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Malcolm Hardee (born Lewisham, London, 5th January 1950 - died London, 31st January 2005) was an anarchic British comedian, author, club proprietor and compere.
Early Life
Hardee came from a long line of Thames lightermen - who earned their livings pulling barges.
Hardee spent much of his youth in crime and served prison sentences for fraud and burglary. As a child he was expelled from three schools; he later had convictions for arson and once infamously stole a Cabinet Minister's Rolls Royce. After coming out of prison in 1977, he decided to turn to showbusiness as a way of staying out of trouble, saying "Prison is like mime or juggling - a tragic waste of time".
The Clubs
Though an accomplished comic, Hardee is best known for being a compere and owner of clubs which gave vital and early exposure to up and coming comedians such as Alan Davies, Harry Hill and Jo Brand, with whom he was once romantically involved. He also worked for a time as the manager of Jerry Sadowitz.
His most infamous venue was The Tunnel Club where even accomplished comedians rarely managed to complete a whole set against its unforgiving crowd. He also helped start the careers of Vic Reeves and Paul Merton. Hardee didn't help the new acts with his stage introductions and often introduced them, with a nerve unsettling, "This next act's probably a bit shit" - and if the audience didn't heckle the hapless act - he did; however once the act was off stage, he would often comfort them backstage with words of encouragement and urge them to try again.
It was at the Tunnel Club that comedian Jim Tavare once opened his act, with the unwise opener, "Hello, I'm a schizophrenic" - to be met with the lighting rejoinder from a wag in that night's audience, "Well you can both fuck off then!".
"He has no shame"
One journalist said of Hardee, "To say that he has no shame, is to drastically exagerate the amount of shame that he has." This neatly summed the man up. Whenever or whatever Hardee did, either as a comedian or as an interuption to other comedians, he preferred to do it naked; he even once appeared naked on stage with his mother Joan.
Freddie Mercury's birthday cake
On September 5 1986 Hardee's house was searched by the police - who were looking for crumbs, after he stole Freddie Mercury's 40th birthday cake; no crumbs were found at the house as he had already by then donated the cake to a local nursing home. No charges were pressed.
Performances
Hardee rarely appeared on television, though did play minor roles in six Comic Strip film projects.
Hardee regularly performed at the Edinburgh Festival and became notorious for a troupe called The Greatest Show On Legs which involved stripping naked and dancing with strategically-placed balloons and fireworks. He achieved some fame for his balloon act on Chris Tarrant's OTT; he also became known for an act in which he would use his own genitals to perform a unique impression of Charles de Gaulle - and which was probably a big improvement on the original!
Settling down - and finding his trousers
He wrote his autobiography "I Stole Freddie Mercury's Birthday Cake" in 1996 and in 2003 co-edited an anthology of non-comic writing by 19 stand-up comedians, called Sit-Down Comedy. He also ran columns in comedy magazines in which he gave tips and told anecdotes about life as a comic. He was fond of collecting put-downs used by comedians as a way of curtailing hecklers.
In later years, Hardee ran the Up The Creek comedy club in the Greenwich area of London, then his own pub on a converted barge in Rotherhithe. In later years he had calmed down somewhat and in 2003 said, "I'm happy where I am in southeast London. I'm respectible now. I have trousers, a house and a wife."
His death
On 2 February 2005, Hardee's body was recovered from the River Thames after he was reported missing from his barge on January 31. Investigations into the circumstances of his death continue, though a post-mortem soon confirmed he had drowned. It seems likely that he fell drunk, into the water on the way back to his houseboat "The sea sovereign" (20 feet) from his floating comedy club, The Wibbly Wobbly Comedy Club, which was moored near by.
References
The Times: obituary - 7th February 2005.
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