The Fun Factory

by Chris England

  As we neared our destination he suddenly leaned over and put his hand on my knee.

  “Thank you, Arthur,” he said, with a quite dazzling smile (those teeth!). “Friends?”

  “Friends,” I said, and we shook on it. He just loved doing that, didn’t he?

  And at that moment we were friends, I think, and I was glad I had relented, not just for Alf’s sake, but for Charlie’s and for mine. After all, I thought, so Charlie Chaplin comes to America with us. What’s the worst that could happen…? (Hint: read his autobiography and you’ll find out.)

  Once at Southampton we were collected at the dock gates by a functionary of the Thomson Line, and led to the RMS Cairnrona on foot. As we made our way along the quay we found ourselves passing by a steam packet with a lavender-grey hull and two red and black funnels. The name on the stern caught my eye.

  “Well, well,” I said. “How about that?”

  “What is it?” Charlie said.

  “Wait here a minute,” I said. A little way off I could see a starched busybody of a fellow in a braided uniform heading towards us. His white peaked cap bore the same name as the ship, and I put on a gentlemanly air and accosted him before he could drive me away.

  “Ahoy!” I said. “Are you from the Dover Castle there?”

  “I am, sir. What is your business?”

  “Are you the captain, might I ask?”

  “No, sir, I am not. I am Dawkins, the purser. Can I help you?”

  “Indeed,” I said. “The purser, is that so? It so happens that I am acquainted with Mr Turnbull, from your London office on Fenchurch Street. Do you know the gentleman?”

  “I do,” said this Dawkins.

  “You have a fellow on your boat, name of Moulden,” I said.

  “What of it?”

  “I have a message from him,” I said. “He wishes you to know that he has retired from the seafaring life, effective immediately, and you should take steps to replace him as quickly as possible.”

  “I see,” said Dawkins, frowning. “And did he give a reason?”

  “He said – I’m sorry to have to say this, Mr Dawkins, but remember I am merely the messenger – that the ship’s purser was an insufferable prig and that he could not bear to spend another moment in his company.”

  Dawkins stiffened, and his face turned a sort of purple colour.

  “He also gave me to understand that you would be pleased as Punch, because this would give you the chance to scour the docks for a young boy more to your taste. Does that mean anything to you?”

  The purser’s eyes bulged with outrage. “And what is your name, sir, if I might ask?”

  “My name?” I said. “My name is Sydney Chaplin. I bid you good day, sir.”

  I left him standing there with steam coming out from beneath his starched white cap, and rejoined Charlie and our guide, pleased with a very tidy bit of business.

  Shortly we came to the dock where the Cairnrona was berthed, and I got my first look at her. A modest little vessel, black-grey smoke already beginning to billow from her single funnel.

  The Thomson man noticed that I had stopped, and retraced his steps with a look of concern.

  “Something wrong, sir?”

  “Not exactly the Lusitania, is it?”

  He grimaced apologetically. “Few ships are,” he said.

  Once we joined the rest of the company on board it was plain to see that not everyone was as pleased to see Charlie Chaplin as Mr Alfred Reeves was. Talk about the prodigal! He took him, and embraced him, and pinched his face as though checking he was flesh and blood and not an apparition come to torment him. Have you ever seen a mother who has mislaid a child, exclaiming that when she finds the errant infant she is going to tan his hide and make him wish he’d never been born, but then when the little rogue hoves into view it’s all hugs and kisses and never-leave-me-agains? Like that, exactly like that.

  At one point, Alf managed to free an arm from this embarrassing display and grab me by the hand to offer his heartfelt, if silent, thanks.

  The rest of the company, however (except for old Charlie Griffiths, who was floating off in the lap of luxury somewhere past Ireland by now), stood and seethed. Arms folded, lips pursed, eyes boring holes in the back of the Chaplin skull.

  I found out why when the welcome party dispersed and I could grab a word with Tilly.

  “I don’t suppose by any chance we have … first-class cabins?” I said.

