Remembering Nicholas Parsons at St Paul's, Covent Garden
There was a wonderful turn-out today at St Paul’s, Covent Garden, in honour of the great Nicholas Parsons who died two years ago, in January 2020. From the Director-General of the BBC and the Controller of BBC Radio 4 to Stephen Fry and Tony Hawks, Sue Perkins and Tim Rice, Jess Conrad and Judith Chalmers, it was a gathering of friends and family who came to celebrate a very special man. The Rector of St Paul’s, Simon Grigg, led the service with great style and there were contributions – funny and touching and celebratory – from Angela Rippon, Sheila Hancock, Esther Rantzen, Nicholas’s son Justin, Paul Merton and the Reverend Roger Royle. While Sheila Hancock read The Owl and the Pussy-cat, Mrs Higgins, the church cat, made a guest appearance. James Cleverton sang “Unforgettable” – and it all was.
Here's what I said at the beginning of the service, after we had given a special round of applause to Nicholas’s widow, Annie.
We are here today to celebrate the marvellous life of a marvellous man.
Christopher Nicholas Parsons was born ninety-nine years ago, on 10 October 1923, in Grantham in Lincolnshire where his father was a local GP – and it was regularly reported had delivered Margaret Thatcher when she was born in Grantham in 1925. Not so, said Nicholas – he’d definitely have pushed her back in. He was a staunch Liberal all his life.
Nicholas was the middle child: his dad was a doctor, his mother had been a nurse. When the family moved from Grantham to London, Nicholas, a left-handed child who was made to be right-handed and consequently suffered from a stammer and migraines, as well as undiagnosed dyslexia, was sent to Colet Court and St Paul’s – but he was a bright boy and he did well. He even coped with his first troublesome encounter with his exact contemporary, Clement Freud – who until the day he died blamed Nicholas for tripping him up in a school running race. The truth is Nicholas was taller, better-looking and could run considerably faster than Clement, who I think had deliberately loosened his own shoelace to give himself an excuse to fall over.
Nicholas was a pretty boy – nicknamed Shirley by some at school in honour of Shirley Temple. Those of us who saw Nicholas many years later in The Rocky Horror Show can tell you how good he looked in stockings and suspenders.
Nicholas wanted to be an actor from a young age – but his parents wanted him to have a more solid career and saw from the skilled way he could repair clocks and loved doing so that engineering might be his forte. That led to five years on Clydebank, in his late teens, as an apprentice at Drysdales, makers of machine pumps, and as a student at Glasgow University – and it was there that he mastered the Glasgow working man’s dialect. This was during the Second World War, and from then on in, given half a chance, at the drop of a spanner, Nicholas would drop into his Glaswegian routine.
It was that routine that got him out of engineering and into showbusiness. He was discovered by the Canadian impresario Carroll Levis who had a radio talent show – and from there on in there was no turning back. Radio, television, cinema, theatre – they became Nicholas’s life for the rest of his life – an extraordinary 75-year career. He was in the West End in The Hasty Heart at the Aldwych in 1945 – he then went on tour with Arsenic and Old Lace in 1946, in the Cary Grant part. He made his first film in 1947, and more than twenty films followed – several for the Boulting Brothers, including Brothers-in-Law, Too Many Crooks, Doctor in Love. I think that’s where I first saw him. I know I first saw him on stage in Boeing-Boeing – playing the lead. He was in Boeing Boeing in the West End for fifteen months.
I first met him in 1969. At Fanny Cradock’s Christmas Party. Ah, Fanny Cradock – that unique cross between Mary Berry and Jeremy Clarkson. Everyone who was anyone was at the party – Lionel Blair was there. It gave rise to the joke of the night – seeing Fanny and Lionel together: “Look it’s Butch Casserole and the One Dance Kid.” Nicholas was there. And at eleven o’clock, Fanny called the room to silence and said, “It’s cabaret time – here’s Nicholas Parsons.” And there and then, in the middle of the room, Nicholas performed this brilliant impromptu cabaret – a routine in which he satirised European cinema acting out of the parts in cod French and German and Italian. It was sensational – just amazing - and boldly I went up to congratulate him. I was a student at the time and he was a household name.
He had honed his craft on stage and in cabaret – performing in Clement Freud’s club in Sloane Square in the early 1950s, serving his time at the celebrated Windmill Theatre in Soho, appearing on television famously as a straight man to Arthur Haynes and later Benny Hill. And then came Sale of the Century – “and now, from Norwich, it’s the Quiz of the week with Nicholas Parsons.” What was the most viewed TV show of 1978? Morecambe and Wise were at number 13. Some Mothers Do Have ‘Em was at No 7. Coronation Street was at Number 6. Number One – Sale of the Century. Yes, twenty million plus viewers – year in, year out, for a dazzling decade.
In 1969 I was a student and he was a star – but from that evening when we met at Fanny Cradock’s we were friends. But he was more than a friend – he was a mentor and a role model. He had me and my girlfriend come over to his home for supper. He invited me to be a guest on his radio chat show – Look Who’s Talking. He was a great chat show host. He offered encouragement – and competition. When in the 1970s to raise money for Action Research for the Crippled Child I broke the record for making the longest ever after-dinner speech, Nicholas sponsored me – and then robbed me of my record by breaking the record himself. We then had a memorable night in the early 1980s, when we stood up in adjacent rooms and spoke simultaneously non-stop for eleven hours. The real challenge was talking through the night without taking a comfort break. We were both helped by each being equipped with an appliance that allowed you to relieve yourself on the move, as it were. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very reliable – mine slipped its moorings at about two in the morning. Nicholas’s gave way only moments later.
Knowing Nicholas was fun – but it was more than that: it was inspirational. He was the ultimate professional. His energy was extraordinary: his ambition was limitless; his work ethic was phenomenal. He kept on going right to the end. When we filmed Antiques Road Trip together he was in his nineties, but insisted on doing all the driving. When he was 90, I was drafted it to get him to a surprise party in his honour at the BBC. I told him we were going to meet up with the Controller of Radio 4 to pitch an idea for a new series for him. I got him to the party – and he enjoyed the party – but he was really disappointed not to be able to pitch his new idea.
New ideas – new opportunities – new shows – new people: for his chat show on the Edinburgh Fringe, he went to see all the young new acts before he booked them. He was always more interested in tomorrow than in yesterday.
He was a lovely man – courteous, kind, generous. Whenever I had a new book out he was always the first to give it a nice plug. He enjoyed his own success, but he didn’t envy the success of others. He loved to see it. He loved to work. He loved his audiences – and they loved him. Radio, TV, of course, he could do the lot – but I think he saw himself essentially as an actor. He had a wonderful one-man show about the life and work of the great Victorian writer and artist, Edward Lear – the skill, delicacy and charm with which he performed Edward Lear’s verse was matchless.
Not long before he died, we did a final two-hander together, at Blenheim Palace – he got good dates. We each chose our favourite poems to finish with. He did The Owl and the Pussy-cat and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
I did my favourite four lines by Hilaire Belloc because for me they are about Nicholas – actor, author, performer, horologist, husband, father, grandfather, friend.
From quiet homes and first beginning
Out to the undiscovered ends
There’s nothing worth the wear of winning
But laughter and the love of friends
Laughter, love and friendship – the life of Nicholas Parsons. Weren’t we lucky to know him?