Chris Gidney reports on comedian Syd Little and his debut Gospel Tour.

    I could see that Syd was nervous, like any performer waiting to go on stage. Yet despite nearly thirty-five years in show business as one of the country’s top double acts, he had never known tension like this.

The recipients of numerous awards for their TV, Club and theatre performances throughout the country, Little & Large had their own TV show which ran for more than fourteen years. They started out in 1963. Today, apart from their regular guest appearances on TV, they are not seen so often on the `small box`, but are still in great demand for their popular live shows across the country, and on many of the most luxurious cruise liners. Little & Large opened the brand new prestigious night spot `The Paradise Room` on Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach. After 16 weeks of record-breaking business, they were instantly re-booked for the following season. Their brilliantly funny Pantomimes also continue to regularly break box office records.

However, as Syd waited at the side of the stage he gingerly peeped out into the audience. "They seemed to be having a great time, laughing and clapping," recalled Syd, "yet what amazed me was that this was not happening in a theatre but a church!" Pre-conceptions of church-life and Christians being irrelevant, dead and boring were crossing Syd’s mind. "I’d been a church-goer for most of my life, but I’d never seen anything like this on a Sunday!" He grins. Suddenly he felt like a fish out of the water as here he was, dressed in his rock and roll Teddy boy costume, about to go on a stage and sing a Buddy Holly Medley. In a church! He really couldn’t believe what he was doing.

Rock with Laughter!

Syd remembered that the last time he had won this costume was in Blackpool, starring with Eddie in this amazingly successful ‘Rock with Laughter’ at the Grand Theatre.

Syd Little was actually born in Blackpool, and was playing a guitar and singing long before his partner Eddie came on the scene. He enjoyed his job as a painter and decorator. "I still do all my own decorating and sometimes even Eddie’s, but entertaining has always been part of my life."

Performing on his own in a club one night, he was horrified when a member of the audience started to heckle him, eventually getting up and joining Syd on stage and doing a Cliff Richard impression that made everyone fall about laughing. Syd had met Eddie. The on-stage rapore instantly worked and, the rest as they say, is history. They chose the name of their act after Eddie had stayed up all night working through hundreds of possibilities, ‘Little and Large’ were born.

After several years in the clubs, their biggest break came on the popular television talent show ‘Opportunity knocks’ and they literally became over-night stars. Suddenly they found themselves with more money and attention than they had ever known. Unlike many other showbiz stars however, they never let this new found fame go to their heads, always prepared for the day in which it may stop as suddenly as it had started. It never has though, and they found that their trust for each others on-stage timing grew and has kept them at the top of their profession for more than three decades.

Now, waiting for his entrance, Syd remembered that he was without Eddie. "I was on my own for the first time in thirty-four years. It made me even more nervous to think about it" Yet he knew that he was not really alone. For he had discovered that the Jesus he had heard and read about in Sunday school was not some sort of dead legend, but someone with whom it was possible to have a living relationship with. Syd had also learnt that through some of the most difficult times in his life, God was right there with him.

Timing

In fact it was 1995 when Syd was appearing in ‘Babes in the wood’ at Wimbledon Theatre that I first met him. As a pastor with Christians in Entertainment, I was visiting another Christian who was appearing on the show and popped in to say hello to Syd. Good timing, is of course very important to every comedian, and this visit had seemed just that, for Syd was about to suffer the most traumatic few months of his life.

We prayed together in his dressing room, surrounded by colourful costumes, panto props and make-up. It was just a few weeks after the my visit when I had seen the headlines, Syd’s eldest son Paul had died of a drug overdose.

Devastated

"Paul had asked me to lend him some money, and I arranged to meet him." Syd recalled. "Although I wasn’t aware he was taking dangerous drugs at the time, I still made Paul promise the money was for a holiday he was supposed to be taking." Unbeknown to Syd, as he handed the money over to Paul outside the stage door of the theatre, he was secretly being photographed by a press photographer hidden in a nearby car. His son had set him up for the photographer, and had earnt himself a lot of extra money .

Armed with the extra cash, Paul had gone to Thailand, a world centre of drugs and died alone in a hotel bedroom. Syd was devastated by the news, but had to continue making people laugh each night in the show. "I started to pray, and began to feel a real sense that God understood the pain and guilt I was feeling, I also felt God’s comfort surround me in a way I had never experienced before."

The trauma was not over yet, however. Within months Syd had a telephone call to tell him his daughter, Donna was lying in hospital after being stabbed by an enraged boyfriend. "I rushed to the hospital and saw Donna lying there in a mass of wires, bandages and tubes. It was a shocking sight and I just couldn’t believe it," Syd recalls. "The doctors told me that the attacker had stabbed her from behind as she was sitting on the sofa, but the blade had missed her spinal column by a millimetre or so. She also had her throat cut and her hands were gashed through trying to defend herself." Apparently, a neighbour had rushed in and put a tablecloth over Donna’s wounds to stem the bleeding. This action probably saved her life. Syd realised that it was a miracle that she was still alive and thanked God on the way back home. Donna has since made a full recovery.

Comedians Bible Study

Blackpool is the an important place for a comedian and still has the longest running summer seasons in the country, with more than five major theatres stretching into early November. Indeed Blackpool played a big part in Syd’s life too, recently moving back there with his wife and son Dominic. However it was at the Grand Theatre in 1996, during the run of the Cannon and Ball show, that Syd finally asked God into his life.

"Christians in Entertainment had invited several comics appearing in Blackpool to a comedians Bible study meeting weekly during the summer season, backstage in Bobby Ball’s dressing room," Syd explains. "It was great fun, but I couldn’t help but feeling slightly sorry for Chris as he had a room full of comics cracking jokes at each other. He had to fight to get a word in!"

One day the study was about forgiveness. "What was said really touched my heart because I still felt guilty about lending Paul the money" Syd explains. "We learnt that being a Christian was not just about believing in God but actually allowing him to sit in the driving seat of your life. I had felt the closeness of God, I had even prayed to him, but now I wanted him to hand my life over to him properly. Bobby prayed a prayer which I repeated. I acknowledged who God was, asked God to forgive me for all my sins and asked him to come into my life from that moment on. I felt so overwhelmed with God’s prescience, I began to weep, but I knew I was on the road to a new journey."

Into 2000

Two years later finds Syd waiting to go on for the first night of his new Gospel tour. Despite his nervousness, he is trusting that God will use him as he tells his story to a packed and expectant church. "I’m still a young Christian but I can’t get to church as often as I like." Says Syd. "I’ve got a long way to go, and a lot to learn so I don’t preach, but I do enjoy the opportunities the Gospel tour gives to me to tell others that God is alive."

The first leg of the tour was a great success with a standing ovation on the last night and with a new show planned for church venues throughout 2000. As Syd explains during his interview on each night of the tour. "I’ve been through a lot but now I know that whatever happens, God is always with me, and helps me through every step of the way."