the toughest clubs in the North of England.

Now Johnny has released the first part of his autobiography, My Previous Life In Comedy, which charts his childhood, his call up for national service where he spent three very happy years in the RAF, then working as a Butlins redcoat and his early comedy days in Liverpool and the clubs of the North of England. Johnny spent 17 years as a stand-up comic where he was well respected on the circuit and worked with some of the biggest names in showbiz at the time.

In the book he tells how those years in the forces helped him broaden his horizons and gain confidence, then, as a redcoat, how he honed his comedy craft and how all of his experiences led him to use that comedy training to craft the children's TV shows a generation remembers with such affection.

It's an honest book full of great stories, humour and warmth, and when you read it you can feel Johnny's energy bouncing off the page. As a young man, he never said no to any opportunity and didn't waste time sleeping when he could be working, drumming or doing a comedy gig. He's still a force of nature and when we met on Zoom he'd just been sanding down a room ready for the decorators, and was off to walk the dog when we finished. Even at 86 years-old there's no slowing him down.

With a cup of tea in hand, we had a wonderful chat while his lovely wife Diane chipped in from the sidelines, prompting him to tell me stories.

What made you want to write the book now?

I've been meaning to do it for ages and it's taken about three years. I gave every story its own title, which I thought gets to the point much quicker. They're like mini chapters within the chapters. One thing the book is not is a ramble.

Had you kept diaries or photographs at all or was this all from memory?

No, I've got quite an incredible memory. I genuinely do remember all these stories. I don't have to research them. There are only a few photographs in the book. There's some lovely things. For instance, I have one with me and Zoe when she's about 13, and the two boys were about 4 or 5 years younger, and they're wearing snorkel masks because we're on the beach and we're, in bathing costumes and the caption is, 'It is not assured that all your kids will be good looking'. I just love finding the joke that makes it worth showing the picture.

What struck me reading the book was you had this incredible zest and energy for life. You said yes to everything. You were always on the go, and it was quite a colourful life. Living in Liverpool, the drumming. I didn't know about the drumming.

When I was two, I wanted to be a drummer. I used to play with knitting needles and biscuit tins. I said 'I want to be a drummer', and my parents bought me a drum. I started playing drums before I had any sticks, I just used my hands. I loved Charlie Parker and early jazz bop. I used to play just humming the tunes with rolled up newspapers on a leather chair.

With the drums and the comedy, you were really immersed in the Northern Club night time scene, particularly Liverpool. Tell us a bit about it.

I love Liverpool. I still love Liverpool today. I spent about three or four years on and off there and it's in my bones now. It's a wonderful, vibrant place. People often said 'wasn't it difficult being a comic in Liverpool?' No, it's easy because they're so funny themselves, because they're open-minded. They're not cramped in any way, and the audiences were lovely and fabulous.

I remember your energy on the TV as a child, and that was infectious. You were obviously like that in the clubs because you say in the book you used to get only 3 or 4 hours sleep. That energy must have helped you. Where does it come from?

My father was the guiding light. He had all the energy but he never had a chance in his life.

He was out of work when he was in his late teens during the depression in the 1920s, but he was a gag-a-line man for his entire life and everybody loved him. So it all comes from him and I think of him all the time. He was so wonderfully funny. That's where I get it from.

How tough were the clubs you worked as a comedian in the 1960s?

They weren't. They weren't tough. No, they were tough when you couldn't do it. So if you were bad at it, you didn't last long. You had to learn the clubs.

My opening gag was, I came on with this paper bag and said 'Good evening. I'm a bag of nerves.' I was known as 'Bag of Nerves'. Everybody knew 'Bag of Nerves' and when I started I was shy. I'd say, "I'm sorry. I'm just recovering from a very bad haircut. That's the tulip cut. It looks like somebody just tiptoed through it. I went to the hairdresser and said, 'What do you suggest? Do you think some grease would be any good?' He said, 'I'll go and scrape some off my bike'. So he rushed out. I rushed out after him with a sheet wrapped down around me. He's in the middle of the road with his bike over his head. He shouted, 'What we want is constitution restitution and prosperity'. I said, 'what are you doing with your bike over your head?' He said, 'I'm holding a rally'." And that was my opening. I used to get applause on that opening.

