Farewell to a showbiz legend: Mike Lodge, homesick star
MUCH-LOVED: Hull-born entertainer Mike Lodge, who died last month aged 77
With the recent passing of singer and comedian Mike Lodge, Hull has lost one of its brightest home-grown talents. Russ Litten reflects on the life of a reluctant local star
On the evening of Tuesday 4th May 1999 I took my seat along with 1,200 other people to enjoy an evening of comedy and song headlined by my friend Mike Lodge. I’d gotten to know Mike through my parents. I knew he had been the compere at BP Club and was held in high esteem among the artists and audiences of clubland, but until that night at New Theatre I had never really fully appreciated the full range and reach of his talent.
The Mike I knew from round my Mam’s was a gently shy and self-effacing man. But that night Mike Lodge owned that stage like a Las Vegas veteran. Backed by the sumptuous strings of the Andy Peacock Orchestra, he took the audience in the palm of his hand and led them through the Classic American Songbook via a glorious selection of show-stoppers, tear-jerkers, standards and foot-stompers. We laughed, we cried, we sang along – a community bound together by the music that moved through our friend up on the stage. When the final note was struck, the crowd rose to their feet as one and showered him with love.
Mike Lodge was born on 18th May, 1946 and passed away on the 22nd June of this year. I visited his wife Kath and we talked about Mike’s life in and out of the spotlight.
Where did you meet Mike?
“I met him at West Park Club. I was eighteen. It was the first time I’d ever been in a club. I went in with my friends. Mike was the act. He was 19. He was always a solo act. He was doing jazz. It was the sixties, but he wasn’t doing pop music. He loved The Beatles, but he was singing Mack The Knife. The kid who he was with was an old friend of mine, so we got introduced. We were only going out for ten months, then we got married. And we were married for 57 years.”
How did Mike get started in show business?
“Music ran in his family. His grandmother was a dancer, one of the original Tiller Girls. And her name was Henderson, and she was said to be related to Dickie Henderson, the compere of Sunday Night At The London Palladium. And he was originally from Hull. Mike’s Dad, Cyril, was a pianist in all the clubs. He used to take Mike when he was real little, into the clubs. And of course, people used to love seeing a little boy on stage singing.
“But when he was about ten the Francis Langford Singers came to one of the clubs on Hessle Road. It was an act that travelled all around the country, mainly a boy act, aged from about fourteen to twenty, and they used to go down a storm. Mike’s mother was in this club, and she went up to this Francis Langford afterwards and said, ‘I’ve got a son who can sing’. She went home and got Mike. The fella said, ‘Yeah, we can definitely use him, but I can’t take him at the age of ten. Bring him next year, I’ll be able to take him then’.
“So they were at the Palace Theatre on Anlaby Road the year after and Mike’s aunty took him down there and the fella said ‘Oh yes, I remember him, I can take him now’. And he put Mike in his car, took him to Manchester Street, where he lived, his mother packed him a case and waved him off, bye bye. The next night he was on stage in the Aston Hippodrome, Birmingham. All rehearsed up, eleven years old. His mother didn’t know where he was going. It would never be allowed now.”
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No, it wouldn’t. It seems incredible, really…
“Well, I suppose she was thinking, ‘my son might be famous’. So off he went at the age of eleven. And he was away for months. Staying in all these strange digs. He’d never seen Lux soap or indoor bathrooms. None of the family would hear from him. Nobody had a telephone in the house. He was just travelling in a converted mini-bus with all the other lads in the troop and Francis Langford.
“The first Christmas he was away, he spent it on his own in a boarding house. They did all the American bases. They did the theatres. It was just at the end of variety, and there were still big variety shows at the theatres. Worked with some top acts, all over Ireland, Scotland. There were no motorways. They were up and down the country from Southampton to Glasgow and back again.
“He’d do bits of telly, and was on The Archers once. Singing and acting. But nobody ever knew where they were. I just find it appalling, really. He came back about six months later, just for a few days, and then off they went again. Mike’s mother had to make excuses to the school. She said he was out of the country. He would go off for six-month spells. He might go back to school for a couple of weeks, or if he was somewhere for a long season, say Manchester or wherever, he would do a spell at a local school there.”
Did he earn good money?
