It has long been acknowledged that Liverpool’s place as the
fount of great comics is unchallengeable. The great names trip off the tongue
with ease, Robb Wilton, Arthur Askey, Tommy Handley, Ted Ray, Billy Matchett, Ken Dodd
and many more. However one name is less often mentioned, yet he was a true king
of comedy, marked less by performance than by a unique talent to put great
lines into the mouths of others. That man was Eddie Braben.
He was born on Edwin Charles Braben 31st October
1930 in Toxteth at 25 Monkswell Street
L8, the son of a St John’s Market butcher. He was captivated by radio from the
day in 1938 when his father bought their first set. He recalled the set as
being “a Marconi, the size of a small shed” especially loving the comics
of the day. After leaving school he worked at British American Tobacco, did his
national service in the RAF and tried his hand running a greengrocer stall in
the market with little success. His aim, however, was to write comedy.
He sold his first joke to the comedian Charlie Chester for
thirty shillings (£1.50) it ran “When Hopalong Cassidy was a baby, his
mother knew he was going to be a cowboy because he always wore a ten gallon
nappy”. His work led to other commissions, including a £10 fee for writing
a sketch for Peter Sellers. For fourteen years he wrote for Ken Dodd and then
in 1968 was approached by BBC Head of Light Entertainment, Bill Cotton, with a
suggestion that he wrote for Morecambe and Wise who had recently parted company
with Sid Green and Dick Hills. The rest, as they say, is history. The first
Eddie Braben scripted Morecambe and Wise Show was broadcast on BBC2 in July
1969.
The great success of the show brought him a BAFTA in 1972
but in the same year he suffered a breakdown brought on by the relentless
pressure to produce top notch material to tight deadlines. He recovered and wrote
for a host of top acts, including David Frost, Mike Yarwood, Ronnie Corebtt,
Little and Large, Les Dawson and Jim Davidson. He enjoyed considerable succeswith
the play The Play What I Wrote in 2001, collaborating with Sean Foley
and Hamish McColl.
Eddie Braben had a son with his first wife and after her
death he married Deidree ‘Dee’ Cox, a George Mitchell singer and dancer with
whom he had two daughters. He died on 21st May 2013.
After leaving Monkswell Street the Braben family moved to 33
Broad Square L11. Eddie lived with Dee at 45 Honeys Green Lane L12 until they
moved to Wales in 1970.
