An history & obituary
by Dorian Flenk's son: Basil "young man" Flenks.
Hello, yes.
2012
My daddy Dorian died.
The Titanic of satirical and pun-centered comedy hit his metaphorical iceberg (death) on the second day of January (2/1/2012 or 1/2/2012 if you’ve got Americans). This huge ocean-liner of mirth (Dorian Flenk) sank with no passengers (jokes) still alive. The life-boats had been monkeyed with I suspect too. And the hand-rails.
My Daddy Dorian died dead. I took the phone at about lunchtimes that fete-full day. I was taking a tour of local fetes and fairs in the Plymouth area at the time but put my plans on hold so to have a good hard cry. My Daddy’s death was felt as a punch in the funny tummy. How did he come from, this maverick gent, what were they and when did he stop it? Details following as go back in time to:
1928
Dorian ‘Sunshine’ Flenk was born on April the first (1/04) 1928 (1/04/1928) to a family of travelling circus type gypsy peoples. He was literally born a wandering star. His father, Todd “Skippy” Flenk, was a lion-tamer who spent his free time. His mother Katy “Beardface” Riley had a purely administrative role at the circus.
1940
Dorian remains one of the few people known to have run away from the circus, rather than towards it, which he did (run away) on Christmas Eve 1940. He hated the fact that there was nothing particularly freakish about him and the silence which greeted him everytime he sat down at the bi-weekly “freaky-suppers” held by his hand infuriated him. He ran to the only place; Londons. He spent the next two years telling blue jokes as a busboy on a bus as a boy, and considerably raised the morale (if not the morals) of London’s war-time bus fans.
1942
In 1942, after having his talent spotted by (not yet a Dame) white-cliff botherer Vera Lynn on a number 56 to Islington, Dorian was sent to entertain the troops in Egypt. He is 14 years of age. On his first night there he went out for drinkings in a bar called Cairo Jack’s. It is here that he saw a short, but side-splitting set of comedies by two funny men, whose act, “Two Funny Men” was very funny. He approached the two funny men after the show and found out that they had names (one each): Barry Bathwater and Dave (David) Bacon. The two men and younger boy chatted long into nights (a common sight in Egypt at that time), forging lifelong friendships as they did so. Dorian saw huge and potential in Bacon and Bathwater (as he quickly renamed them) and helped them develop one of their many, many, many Hitler-based sketches into a full blown satire revue “Please Don’t Put It In Mine Mr Hipler”, where Bacon (or was it Bathwater?) first used his now legendary catchphrase “Don’t put it in mine please Mr Hipler.”
1945
War won and back in London, Dorian (now managing the hapless duo) managed to wangle a slot for them on the BBC Home Service where they featured in an early evening radio show aptly titled “Bacon & Bathwater's Half Hour Teatime Laugh-Up” showcasing their talent for hilarious phone call pranks and other amusing doings. The show lasts for six episodes before being dropped like a hot egg by the BBC after Bathwater (or was it Bacon?) used the ’c’ word (courting) live on air. Even though it was not his fault, Dorian resigns as manager of B&B. The pair decide to set up business in the shoe hole repairing business and Dorian leaves London with his head and some hands.
1950
As the new decade dawnings, things are looking up for Dorian, who graduated from Cambridge University with a first in Applied Wordplay and published his hugely influential thesis on funny entitled ‘The Playground of the Absurd’.
1953
Back down from Cambridge, Dorian did cast a spell on theatre land with his first play ‘Roar of the Greasepaint - Smell of the Crowd’. Hailed in some quarters as the “old-faced Joe Orton”.
1957
Following this success, Dorian is approached by two men with red faces. These men are Bacon and Bathwater, but why are their faces all redly? Their faces are all redly because they’ve made a right pig’s shower of a go at having any success at all at repairing the holes in shoes. They’ve done screwed it all right up. Dorian decides to flex some of his newly grown ‘entertainment muscles’ and hooks B&B up with Johnny Heavyfeather, a friend of Dorian's from Cambridge who had recently been put in charge of Associated-Rediffusion, a young independent television channel for Londoners who weren’t clever enough for the watching of BBC. Their bid to get their faces known as well as their voices was the Saturday early evening variety television show “Bacon and Bathwater’s Hour Long Suppertime Giggle Box.” This was axed before being aired. The reasons for this were two fold: firstly, the title (and show) were too long. Secondly the kitchenware shops of London (predominantly Divertimenti, Pages and Leon Jaeggi) joined forces to take out a court injunction banning Bacon & Bathwater from being within 50 feets of a telephone or a kitchenware shop.
