JIM BOWEN Bullseye was the making of me
To celebrate his 80th birthday, the affable gameshow host reveals why he gave up teaching for a career in showbiz, the secret behind Bully’s prizes and why he owes everything to his wife
THE combination of darts, general knowledge and Jim Bowen proved to be an irresistible formula. It’s more than two decades since the plug was pulled on Bullseye but the gameshow’s genial host is forever being reminded of the catchphrases that helped make him a household name.
Celebrating his 80th birthday tomorrow and now living quietly in the Lake District, Jim still encounters strangers hailing him in the street with cries of “super, smashing, great” and “look at what you could have won”.
Reruns of Bullseye on Challenge TV have created a new generation of fans, who aren’t old enough to remember the launch on ITV in 1981. The show continued for 16 seasons, attracting a peak audience of almost 19 million viewers on Boxing Day 1989, with Jim constantly at the helm. Contestants threw darts and answered basic general knowledge questions to progress. A highlight was Bully’s prize board with novelty telephones, teasmaids and canteens of cutlery typically up for grabs
“Keep out of the black and in the red, nothing in this game for two in the bed,” was the warning to those throwing the arrows that a prize was lost if the same section of the board was hit twice.
“Yes, I still hear all the old catchphrases and I don’t mind one bit,” says Jim. “Bullseye was the making of me so it would be very churlish to be ungrateful or frown. I get all ages recognising me. You get the occasional rude one but it’s usually done with affection.”
On Bullseye winners could gamble their prizes for the chance to throw more darts and drive away in a car, or possibly be left scratching their heads about what on earth to do with a speedboat.
However making the call on the show about whether to keep going was nothing compared to the risk that Jim took when he decided to give up a steady career in education in the 1960s to try his luck on the stand-up comedy circuit.
Jim was born in Heswall, Wirral, in 1937. He was adopted as a baby but in later life chose never to seek his natural parents, always regarding Annie and Joe Whittaker as mum and dad.
After leaving Accrington Grammar School he worked as a dustman in Blackburn for a short time and completed national service before becoming a PE teacher.
AT TRAINING college he met his future wife Phyllis. They were married in 1959 and she’s been his rock ever since. Jim rose to become deputy head at a primary school near Lancaster but fell out of love with teaching after 10 years. “I’d had enough and could see no future,” says the star, who was 29 at the time. “I thought ‘Crikey, I’ve got another 30 years of this’. I’d always been a fan of comedy but it was watching Ken Dodd have two houses of 3,500 people eating out of his hand on a single night in Blackpool that made my mind up. I wanted some of that.”
The pubs and working men’s clubs in the north of England in the 1960s, where comics first took their bow, were unforgiving places but Jim prospered. “In some of them you did well to come out alive,” he says. “I spent what felt like a month on stage one night in Newcastle but I was getting some laughs. There’s no greater sensation than seeing people fall about laughing.”
His success led to a spot on a TV show called The Comedians alongside the likes of Bernard Manning and Mike Reid.
“There was a great sense of camaraderie,” says Jim. “We were all just trying to make a living. There was an element of rivalry but it was healthy. We enjoyed watching our mates succeed.”
That resulted in Jim being offered the opportunity to host a new gameshow Bullseye. “They must have seen me on a good night,” quips Jim. “That first series of Bullseye I was terrible. I must have set light entertainment back 20 years I was that bad. I was looking for lights on cameras like a demented shepherd but thank God they stuck with me and I got a little bit better.
“It wasn’t because I liked darts that they asked me to do Bullseye. I was a worse darts player than I was a compere but that lack of sophistication was in my favour. Audiences realised I was fallible and it made the show accessible. “The working classes in particular took to Bullseye and I had great fun making the programme. I had the same crew for 16 years. The show had a certain naivety. When I look back at one or two of the early contestants they didn’t know who came second in the last war.”
But he sticks up for one aspect of the show: those much-derided prizes. “Of their day they weren’t that bad. They gave away the odd car along with 500 speedboats – they were worth a fair few quid in those days,” he insists loyally, before confessing: “We used to buy back the prizes for the cost price if the contestants didn’t want them.”
Jim came up with most of the legendary catchphrases, including another warning that if players gambled and lost at the conclusion of the programme all they would receive was BFH: Bus Fare Home.
Sadly a new programme controller at Central TV took the decision to axe Bullseye in 1996. Jim says: “He shall remain nameless. It was a big mistake, though the ratings had dropped. I was terribly disappointed but grateful it ran for so long.”
Later Jim took a version of Bullseye on the road, went back on the comedy circuit and presented radio shows. Today he continues to enjoy after-dinner speaking and gives lectures about his varied life and career in entertainment.
Phyllis, 79, drives him to each event and he credits her for supporting him through thick and thin during 58 years of marriage. They have two grown-up children, Peter and Susan, and two grandchildren.
“Phyllis is absolutely indispensable and indestructible,” says Jim. “I was often away from home working in the clubs, then filming Bullseye, so I wasn’t a great father. She held the family together, giving up teaching when we had our first child. When I packed in teaching she just went with it.
“It was a gamble to give up a safe salary and a so-called ‘proper job’ but she never cast any doubt on my ability to succeed in stand-up comedy. The secret of a long marriage is to marry someone like Phyllis.”
JIM, who is planning a celebration in a Lake District pub with about 30 friends from outside show business to mark turning 80 tomorrow, has suffered three strokes. The latest in November 2014 has left him walking with the aid of a stick and slightly affected his speech.
He limits the amount of work he takes on but admits that he would be tempted should an offer arise to revive Bullseye for just one more series.
“Oh, aye, I’d probably grab my stick and walk down there. I’d also enjoy a little cameo in Coronation Street. I suppose it’s nice to feel wanted when you are an entertainer. I’d quite like the phone to ring now and again.
“But I’m one of the lucky ones really, to have kept going for so long in this business.”
Jim admits that, Bradley Walsh apart, he seldom finds modern stand-up comics funny and there’s not much that tickles him in terms of TV comedy programmes.
“I’m of the old school,” he says. “To be honest you could call me bitter!”
So does he still tune in to repeats of Bullseye for old times’ sake?
“Only when I’ve had a drink,” chuckles Jim who wrote his autobiography called Right Place, Right Time a few years ago. “I still look on the show with great affection and so does my accountant.”
It’s good to know that after all these years Jim Bowen still loves a bit of Bully.