Andy Cunningham (actor)
Andrew Cunningham was an English actor, puppeteer, ventriloquist and writer. He was best known as the creator and main writer of the children's BBC television series, Bodger & Badger, in which he acted as the likeable but accident-prone Simon Bodger and his pet, Badger.
Personal life
Cunningham studied at the University of Cambridge, where he read English. He dropped out of this course at the end of the second of its three years, citing academic pressures as the reason for doing so, but later completed his degree at the University of Reading. By the mid-1990s, he was in a long-term relationship with co-star Jane Bassett who played Mousey in Bodger & Badger. They later separated but remained good friends. He also had a daughter, Phoebe, from a relationship prior to that with Jane Bassett.Career
Before entering the acting profession and entertainment industry, he was an English teacher, then a social worker before, in the early 1970s, he decided to become a comedy magician. Andy had a lifelong interest in puppetry and magic that started when he was a child, watching such TV programmes as The Sooty Show and Muffin the Mule. When he was aged 8 his younger sister, journalist Tessa Cunningham, was born and he said he enjoyed entertaining her so much when she was young that in his early 20s, he decided to become a comedy magician. He began his craft by borrowing magic trick books from libraries, visited magic shops in the London area and after he spotted an advertising card in a newsagent's shop window for a ventriloquist's dummy, he took the opportunity to try learning ventriloquism. After picking it up - an unwanted Christmas present for a young boy - he began to teach himself ventriloquism, beginning with reading books on how to practice it. He found it quite natural to split himself in two and operate the puppet while doing something else, however, he was not happy with feeling that there was something very creepy about operating a human character, instead finding an animal character much less disturbing.After a while Andy began to explore magic conventions and it was at one in Brighton where - after spending a considerable amount of time having trouble getting past the doorman - he ordered by mail order a puppet called "Benji the Adorable Puppy". When this puppet arrived, he found himself being able to operate the puppet dog naturally and was able to ad-lib routines and comments in a way that he wasn't comfortable with doing with the ventriloquist's doll. Soon after, he gave up his day job to turn this hobby into a full-time job, alongside his work with the Covent Garden Community Theatre. It was while working as a director here that he gave comedian Julian Clary his first big break. His work as Andiamo the Magician then as The Mighty Sardini was used for both children's party entertainment and at magic shows, where he found that audiences were more appreciative of his puppet routines with China than of his magic tricks.
After this, he commissioned a friend of his called Deidre McArdle, who was good with making things out of textiles, to make him a puppet rat, as he thought it a good idea to have a puppet of an animal that people don't usually like. Unlike China, this puppet would talk, and would be reserved for adult audiences where the rat could be foul-mouthed, whereas China would be used in the presence of children. His decision to begin to phase out the magic act was taken when one night at a magic show, the person on stage before him did exactly the same magic tricks that he himself was about to do, so in a hurry he decided to drop his magic act for that night and ad-lib a puppet act with Magritte, extending the previously rehearsed act over the entire duration of his time on stage. He observed that the audience seemed to be enjoying this more than they usually enjoyed his magic tricks, and, after leaving the stage, found out that part of the reason for this was that they were laughing at the poor quality of his ventriloquism. As a result of this, instead of trying to improve his standard of ventriloquism, he decided to shorten the puppet's sentences to a few words at a time, so that by the time people would look at his lips to see if his mouth was moving, the puppet would have stopped talking anyway.
Another act he developed was of a three-headed man named "Freeman, Hardy and Willis", after the footwear retailer, with Andy's head being the middle, and the two others either side being hand-operated puppets on top of an extra-wide suit. This act was used in public open spaces and especially at festivals, where Andy took great delight in embarrassing people in front of their friends by frightening them as a prank.
By the early 1980s, Andy had a regular income to supplement his magician and Community Theatre Group work as a handyman at a West London school, a job to which he admitted himself that he was entirely unsuited. This was to become the inspiration for the character of Mr Bodger and, in turn, the setting for the second and third series of Bodger and Badger. He began to adapt the Mighty Sardini act for touring shows and children's parties to that of a hapless Charlie Chaplin-esque character called Mr Bodger, including dropping the cod-Italian accent.
