The Stage

Malcolm Hardee

Published Tuesday 8 February 2005 at 11:35

Comedian and promoter Malcolm Hardee, whose body was found in the River Thames at Rotherhithe in south east London on Wednesday, February 2, two days after he was reported missing by friends, was widely regarded among the stand-up fraternity as one of the godfathers of alternative comedy. He died on January 31, 2005 after falling from his dinghy while travelling between his houseboat and the Wibbly Wobbly, a floating pub he owned.

Hardee, who had just turned 55, ran and compered the notorious Tunnel comedy club near Blackwell, London, from the mid-eighties and, more recently, Up the Creek in Greenwich. And although he never leapt to the front rank of fame himself, he helped launch and nurture the careers of literally thousands of stand-up comedians, including Jo Brand, Paul Merton, Harry Enfield and Frank Skinner.

But much more than that, Hardee was a larger than life character whose ribald, sometimes vulgar behaviour and risque pranks were legendary. He had been a highly visible and much-loved fixture of the London comedy circuit and Edinburgh and Glastonbury festivals for more than 20 years.

Hardee was born in Lewisham, south London, on January 5, 1950, the eldest son of Frank Hardee, a Thames tug-boat worker. He was in an orphanage until the age of two while his mother Joan was treated for tuberculosis. Hardee was taught at, and expelled from, three south east London schools before drifting into petty crime and spending time in numerous detention centres for, among other things, burgling a pawnbrokers and setting fire to his Sunday school piano, one of which he escaped from disguised as a monk. In the late sixties he became a mobile DJ by the name of Wolf G Hardee before being jailed for various offences, including cheque fraud, escaping custody and, notably, for stealing a Cabinet minister’s Rolls-Royce.

On his release in 1977 he teamed up with comedian Martin Soan to form The Greatest Show on Legs, an adult Punch and Judy act. The pair toured the West Country before landing a regular spot at the Tramshed club in Woolwich, where they appeared with up and coming comics like Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson. They were among the first wave of comics to play The Comedy Store when it opened in Soho in 1979 and featured on The Tube and at Montreal’s Just for Laughs comedy festival. But their most high-profile appearance was on Chris Tarrant’s OTT, the adult successor to Tizwas, where they performed their naked balloon dance, much to the disgust of Mary Whitehouse.

Hardee was an unmissable presence at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and always ensured he appeared first in the official programme by calling his shows Aaaaaaargh. His most famous prank, however, was driving a tractor, nude save for his trademark black-rimmed glasses, through the next-door tent where playwright Eric Bogosian was performing his one-man show. He also once successfully submitted a rave review of his own show to The Scotsman under the name of one of their own reviewers, William Cook.

He opened the Tunnel in 1984, which soon acquired a fearsome reputation for hecklers, often goaded by Hardee, who made a habit of urinating into punter’s drinks if they fell asleep. In his dual role of compere, Hardee would often do impressions with his genitals, notably of Charles de Gaulle, long before Puppetry of the Penis. But he also managed up and coming acts, including Jerry Sadowitz and Vic Reeves, worked as tour manager for Jools Holland and twice stood for parliament in Greenwich - the first time, in 1987, for the Rainbow Alliance Beer, Fags and Skittles Party and the second time to get a free mail shot for his club Up the Creek, which he opened in 1991.

He had a handful of bit-part acting roles on television, where he was sometimes credited as Malcolm Hardie, including an episode of the first Blackadder series and cameos in The Comic Strip Presents series. But his most substantial role came as ‘Malcolm’ the driver in Channel 4’s Jo Brand - Like It or Lump It, a fictionalised account of life on the road with Brand, a former girlfriend of Hardee’s, during her 1997 British tour.

He wrote his autobiography I Stole Freddie Mercury’s Birthday Cake with John Fleming in 1996 - the title came from the incident in 1986 when Hardee pinched the cake from the Queen singer’s 40th birthday celebrations and gave it to a nearby retirement home. In 2003 he published Sit-Down Comedy - Stand-Ups Swap the Stage for the Page, a collection of short stories co-edited with Fleming from comics such as Dominic Holland, Arthur Smith and Stewart Lee.

In recent years he had passed on control of Up the Creek and in November 2001 opened the Wibbly Wobbley on a converted barge in Greenland Dock, Rotherhithe, opposite his houseboat. It was an area in which he had lived happily for most of his life.

He leaves his wife Jane and son Frank and daughter Poppy from a previous relationship.

Chris Bartlett