Well and Truly Plastered

You’ll recall in my last blog post I mentioned Dustin Gee, the former comedy partner of Les Dennis, and his 1976 album Plastered With the Pink Elephant. To be honest, I thought I had posted tracks from that some time back, but it was brought to my attention, by my good friend The Squire, that this was not, in fact the case. Let’s remedy that right now.

Plastered With the Pink Elephant was Dustin’s one and only album, issued by the small Manchester-based label Indigo, and sold out of the boot of his car at gigs on the Northern working men’s club circuit. It’s an odd mix of comic songs, cabaret favourites and one or two seriously peculiar – one would assume personal – choices, evinced by the three cuts I offer here for you today.

Born Gerald Harrison in York, after leaving school at 15 Dustin studied at art college. He worked mainly with stained glass and did some repair work on the windows of York Minster. In the evenings he played in a band called the Dare Devils, who eventually became Gerry B and the Rockafellas. After the group disbanded, Gee became first a compere, then a comedian.

He got his big break on the ITV impressions show Who Do You Do?. His future comedy partner Les Dennis also appeared on the show. In 1980 Gee joined the cast of BBC-TV’s Russ Abbot's Madhouse: two years later Les Dennis joined the crew, and Gee and Dennis formed a comedy double act. In the summer of 1982 Gee had a minor heart attack when doing a summer season with Jim Davidson in Torquay, but soon recovered enough to be able to continue with his television work.

In April 1984, Gee and Dennis began their own TV comedy show, The Laughter Show (retitled Les & Dustin's Laughter Show for the third and final series).  In May 1985 Gee fell ill while on stage at the North Pier in Blackpool. He was taken to Blackpool Victoria Hospital where a minor heart attack was diagnosed. Gee was also told that he had dilated cardiomyopathy and that he should take it easy. Despite doctors’ orders, after a month he was back on stage, and continued until the show closed at the end of September.

Gee and Dennis were appearing in pantomime at the Southport Theatre, Merseyside when, on 1 January 1986, Gee suffered a massive heart attack. He was rushed to Southport General Hospital, where he died two days later. Believing in the old showbiz adage that “the show must go on”, Dustin was replaced in the pantomime by Jim “Bullseye” Bowen.

Here are three cuts from Plastered With the Pink Elephant Covers of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates’ Please Don’t Touch (later covered by Motorhead and Girlschool, as Headgirl), The Beatles’ Piggies and David Bowie’s Space Oddity.

Enjoy!

Download Touch HERE

Download Piggies HERE

Download Space HERE