Chic Murray

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Lost scripts reveal the genius of Chic Murray’ s comedy writing
Thanks to a new book, future generations can admire the man who inspired Billy Connolly
Comedian Chic Murray's children Annabelle Meredith and Douglas Murray
Joan McAlpine

The actor Alex Norton, now best known for his role as a detective in Taggart, tells a story that best illustrates how Chic Murray shaped the way Scotland enjoys itself. The two men were filming in Fingal’s Cave on Staffa, the volcanic rock that lies in the treacherous waters off the island of Mull. It was the 1970s they had booked into a hotel the night before filming and decided to have a drink in the bar.

Norton describes their entrance as resembling the scene from a cowboy movie: the crowded bar went silent as every head swivelled in Murray’s direction. “There was a long, tense pause as Chic stood there, bunnet on head, suitcase in hand, eyeing the locals eyeing him.” The stand-off was broken when a trawlerman in oilskins and gumboots rose slowly to his feet and spoke. “I was walking down the street,” he said. “Well, I knew I was walking down the street because I could see the bottom of the street coming towards me.”

This was, of course, one of the most famous lines from Murray’s rich repertoire. When the fisherman sat down, every local took turns to perform their favourite Chic Murray one-liner, mimicking, with various degrees of success, their hero’s deadpan delivery. “I bumped into the wife. I said, ‘Hello, dear.’ I often call her dear. She’s got two horns sticking out of her head.”

Another islander then offered: “There was an awful clever wee thing about waist-height for opening the door. They called it a handle. I suppose if it had been lower they would have called it a footle.” And so it went on. Murray acknowledged his acolytes “with a few gracious nods”. Norton remembers thinking the scene was as absurd as the jokes: “It was unlikely I would ever again find myself in a more surreal scenario than standing next to Chic Murray in a Hebridean bar full of Chic Murray impersonators.”

Scotland is still full of Chic Murray impersonators, more than 20 years after his death in 1985. Many of his admirers will not have seen his act . Yet his TV and radio appearances and live variety shows from the 1930s to the 1960s have somehow seeped into the collective memory. Murray gave us the wind-up, the unlikely story, at which he excelled in real life as well as on stage. His sense of the absurd is now commonplace in comedy clubs; then it was trailblazing: “There’s a new slimming course just out where they remove all your bones. Not only do you weigh less, but you also look so much more relaxed.” He played with language in a manner at once brilliant and hopelessly silly: “You know what they say about stamp collecting? Philately will get you nowhere.”

These routines would have been lost for ever, if left to the untender mercies of the electronic media — many of his television and radio tapes work were scrubbed, scandalously, after their first airing. Fortunately, his family — his wife, Maidie, and children, Douglas and Annabelle — were more careful. They preserved the crumpled paper bags, old cigarette packets and beer mats on which Murray scribbled his hilarious observations.

He spent his formative years watching WC Fields in matinees at a cinema in Greenock. If you have never seen Murray perform — and many people under the age of 50 won’t have — imagine Fields’s droll delivery with Connolly’s Glaswegian mischievousness. Then read the scripts in Just Daft: The Chic Murray Story. This is a Christmas coffee-table book that brings Murray into the nostalgic, retrocentric 21st century. As well as never-before published photographs, there is treasured ephemera from the family archive: ticket stubs from the Empire, the certificate commemorating Murray and Maidie’s invitation to appear at the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium in 1956 (cancelled on the night due to the Suez crisis), a telegram from Harry Secombe wishing him well in his first London appearance, stills from his triumph as Bill Shankly in the play You’ll Never Walk Alone.

When he made his London West End debut at the Prince of Wales theatre in 1957, Harold Hobson of The Sunday Times, then the leading theatre critic, compared him to Proust and Beckett. Given his appeal to intellectuals as well as the man on the Rothesay seafront, it’s sad that Murray did not enjoy more global success.

He was signed by a big American agent, only for his champion to be killed in a car crash on the New Jersey turnpike. He did one television special for New Year — but the budget was tiny compared with those of Stanley Baxter and Morecambe and Wise and the show was a poor reflection of his talent. As Billy Connolly observes in the foreword to this book: “Broadcasters seemed a bit wary of him. His style was different, his timing was different, his subject matter was different.”

Just Daft: The Chic Murray Story by Robbie Grigor and Annabelle Meredith is published by Birlinn, £20

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Chic Murray’s finest ever one-liners
SCOTS comic Chic Murray is set to have the last laugh in this year's Christmas best-sellers list - from beyond the grave.
31st October 2009

The Greenock comedian's jokes have had generations of Scots, including celebrity fans Billy Connolly and Elaine C Smith, doubled up in laughter for the past 60 years. Now the late Gregory's Girl star's ultimate one-liners and comedy stories have been immortalised in pocket-sized book Funnyosities, by Robbie Grigor. SHELLEY MATHESON has a giggle at some of the comic's best jokes...

ON TIGHT ABERDONIANS...

My father was an Aberdonian and a more generous man you couldn't wish to meet. I have a gold watch that belonged to my father. He sold it to me on his deathbed, so I wrote him a cheque.

ON SCOTTISH MEN'S APPROACH TO WOMEN...

Y'know, darling, I still believe our love can last to the end of time. There's still 15 minutes each way to play before they go to a penalty shoot-out.

ON AMERICAN TOURISTS...

An American tourist saw Union Jacks for sale and said: "Aw, how cute are they? "Give me six please, and do you have them in any other colours?"

ON MEN IN KILTS...

I wore my kilt down south in enemy-held territory when I was approached by the usual inquisitive young lady who wanted to know the age-old secret. I thought: "Here we go again!" She said: "Pardon me, Mr Murray, but my friends and I would like to know what is worn under the kilt?" I said: "Madam, nothing is worn. Everything is in fine working order."

ON WHISKY...

A case of your finest malt whisky, please. And two cases of assault and battery. Thank you.

ON BAGPIPES...

I took up the bagpipes once. I was away merrily marching round the room, when my wife came upstairs. "You'll have to do something about that noise," she said. What could I do? So I threw my shoes off and marched around in my stocking feet. Oh, you have to come and go in life.

ON OTHER SCOTTISH COMICS...

I have a lot of friends in the showbusiness world. Take Johnnie Beattie with whom I have a lot in common. We're both incredibly common.

Chic Murray's Funnyosities, by Robbie Grigor, is published by Birlinn, priced £6.99.