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Geoffrey Hayes
On a hot sunny Thursday afternoon at the end of April 2000, we find ourselves outside the main entrance to Hampton Court, Henry VIII's impressive Tudor Palace. The River Thames glistens in the sun as pleasure craft roam up and down. We're awaiting the arrival of Geoffrey Hayes, who for twenty years appeared alongside a six-foot bear, a pink hippo and an over opinionated orange thing with a zip in the Thames Television Children's show; Rainbow. Geoffrey, if you think about it, was Renaissance Man made real for a whole generation of pre-school kids. He was a man of knowledge and wisdom, the limits to his abilities and talents, unknown. Children at home in front of their TV sets hung on his every word as they shared each average, incident packed day in the Rainbow household. Our first problem is encountered when we find the restaurant we were going to chat, eat and drink in doesn't open until later. We can almost hear Zippy saying, "What do we now, Geoffrey?" As we wander over the bridge to the other side of the river, to see what we can find, we feel like we're in an episode of our favourite show. Two companions plucked from obscurity to join the presenter for a day out in the big city. Making base in a Pizza Hut, which itself is in a pub, we order our food and, once the location of a cash point which contains actual money is found and drinks are purchased, we settle down for an interesting couple of hours. We begin by asking Geoffrey how he first came to get involved with Rainbow. Geoffrey: I think I’ve said it quite often in interviews in the past. I just happened to be at Thames, doing a part in a soap opera for just that one episode and I bumped in to two guys who I’d been in rep with, who were in this programme called Rainbow. And one of them, because the presenter was leaving, said, "Why didn’t you apply for the job? " So I did. And I went and knocked on the door and said could I audition and I was just one of, what, thousands or whatever who auditioned. And I got it, much to my amazement. Andrew: So was it the sort of thing you wanted to do, or
was it just an opportunity which presented itself and you went for it?
Geoffrey: It was just another job. It was nothing to do with
children or anything. It was just a job, it would be three months work and it
sounded like a good idea to me. Andrew: You didn’t think it was going to go on for twenty
years? Geoffrey: No, not at all. No. You see, I was doing Z Cars at
the time, but not in every episode and there was no retainer, so on the weeks
out, my agent used to get me little telly jobs and as I said, this was just
another job which came along, the Rainbow thing. And I thought it would
be just like three months and then out of work again. Andrew: So when you were in Z Cars, was that like your first
big break? Geoffrey: Yes, I was doing lots of little telly’s, this was
like the first big break really. I was a regular character, but not in every
episode. Perhaps one or two weeks out. Of course you didn’t get paid for those
weeks out, so I used to go and do these other little telly’s. Just to fill in.
Andrew: So what made you want to be an actor to start
with? Geoffrey: Music and drama were the two lessons I liked most
at school really. I used to get taken to see the Halle Orchestra in Manchester
and I loved all that, but then I got involved with amateur dramatics, loved that
and someone said if you like it so much, why don’t you try it as a profession. I
wrote off to a few reps and managed to get a job at Oldham Rep as an ASM actor,
that was in 1962. Andrew: Rep is sort of where you’re based in a theatre and
do different plays on a weekly basis? Geoffrey: That’s right. Either a weekly or fortnightly
turnaround basis. There aren’t many reps around now anymore. Vanishing. You got
paid peanuts, but it was just great to just have a chance to act and learn your
trade. Andrew: Were there any big names of the day at Oldham? Geoffrey: Not at Oldham there weren’t, no. Can’t think of
anyone who actually was like a household name. Not during my time anyway. Andrew: So working with a six foot bear, a hippo and a thing
with a zip, what were the best parts of that? If there were any! Geoffrey: I don’t quite know how to answer that really. I
just enjoyed doing the programme. I’d never done like talking to cameras and all
that kind of stuff, reading stories. It just felt natural right from day one.
Even when I did the audition, it felt right. You know, sit down and read a
story. The audition was a kind of mini Rainbow really, did a little make
and do with Bungle and read a story, little chat to camera. It felt nice. Andrew: Who was Bungle then, was it John Leeson? Geoffrey: No, Stanley Bates. In fact he started as I
started, but he’d already got the job. So as he had the job as Bungle, they
roped him in to be the Bungle for the auditions. Andrew: And Roy Skelton was already there? Geoffrey: Roy was already there, yes. But George wasn’t.