Paul Daniels called me the shy comedian. He'd say 'it's just amazing, how you've made a career out of it, but you can't be a shy comedian, it doesn't work' and I said, 'well, it did for me'.

A lot of people thought the clubs were very hard, they could be very hard. You had to be at one with the audience, you had to get them with you, and then they were wonderful. Harry Secombe once said, the audience was with me all the way but I shook them off at the station.

That brings me nicely to Harry. You had a great relationship and affection with Harry Secombe. Tell us about him, because he's quite pivotal in the book, isn't he?

Very much so. I did my first forces tour with him, and of course, I loved the forces. I loved every minute. There's only one picture in the book of me in uniform, and it's of me looking miserable because the photographer said 'why are you always so bloody happy?' And I was deliriously happy for three years in the RAF. So I posed looking sad for one picture and it's the only one I've got in uniform.

When I knew I was meeting Harry, I read all my files of jokes. I used to write loads and loads of all kinds of very light, mild jokes. Anything, any subject with any humorous angle, and I would record it so I could always ad lib around anything. Much like Bob Monkhouse with his joke books. I loved Bob, he was the greatest technician and storyteller ever. He was just wonderful. And Harry was arguably the happiest comedian of all.

When I met him, everything he said, I came back with a funny line, and he suddenly realised what was happening, and we hit it off like that, and we had a great time together. I blagged my way into a show in Malta for the forces when I was doing cabaret there in a little club, and Harry was backstage. It was very dim lighting and I said, 'Can you see Harry?' He said, 'don't worry, lad, I've got braille feet'. He was a wonderful, wonderful man.

Tell us about going out and entertaining the troops.

I felt I knew them already because I'd done three years in the RAF, and I loved them, and once again, it's just enjoying being with people.

We were in the Borneo jungle. They flew us in by helicopter and we were fighting terrorists there and it was really tough. All we had was a piano and drums on this tiny stage, and as I walked on, this fellow on the front row put his hands to something on the floor between his feet and threw it. I looked, and suddenly, something about the size of a crash helmet came at me through the air and landed between my feet. It was the biggest toad you can ever imagine. The audience cheered, so I stamped just behind it and it gave a small hop forward. Then I said, "Enjoy that Lads, that's the only jump you're going to get tonight!" They cheered. I was at home with them and it was lovely. You know, it was just speaking the same language.

Is there any part of you that regrets that you're not better known as a stand-up comedian?

Yes, in a way. I was different from the rest of the comedians. They all went on Opportunity Knocks and I said 'no, I'll never do that show because it's for amateurs'. So, I didn't do it. The others who did got a start in television. Les Dawson, who I knew very well, was perfect for television. He just stood there motionless and I was more active.

When I started getting theatre dates, you got recognised because you're working with stars and then you get television breaks, which you didn't get through the clubs. But when I did those theatre shows, doing a 12 minute spot was agony. I was just warming up and I had to leave the audience. I'd rather do 40 minutes to even a rough club. I found that I didn't sit well with theatre. I didn't sit well with the formality of the audience all sitting there. It was all right, but not like the clubs when I was talking to people right next to me. I couldn't get the rapport.

Then I saw Ken Dodd, and I learned so much from Doddy. When I first saw him in Blackpool, that's when I realised how you roll an audience. A lot of comedians never learn how to roll an audience. Peter Kay knows just how to string an audience along, and it's beautiful.

You were in Windsor when you decided that was it for stand up comedy.

Yeah, it was. I had trouble with agents because you don't see them very often, and they're juggling lots of people's careers and everything. So it didn't always go according to plan with agents.

I was doing Caesar's Palace at Luton and the top of the bill went sick. So they said, 'Johnny, can you do tonight?' It was 5 in the afternoon so I said, 'yeah'. I did tremendously well and they said, 'I'm keeping you for the rest of the week, Johnny. You're great'. I got big standing ovations, and I rang my agent and told him. He booked me back at only £25 more than I'd been as a support act and I said, 'that's it. I'm resigning. I'm finished'. I just packed it in and I didn't miss it because I wanted to do other things.

You talk about the transition to children's TV in the book. That had started to take off more and more with you writing sketches. Tell us about that.

