Source: The Conversation – UK – By Glyn White, Senior Lecturer in 20th-Century Literature and Culture, University of Salford
For many people over the age of 50, the first few bars of an old 1960s song will always prompt a smile. Bring Me Sunshine, adopted by comedians Morecambe and Wise as their theme tune in 1969, came to define the pair who sang it at the end of every show.
May 14 2026 marks the centenary of the birth of Eric Morecambe, “the funny one” to Ernie Wise’s straight man, together regarded as Britain’s pre-eminent comedy double act of the 1960s and 1970s. Recognition of that milestone is boosted by the rediscovery of a lost episode from the first BBC series of The Morecambe and Wise Show, from September 16 1968 – the corporation plans to broadcast it on his century birthday.
Morecambe was then 42 and at the beginning of a BBC run lasting until 1977 that would produce a series of Christmas specials on which the duo’s fame largely rests. Half a century later, these specials are still a feature of the BBC’s Christmas line-up. But it is difficult to convey how much of an institution Morecambe and Wise were in that three-channel 1970s world of television.
In 1999 Queen Elizabeth dedicated the statue of Morecambe on the promenade of his home town, whose name the young Eric Bartholemew adopted. There are more than ten books about the comedian, and the late Victoria Wood wrote and performed in Eric and Ernie (2011) about their early years. The hunt for missing shows that led to the recent discovery has found episodes as far afield as Sierra Leone.
An enduring double act
But why does the affection for Morecambe and Wise endure? As an academic with a specialism in TV comedy, I’m keen to explore Morecambe’s contribution to the continuing fascination with this double act.
The pair were brought together through talent shows and music-hall impresario Jack Hylton in the early 1940s. Initially Wise had the bigger name and the edge in song and dance. The double act had to be paused when they were old enough to be conscripted – Wise into the merchant navy, Morecambe as a miner in Accrington where he experienced a heart murmur, a shadow of what was ahead.
Post-war BBC Radio success led to an unhappy television debut, Running Wild (1954), but the duo were too good to be off screen for long. They became regulars on other series, until hired as the stars of ATV’s Two of a Kind (1961-68). The appearance of the Beatles on the show in 1963, right on the cusp of international stardom, illustrates these two sparky live performers’ fast, funny, irreverent signature style.
When John Lennon tries to make a point about his dad telling him about Morecambe and Wise when he was younger, indicating his height at the time, Eric responds “You’ve only got a little dad, have you?” and everyone dissolves into laughter, including Ernie.
It’s clear that while there was a script, delivered more or less successfully, there is also improvisation catching fellow performers on the hop. When Ernie sets up a joint rendition of Moonlight Bay, Eric storms in wearing a Beatles wig singing lines from their hits. He’s an aggressive, anarchic, decidedly northern spirit.
There was always a slapstick element to their comedy that takes real professionalism to make work, and to roll with it when things goes wrong. For this they drew on their music-hall roots and learned from film performers, too.
Writer Eddie Braben’s Morecambe and Wise Show sketches have them co-habiting like Laurel and Hardy and, like Oliver Hardy, Eric breaks the fourth wall, speaking to the audience directly, usually to highlight his awareness of how badly things are going. Their humour is quintessentially British.
Despite a real desire to break America, and numerous appearances on the hugely popular Ed Sullivan Show, they were not to be part of the “British invasion” of the 1960s. Instead they were regarded with real affection in a drab mid-century Britain seeking a bit of sunshine.
The great and the good flocked to appear on their Christmas specials in musical numbers and plays “wot Ern wrote”. It worked best when the guest brought some gravitas that could be undermined, as with stern classical actress Glenda Jackson, who revealed a real talent for comedy, and newsreader Angela Rippon, who revealed she had legs and an unsuspected ability to dance that is remembered today.
With male celebrities there is often an edge of rivalry. The best-known sketch of the Christmas Specials, from 1971, sees globally renowned conductor André Previn drawn in under false pretences by Ernie who has promised him the chance to work with violinist Yehudi Menuhin, setting up confusions over names. In the end Previn becomes Andrew Preview as Eric destroys Grieg’s Piano Concerto with “all the right notes just not necessarily in the right order”.
Previn managed to hold his own (and keep an admirably straight face) despite being unable to attend scheduled rehearsals, and it is noticeable how much Morecambe claps the other performers at the end. He feeds on live interaction that teeters breathlessly on the brink of collapse. This sketch is lightning in a bottle with Morecambe’s role as conductor of chaos.
But it took its toll. That early heart murmur would turn into near-fatal heart attacks in 1968 and 1979, and a fatal one in 1984, backstage after half a dozen curtain calls at a solo event. Morecambe was just 58, undoubtedly with more to give on many fronts, from comedy to writing and acting.
Watching the famous Breakfast Sketch (1976) used to irritate me, because to my younger self those pancakes weren’t going to be any good with all that eggshell in them, and the oranges weren’t cut into even halves.
But for me now, at 59, Eric and Ernie’s playfulness is clearly about the joy of being alive in the moment. The legacy of Eric Morecambe in entertainment terms is about delivering sunshine: having the ability to make such moments, and to produce them to order. There can never be enough of them.
Glyn White does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
– ref. Eric Morecambe at 100: the beloved British comedian with an anarchic northern spirit – https://theconversation.com/eric-morecambe-at-100-the-beloved-british-comedian-with-an-anarchic-northern-spirit-282547