George started when I started, I think. It’s funny, those old days. I was just
thinking back, George and Zippy were never allowed in the room. They had to be
at the window all the time. So it was just Bungle and me inside, which doesn’t
give you much scope really. You can’t do things. We battled away for ages,
saying "Come on – let’s get them in the room." And they'd say; "Oh no, you can’t
do that". But eventually they allowed us to have Zippy and George inside. Andrew: Did you have a lot of input into the show? Geoffrey: Well, no, not really. You would suggest little
things. But no, the producer is the producer and that was it really. But
eventually we started writing them. That helps. But we would suggest little
things from time to time. I suppose as the years went by you’d get a script that
you’d think, Zippy, George, Bungle and Geoffrey wouldn’t say that, or do that
kind of thing. You’d point it out to the director or whatever and subtlety
change it around. Andrew: So when you say, Zippy, George, Bungle and Geoffrey,
did you see Geoffrey as a character, not as an extension of yourself. It’s not
you. Geoffrey: Oh yes, not when I first started. I suppose it
becomes over twenty years it kind of mingled. No, I definitely started out as a
character really. I think I made him slightly northern as well, when I first
started, whether that was a hang up from the Z Cars or because I was from the
north. But I think that slightly went actually, after a few months. I mean, I
didn’t go deeply into what this guy was thinking. You can’t go into the fact
that this was just a piece of material with someone’s hand up it. But no, I just
treated it like an actor, really. In fact all the time to be honest, all the way
through, although I, as I say, me, Geoffrey Hayes got mixed up with this
Geoffrey in Rainbow. But I treated it all as an actor, so once the
cameras were rolling, they were, you know, like real people. Just other actors
in the scene. The fact that it was a bear and whatever, doesn’t matter a thing
to me really. They were just characters. I mean because they were well acted,
and the puppeteers as well. I mean the puppeteers really bought them to life. It
was quite amazing when you stand next to them and Roy’s across the way there,
talking away and they’re doing their thing. The physical thing they do become
quite real. Andrew: So would you forget Roy was sat well away and get
totally involved in what was going on? Geoffrey: Oh yes, I mean like, guests who came in to read a
story, they would tend to turn round to Roy in his box, you know, rather than
talk to Zippy and George. But no, as I say, the whole thing, I just kind of took
to it like a duck to water. Right from the start really, it just felt right. Andrew: Do you regret getting into that and not taking more
serious roles? Do you feel that you have become typecast? Geoffrey: I suppose now, in retrospect, I should have
stepped back a bit and thought what’s going to happen when Rainbow
finishes. But I didn’t and that’s life really. I mean the people who cast shows
now were my audience twenty odd years ago, if you think about it. And now, if
you go up for a casting session, they just remember me through Rainbow,
not as an actor. But we were, in the programme, we were all actors. Well, Rod
wasn’t, but everyone else had been an actor. So we treated it that way, but I
can understand them - no, I can’t understand them really! Because I think the
viewer would have no problem with seeing me in some character part. They’d say,
"ooh, isn’t that, didn’t he used to be, what was that programme called?" You get
all that. I mean the public wouldn’t bother, batter an eyelid. In fact they’d
love to see it, I’m sure. But no it is a problem, but, oh well, I just keep
ploughing on. Some actors seem to be able to ride over typecasting and some
can’t. Andrew: How did you feel when Thames lost its franchise? Geoffrey: Very disappointed because it was a political thing
anyway. It made me feel very angry the way Thatcher just sort of went ahead. It
was crazy auctioning them off. I don’t know what to say. I just feel very angry
about it. It was a political thing, I think Thames lost it, it’s well known
isn’t it, through that programme about the SAS and all that. Anyway, you don’t
want to talk about that. Andrew: Have you seen any of the later Rainbows, the
remake programmes? Geoffrey: I saw one or two, when it first came back and was
very disappointed. And I saw it when it came back again. They had a male
presenter didn’t they? Again, I didn’t think much of it. It just sort of lost
what Rainbow was. Well, the fact that the voices of Zippy and George were
totally different, so you lost all that character and they’d done physical
things to them, given them an extra arm, wobbly eyes. Different Bungle wasn’t
it? Different voice and costume. Well it wasn’t Rainbow… Carolyn: And they had a dog as well. Geoffrey: Was it a dog. Didn’t know if it was a dog or a
rabbit. Carolyn: Well, it was hard to tell. Andrew: If tomorrow they were going to bring back the
original format, would you jump at it? Or is all that history now? Geoffrey: I’d think about it, because I don’t know. I’d like
to see scripts. I’d like to know exactly how they intended to do it. And would
we have time to rehearse and the budget to make it properly. I did that Mole in
the Hole thing, which didn’t last very long. We virtually had to make six months
of programmes in two months and it showed really, you’d know. It was crazy
having to know like six to seven songs. It was the words I had to learn because
we’d pre-recorded the songs maybe a week before. Then you came to record it.