  “There isn’t even a first class on this bucket,” Tilly said. “There’s second class, and there’s third class, but there’s no first. What’s the point of that, I ask you?”

  “I see, but it’s not so bad, is it?”

  “I’ll tell you what it is, it’s a converted cattle boat, and I’m not even joking.”

  No wonder Charlie got such a muted welcome.

  Later, as the Cairnrona steamed out into the Solent, and on into the English Channel, I leaned on the rail and watched England slide by. I was filled with anticipation, for I had dreamed of travelling to America ever since I had whiled away my time in Cambridge reading the good old penny bloods. I had a great sense of well-being all at once, because I felt things had been resolved between myself and Charlie. I had had my victory, but had not, in the end, rubbed his nose in it. I had also, don’t forget, scored a point over the creature Moulden, too.

  Yes, I had a great feeling of optimism, a feeling that everything was going to turn out fine. I didn’t know then that instead of heading to New York, where we were due to perform, we were actually en route to Montreal. Nor did I know that the propeller was going to give way, leaving us adrift for three whole days in the middle of the stormy Atlantic, at the mercy of wind and waves and mal de mer. And I didn’t know that my rivalry with Chaplin was destined to erupt into strife, bitterness, alcoholism, ruin and murder. That was all still to come.

  Tilly joined me, and slipped her arm into mine.

  “The cabins are not quite so grand as on the Lusitania,” she said. “But I do still have one to myself. “Want to take a look?”

  Yes, I thought, this is all going to turn out just fine.

  NOTES

  1. The university proctors’ assistants who were responsible for enforcing the curfew.

  2. Film star Jack Hulbert began his career as a clog-dancing luminary of the Cambridge Footlights.

  3. The New Accelerator (1901).

  4. The Corner, also known as Poverty Corner, was where unemployed theatricals and turns would lurk by day in the hope that employers would recruit them there in an emergency. It was near Waterloo station.

  5. In later years Billie Ritchie indignantly claimed to be the originator of Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp character.

  6. The Water Rats is a society of music hall and variety artistes who organise events for charity. The roll-call of notable King Rats down the years includes such luminaries as Dan Leno, Wal Pink, Joe Elvin, Frankie Vaughan, Les Dawson and Bernard Bresslaw.

  7. A number man would introduce the turns and place cards bearing their names and descriptions on an easel.

  8. This sketch featured a couple of burglars masquerading as butler and maid in a large house they are disturbed in the act of robbing. It formed the basis of the 1927 Laurel and Hardy silent film Duck Soup, and a talkie remake from 1930 entitled Another Fine Mess.

  9. Which Karno did, when he established the Karsino on Tagg’s Island in 1912. It was very nearly the ruin of him, and he never entirely recovered his pre-eminent position thereafter.

  10. Marguerite Boulc’h, a singer, then spent a decade in Russia, before returning and reinventing herself as the singer Fréhel.

  11. This anecdote is arguably the basis of a classic sequence in The Kid, Chaplin’s 1921 First National film, with Jackie Coogan as the Tramp’s window-smashing child accomplice.

  12. The Stage, 28 April 1910.

  13. Ben Tillett, of the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers’ Union, would play a prominent role as a leader of dock strikes
in 1911 and 1912.

  NOTES ON CHAPTER TITLES

  1. COLLEGE LIFE

  The title of a music hall hit song by Billy Murray, 1906.

  2. THE SMOKING CONCERT

  The title of a classic Fred Karno sketch.

  3. OH! MR PORTER!

  The title of a music hall song which was part of the repertoire of the great Marie Lloyd.

  4. THE VARSITY B.C.

  A Cambridge Footlights show of 1907.

  5. THE HOUSE THAT FRED BUILT

  The House that Jack Built was a successful Fred Karno pantomime of 1906.

  6. A NIGHT IN AN ENGLISH MUSIC HALL

  The alternative title for the classic Karno sketch Mumming Birds when it toured in America.

  7. THE MAYOR OF MUDCUMDYKE

  A piece of bill matter sometimes used, as at the 1912 Royal Command Performance, by George Robey. He was also the Prime Minister of Mirth.

