If you missed the broadcast yesterday, Martyn Tott's "chatumentary", as he has called it, about Freddie Davies is currently available to watch online on TPTV Encore - for a week, I imagine. You will need to subscribe in order to watch but provided you can tolerate the adverts it's free to watch. It was made in 2017, three years after the publication of Funny Bones, Freddie's autobiography what I cowrote, and yesterday was its first screening on the Talking Pictures TV channel, though Freddie has already been involved with them, appearing in a couple of their live events. On one of those occasions, calling to mind his training as a Redcoat at Butlins, he led the audience in a singalong.
Freddie, interviewed at home, tells some of the stories in the book as well as some of the events in his life which followed its publication; there are also film and TV clips giving an idea of the range of his work beyond the budgie-obsessed stand-up act which made his name when he appeared on the TV talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1964.
If you want to know more about Freddie there is a blog promoting the book. I haven't updated it recently but there are quite a few interesting posts. Here's hoping the screening and ongoing availability of the documentary help spread the word about the man Martin Kelner has called "A living history of variety".
Here is a guide to some posts from that blog.
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