Malcolm was all right in that suit, and of course Roy was all right because it
was all on tape. But I had to mime to these six or seven songs, desperately
trying to learn the words. And it shouldn’t be like that. You’re so
concentrating on that, you can’t relax to do the programme. Andrew: I guess, going back, to what you said before about
all being actors, the fact that it was a mole and not a bear didn’t really
matter and you didn’t really notice. Geoffrey: No, and some people find that odd, but to me, it
was another actor. How can you tuck up these puppets in bed, kiss them
goodnight, but, because they responded to me, the artists were so bloody good,
they made them real, so you just treated it as one actor to another. I never had
a problem with it. We used to mess about sometimes, used to be a bit naughty.
But I mean, once the camera, once the red light was on, you were serious. Andrew: Were there a lot of outtakes, or were you reasonably
professional when the red light was on? Geoffrey: No, we did stop quite a few times, but I don’t
think there were many outtakes, because in those days, you’d just roll back the
tape and go over again, over the mistakes, rather than snipping it. There wasn’t
much of that. No, there were more technical things that went wrong, although,
occasionally I’d forget my lines, though the worst thing is, just occasionally,
corpsing. You’d be in the middle of a scene, something would just tickle you,
make you laugh and you’d end up just rolling away and laughing for no reason at
all. So you’d stop, right, retake, action, and you’d get to that word again. I
remember one time; I went about four times in the same spot. I was rolling on
the floor with laughter. So, come about the fifth time, "Right. Right. Be
Serious," I think to myself, think death, think death and I got through it. But,
I think it was Malcolm then, playing Bungle, he’d corpsed, because I’d actually
got through it without corpsing. And Malcolm had a real hysterical, giggly laugh
when he went. It would clear Hampton Court. But things like that used to happen,
door knobs falling off, you know, little things. Andrew: Do you keep in contact with Roy and Malcolm? Geoffrey: Very occasionally. I haven’t for a while. We’ve
done the odd Panto together. No, we’ve gone our different ways at the moment.
Not to say I don’t, we don’t, think about each other, send Christmas Cards, send
Birthday Cards. But we don’t, well we never really did mix socially. Rod, Jane
and Freddy and myself did, we tended, after the show to have a drink and have a
meal in the High Street. Regret it the next day! Andrew: What was the recording schedule for
Rainbow? Geoffrey: Oh yes. Three a week. We used to start Friday
morning with a read through, where the PA would time the read through to see if
it would run under or over, and there was a general chat, if that doesn’t work,
or this does work. We could make that better or do something with that scene and
then the producer would go away and the director would plot the three shows. For
the rest of the Friday, Saturday and Sunday, go home and learn it. Monday, I
used to go and do a bit of filming on Monday morning, or go to the dubbing suite
to voice stuff there. Was it Grandma Bricks or, what was the famous one?
