Letter: Stan Freberg beamed his way through a superb performance

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/may/21/stan-freberg-obituary-letter

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The last British appearance by Stan Freberg (obituary, 11 April) came at the Comedy Store in London in 2005, and I produced it for BBC Radio 4. I had approached him for an interview for a documentary that the comedian Mark Thomas and I were making about his work. He chatted with enthusiasm from his home in Los Angeles, flattered and a little surprised that there were still people in Britain who knew his work – but he refused us a formal interview unless I promised to try to arrange a live show in the UK.

His request led to a series in which we presented brand new UK performances by Stan and three other great satirical acts of the 1950s and 60s – Shelley Berman, Mort Sahl and the Firesign Theater. Thanks to the generous support of my bosses, British audiences got the chance to attend remarkable performances by these people for the first time in 40 years – and millions more to hear them on the radio. Ten years on, the cost of such a project would certainly be prohibitive.

Stan was nervous about the show, and for weeks beforehand presented us with a constant list of requests and requirements, relating to both the show’s technical specifications and his travel and accommodation. They were always couched in slightly apologetic tones: Hunter, his wife and de facto manager, was clearly a force to be reckoned with.

On the night of the recording, the grey-haired performer stepped confidently out of the car and shook my hand. He beamed his way through a superb performance, narrating his greatest hits, doing all the funny voices to carefully prepared backing tapes. The Comedy Store audience loved him, and he was obviously in seventh heaven. The sole glitch was that, at the end of the show, he left his script on the stage; and by the time I went back to retrieve it someone in the audience had taken it for a souvenir. His face was creased with anxiety as he got back into the car. “Hunter will never forgive me,” he muttered.