No remaining footage from the B&B’s H-L ST GB has ever been found, although some of the prank calls from this time (and from the earlier radio shows) have recently been unearthed - these prank phone call recordings are the only evidence of Bacon & Bathwater's existence, unless some more are found one day in the Onion Records archives.
1960
Dorian decided to further crack the entertainment nut, and did so founded Reacharound Sounds and Smiles in June 1960. Was this more of a nut than people were able to chew off? Or him – could he chew off that much of this pop-music nut without getting talent in his teeth ? Timeingly tellingtons (as Dad might say were he not dead).
Throughout the ‘singing sixties’ my dad had a hand in every pie it was worth putting your hand in. He managed to manage a number of musical artists; his roster included such greats as The Gentleman Johnny Forbes (a huge influence on Scott Walker) and What Time Do You Call This? (a Jewish acapella troupe).
1964
Dorian and Johnny Heavyfeather were was asked to compere the 1964 Royal Variety Performance, but disaster was only round the corner and down a bit. Whilst introducing The Beatles, Heavyfeather got a bit carried away with the lovable moptops and offers to give them all a piggy back ride around the stage, much to the mirth of the audience. Unfortunately he is crushed to death as he attempts a comedy walk with all four Beatles on his back and dies, all squashed, in front of the Queen and the millions of viewers watching at home. John Lennon tries to make light of the incident by impersonating a spastic but the audience remain silent. With the money Heavyfeather leaves him in his will, Flenk buys a nightclub in London’s trendy Beak Street (round the corner and down a bit from the as yet discovered Carnaby Street). He names it Cairo Jack’s, in memory of the bar in Egypt where he and B&B first met.
1965
After a drunken night’s drinking with David Frost, Flenk had a breakfast epiphany. He made up his mind to host his first IDIOTICA satire night at Cairo Jack’s.
Night after night saw the good and the great roll up, with their roll ups, wearing Rolexes, in their Rollers. On any evening given you might find, if you looked, Lulu, or Cilla Black, or Tarbuck, or Sellers – even, on one night in the summer of 69, Bryan Adams. A plethora of stars with one thing in common; a grin on their face(s). IDIOTICA (Idders) served as a kindly breeding ground for comics coming up. Such names as Kitty Katsburg, Bongo Ben, James Fastly and Barry Michaelmore would not be spoken out loud in the hushed tones they now are when you say their names if it hadn’t been for Idders (IDIOTICA).
Many people have suggested that IDIOTICA was merely copying the exact idea and riding on the tails of some coats from Peter Cook’s "Establishment" which had been around the corner and down a bit but but that had closed the year before, but Dorian really gave no monkeys as he said that Cook had stolen the idea from him in the first places.
1966
Following a misjudged "gollywog" song, Flenk’s audience deserted him and went round the corner and down a bit to somewhere else. Dorian went up to his room to have a huff and a think about what to do next…
1967
It was the Summer of Love and a thought came to Dorian in his head - it was time to branch out his funny twigs. A comedy magazine was just what the world needed and Dorian was just the man to hand it to them, in spades, but not “on” spades - the idea was considered just too tool heavy. Dorian needed help with this project and couldn’t ask Johnny Heavyfeather because he was dead (Johnny was dead, not Dorian). Who could he ask? Joshua Fox - that’s who. Who?
An upstanding stand-up who took my dad’s eye from him in April of 1966 was a chap called Joshua Fox and that’s the Joshua Fox we’re talking about here. He had come up from Portsmouth (where he was a trainee trainee) to try his hands, and thought he’d give it a go at ‘doing the funnies, mummy’ (his words). His combination of barbed satire and Hawaian shirts singlehandedly swung into motion the ‘Tropically Topical” genre of comedy which we can still see today, with acts doing it like what he did then. They set up an office on Beak Street for their new mag.
The Idiotica office sat atop Cairo Jack’s and comprised one rooms. But what a rooms! Dad sat in one corner smoking his pipe while Joshua busied himself silly at his typewriter in the other. There may have been more than two corners, but I was very young when I saw the office (once) and I can only remember the two.
Idiotica became the smash hit ‘funny mag’ of the 1970s, no doubt causing Private’s Eye and Punching a sleepless or two.
