The Showbusiness Reaper comes this week to: Jack Wild, John Junkin, Linda Smith and Ivor Cutler.
Linda Smith’s death is the most shocking and unfair, at 48 years old and very much in her prime. She would have made a terrific old woman. Like Paul Merton and Willy Rushton, she was a born radio and TV panel-game performer. To type those words actually sounds a bit insulting: the medium of panel games is thought cheap and somehow lesser compared to, say, books or even solo stand-up albums. Is just being witty on a panel game enough, I want to say. Enough for what? Thousands enjoy your “work”, so why do I feel the need to put that word in inverted commas? It’s true I think her style of humour would have made for witty novels and plays, but all this is the snob in me talking. I of all people should recognise the value of Being rather than Doing. And Linda Smith did indeed make a living from just Being Linda Smith.
Apparently she did contribute to an anthology of comedians trying their hand at prose fiction, but her piece was cited by critics as one of the weakest in the book. Perhaps it’s that I always want to own a work by someone I admire; it’s like wanting to buy a postcard of a favourite painting again. You can get Best Of The News Quiz (or Just A Minute, or I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Club) CDs and tapes with her on, but I suppose I want her bits with the contributions from other panellists removed.
Actually I’ve just remembered, the BBC do put out anthology recordings like that, in their ‘At The BBC’ range. A ‘Linda Smith At The BBC’ CD would be perfect.
