Rikki Fulton RIP

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http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=109702004

― leigh (leigh), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 15:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Is Rikki Fulton even known outside of Scotland? He's most known up here for Scotch & Wry, and that wasn't on in England.

Classic, for Francie & Josie. For that alone, he will be missed.

― ailsa (ailsa), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 19:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Never heard of him.

― El Spinktor (El Spinktor), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 19:49 (twenty-two years ago)

He's a legend and it's your loss if you've never heard of him. A great shame and a true talent. Never forgotten.

― C-Man (C-Man), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 23:19 (twenty-two years ago)

R.I.P.

― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 23:38 (twenty-two years ago)

That's remarkably sad. I was brought up watching Rikki treading the boards at the Edinburgh Lyceum and even based on a song on my last album on him ('The Laird of Inversnecky' is a composite portrait of various Scottish character comedians, including Fulton).

'The flag at the castle is half mast high
Let's all go down to Mackie's for a wee cup of tea'

― Momus (Momus), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 23:47 (twenty-two years ago)

― zappi (joni), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 23:50 (twenty-two years ago)

For real? They have the flag at half mast?

Jeez, the guy is just such a legend. As I sit here with snow building outside I have to say that this is just not welcome news. I have some Scotch and Wry stuff that might need dug out.

Well said Momus, you are spot on.

― C-Man (C-Man), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 23:51 (twenty-two years ago)

For real? They have the flag at half mast?

No, that's an old comedy routine. You're meant to say it in a Morningside accent. But flags should be lowered.

Here's the specific reference to Fulton in that song:

I began as the panto tea boy
Became the canny Scot
Like a chimney sweep on a ladder to very top
Synonymous for many with my famous character
The Reverend I.M. Jolly, the morose minister

― Momus (Momus), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 23:54 (twenty-two years ago)

The flags are at half mast,
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=110972004 and deservedly so.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Thursday, 29 January 2004 05:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Can I clarify? When I said "for that alone he will be missed" I meant that Francie & Josie alone would be enough reason to miss him, not that it was the only thing he'd done that was worth missing him. The guy was a national treasure.

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 29 January 2004 08:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry to hear of Fulton's death, although I found that whole school of Scottish comedians staggeringly unfunny.

― ArfArf, Thursday, 29 January 2004 10:16 (twenty-two years ago)

maybe it's a scottish thing.

RIP

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 29 January 2004 10:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm Scottish. Not from the Central Belt, though, which I suspect makes a big difference.

― ArfArf, Thursday, 29 January 2004 10:20 (twenty-two years ago)

So I was right about the RF reference in Momus' song then - although he told me that the Rev I M Jolly character was originally conceived and portrayed by Harry Morgan (?). Francie and Josie's big hit record in Scotland was "The Glasgow Underground Song," the chorus of which went: "There's Partick Cross and Cessnock, Hillheed and Merkland Street/George's Cross and Govan Cross where aw' the people meet/West Street, Shields Road/The train goes round and round/Ye've nivir lived unless yiv bin oan the Glasgow Underground."

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 29 January 2004 10:25 (twenty-two years ago)

There's a whole culture of Scottish comedy that is pretty much completely unknown in England. It's weird. I mean, I don't really know about it myself. Was 'Chewin' the Fat' even shown down south? It's all a mystery to me.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 29 January 2004 11:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, it used to be on Friday late nights on BBC1, and there's a spinoff series (can't remember the title offhand but it seems to be a variation on Enfield and Whitehouse's Old Gits) currently screening Saturday late nights on BBC2.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 29 January 2004 12:13 (twenty-two years ago)

this?

Still Game : (BBC2 series)

― leigh (leigh), Thursday, 29 January 2004 13:00 (twenty-two years ago)

that's the one.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 29 January 2004 13:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm Scottish. Not from the Central Belt, though, which I suspect makes a big difference

I'm not from the Central Belt either. Maybe it's just a sense of humour thing? It's not compulsory to find all Scottish comedians funny if you're from Scotland you know.

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 29 January 2004 17:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Is this the guy who says "and find out if there's a sanity clause!" in the Bill Forsyth film about the Ice Cream wars? If so, that might help identify him for non-central belters. If not, I'll shut up.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Thursday, 29 January 2004 21:16 (twenty-two years ago)

That was him - "Comfort And Joy" was the film.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 30 January 2004 08:46 (twenty-two years ago)

"I'm not from the Central Belt either. Maybe it's just a sense of humour thing? It's not compulsory to find all Scottish comedians funny if you're from Scotland you know"

I wish I thought ANY of them were funny.

I just loathe that cosy, parochial, it-might-be-a-bit amateurish-but-at-least-its-about-the-folk-we-see-around-here humour. Gently poking fun at Morningside ladies or Glasgow schemies while keeping the audience-flattery quotient sky high. In-jokes for local artsy fartsies and luvvies.

But you are right, I doubt not being Central Belt makes more than marginal difference. We have a smaller scale, even more amateurish equivalent in my part of Scotland and I certainly don't like that any better.

― ArfArf, Friday, 30 January 2004 12:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I think the whole thing about Chewin' the Fat et al is that we actually know folk like that - it's not that ott - the neds are spot on, so I'm not sure if it's as funny to those that don't have that added 'ohmygod that is so true' factor!

― smee (smee), Friday, 30 January 2004 14:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I just loathe that cosy, parochial, it-might-be-a-bit amateurish-but-at-least-its-about-the-folk-we-see-around-here humour.

I think I would certainly feel that way if I were still in Scotland. But I wrote and recorded that song in Tokyo. It starts with the sound of a Japanese sweet potato seller, an eerie wail, then suddenly shifts to Scottish 20th century vaudeville, equally uncanny despite being 'canny'. I had to go to the other side of the world to see the fascinating otherness of my own culture.

Maybe there's some law of constant cultural matter. Maybe, as I sat in Tokyo in late 2002, some of the memories Alzheimers was erasing from Rikki's grey matter displaced themselves and flew to where I was sitting in Tokyo. Stranger things happen.

― Momus (Momus), Friday, 30 January 2004 16:34 (twenty-two years ago)

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