Scots comedy writer who worked for Stanley Baxter, Spike Milligan and The Two Ronnies
Born: March 3, 1934;
Died: 12 April 2018
NEIL Shand, who has died aged 84, once suggested how his own obituary might have read. When working on David Frost’s weekday chat show in New York in 1972, he and the star were almost involved in a fatal air accident, when the helicopter they were in had a power failure, crash-landing in Central Park. Knowing that if Frost had been killed it would have commanded the headlines, and aware of his having featured under the category “additional material” on credit rolls, Shand reasoned his only acknowledgement would have been “Additional death, Neil Shand.”
Thoroughly deserving of the title ‘unsung hero of British comedy’, Shand, the son of a Glasgow couple, was a constant presence behind the screen on comedy and light entertainment shows, in the medium’s three-channel days.
The year 1976 alone saw him contribute to the elaborate, mildly risqué parodies of Stanley Baxter’s Christmas Box on ITV, and to the Saturday night fixture The Two Ronnies on BBC1. He combined The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show (Thames, 1979) with putting words into the mouth of the pair’s favourite target, on Des O’Connor Tonight (BBC, 1977-82; Thames 1988-89).
Stemming from his beginnings as a journalist, Shand had a second line writing scripts for chat and variety shows, though this was obfuscated by his on-screen credit as ‘Programme associate’ or ‘Script Associate’. These included O’Connor’s show, Wogan (BBC, 1987-88), the comedy chat showcase The Bob Monkhouse Show (BBC, 1983-86), and for the sadly short-lived Lena Zavaroni, Lena (BBC, 1980-81). Among comedy aficionados, Shand was particularly esteemed as a collaborator of Spike Milligan’s, co-writing the highly influential televisual anarchy Q5 (BBC, 1969), and the successive Q series.
He was born and raised in Luton, where his father worked at the Vauxhall plant, and his mother was a dressmaker. He said attending Luton Grammar School “gave me ambition and opportunity”. One shipyard worker relative had helped construct the QE2, which Shand claimed indirectly provided Q5’s title.
Determined to become a journalist, the young Neil worked on the Luton Gazette by day, while by night he took “the milk train” to work overnights in Fleet Street. Assignments on the Daily Sketch and Daily Mail resulted.
By the mid-1960s, he was a familiar sight at the Magdala pub in Hampstead, before in Monkhouse’s words, “having forsaken sweet wine for dry wit”. Shand maintained he earned £3 for his first joke for TV comedy, for Bernard Braden’s topical show On The Braden Beat (ATV, 1965).
His association with Frost, leading him to transition from journalism to television comedy, came as the future Sir David was moving in the opposite direction. After David Frost At The Phonograph, a Saturday show in 1966 for the soon-to-be-extinguished Light Programme, Shand worked on the current affairs-based The Frost Programme (ITV, 1967-70), followed by the American shows. He was writing for Frost as late as 2003.
Shand also wrote for a less durable front man, Simon Dee, on Dee Time (BBC, 1967-68). That show’s studio warm-up man was Larry Grayson, later promoted to stardom with his self-titled LWT series (1975-77), to which Shand contributed. Three Of A Kind (BBC, 1967), not to be confused with the 1980s show of the same name, spotlighted Lulu and Mike Yarwood; Shand would write for the latter’s now overlooked, slightly satirical Mike Yarwood In Persons (BBC, 1976-81).
After writing for The World of Beachcomber (BBC, 1968), starring Spike Milligan, Shand was elated when his own comic hero specifically requested him for Q5. He told The Independent in 1993, “There’s a moment that most comedy writers know which comes at about 3.30 pm, when hysteria sets in and if one person says 'hello', the other person falls over. And I remember Spike saying in one such moment, 'Can you imagine that people are paying us to sit in a room and make each other laugh'.”
The Kenny Everett Television Show and The Russ Abbot Show (both BBC, 1986) partnered Shand with the even more prolific Barry Cryer. Unlike Cryer, Shand stated: “I don't really want to perform myself. I do a bit of after-dinner stuff which gets it out of my system and also I do warm-ups, but I suspect that underneath it all, there's an element of fear and I'm just not that ego-driven.”
Imported guests on O’Connor’s show had included David Letterman and Jay Leno – Shand later worked with a Scottish competitor to their talk show crown, Craig Ferguson, in The Ferguson Theory (BBC, 1993).
In 2003, Shand retired to the Lincolnshire village of Winteringham. Last year, he agreed to an on-stage interview with showbusiness historian Louis Barfe, as part of the Hull Heads Up festival. Despite some initial apprehension, he thoroughly enjoyed himself reminiscing, received a warm response from the audience, and had tentatively made plans for a follow-up.
Three times married, the third time to future Who Wants To Be A Millionaire winner Judith Keppel, one son survives him.
GAVIN GAUGHAN
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