In 1986, Andy wrote a children's book featuring Mr Bodger and Magritte the rat entitled "Mr Bodger's Jumping Hat". Also during this time, Roland Rat became popular on TV-am's breakfast television ITV franchise and many people in London who knew Andy because of his work with Magritte either began thinking that Andy had stolen the idea of a badly-behaved talking rat puppet from Roland Rat or confused Magritte with Roland, thinking Andy was Roland's puppeteer. It was also during this period when Andy made his only big-screen film performances in when someone from the casting team saw him perform an act in a pub show when he was wearing a very cumbersome costume that gave the impression of one person giving another a piggyback. It was from here that he was cast in two roles in that Star Wars film, one as Ephant Mon and another in an unnamed alien costume.
After seeing the success of a badly-behaved rodent puppet on television, around 1987 Andy began to explore the idea of adapting an act for TV himself. After wanting to have a double act featuring characters with similar names, with one of those names being Bodger and the other Badger, he commissioned his friend Deirdre McArdle, who had made Magritte, to make a puppet badger for him, wearing similarly eccentric clothing as Magritte. Badger would adopt a low, booming, voice similar to that of Magritte and would enjoy throwing food around. With a next-door neighbour he made two audition videotapes with him and Badger presenting a faux cookery programme where they made a recipe that coincidentally included mashed potato. The first performance was straight-laced and not very funny but the second, with Badger misbehaving and getting out of control throwing food everywhere, was much funnier. It is from here that Andy got the inspiration for Badger loving mashed potato, as he realised its potential for use in slapstick comedy while still being a very original and left-of-field idea. It was this second performance that he sent off to the BBC and several ITV regional franchisees. The ITV companies all gave him written appraisals but turned him down, however he received more positive news from Christopher Pilkington, an executive producer at the BBC within their Children's Programmes department. After this, he received no more positive news for months, occasionally calling up Chris Pilkington who would reply with encouragement.
In 1988, Andy received a phone call from Chris inviting him to make two pre-recorded appearances on the BBC's current Saturday morning BBC1 children's magazine programme On the Waterfront, both to test Andy out on broadcast television and to test how the act as it was at that time would fare with a children's TV audience. The results from both were encouraging for both Chris and Andy. However, Andy heard nothing again from Chris for months after this, continuing the routine of occasional phone calls to Chris with encouragement being received back.
Early in 1989, Andy received a call back from Chris giving the approval for a full series of programmes of Andy's act. However, Christopher had decided to change the idea from a series of 5-minute comedy cookery programmes into a fully-fledged sitcom with supporting characters and to make the episodes of the series 15-minutes in length. It was Chris who also suggested the idea of the setting for the first series, the kitchen of a "greasy spoon" cafe-cum-restaurant called "Troff's Nosherama" which, due to Badger's love of it, served themed meals all based around mashed potato and also specialised in cakes. Andy wrote all the scripts for the first series based on this premise and the episodes were recorded in studio 7 of BBC Television Centre during the summer of 1989.
After the first series was broadcast, Chris phoned Andy stating that both he and Andy had created some of the best Children's BBC comedy in years and that he would like to commission another Bodger and Badger series. Confident with the future success of the programme, Chris gave Bodger and Badger a bigger budget and Andy more creative freedom over the series from the second series onwards.
During the run of the programme, Andy became very well known amongst his programme's intended audience and their parents, some of whom claimed that Badger's behaviour was a bad influence on its audience. He guest-starred in various TV shows, events, theatre shows and children's parties off the back of the sudden success of his TV programme. Even after his programme stopped being shown on TV, he was a regular fixture in the "Kidz tent" at Glastonbury every year and performed more adult-themed nights at student unions up and down the country, who were children when Bodger and Badger was being shown on TV.