“Nobody ever knew where the money went. I think Francis Langford sent Mike’s mother some money now and again, but Mike never knew how much he was supposed to be earning. He just got fed and watered and was given bits of pocket money. He loved being on the stage, but the rest of it … he used to find himself in strange towns, and he’d just walk about aimlessly.
“He was the youngest. He was the front guy, the lead, and he would do Al Jolson’s Mammie, get on his knees and cry and rip his shirt open. They loved it. He finally finished with them when he was sixteen. He was so home-sick. He just wanted to play football with the rest of the lads. And he’d had no life. I think that ruined him for the rest of his life.”
In what way?
“Because he never wanted to go away again. Touring, I mean. All through his life, people would say to him, ‘Why haven’t you made it big, Mike?’ But he knew he’d have to go away. And he hated it. The thought of being away anywhere, he just hated it. He wanted to be at home all the time. So I think that early experience ruined his ambition.
“So he came off the road at sixteen, but kept singing. In those days you had to join The Variety Artist’s Association in Hull if you wanted to work the clubs. He joined the army for a little while, but he was only in three months and got a medical discharge. And that’s when I met him.
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“He worked at Hull Brewery during the day and did the clubs every weekend. I used to go to all the gigs with him. Later, when our daughter Katrina was older, she would come and do the sound. His favourite song to perform was Mr Bojangles. That was the song everyone used to ask for. That was his closing song. He used to do songs from all the shows, and he had a really big range. Never had any formal training, never learnt to read music. He used to think that formal lessons could spoil your natural musical instincts.”
There was a marked difference in the way he was on and off stage…
“He wouldn’t go to gigs on his own. He used to get terrible stage fright. Absolutely crippling. He always said he had a switch. When he got onto the stage he flicked the switch and became Mike Lodge, the performer. He used to say, ‘I hope he’s still there when I put the switch on’. He was a very shy man off the stage. Not a show-off. Not in the slightest bit ambitious. He never really knew how good he was. He knew he could sing, and he could always tell a gag.
“His first residency was at BP club. That was were he expanded his act. He started this thing, the joke of the week. The audience loved it. Then it would get to two or three. In the end, he would be doing half singing, half comedy. You learn so much in residencies. After BP he went to Birkholme Country Club, where all the big stars went. He used to sit and observe. He learned stage presence and stage craft. He knew how to use that space, from left to right. You’ve got to watch the best to learn. He worked with some big names – Ken Dodd, Frankie Vaughan, Cannon and Ball. On a Saturday night we would all stay behind and have a laugh. Good times. Then he went back to the new BP.
“When he got near fifty, he said ‘I might have a go at going out again’. Going further afield. ‘But I can’t do it on my own’, he said. ‘You’ll have to come with me.’ And he was going to do the comedy as well, do it fifty-fifty. So he gave his notice in at BP Club, and they had to have his leaving do over two nights. There was over 700 people wanting to see him.
“Mike never had a manager or an agent. He never asked for a gig in his life. People would ask him to come and entertain. Agents used to ring him up all the time. One guy who we knew, this comedian from Liverpool, Willy Miller, asked Mike to play in Blackpool at a place called Talk Of The Coast. The compere there was a guy called Buddy Lee, who was the main man in Blackpool. He was off on his holidays so they wanted someone to to take over.
“They had three hotels and they asked Mike to play all three venues – three nights a week, a Tuesday, a Friday and a Saturday. So we used to go to Blackpool three times a week. And we came home every night. It was good if you worked Blackpool, it was the Las Vegas of the north. He would go further afield if people asked him. As long as he could get home on the night. We hardly ever stayed anywhere overnight. Mike was always in charge of his own destiny. He’d had his boyhood taken away from him. And he didn’t want that again. He didn’t want to end up walking about in Ipswich again.
“Mike’s last gig was in 2014 at Country Park [Hessle] and he said ‘That’s it now. Won’t it be lovely to have Saturday nights at home?’ We’d had enough nights out to last us a lifetime.”
Mike’s passing provoked a huge outpouring of love and respect on social media from people all across the city…
“It would never have occurred to him that he was a local celebrity. But that’s Hull isn’t it? We don’t get above ourselves or boast. But I think Mike knew he was loved.”
I cast my mind back to that night at Hull New Theatre and a hundred other nights before and since. I hear the roars of delight and the tsunami of applause and I see the spotlight shining down on Mike’s beaming smile and I think to myself, yes. Mike knew that he was loved.
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