The Comedy Man

Kenneth More is Chick Byrd, a rep actor on the verge of breakthrough success but fired from the play thanks to his affair with the producer’s wife. He even announces this indiscretion to the audience on the last day of his stage performance, before nonchalantly and (dis)gracefully bowing out.

Based on the novel by Douglas Hayes, and with wry, touching humour throughout, Kenneth More excels in portraying a disillusioned actor reduced to tour the provinces, and even there he manages to make a mess of things! After being fired from a play in which he had the lead role, More aka Chick Byrd (who comes up with names like that?) decides to head to Swinging London in search of fame and fortune – the very things he’s been denied so far in his ‘career’ as a struggling thespian. As he finds out the hard way, the capital offers more competition than opportunities, and soon he shares dreams and disillusionment with fellow actors but, forever the lady’s man, at least succeeds in scoring multiple affairs.

One such affair is ‘special friend’ Judy (Billie Whitelaw), a long-suffering former lover of Chick with a heart of gold. Her well-meant advice to “grow up and stop acting like a child” gets royally ignored by him. Along the search for fame and identity, Chick encounters various humorous mishaps but also tragedy, for example when one of his actor friends – unable to provide for his pregnant wife – commits suicide.
Eventually, Chick has to accept that his chances in London are fading as quickly as his youth, and it’s not as if he is particularly young anymore… The increasingly popular world of cheap TV commercials further threatens his chances of landing roles in the movies.

Ironically though, it’s exactly in the lowbrow world of TV that Chick finally does find recognition and enough money to pay the bills… by becoming the ‘star’ of a string of deodorant advertisements (one more hilarious than the other!). Now that Chick is a household name, new and fake friends surround him like leeches, gate-crashing his private parties where booze, smoke and the latest chart hits intoxicate the mind of the guests. Only one person is not happy about it all, and that’s Chick. He feels burnt-out and sold-out, and in the final poignant scene he leaves the guests in his house to it, only to return to his former world of regional repertory acting.

Also featuring Dennis Price, Cecil Parker and Angela Douglas, The Comedy Man (1964) is presented in a brand-new digital transfer from the original film elements, and in its original aspect ratio.