Hello I'm Krestey Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1998 and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My cast away this week is an entertainer, now 70 years old, he's been in the business for more than 50 years.

His faultless delivery and astonishing memory for lines and jokes won him top billing at an early age and he went

on through shows like the Golden Shot Bob's Full House and Celebrity Squares to become

one of this country's most ubiquitous and familiar celebrities.

But the star with the self-confident charm, Smarmy some call him,

is the product of a difficult upbringing.

His mother didn't speak to him for 20 years after he married. I think therefore I invented a

facade he says. He is Bob Monkhouse. Will the real Bob Monkhouse stand up?

I suppose it's what you've been doing all your life stand up. Well yes I think because I wasn't much of a fellow when I was young

being yourself made large which a comedian I think ought to be

was not particularly impressive. But because I had facile tongue and I was fairly articulate, I was employed immediately by television as being... And a perky mind you said but describe it to me what happens because of course we know you prepare very well

you're very diligent very conscientious you do a lot of homework you can construct an act you know the scaffolding of the gags and the lines

but you have to capture that magic out there and if you don't capture that it's flat isn't

that's right but then there are lots of ways of changing your

grip on your opponent if that's the way you view your audience or some use the

analogy of riding a horse to get that audience correctly paced so that you don't exhaust them too early.

Try not to use your A material too soon.

You save that for later.

And in those first three or four minutes, you find what the audience is like.

But you're working all of the time. I mean you're watching yourself watching them.

...