I went for an audition because I thought it was for Crackerjack, and I knew I'd got this job in two minutes. They said, 'oh, you're going to be wonderful in Play School', I said, 'what's that?' They said, 'it's for under fives at BBC Two, 11 in the morning', and I was off out the door.

They called me back and persuaded me to do an audition. I went to the audition for Play School, and they were all in scruffy jeans, all out of work actors, all looking very worried, and I'm in a tailor-made suit, thinking, 'what am I doing here? I really don't want this job' and, of course, it's always the case in showbiz, you always get the jobs you don't want.

At first I didn't do it well because I just couldn't cope with having Big Ted, Hamble, and Jemima. I couldn't come down to that, and they said, 'when you're doing something you like, you're brilliant, and then you're not. Do you want to do it or not?' I thought, 'why should I be bad at something?' So I did it.

The integrity of the people who did Play School were brilliant, and from then I learned television from the inside. I wrote all my own shows from minute one to the end. I researched all the series and I sculpted them together. It was a basic format I learnt for building a comedy routine, and there are seven stages. You get them first and then you try and take them to a peak, then you give them a rest, then you come back and take them to a peak and give them a rest, then you come back and the peak gets higher and that's what Doddy did. That's how comedy works, and that's what the shows did.

I turned down other shows because they were magazine shows and I said no, because on a magazine show, you have a wonderful article or item, and then you have something quite boring, and then suddenly half the audience don't want to know. With my shows you always had one theme. My comedy was seamless from beginning to end and so were the shows, and that all goes back to my dad. All that comedy training of always having a funny line for anything was part of it. I'm very proud of what I've done.

I remember Think Of a Number, and at the time I was a child, and I enjoyed it. Now, as an adult, I realise how beautifully crafted your shows were to get young people interested in maths and science.

We went to Disneyland with the kids in the big round dome in Epcot, it's the history of transport, and you get in a car and you go up around this history of transport and I looked at it and it started with a whimsy and then a joke, then seriousness, then a joke, then a bit of seriousness, then a joke. That's the same template that I use, exactly the same template and I thought, 'well, I'm in good company here' because Walt Disney did not make children's films, he made films for adults with children in mind and that's what I was trying to do.

When I started writing television scripts, I did it just like any comedian would. I always have to have a point, a laugh, an edge, an angle, with every line, there were no dead spaces in the shows. It was my comedy training, my 17 years in stand-up, that made it all possible.

There were complaints eventually from the BBC Children's department that my audiences were 60% adults and I said, 'if 6 million people are watching at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, what's wrong with that?' They watered children's TV down and the kids watched, but the parents didn't. That's when the BBC sidelined children's television and that's when I walked.

Instead I did conferences and worked at many corporations. I worked for National Grid for 7 years, BAE Systems for 3 years. 7 or 8 water companies. Videos for all kinds of people. The corporate world was wonderful because writing the scripts was exactly the same as if you do a comedy gig. Whatever you're writing, if it's dull, then change it. Comedy means not dull.

There's certainly nothing dull about the book or Johnny's rich and colourful previous life in comedy! My Previous Life In Comedy by Johnny Ball, published by The Book Guild, is available from Amazon and all good bookshops now.

Johnny Ball - My Previous Life In Comedy: Part One Of My Autobiography

By Johnny Ball

From an idyllic childhood in Bristol, with my gag-a-minute dad inspiring me to become a comedian, to dreadful teenage years in Bolton where education overlooked me, and all I learnt was how to be funny.

My first job gave me a taste of success and confidence, followed by my real education in the RAF. Butlins gifted me an enduring smile, and in Liverpool, I worked with the less fortunate while crossing paths with future stars.

Then came seventeen wonderful years of stand-up comedy, which took me across the UK and abroad, entertaining the British Forces, before a TV career began in failure, only to rise from the ashes with Di, the love of my life, and a new career in Maths and Science.

Packed with wildly funny tales, this book isn't half a good story - or is it? Well, yes it is, as the sequel will follow shortly!

First published: Friday 28th March 2025

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• Publisher: Book Guild Publishing
• Pages: 352
• Catalogue: 9781835741665

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