1971
Dorian took a well earned holiday in 1971 and walked to Cornwall. He was so exhausted when he got there, he decided to stay for a month and moved into a B and B (bed and breakfast; not, as is commonly thought, Bacon and Bathwater) in (or Bradford and Bingley) the idle lick village of Gweek.http://www.cornwalls.co.uk/Gweek-village.htm
Here he met a comely chambermaid named Patsy and they got on. After a time, they got ‘it’ on and climbed into a bed for sexy. The two people were soon head over in loves and my Daddy proposed some toast one morning. After the toast, my Daddy proposed a toast over the toast. “Here’s to toast” he said. He then proposed marriage all over the toast. They returned to London in a green car. The marriage took place at Marylebone and Joshua Fox sang a Stevie Wonder song at them.
1972
I was born about nine months later in 1972, in a hospital, from out of a womb. Proud parents Dorian and Patsy (or “Pasty” – my Dad called my Mum “Pasty”, as in his Cornish “Pasty” – a joke which may have led to their eventual divorce) paraded yours truly around Soho in a pram (me).
As I grew upwards in the remaining 70s and the following 80s I saw little of my Dad’s work. I wasn’t let into the Idiotica office because the one times I’d been in there (once) I’d been scared by a man’s and had screamed out loud. One of the many rules at Idiotica was NO SCREAMING ALOUD ALLOWED. I did get to nodding terms with a few of the regular writers however and have extremely fond memories of Lucas Snout and Solomon Mandrake having fun with me.
1990s
The 1990s were hard on pun-based, satire-faced self-published magazines as the internets moved in and set up their shops. Bill was spiralling and there was not inconsiderable heat from the men of tax. Dorian was trying to introduce ends to each other, but they wouldn’t agree to meet. He was bust.
1998
On 06/11/1998 my father ran away from yet another circus. He ran himself down to Gweek, so for to sort his head outs. I’d spent much of this difficult period away at boarding schools and had missed out on my parents’ divorce, although Dad had informed me, in postcard form, that they had parted ways. It was still shockingly that I heard the news of the dismounting of Idiotica and the plight/flight of my dear old Dad. I cycled to Gweek the moment I heard of the troubles (not the Irish ones) to find Dorian a broken. There were two options open to me: one was to sort out my Dad’s problems by lending him some money, taking him back to London and hooking him up with a web- savvy friend of mine (in order to create a world-beating comedy website and restore his reputation), and I can’t remember the other option.
Back in the Smokes we quickly started, with the help of said friend William Neilson, to turn Dorian’s comedy gold into a www thing. Idiotica.co.uk ran the length of it, quickly, and grew into an award- winning joketastic heavyweight (in the minor league of British Onion knock-offs). It was much funnier than my previous quip suggests however, and made some heads line. Daddy was ecstatic and bought himself.
Dark clouds brooded overhead though, and trouble loomed above (same thing). Legal action was actioned by acting legal-eagle fellows representing both the rubbish London newspaper The Evening Standard (“This is London”? – we know it’s London you fools) and the now dead (but not then) turkey “Overlord” Bernard Matthews. Panic ensued and hankies were out as Dorian pulled the plugs out from under the feet of his empire, making it fall on its knees hard. A kind of chatroom version of his dream lasted for a while, of Idiotica (the dream I was talking about), which was very good fun indeed for everyone involved, but this too perished to the depths.
Out of some desperation he called on his old drinking partner Bruce Hyman. Bruce was known in some circles as a disbarred barrister and in some others as a radio producer. Bruce's advise was to "do some radio Dorian, it's the future!" Dorian and team set to work, working their magic up into an Idiotica radio show. When they played then pilot to Bruce he fell off his chair and said he'd get it on the Beeb. He did, but for one episode only. It was axed shortly.
Daddy Dorian retreated to Gweek following the demise of Idiotica. I would visit him occasionaly, on occasion, and we would discuss his ‘glorious days’ over a couple of cans of Sprite, sometimes with his “friend” Ted, sometimes without his friend “Ted”. He was very proud of the legacy of laughs he’d be leaving behind and would often mumble about it.
2012
“If there’s just one thing...” he said to me, as I held his hand the day before he died,
“If there’s just one thing...” – there was no more. I’d fallen asleep.
Dorian Flenk was driving his mobility scooter when he was hit by an ice-cream van in the early hours of the second of January 2012. The ice-cream man leaped out of his vehicle and asked Dorian if he was okay. The reply?
“Hello, no”.
