Remembering Barry Chuckle

My favourite television program as a child growing up in England of the 1990s was Chucklevision. To a young child Barry and Paul Elliot, the double-act affectionately known as the ‘Chuckle Brothers’, were the epitome of comedy. Their slapstick was good-natured and innocent and even when the humour lay in the pain endured by another character, it was usually inflicted unwittingly. The Guardian would later call the pair the “stalwarts of children’s television”, an apt tribute given the pair may have been responsible for introducing a whole generation of children to wordplay. But it is mystifying that a pair of greying, moustached men from Yorkshire could capture the hearts of almost a generation of children.

I spoke to Barry Chuckle (Elliot) once on the phone. I was in my late teens and working at the weekends as a waiter in an Italian restaurant that thought itself authentic but was owned by an investment firm based in New York City. It was a Sunday evening and an older gentleman eating with his wife were the only two patrons in my section. I remember he was chatty and avidly engaged me in conversation each time I approached their table.

He asked me my age and about my plans for when I finished secondary school. His wife looked on smiling but didn’t say much. When I told him my age, he remarked that I must have watched Chucklevision as a child. I confirmed his suspicions and fired off the brothers’ catchphrase, “to me to you.” He sort of smiled, put down his cutlery, and wiped the corners of his mouth with his napkin.

He told me he was one of the Chuckle brothers. Not one of the two, but one of the original four. I told him I hadn’t realized there had been four Chuckle brothers, having grown up with only Barry and Paul on my screens. Paul and Barry were the youngest but had initially performed with their older brothers, Jimmy and Brian—who went on to form a comedy duo of their own. The man asked if I believed him and I admitted that I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t see why he would be lying. If someone was going to lie about a claim to fame, particularly in a small town that could boast Sir Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, David Tenant, and Kiera Knightly among its regular visitors, they likely wouldn’t masquerade as a founding member of the Chuckle Brothers.

In hindsight, he may have taken my wisp of scepticism as an affront, because the next time I returned with dessert menus, he handed me a flip phone. I put it to my ear and on the line was the unmistakeable Northern lilt of Barry Chuckle. His brother had already told him my name and Barry addressed me personally and warmly. Unsure of what one says to a man that I had grown up with but never met, I could only express my gratitude for the joy he had infused into my childhood. He wished me luck in my future studies, and I handed the phone back to his brother.

When, in the summer of 2018, I read that Barry Chuckle had died, I thought first of his brother and that day in the Italian restaurant. Tributes posted to social media from those that worked with Barry recalled his approachable, warm nature, and I saw my own brief interaction with him reflected in their words. But I really obsessed over his older brother. I had not asked whether it was Brian or Jimmy that I had waited on several years ago, and I felt slightly guilty that I had not met his intrigue in my life and studies with equal intrigue. In the moment, I had been more interested in his younger siblings, but in the years since, I have often wondered what became of him (according to Wikipedia, Jimmy died in 2019 but Brian is still alive).

I realize that the pleasure his brother had given children in the 1980s and 1990s had given him an opportunity to bridge the communication gap between his own generation and one much younger. He could quickly form a connection with strangers which may not have come naturally for either party—as he did with me. I wondered whether he was still able to form those connections without Barry on the end of the phone. Maybe he could. The currency of Barry’s name alone might be sufficient. Perhaps he would call Paul instead. Would Paul have the same warmth? Would he care about the name of a teenage waiter in an overpriced, understaffed Italian restaurant that had found joy in his life’s work? I cannot hope to know. Yet still, I dwell on it.