Words by Richard Thompstone

Veteran entertainers Jasper Carrott and Richard Digance will visit the county during the next few weeks, bringing their own brand of observational humour and songs.

Fifty years ago, they were among a new brand of comedian/singer-songwriters to emerge from the folk club circuit – a swathe of guitar-hugging comedians who interspersed their acts with folk or comedy songs.

Hit records propelled them to national fame via novelty spots on Top of the Pops. Billy Connolly led the way with his chart-topping parody of Tammy Wynette’s D.I.V.O.R.C.E, quickly followed by Jasper Carrott (Funky Moped/Magic Roundabout), Mike Harding (Rochdale Cowboy), Tony Capstick (Capstick Comes Home), Fred Wedlock (Oldest Swinger in Town) and Max Boyce, who topped the album charts.

For Jasper, it was the beginning of a successful television career with Carrott’s Lib and Carrott Confidential, followed by the award-winning Carrot's Commercial Breakdown and The Detectives, a spoof police drama with Robert Powell in the 1990s.

Richard Digance – a couple of years behind the others and without a hit record – got his break as a reliable support act. It led to television and his own shows, with one mid-1980s series recorded by TVS at its old Vinters Park studios in Maidstone.

And they’re both still on the road. Jasper, who turned 80 last month, will play in Tunbridge Wells in April and says that, like Ken Dodd, he intends to continue performing until he drops.

“I’m really looking forward to coming to Kent,” he says. “It’s been ages, and I can’t believe I’m 80. Eighty, but still standing up!” Handy if you’re a stand-up comedian.

Meanwhile, Richard, 76 last February, is semi-retired and no longer tours nationally, but plays selected venues – such as the Alexander Centre, Faversham, in May.

Though they’re both, famously, keen football fans (Jasper, Birmingham; Richard, West Ham) and the wild, shoulder-length hair they sported back in the day is long gone, Richard says that’s where the similarities end.

“I’m primarily a songwriter whereas Jasper is a comedian with a guitar slung round his neck. I’ve never done belly-aching comedy like Jasper. However, I wouldn’t have got on television without the comedy. I had to become an entertainer.”

His big break came as the support act to Steeleye Span. Tours with Tom Jones, Steve Martin, David Essex, Joan Armatrading, Elkie Brooks and Jethro Tull followed.

“I was the easy option – a bloke with a guitar rather than them having to set up a band. I did 281 supports in 1975. Then theatres saw how well I was going down and said, ‘Let’s book him’.”

An album release of his own 1978 show at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, included the canny marketing move of listing the audience members’ names on the sleeve, thus almost guaranteeing 1,000 sales.

As a journalist I’ve followed both their careers since those early days when they were playing clubs to about 100 people.

Once Funky Moped charted in late 1975 Jasper was able to tour major theatres, supported by an up-and-coming Victoria Wood. After one show he suggested we go to a nearby folk club that he’d played many times.

The audience, on seeing him, crowded round trying to persuade him to go on stage. Naturally, Jasper didn’t want to upstage the booked act, Bully Wee, which included Rochester-based fiddler Ian Cutler. However, graciously – and to the audience’s delight – the band agreed to him joining them for their encore.

The adulation was a sign of how things were going. In 1976, after he played the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, we didn’t head for a curry as was usual after club gigs – his record company, DJM, booked a private room at the top Midland Hotel for an after-show dinner party.

Years later, in a multi-million-pound deal, he sold his stake in Celador, the production company behind Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and received an OBE for his charity work in 2003.

Richard’s career, while less stellar, has been no less impressive but more diverse with over 200 appearances on Channel 4’s Countdown, 42 albums, his own record label and 22 books.

He remembers fondly Kent’s folk clubs, including Dartford, Rochester, Gillingham and Faversham, and maintains his links with the music.

A regular at Fairport Convention’s annual Cropredy festival, he played the Broadstairs Folk Festival last year, theatres in Deal and Faversham two years ago and Chickenstock Festival in Sittingbourne in 2021. He’s happy to be returning to Faversham – “I missed the smaller venues where you can see the audience”.

While Jasper’s route for the foreseeable future is to continue touring, Richard has written Isambard, a stage musical about his hero, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Victorian industrialist.

He’s recorded the songs and is proud that the show has been endorsed by the Brunel Institute in Bristol. It’ll be presented as a three-hander in arts centres with a view to expanding into larger theatres. Keep your eyes open for it coming to Kent.

Jasper Carrott, plus support Strictly Abba, will be at the Assembly Hall Theatre in Tunbridge Wells on Sunday, April 27. Book tickets here or by calling 01892 554441.

An Evening with Richard Digance is at the Alexander Centre in Faversham on Sunday, May 25. Book tickets here.

You can also book by calling 01795 591691 or email bookings@thealex.org.uk.