‘I know you didn’t think I did much of a job on the Comedy Playhouse,’ Bert said.
Dennis was hoping that Bert might follow up with a ‘but’, indicating his willingness to learn, listen or get it right, but there was nothing. Bert was probably hoping that Dennis would reassure him in some way, but Dennis didn’t see why he should. He had been frustrated by Bert’s apparent determination to make Barbara (and Jim) look like every other comedy programme the BBC had ever broadcast. Dennis appreciated that there was only so much that could be done with a live recording in a studio, but Bert was plodding, uninterested in spontaneity, allergic to anything that might contain collaboration.
‘I don’t want Barbara (and Jim) to look like any other comedy series,’ said Dennis. ‘I want it to feel young and fresh.’
Bert snorted.
‘You’ve got the wrong bloke for that,’ he said. ‘Look at me.’
Dennis did as instructed and saw a grumpy middle-aged man.
‘As long as it’s blocked out by Saturday evening,’ said Bert. ‘That’s all I’m interested in.’
‘What about the show?’ said Dennis. ‘Are you interested in that?’
‘As long as it’s blocked out by Saturday evening.’
‘So that’s a yes. Blocking by Saturday evening creates an interest in the content on Sunday.’
Bert blinked slowly, like a frog.
‘I’ve been thinking about the theme music and the title sequence,’ said Dennis. ‘I want something different.’
‘Oh, Gawd,’ said Bert. ‘Here we go.’
‘Do you ever get involved in that?’
‘No thank you.’
‘So whatever I did would be fine by you?’
‘No. Course not. Not if my name’s going out on it.’
‘Right,’ said Dennis. ‘So what do we do about that?’
‘You go off and get your theme music and your title sequence,’ said Bert. ‘And then I tell you I don’t like them.’
Dennis wanted the music to reflect the differences between the two characters, and he had commissioned something from Ron Grainer, who’d done Maigret and Steptoe.
‘Well,’ said Grainer, when Dennis had told him what he wanted. ‘On your head be it.’
‘Really? I think it could sound rather good.’
‘It’ll sound like a mess.’
And when he played the results back to Dennis a week later, it sounded like a mess. Thirty seconds of a pop chorus, followed by thirty seconds of contemporary jazz, followed by thirty seconds of a pop chorus, and so on. It sounded like two cats fighting on a drum kit.
‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea to chop and change like that,’ said Grainer.
He was being polite, and Dennis was grateful. Grainer could have been forgiven for questioning his professional competence.
‘Any suggestions?’ said Dennis.
‘I’d get either a pop group to play a jazz tune or a jazz saxophonist to do a song by the Beatles or something.’
A couple of days later, he had his theme tune. Ron Grainer had asked a record producer called Shel Talmy at Decca Records to recommend a session guitarist, and Talmy had told him to use a young man called Jimmy Page. Under Grainer’s supervision, Page played Miles Davis’s ‘So What’ in a sort of blues band style, and it sounded terrific, Dennis thought.
‘Oh, hell,’ said Bill, when he heard it.
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘We haven’t written that kind of script,’ said Tony.
‘What kind of script have you written?’ said Dennis.
‘This is all moody and classy,’ said Bill. ‘We’re not moody and classy. Get him to do “Freddie Freeloader”.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s the next cut on the LP.’
‘How does it go?’
‘Daaa, da … Daaa, da … Daaa, da … Daaa, da … Da da, da da, da da.’
Dennis nodded his head thoughtfully along to the music. He could see what Bill meant.
‘It’s not funny,’ said Bill. ‘But at least it’s cheerful.’
Dennis got Jimmy Page to do ‘Freddie Freeloader’ the next afternoon. He had now gone through fifty-eight pounds of the forty-pound budget he’d given himself for music. He’d wanted to get a proper photographer, David Bailey or Lewis Morley, to take a picture of Sophie, and a local wedding photographer to do Clive, but the overspend made that impossible. Instead, he spent an entire day collecting artefacts – lipsticks and pipes and book jackets and miniskirts – intended to represent the couple, and got an in-house chap to snap them all on a background of white chipboard. It looked better than he’d dared to hope. He held the pictures up while he played the theme song and suddenly felt a little thrill of possibility.
Bert hated everything, the music and the photographs.
‘You just want everyone to turn off before the actual programme starts?’
‘I don’t think they will,’ said Dennis.
‘Oh, they will,’ said Bert. ‘I would.’
‘Of course you would,’ said Dennis. ‘That goes without saying.’
‘And my missus will,’ said Bert.
‘You won’t tell her to stick with it because you directed it?’