Roger and out

This blog doesn't have a huge number of readers so I value all comments, even those I have to edit or delete because they are potentially libellous!

Occasionally, months or even years after I have posted something, someone will submit a comment, presumably because they have stumbled on it via Google or some other search engine.

Sometimes the comment comes from the other side of the world, which is what happened last week.

Responding to a piece I wrote in December about the former BBC producer Roger Ordish, who died last year, aged 83, another Roger – Roger Harland – wrote:

Living, as I do, some 6,000 miles from the UK, news can take a while to reach me. It is only this evening, March 28, 2024, that I learnt of Roger's death.

In the late 60s and early 70s was a record plugger and then PR wallah in London. I have fond memories of working with Roger on Top of the Pops and on several items in the Jim'll Fix It series. I still have the medallion he gave me bearing the legend I Fixed It for Jim.

Roger had the amazing ability of being able to sing backwards. When a recording of this was played back in reverse he was usually almost word perfect. RIP Roger.

I am reposting Roger (Harland)’s comment here because I doubt that anyone will see it otherwise.

Also, after I wrote the original post I bought and read Roger Ordish's self-published memoir 'If I Remember Rightly', and despite the shadow of Jimmy Savile hanging over it (Roger was the producer of Jim’ll Fix It for almost 20 years), it's a rather amusing romp through Ordish’s life.

It inspired a lovely review by Tim Waterstone, an old schoolfriend better known as the founder of Waterstone’s Bookshops:

If I Remember Rightly arrived yesterday, and I started reading it this morning, at 6.30am, over my first-of-the-day mug of tea. Thereafter I couldn't put it down, effectively reading it all through at one sitting. Roger - I really loved it. And, perhaps more importantly, really admired it, and indeed, from it, you.

We were such close friends as teenagers, and it is a real pleasure for me to now realise, more fully perhaps than I had before, what a wonderfully rich and rewarding career, and life, that you have led. Your description of it absolutely holds the reader.

And you write so well - the 'voice' is delightful - sometimes very funny indeed - (my absolute favourite of all your wonderful anecdotes being the little Ken Dodd piece) - sometimes unexpectedly vulnerable and exposed. Ace stuff, all of it. So well done, my friend.

How nice is that?

I was rather chuffed that If I Remember Rightly includes a short reference to the show I produced, with Roger’s invaluable help, at a top West End theatre.

According to the author, who I recruited to be both the director and MC:

Back in 1996 I was the compere of a rather splendid stage show at Wyndham's Theatre, London, for a one night stand. It was the Mensa Variety Show. Several Mensa members did their highly talented turns, mostly musical, which I linked with my own script from that famous stage.

I recounted various theatrical anecdotes, including my favourite story about the actress Coral Browne. The story does not work without a swear word in the punchline. My ten-year-old daughter was at the show, sitting in a box with my wife. I apologised in advance to my daughter. I thought my wife could cope. This is the tale:

Coral Browne had just become a convert to Roman Catholicism and was extremely enthusiastic, as only converts can be. As she was just leaving the Brampton Oratory after mass one morning, two theatrical dressers, who knew her well, spotted her as she walked reverentially towards them along Knightsbridge.

"Hallo, Coral, babe!" they cooed. "Are you alright, darling?" Coral Browne eyed them coldly and muttered through gritted teeth, "Fuck off. I'm in a state of grace."

It got a big laugh, one of many that night, and it was immensely reassuring to know that the show was in such safe, professional, hands.