Cannon and Ball appeared together on 3rd July 2008, talking about their appearance in Big Bad Mouse and The Best of British Variety tour.
The Loose Women presenters were Jackie Brambles, Lynda Bellingham, Zoe Tyler and Jane McDonald.
Jackie: Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball.
Tommy: You’re looking belting
Lynda: (To Bobby) Sit down and be a good boy
Tommy: (to Bobby) Behave yourself.
Bobby (to Lynda): I can’t believe you’re 60.
Lynda: Oh shut up
Tommy: I can’t
Bobby: You look fantastic.
Tommy: You look fantastic. (to Zoe) And I can’t believe you’re 45.
Bobby: And you can’t see the marks either
Jackie: May I be so bold as to ask how old do you feel?
Tommy: Me? A young man. I feel young. Yeah, I think age is a number.
Jackie: Do you think it’s all in your head?
Tommy: Yeah, it’s all up here.
Bobby: Can I say summat. Can I ask you something. How old do you think Tommy is?
Zoe: He’s got nice skin.
Bobby: How old?
Tommy: Oh beautiful skin.
Bobby: 70 year old
Tommy: 70 (Applause from audience)
Jackie: And you are.
Bobby: 56 (laughter)
Tommy: In his dreams
?: You little liar
Bobby: I’m 64.
Jackie: And you’re both working as much as ever
Bobby: Yeah
Tommy: Yeah, more than ever actually
Jackie: Have you not slowed down at all.
Lynda: Well you’ve got young children, you can’t afford to retire
Tommy: I know, I can’t, you’re right
Bobby: I can, but I’ve got to work for him (to Lynda) You look fantastic
Lynda: Oh don’t say that
Bobby: Give up, you can’t see any marks behind her ears or anything
Lynda: Give up
Jackie: Now, he’s only sucking up to you because you’re now thespians.
Lynda: How is it for you darlings
Tommy: It’s very nice, sweetie
Lynda: Walking the boards
Tommy: Yes, walking the boards, all that luvvie, luvvie stuff
Lynda: Tiring though
Tommy: Yeah, tiring. But yeah, it’s great. It’s a great play, we’re enjoying it
Jackie: I cannot imagine what it must be like to direct you two. And get you to stick to lines.
Bobby: The beauty of the play is, people say, oh, you’re doing a play, you’ve gotta play the characters. The trouble is in this play we’re allowed to ad-lib.
Tommy: Unfortunately for the rest of the cast, they’re not. So you understand that they are.
Lynda: Oh that must be a nightmare with you two. I’d be going last bus, last bus, come on.
Bobby: So we can come out of the play and we do. We go out of the play and talk to the audience and then come back into the play.
?: Do you
Tommy: Yeah we do, it’s amazing.
Bobby: It’s just a riot.
Jackie: Tell us about the play. It was around in about in the 1970s originally, wasn’t it?
Tommy: Yeah. Eric Sykes. Jimmy Edwards.
Jackie: What’s the story and who do you play?
Tommy: Well I play Jimmy Edwards part, Mr. Price Hargreaves and Bob plays Mr Bloom. Bernard Bloom. He’s the leading romantic in this one… And I’m the nasty one in it
Jackie: And what’s the story.
Tommy: It’s just… there isn’t a story, it’s a mess. It’s a mess.
Bobby: It’s set in a northern biscuit factory, right. And there’s a girl being chased across Manchester common by this man. And she suddenly thinks it’s me and I’m very timid and suddenly it turns all the women on and they start to come on to me. So I start to believe it and I love it. And at the end, she says it’s not him, so that’s as simple and it is.
Tommy: And that’s the sort of storyline.
Jackie: And are you touring it everywhere? All around the…
Tommy: Yeah, we’re touring everywhere. We’re finishing in Eastbourne aren’t we?
Bobby: We’ve got Blackpool next
Tommy: Blackpool next, with it in Blackpool yeah
Lynda: You live there don’t you? You live in Blackpool?
Tommy: Bob does,
Lynda: Are you doing another tour?
Bobby: We finish that and then we do a variety tour, who’s been on here with The Krankies.
Tommy: Best of British Variety. We’re bringing it back for you.
Jackie: Isn’t it you’ve only got five days off between the end of the play and the start of the…
Tommy: Yeah, we’ve got five days and then we start the 22 date tour as well, yeah.
Lynda: That’s madness
Jackie: You are bonkers, aren’t you?
Bobby: I’ll tell you a lovely story. Frank Carson lives in Blackpool. I live in Lytham St. Annes which is 4 miles out of there. They offered Frank the tour of the Variety Tour and he says no, I’m too old to be going up and down the country. He said Who’s on the bill? They said, oh, we’ve got the Krankies. Nah nah. He said Brotherhood of Man. No, no, no, no. Jimmy Cricket. No, no. Cannon and Ball. Cannon and Ball? Yeah. He said I’ll do it. I’ve got a lift.
Tommy: So he’s stuck with Frank
Bobby: Stuck with Frank
Tommy: All the tour he’s stuck with him.
Bobby: I’ll pick him up and drop him off. But he never stops does he? He never stops, Frank.
Jackie: Listen, we were talking earlier about rituals, you know, the tennis stars have their rituals, and Jane’s got some backstage before her shows. What about you guys? Do you demand certain things in your dressing rooms. Do you have certain things you do before you go on.
Tommy: No, no. Because I got into trouble up in Scotland in the heydays, we went into this dressing room in the theatre and the theatre, the floor was absolutely filthy. And I said you couldn’t get me a little piece of carpet so when I put my trousers on, you know they won’t catch all the dirt. They didn’t get me the piece of carpet neither and I put the trousers on. The following day I was headlines ‘Tommy Cannon demands Wilton Carpet in his dressing room’.
Bobby: So I phoned them up and said that’s right.
Tommy: So no we don’t
Bobby: We don’t have anything like that. (To Jane) I’ve heard about you having these bottles and all that why? Why though?
Jane: Because I can. No, no, I like…
Bobby: You’re looking well you know. Yyou’re looking really well. You’re looking fantastic. You’re looking great (to Lynda) Not as good as you. But then again you’re older. But listen
Tommy: And it will get better for you, don’t worry.
Jane: We’ve been talking about relationships. Do you tell each other everything or would you advise him on a partner or vice versa?
Bobby: If, yeah, I would if Tommy got with somebody. Well, he’s with somebody he’s very happy like I am, in the old days if he got somebody that I didn’t think were right I’d say to him she’s a bit of a dog or something…
Tommy: And then he’d take her out
Bobby: I would. I’d say she’s not right for you. Tom.
Zoe: I’ve just gotta say to you, your fan base must be huge because I took my, he was five, last year, took him to see you guys in panto and he just, I’ve never seen him laugh so much, he loves you two.
Tommy: Lovely. Fabulous.
Bobby: Oh fantastic.
Zoe: I just needed to tell you that.
Tommy: Thank you very much.
Bobby: Thank you. Yeah, thank you.
Lynda: I think you’re rubbish, but he…
You because he loves you.
Jackie: So it does seem that there is kind of a revival movement afoot for, you know, great British variety coming back.
Bobby: Yeah, well, you know we’ve took this out and it’s selling out. ‘Cause people, I think, want variety back, and we don’t get it on television.
Jackie: Well, we’d love to have you back here anytime. Thank you guys. Cannon and Ball.
Tommy: Thank you very much
Bobby: Thank you