Cockleshell Bay and all that, Sally and Jake. And then Monday afternoon,
rehearse. Tuesday Morning, rehearse, then have a producer run and finish early
afternoon. And then, Wednesday, you’d be in the studio to record two programmes,
although sometimes the second one would run onto the Thursday when we did the
third programme. Because, you see, that was when Thames gave the money to
provide wonderful sets and costumes for all these, the great songs for Rod, Jane
and Freddy, and a lot of the sets with all those wonderful, what we used to call
"fantasy scenes". You know, where you’d go off into a dream and we’d all be
dressed up as different characters. Those were good fun to do, because, again,
as an actor you could have a go at being a different part. And make up would
give you all great make up, beards and wigs, and moustaches and things. It did
help, you know, to disguise you. It was great, good fun. But where are the
Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Stories on TV. I don’t think they do them anymore do
they? You know, not aware of it. Never seen any, anyway. So if they don’t have
access to these at home, and they never see them on telly, children will grow up
never knowing about Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella and all that. Andrew: You also did some things in New Zealand or
Australia? Geoffrey: Play School in New Zealand, yes. Andrew: Did you film those over here? Geoffrey: No, we had a three month gap, we had so many
Rainbows in the can, that they said, we must take a little break. There
happened to be a camera girl who was over from New Zealand on a job experience
and through talking to her, I got the name of the head of Children’s Programmes
at NZBC. I just fancied going to New Zealand and I had a couple of friends over
there, so I wrote off and said any chance of doing some guest presenting on Play
School, and they said, "Yes Please." It was only about 1982, but TV was quite
new over there in a way. Everyone was still learning a trade. Andrew: But what’s it like being a childhood icon then, for
want of a better word. Do you still get recognised in the street? Geoffrey: Yes, I do. I’m just amazed that now, even now,
there isn’t a week goes by where someone says hello and stop and talk about
Rainbow, which is nice. I think people forget you, but they don’t, it’s
humbling. Honestly, it really is. I don’t think of myself as an icon, but I know
it is referred to as that. I’m very much aware of it, I mean, I don’t go out
through the front door thinking, "I’m an icon! Morning, I am an icon!" I never
think about it, which is why I’m always amazed when people suddenly come up and
say hello, because I just never think about it at all. Well, I never did in the
real heyday. Occasionally in public, I might sit with my back to the door, so I
could eat without people staring all the time. Yes, I used to do a bit of that,
because I used to get a bit embarrassed, when I was eating. There were all these
people, you know, looking at me. So I used to position myself where I wouldn’t
be seen. Andrew: The Christmas tape that Thames produced, the naughty
Rainbow which has been featured on TV Offal where Victor Lewis-Smith said
it was the "unscreened pilot." Geoffrey: Victor Lewis-Smith or someone else… Andrew: Graham Norton? Geoffrey: You just reminded me, that’s right, yes. The VT
department of each ITV company, every Christmas had a competition to enter all
the outtakes from their particular companies programme out put, and see which
ones were the funniest. But ours wasn’t an outtake, we specially did it. It was
specially scripted and we did it and I never saw it! We did it and Thames won
it, but what they actually won, I don’t know. But I never saw the video. I can’t
remember much about it except for Zippy with a banana. Andrew: And you were on the Word doing the dance version of
the Rainbow theme with Shaun Ryder. Geoffrey: Oh yeah, that’s right. Grabbing hold of Zippy. It
would have been about 1993, I think if I remember when the record came out. We
did tons of things during that year, because of the record and also the fact
that there was a petition to bring back Rainbow. All sorts of radio
programmes, can’t remember them now, but we did loads of that sort of stuff. Was
it Jonathan Ross we did once, didn’t he used to have a chat show on Channel
Four. Can’t remember what it was called now. We did a spot on there, what else
did we do? Daytime with what used to be Anne and Nick. That must have been the
time Rainbow finished, I think. That would have been 92. When promoting
the record, there’s a place called the Fridge in Brixton, which is, like, one of
the clubs to chill out in, you know, we went along to sing this song, and what
the punters thought of us, I don’t know. Actually, they were quite receptive but
they used to see all the latest up and coming pop groups and on comes this bear,
hippo and Geoffrey singing this hip hop stuff. Quite what they thought, I don’t
know. Perhaps my biggest claim to fame is, in a packed Albert Hall, I
sang "I’m A Little Teapot". I was invited along with lots of other celebs, to a
religious gathering for youth, absolutely packed. I thought, I’ve got to do
something, other celebs came on and said "Hi, Hello" and went, so I thought, No,
I’m going to do something, and they all joined in, amazing. My biggest claim to
fame. Andrew: They should book you for the proms. Geoffrey: Yeah, in the interval. Andrew: Love to see that! One of the things I was going to
ask when you were talking about budgets, you did quite a lot of outside
broadcasts as well, in the programme. Geoffrey: We certainly did a lot of outside filming. Andrew: Yeah, sorry, yeah. Geoffrey: Yes, and some of the programmes were actually
filmed outside, you know. Again because they spent money on them. There was a
camping one, Going Camping. There were quite a few, I can’t remember them
now. Andrew: You were quite often accompanied with a couple of