  8. FRED KARNO’S ARMY

  During the Great War there was a popular song among Tommies at the Western Front which went like this:

  We are Fred Karno’s Army

  A jolly lot are we,

  We cannot shoot, we cannot fight,

  What bloody use are we?

  And when we get to Berlin

  The Kaiser he will say

  Hoch, hoch, mein Gott,

  What a jolly fine lot

  Are the boys of Company A.

  A variation featured the lines: ‘Fred Karno is our general, Charlie Chaplin our O.C.’

  9. WONTDETAINIA

  The title of a classic Fred Karno sketch.

  11. JAIL BIRDS

  The title of a classic Fred Karno sketch.

  12. IT’S A MARVEL ’OW ’E DOOS IT BUT ’E DO

  The title of a song by the great coster singer and comedian Gus Elen.

  13. THE NEW WOMAN’S CLUB

  The title of a classic Fred Karno sketch.

  14. MUMMING BIRDS

  The title of a classic Fred Karno sketch.

  15. UNDER THE HONEYMOON TREE

  The title of a music hall favourite, sung by Ella Retford.

  17. TILLY’S PUNCTURED ROMANCE

  The title of a 1914 Keystone movie, starring Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand, Marie Dressler and Mack Swain.

  19. BESIDE THE SEASIDE

  I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside was written in 1907 by John Glover-Kind, and became a music hall hit for singer Mark Sheridan.

  20. THE FOOTBALL MATCH

  The title of a classic Fred Karno sketch.

  21. HE OF THE FUNNY WAYS

  This was young Stan Jefferson’s bill matter as a solo comic.

  22. OUI! TRAY BONG!

  The title of a music hall hit of 1893 for Charles Chaplin senior. A typical ‘Gay Paree’ number, it is about a weekend jolly in the French capital enjoyed by the singer and his pals Jones, Tom and Harry.

  23. LA VALSE RENVERSANTE

  A noted cabaret sketch, featuring Maurice Chevalier and Mistinguett. It was also later a successful film, produced by Pathé Frères, the company that also produced Max Linder’s films. Chevalier made a handful of other silent films with his friend Linder, but did not really come into his own as a movie star until the arrival of sound.

  24. A WOMAN OF PARIS

  A 1923 United Artists film, written, produced and directed by Charlie Chaplin, starring Edna Purviance, and also Maurice Chevalier.

  26. DON’T DO IT AGAIN, MATILDA

  The title of a 1910 music hall hit for Harry Champion.

  27. BREAK A LEG

  A well-known theatrical superstition involves wishing this injury on someone about to perform.

  28. THE SOCIALIST

  A Cambridge Footlights show of 1910.

  29. LET ME CALL YOU SWEETHEART

  The title of a popular song of 1910, featured in the 1938 Laurel and Hardy film Swiss Miss, with Oliver Hardy singing and Stan Laurel on sousaphone.

  30. JIMMY THE FEARLESS

  The title of a Fred Karno sketch of 1910.

  31. I’LL GET MY OWN BACK

  A title taken from the music hall songbook of Sir George Robey.

  34. THE WOW-WOWS

  The title of a Fred Karno sketch, particularly devised to play in America.

  35. SHIP AHOY!

  The title of a music hall hit for male impersonator Hetty King. The song was also sometimes known by its catchy first line: ‘All the nice girls love a sailor…’

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  Although many of the characters in The Fun Factory are based on real people, the incidents and relationships depicted contain a measure of speculative invention on my part.

  Arthur Dandoe was a real person, a member of the Fred Karno company, and he toured the UK and America with Charlie Chaplin and Stan Jefferson (later Laurel), the three of them performing hundreds of shows together and living virtually in one another’s pockets for several years.

  Despite this there is only one reference to Arthur in Chaplin’s massive 528 page house brick of an autobiography - imaginatively entitled My Autobiography - and no mention at all of Stan, who was Charlie’s understudy and roommate, and by all accounts (bar Charlie’s own) a close friend.

