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"BUZZ HAWKINS DOES THE BRADSHAWS AN' ALL THAT!.. T.T.F.N."
FILMING: SATURDAY 31st July 2010
"All good things.." as they say. And in order to make way for the all new Bradshaws, Buzz is, right now, viewing film footage from various tours in order to put together a DVD with your favourite live sketches, routines and catchy choruses. We will be filming a special concert on Saturday 31st July 2010 with a live audience (it could be you) at Guide Bridge Theatre, Audenshaw, Manchester (where Buzz produced the first- ever Bradshaws theatre show).
Tickets are very limited and are available at a modest price (donated, with thanks, to GBT).
Telephone the box office on: 0161 330 8078 (open 7pm - 9pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday)
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OKAY, HAWKINS, LET'S SEE YOU DO IT LIVE!...by our Intrepid Reporter
Long before he became a nightbeat musician on the local radio station, Buzz Hawkins was a 'Git/Voc' on the clubland circuit, purely for the money, you understand? (Make a note: 'Git/Voc' is Concert Secretary speak for Guitar Vocalist). He also nursed aspirations to become a Com/Git/Voc (Comedy Guitar Vocalist).
And then the Bradshaws family walked into his life, bringing with them a pleasant kind of triple schizophrenia. So he was catapulted into the even greater unknown as the Man Behind The Bradshaws and he's been behind trying to catch up ever since. No such luck though.
Soon the funny family's fame was spreading like a rash on a bare bottom in a clump of nettles, and Buzz began to get lots of enquiries for him to do shows and concerts.
Actually that isn't quite true. The enquiries were for the Bradshaws to do shows and concerts. "I am the Bradshaws!" he cried. "Don't talk soft, there are three of them!" was the usual response.
So how could he put a figment of his imagination on the stage?... for that's what the Bradshaws were at first, just a figment, a strange and modest thought, a mental aberration, some convoluted memories, a few wayward radio waves. That seems hard to believe now because, as we all know, the Bradshaws are real people (and anyone who thinks otherwise is fictitious).
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Anyway, back to the question of how?
Firstly, consider this: the listeners had their own mental picture of how the family looked, or more usually how mam and dad looked - tall short, thin fat, specs no specs, small nose big nose, brunette blonde ginger, long hair short hair no hair, and a Lucky Bag-ful of other combinations.
Below: a sketch by Bradshaws fan Dave Hulson as he imagined the famous family.
So, fixing images to Alf and Audrey might alienate a lot of the fans. But the listeners' image of little Billy was not such a problem, as they imagined him quite simply normalish, smallish, fairish, and definately cutish.
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"I'll be a ventiloquist!" thunk Hawkins, and little Billy agreed "yeh, be a ventriklocrisp, huncle Buzz!", and the men in white coats watched from a distance.
But he soon found that all vent dolls looked really wooden. No surprise I suppose, seeing as they were made of wood. And, even worse, they all seemed to look like that nasty scary-film puppet 'Chucky' - and not exactly cutish!
Time to thunk again then, so brew up Audrey and don't forget the biscuits. So the biscuits dunked and the thunking clunked, and BH continued life as a clubland Com/Git/Voc (purely for the money you understand?), rolling his trousers up to deliver the now-expected Billy bits on cluttered clubland stages all over the world - well, all over the north of England anyway! |
Buzz Hawkins Mk1
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One day he popped round to his mam's for a natter and pulled a cute school photograph of himself aged seven or eight-ish from the family photo album.
He took it to an incredibly talented model-maker called Peter Minster who was beginning to work in latex (no, not wearing it, working in it) and after a lot of experimentation with plaster of paris, Araldite, knotted hankies, bent nails, frogs and snails and puppy dog tails, and after sending Buzz to Boots for some flesh coloured tights, eyelashes, and KY Jelly, and a right good looking-at by the shop assistants (he still doesn't know what the KY Jelly was for), they came up with an animatable boy wearing a woolley pullover knitted for him by his Hanty Pamela.
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Billy Bradshaw Mk1
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And then came Billy Bradshaw Mk 2...
as he appeared in the 1999 Guide Bridge Theatre pantomime Aladdin in which he sang 'it's hard to get to China on yer bogey'
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Billy Mk2 soon followed but with fair hair, chubbier cheeks, and bigger eyes and ears, and his expressions grew still cuter.
But these first two Billys, as gorgeous and as real as they both looked, were still a bit impractical for stage work.
They were operated mechanically with bicycle cables from behind, on a contraption not-unlike a railway signal box. It had separate wooden levers for each of the animatable features: eyes left and right, eye-lids up and down, right and left cheek up and down, mouth open closed, and head left and right. The cables had a maximum operation length of 11 ft so that meant that Buzz had to be directly behind, hidden by a curtain, on all-fours, and with a microphone held close to his mouth in a wire frame (as used by one-man bandsmen to hold their harmonicas). And in order to preserve the illusion, Billy had first to be put in place and then revealed, rather than brought on. Ah well, cancel the appearance at Middleton Dyers and Polishers Social Club. |
They began experimenting with the idea of employing electronic servos - the sort with joysticks as used by remote-controlled aeroplane enthusiasts (that's remote-controlled aeroplanes, not enthusiasts). It was looking promising, although progress was understandably slow.
And then BH got an offer he couldn't refuse - or understand!. In fact, whoever thought of the offer obviously didn't understand either, because they invited Buzz... erm, that is, they invited Billy... to provide the pre-match entertainment for an FA Cup Semi at Maine Road football ground - in the middle of the pitch! - to be continued SOON...
I.R.
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