kids as well, weren’t you. Geoffrey: Yes, that’s when usually I went out filming on my
own, walking down a street, or whatever, I had a couple of children with me. Andrew: Were they just actors booked to do the filming? Geoffrey: No, the researchers first found them from local
families; "Would your child like to be on Rainbow?" So they came out for
the day with me, to a farm or wherever it was we were going. I had a day trip to
Boulogne once, that was quite fun. Yes, because they spent money, as we were
talking about before. But how did you see Rainbow. Because to me, it kind
of changed in the time I was there, from being quite a simple nice programme it
kind of, and this is not for the worst, but for the better. It kind of evolved
into more like a soap. Kiddies, young pre-school soap, with these characters who
were, central. We, and this is what I think was so good about Rainbow, we
tackled all those subjects which Children understood, whether it was emotion,
relationships, social awareness and all that sort of thing as well as the
sciences and the language, colours and numbers and all that. But we were always
dealing with things, which I thought, which the young child at home understood,
because they would always come across someone who’s being beastly to them or
whatever in their little group or someone who was sad. How do you cope with
being sad? It wasn’t controversial. Just basic little things; how do you cope
with if you’re sad. Why you’re sad, how are you going to be happy again and
little things like your first stopover, you know, a night away from home. I’ll
tell you another thing we did was, again, it’s no big deal but in a small minor
way we tackled Women's Lib. We had a few programmes about why shouldn’t a woman
be a bus driver or lorry driver. We just pointed out the fact that there are
women who are bus drivers; it’s not just men who do that. You know and pointed
out about doing the cleaning, the washing up, all those sort of things. When was
this, in the 80’s I suppose? I don’t know if you could do it now, or if it would
be relevant now, I don’t know. But we did touch on that side of Women’s Lib. Andrew: Do you think you could do a programme now, with all
essentially male characters? Do you think you’d have to put in a female puppet
now, or don’t you think that matters? Geoffrey: Well, I don’t personally think that matters to be
honest. I mean, there used to be talk about the fact that there was a lack of
females in Rainbow. There was only Jane, really, and maybe storytellers
who’d come in. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. It never bothered me. I never saw
it as a gender thing really. I suppose people tried to think George might be a
girl, and I was quite appalled. I went to accept a cheque for Scope, it’s called
now. It used to be called The Spastics Society, at a girls school and they
wanted to ask me lots of questions and one of them was, is George a boy or a
girl? And I said, well, he’s a boy and I’d get the reply; "No, no, she’s a
girl." And I suppose it was a bit camp really. Not in the sense of, how can I
say in a homosexual way. It was camp theatricality really. Camp licence, but
it’s like Bungle wandering around in the nude, but putting his pyjamas on to go
to bed. Andrew: Why? Geoffrey: Why! Andrew: You’re not going to tell us! Geoffrey: Well, nobody knows, well, I do know, because,
somewhere along the line, there’d be a programme about getting ready for bed.
The old perennial, mum’s and dad’s getting their kids to bed and going through
all the palaver of cleaning your teeth and getting your pyjamas on and doing
your buttons up properly. It would have come out of a programme about getting
ready for bed and I think that was how the hair curlers came about as well. Just
the campness to be honest, and it kind of stuck. I suppose we used to fool about
a bit in rehearsals, everyone getting in bed there together. But that’s because
at rehearsals the three puppeteers, you know, you’re not like in the proper set
as it were. It was like the three people there all cobbled up together, so
someone would blow off or someone would do something naughty. Andrew: Have you got anything lined up for later on this
year? Geoffrey: No, I’m not doing my summer season this year. The
set up is different, they’re incorporating a variety show in the evening, which
I wouldn’t be able to do, so they had to employ a variety artist to do the panto
in the daytime. But I could have sung, "I’m a little Teapot", couldn’t I. Play
the spoons! Andrew: You were saying the other day about a programme, a
"Where Are They Now" type of thing you were going to do. Geoffrey: Oh yeah, yeah, I did that a couple of weeks ago. I
think it comes out in the summer some time. It’s just like the way we’ve been
talking now really. Going into detail what I’ve done in the past, looking at old
photographs. It’s a look at Rainbow. It’s to see what I’m up to now. They
wanted to find out about that naughty tape, the cameraman suddenly said there
was that naughty Rainbow wasn’t there? And their ears all pricked up. And
they might do the video of the record. We tell Geoffrey that we look forward to
that being aired on ITV later in the year, and he asks us if there is "‘owt else
we want to know." However, time is getting on and we feel that Geoffrey has
taken things to a natural conclusion. All that is left is to express our
grateful thanks. As we walk back to our car, Geoffrey tells us to carry on with
the web pages and to let him know if the on line petition to get a repeat run of
Rainbow back on our television sets, organised by James Chapman, has any
success. After all, Rainbow is the cult TV hit waiting to happen.
This page last updated on May 24th 2000. Rainbow is a trademark of Thames Television Ltd. ©1972 FremantleMedia Enterprises Ltd and no attempt is made to supersede this or any other copyright. |
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