Malcolm Hardee - Acts and Stunts

Acts and Stunts

After coming out of prison in 1977 or 1978 (sources vary), Hardee joined Martin Soan's Greatest Show On Legs - at the time, a one-man adult Punch and Judy act. Revamped as a surreal sketch group, The Greatest Show on Legs became a regular at the Tramshed venue in Woolwich, alongside the likes of Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson. Soon afterwards, in 1979, The Comedy Store opened in Soho and The Greatest Show on Legs became regulars there, too. Their breakthrough came in 1982, when they performed their naked balloon dance on Chris Tarrant's anarchic late-night TV show O.T.T..

In 1987, as one of his many publicity stunts, Hardee stood for Parliament in the famous Greenwich by-election, 1987, as the "Rainbow Dream Ticket, Beer, Fags & Party" candidate, polling 174 votes. He then stood again in the 1992 election in order to publicise his comedy club because the election rules allowed him a free mail shot to all registered voters in the constituency.

Hardee regularly appeared in his own shows at the Edinburgh Fringe and arguably his most infamous confirmed stunt there was in 1983 when, performing at The Circuit venue - a series of three adjoining tents in a construction site with a different show in each tent - he became annoyed by what he regarded as excessive noise emanating nightly from Eric Bogosian's neighbouring performance tent. Hardee obtained a nearby tractor and, entirely naked, drove it across Bogosian's stage during his performance. Rivalling this stunt in Fringe infamy, in 1989, Hardee and Arthur Smith wrote a rave 5-star review of Hardee's own Fringe show and successfully managed to get it printed in The Scotsman under the byline of the influential newspaper's comedy critic. At the Fringe in 1996, The Independent reported that he attempted to sabotage American ventriloquist David Strassman's Edinburgh show by abducting the act's hi-tech dummy, holding it to ransom and sending it back to Strassman piece by piece in return for hard cash. The plan failed.

Perhaps the most-quoted anecdote concerning Hardee was that, on 9 October 1986 his house was searched by the police - who were looking for crumbs - two days after he and others stole Freddie Mercury's £4,000 40th birthday cake. No crumbs were found at the house as he had already by then donated the cake to a local nursing home. He used this incident as the title of his 1996 autobiography I Stole Freddie Mercury's Birthday Cake which he wrote with John Fleming. In another encounter with the police, Hardee was once questioned by Special Branch officers after being found on the balcony outside government minister Michael Heseltine's hotel room, wearing nothing but a pair of socks and a leather coat containing £5,200 in cash and a pack of pornographic playing cards. He had mistaken the room for that of a friend.

Collaborator John Fleming said of him that "At home, he occasionally put a live goldfish in his mouth to get attention – I saw him do it twice. It was often said of Malcolm, with a lot of justification, that he never had a stage act – his life was his act."

In his autobiography, Hardee claimed he was the first to attempt the 'banger-up-the-bum' routine, later perfected and performed by Greatest Show on Legs co-star Chris Lynam, in which a firework (occasionally a three-stage Roman Candle) was clenched between the buttocks and lit to a recording of Ethel Merman singing "There's No Business Like Show Business".

The claim for which Hardee was arguably best known throughout his performing life was that he was said to have "the biggest bollocks in show business" and he became renowned for a rarely performed but vividly unforgettable act in which he would use his own spectacles atop his genitals to create a unique visual impression of French President Charles de Gaulle with his testicles representing the politician's cheeks; this act pre-dated the Australian show Puppetry of the Penis by several years.

Hardee rarely appeared on television, though he did play minor roles in six Comic Strip TV films and one episode in the first series of Blackadder.