  The single reference to Arthur that you will find, should you be inclined to look, is to an incident on the night Charlie left the Karno company in Kansas City to take up a job offer with Keystone Pictures. He writes: “A member of our troupe, Arthur Dando (sic), who for some reason disliked me…”

  Is it just me, or is there a wealth of contempt in that casual mis-spelling of Arthur’s name? Anyway, Charlie goes on to describe a leaving present that Arthur prepared for him:

  “It was an empty tobacco box, covered in tin foil, containing small ends of old pieces of grease paint.”

  Charlie seems faintly puzzled by this. According to Stan Laurel’s account he should have taken a closer look. That wasn’t grease paint in that tin, and the clue to the gift’s true nature was in the accompanying card which Arthur had inscribed: “Some shits for a shit.”

  Stan suggests that Arthur didn’t actually go through with this gesture after he came across Charlie alone on stage, “cold, unsentimental Charlie”, crying.

  Some commentators believe that Stan Laurel was omitted from My Autobiography because he was the one genuine threat to Chaplin’s supremacy over the world of comedy, the one performer who could actually hold a candle to the genius. For myself, I was fascinated by the kind of man who could have come up with that leaving present, and the relationship that is somehow defined by it.

  I have tried, as far as possible, to stick to known chronology as far as the actual careers of Charlie Chaplin, Syd Chaplin, Stan Jefferson, Fred Karno and Arthur Dandoe are concerned. The one real liberty that I have taken with the Karno company’s productions is that I have brought the Wontdetainia forward a year or two, because it sounded so great. Karno genuinely did have that ingenious ocean liner constructed, just as he cannily employed hard-up ex-professional footballers including Messrs Athersmith, Crabtree, Spiksley and Wragg in his spectacular Football Match.

  When I started writing I was attracted to this period of Chaplin’s career precisely because it was covered so imprecisely and unreliably in his own autobiography and the many various biographies, which naturally rely heavily on his own account. It seemed a dark, shady area that gave me a lot of elbow room. Then AJ Marriott brought out his book Chaplin: Stage by Stage, which shone a great forensic searchlight beam onto the whole period. It not only details where Chaplin was and what he was up to day by day throughout his Karno career, it also pulls the great man up on a surprisingly large number of inaccuracies and deliberate obfuscations, taking him to task in a most entertaining way. I recommend it, it’s a lot of fun.

  Charlie Chaplin did tour the UK in Mumming Birds and The Football Match, and did take over from Harry Weldon as the lead comic in the latter, only to succumb to laryngitis and miss out on what seemed at the time to be his big break. He did play for a month at the F
olies Bergère, and did also pull out of Jimmy the Fearless, either sulking or in a funk, only to take over after a week when he saw what a success Stan Jefferson, his understudy, had made of it.

  Fred Karno was the great comedy entrepreneur of the pre-First World War years, and most of the big names of the time worked either with him or for him at some time. The Fun Factory was his headquarters off Coldharbour Lane in Camberwell, and a spectacular hive of activity it must have been. He was a notorious and not especially subtle user of the casting couch, and his marital situation was pretty much as complicated as I have described, as were his bizarre attempts to resolve it.

  Arthur Dandoe worked with both Chaplin and Jefferson on Jimmy the Fearless and several other shows. He then went on to share in some of their adventures in the States before their paths diverged. Most of the rest of what Arthur does in the book is fiction.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to acknowledge the assistance of the Arts Council of Great Britain which was invaluable in enabling me to complete this project.

  I would also like to thank Ben Yarde-Buller of Old Street for taking a punt, and James Nunn for the splendid cover.

  Thanks to Jo Unwin, Rob Dinsdale, Robert Kirby, Charles Walker and Richard Dawes for your enthusiasm and skill. Also to Jo Brand, David Baddiel, Mark Billingham and Al Murray.

  And special thanks to David Tyler. The next one’s for you.

  Copyright

  First published in 2014

  by Old Street Publishing Ltd

  8 Hurlingham Business Park, Sulivan Road, London SW6 3DU