Tommy Cannon smiles wistfully as he gazes at a treasured framed picture of the old pal and comedy partner he lost to Covid at 76.
For a long time after Bobby Ball’s death in 2020, just breaking into that famous TV grin of his was almost an impossibility.
And as for laughing… he says he felt he’d never do that again.
“Never a day passes that I don’t think about him,” says Tommy, 84.
“I have some of his ashes on a shelf in my living room and I see them every time I look up. I’ve still got his number on my phone. I’ll never shift that.
“After he died thoughts kept coming into my head. What are you going to do now? Do you want to carry on?”
The answer? It might well have come from bubbly Bobby himself, simply through his famous catchphrase. “Rock on, Tommy!”
And so, after talking it over with wife Hazel, the surviving half of the duo who met in the early Sixties on Tommy’s first day at a welding factory, decided to launch his first solo variety show tour.
Rock on Tommy: An Evening with Tommy Cannon will be his first standup routine without Bobby – and he admits it’s a daunting prospect.
Tommy was already a club crooner when they met at the factory in Oldham, Lancs, and it was Bobby who persuaded him they should sing together, which they did for 12 years, before realising comics were paid more.
Their first TV appearance was in 1968 on BBC ’s Opportunity Knocks and by 1979 they had their own prime time series which ran until 1988.
Now Tommy is facing the launch of his solo tour in September with both excitement and trepidation, saying: “I’m petrified. When Bob and I worked together and I forgot a line, he’d cover for me and I’d cover for him.
“We always did stuff together, but now I’m on my own thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to remember every line, I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to do that.’ But before I go on stage I’ll look up. I’ll know he’s looking down on me and saying , ‘Come on you can do this, Tommy.’ It will give me that bit of a push.
“It’ll be emotional on stage without him, but I know if I do shed tears the audience will understand.”
His new venture will give him a chance to celebrate the glory days, when the pair drew in ITV audiences of 20 million with their hilarious routines on The Cannon and Ball Show. It’s a prospect Tommy relishes.
“I talked it over with my wife for hours on end before deciding – right, I want to celebrate life with Bobby, I want to tell everybody the funny stories and I’m sure the fans who grew up with us will love to hear them,” he says.
Tommy recalls how that friendship was formed at the factory all those decades ago. Bobby was first among the 500 workers to speak to him.
“He said, ‘Hello, cock’. And as he walked away, I thought, ‘Well, that’s a funny little beggar’.”
That was the beginning of their journey together – and Tommy sadly remembers the end of it too, performing at Blackpool’s Viva nightclub a fortnight before Bobby died.
Tommy recalls how his sidekick was struggling for breath as they walked out of the club.
“I said to him, ‘Give me your guitar and your suit, I’ll carry them. Hold on to my arm’. I put him in his car, got in mine and waited while he drove off. That was the last time I saw him in the flesh.”
Tommy’s last chat with Bobby came from his hospital bed. “Typical Bob, he FaceTimed me with five nurses around him,” he laughs.
“He said, ‘Hiya Tommy, these nurses want to wave to you.’
“I said, ‘Alright pal, I thought you were poorly’.
“He said, “Well, I’m not in the best shape, but I’ll get there’. That was the last time I spoke to him.
"It sounds weird , but when he passed away I didn’t cry. Because I couldn't visit him, I couldn’t get my head round the fact he’d gone.
"I kept thinking, ‘This can’t be happening, it’s not real.’ At the funeral I turned round as his coffin came down. Then I broke down. It was then I realised he’d gone.”
But he says Bobby will be there in spirit, pulling out those braces, when he performs Rock on Tommy.
The show will feature clips of Cannon and Ball in their TV heyday, plenty of jokes, music and stories, and an audience Q&A.
Tommy says their famous catchphrase came about by accident. “I’d go on a few minutes before Bob and sing a song,” he recalls.
“One night he came on and went, ‘Ooh, rock on, Tommy’. After the show I asked him what it was and he said, ‘David Essex did a song called Rock On and I heard it on the radio, so I just thought I’d throw it in.’ After that everywhere I went it was, ‘Rock on, Tommy’.”
Tommy admits they did have ups and downs. In response to rumours they were barely on speaking terms off-stage, he says: “Of course there were times we didn’t speak. Sixty years is like a marriage, you have fall-outs.
“One of those times was when we had a management team who decided we should have an entourage to take us everywhere. They’d start saying to me: ‘Hey Tom, you won’t believe what Bob’s saying about you’ and Bob’s entourage would say the same to him.
“Eventually we both thought we’d stop speaking to each other. It went on for six weeks until I asked Bob what was wrong. He said he didn’t know so I blamed the entourages and said it had to stop. He agreed so I phoned the management team and told them we wanted them out the door. Then they were gone.”
Now Tommy, who lives in York with his wife Hazel, has five children, seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren – all backing his tour decision.
He says: “I know Bobby would have wanted me to do it too. If I’d had doubts, I’d not have ventured there. He was a great friend. I’ll never forget him.”
Rock on, Tommy: An Evening with Tommy Cannon. UK tour September 21 to April 11. Tickets: awaywithmedia.com/ tours/tommy-cannon
