‘I nearly died mid-stunt. I had to stagger off with a smile’
Crackerjack!’s return must have all the barmy chaos of the original, Michael Aspel tells Jan Etherington
‘It’s Friday, it’s five o’clock, it’s… Crackerjack!” The Golders Green Hippodrome erupts in cheers as Michael Aspel strolls on stage to host the live mayhem that, for youngsters in the Sixties and Seventies, was the highlight of the TV week.
“Gosh, it was noisy… 750 Brownies!” recalls 86-year-old Aspel from the Surrey home he shares with Irene Clarke, his partner of 25 years. “But children were easily quietened then. It was still a time when they listened to grown-ups.”
Last week, the BBC announced
Crackerjack! would return, albeit “revitalised for today’s generation”. Aspel admitted: “I’m not really in favour of remakes but I wish them luck. But if it doesn’t have that same barmy chaos, then they shouldn’t call it Crackerjack! Original shows often return as a pale shadow, without the characters that made it a hit.”
For those too young to remember,
Crackerjack! was a mix of rowdy team games and prize quizzes interspersed with short comic skits and daredevillish sketches. It was an antidote to sedate Blue Peter.
“It was sheer fun, doing such silly things and getting paid for it. But it could be quite dangerous – some of the things we got up to would never get past health and safety today. In one sketch, Peter Glaze was painting a fence and someone threw the creosote over his face. He was in terrible pain.” But the show went on.
With little time to rehearse, the slapstick element often came from things that went wrong – and the audience, Aspel says, “thought it was deliberate and hilarious”. But the zany anarchy of Crackerjack! is the reason people still recall it with such fondness. “I played a policeman in one sketch and improvised by pulling out a notebook and licking my pencil every 10 seconds. Years later, this rather intimidating ex-cop loomed over me and said: ‘Twenty-four years in the force and I never found the need to lick a pencil…’”
Originally launched in 1955, the show’s first host was Eamonn Andrews, who invented the famous “Double or Drop” game, in which contestants were asked questions and for every wrong answer they were handed a cabbage. Leslie Crowther followed Eamonn and Ed “Stewpot” Stewart followed Michael, with Stu Francis as the last presenter, before it was axed in 1985 for being “dated”.
The Crackerjack! pencil was the ultimate prize. “An amulet!” Michael laughs. “I was once asked by a senior BBC producer if I could get one for his daughter. I said no. You had to win one, you couldn’t just hand them out.”
Aspel fronted Crackerjack!
between 1968 and 1974 and for his final show they prepared a huge “custard pie”, which was an indoor pool filled with foam. “I was hurled in, at an acute angle. The foam was no cushion and I hit the hard base of the pool. I was completely dazed. I thought: ‘I can’t die on TV’, so I staggered out with a smile. Later, I went to hospital and I’d broken my wrist. The BBC decided I’d thrown myself in ‘deliberately’ and gave me £100 compensation.”
He also hosted Ask Aspel (a sort-of
Points of View for children), and Child’s Play, a family game show in which adult contestants had to guess words based on the definitions given by youngsters. Later, he followed again in Eamonn Andrews’s footsteps – “I’m the takeover kid” – and took the reins of This Is Your Life.
Now that is one show that could never come back, he says, dolefully. “We know too much about celebrities now. You don’t need the Big Red Book when you have a small app. But at the time, it was terrific to surprise people.”
Perhaps his most notorious role was as 14-time compère of the annual Miss World contest. He was at the mic in 1970 when women’s libbers invaded the stage and pelted attendees with flour bombs. “And for all the disdain it attracts now, it was very proper. No hint of sexual inappropriateness then. Except one contestant who became very attached to me.”
So how did he deal with what could have become his Metoo moment? “It was awkward. We rarely think of men being on the receiving end of harassment. So I, erm, tried to avoid her. I mumbled. Rather like I am now.”
With his dry, self-deprecating wit and unflappability, Aspel remains very affable. He charms everyone he meets because, truth be told, he’s still a bit of a heart-throb. And, despite his age, he can’t resist the allure of a television studio. “I like the idea of Strictly,” he says, “I’ve always fancied myself a dancer – although not so much now, perhaps, with only one decent hip.”
With a return to Crackerjack! out of the question, who would he nominate to be the next presenter?
“A genial headmaster type, someone who has empathy and is encouraging and warm. I’m very impressed with the presenter of
Pointless, Alexander Armstrong. He’s calm, amused and quietly enthusiastic.”
Now, who does that remind you of?