In Passport to Pimlico 1949

I don't recall where or how, or even precisely when, I first met Malcolm Knight.

I do remember that I met his sister at the same time.  She was a bit older than he, and a lot more attractive to me, but I can't remember meeting her on any other occasion, so I guess the attraction was not mutual.  I believe she was studying law or medicine.  And because, in my visual recall, I can place where they were each seated, I feel fairly confident that it was in the flat I was occupying in Great Cumberland Place.  This would serve to pinpoint the time pretty accurately because I only lived there for about eight months in 1965.  My occupancy terminated rather abruptly when two burly truck drivers from Glasgow broke down my front door, and evicted my girl friend and myself.  We then spent the remainder of the night at the Cumberland Hotel and subsequently embarked on a series of summonses, culminating at the High Court.  But this enthralling experience does not have its place in this particular section

For the moment, let us return to Malcolm Knight.

Great Cumberland Place was wonderfully located for a party venue.  A stone's throw from Marble Arch.  It was a pretty luxurious apartment that belonged to the theatrical agent Larry Parnes who features elsewhere in this catalogue of characters from my past.  There was no problem therefore in ensuring a continual and interesting passage of partygoers through its doors, many of them having theatrical associations.

Malcolm was best known for a minor film role in one of the Ealing comedies, Passport to Pimlico when he was only 14 years old.  When I met him he must have been about 30, but looked at least ten years younger.  He had by then appeared in a few TV series and a couple of movies.  Always in minor roles.  He was now looking to move in a new direction - still within the theatrical arena.

He had a vision of himself as a theatrical impresario or producer of musical comedies.  In the light of his subsequent career, he was pretty well on the mark.  The major problem was that he had no talent for choosing collaborators.  The fact that he chose to approach me is a perfect illustration of this point  And I am not being precious.  I have many good qualities and am reasonably creative in the areas that I favour.  But I would be the last person to suggest that I might be a good choice as one to help bring a theatrical production to fruition.

That, however, was not the greatest of Malcolm's errors of judgement.  He apparently had an unerring knack of finding backers - "angels" as they were known in the industry - who could only back one way . . . and that was "off".  The angel he had found for our joint endeavour was, I suppose, his first experience in this regard.  But, to judge by the obituary that we have linked to in the "Cast of Characters", this error of judgement characterized all his future endeavours.  He ended up heavily in debt and as the obituary notice says: "He blamed a shortage of guarantees from theatre bosses, coupled with the economic climate, for his company’s demise."  (https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/obituaries/2007/malcolm-knight/)

Such a very sad end for a young man who never lost his cheerful demeanour, nor his debonair appearance, but whose major defect was a failure to identify those he could trust and - particularly, in my case - those who possessed true talent.  I have before me as I type this the original script that I prepared for him, typewritten on foolscap paper, the printed words faded almost into illegibility.  Frankly, there was nothing wrong with my songs, but that is not enough to hold together a two-hour show that actually had the working title "Two Hours of Happiness".  The rest of the script was - if you'll pardon the expression - crap!