Sykes travelled by train to Sheffield, and made his way to the Lyceum Theatre. There, in a dressing-room backstage, he set eyes on Frankie Howerd for the first time. He was more than slightly taken aback when Howerd started to explain how much he had admired the material Sykes had written during the war â because Sykes knew that he had not written any material during the war. The act that Howerd so warmly recalled had in fact been built from second-hand material culled from American shows on short-wave radio â just like Howerdâs had. When Sykes pointed this out, he was rather surprised â and very pleased and relieved â to find that his hero still seemed interested in finding a way to use him on the show: âHe said, âDo you think that you could write for me?â Well, Iâd never written anything for anyone in my life! So I said, âWell, er, no doubt: when do you want it?â And he said, âEight days from now.â So I said, âAll right, hang on a minute, have you got a bit of paper?â And then he went out to do the matinée performance of the pantomime, and by the time he came back at the end Iâd written his first script.â13 A new partnership had begun.
It proved, almost immediately, a near-perfect union. Both men had always gravitated towards the kind of comedy that came from character rather than gags; both of them had lived through the absurdities of war and then come to terms with the uncertainties of peace; both of them had an affinity for the routine experiences of ordinary working people; and both of them seized on any chance to cock a snook at pretension and pomposity.
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