History Creator / MikeHarding

LiceEpisode: Creator/MikeHarding had a routine dealing with how headlice were dealt with in Manchester schools in TheFifties. This involved the Nit Nurse ruthlessly shaving everybody's head back to the skull, and painting the exposed head with an iodine-based antiseptic.

* OdeToIntoxication: Mike's take on ''Seven Drunken Nights''. (''The Drunken Tackler''). ''Away With Rum'', ostensibly a Salvation Army temeprance anthem - which isn't. ''Posh Parties'', a comic ramble about how a working-class lad from Crumpsall became the darling of the arty set and how he fought the class war by getting pissed and obnoxious.

[[quoteright:267:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aMike_Harding_or_is_it_eric_Bloom_1080.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:267:The Rochdale Cowboy as he was in 1976]]

Harding served his apprenticeship, both as solo performer and as part of a group - the uniquely named Eric Spanner and the Rhythmaires - in the pubs, clubs and occasionally larger venues in and around Manchester. Mike Harding has not forgotten his roots and can still be seen popping up in pubs and social clubs of the ''Series/{{Phoenix Nights}}'' type, especially those on the Manchester Irish circuit.

Harding served his apprenticeship, both as solo performer and as part of a group - the uniquely named Eric Spanner and the Rhythmaires - in the pubs, clubs and occasionally larger venues in and around Manchester. Mike Harding has not forgotten his roots and can still be seen popping up in pubs and social clubs of the ''Series/{{Phoenix Nights}0}'' type, especially those on the Manchester Irish circuit.

* CelebrityResemblance: To Music/BlueOysterCult front man and guitarist Eric Bloom. Both acts charted with singles at much the same time in the UK. Although ''Rochdale Cowboy'' was not ''quite'' the same stellar worldwide hit as ''Don't Fear The Reaper''.

Harding served his apprenticeship, both as solo performer and as part of a group - the uniquely named Eric Spanner and the Rhythmaires - in the pubs, clubs and occasionally larger venues in and around Manchester. Mike Harding has not forgotten his roots and can still be seen popping up in pubs and social clubs of the ''Series/{{Phoenix Nights}}'' type, especially those on the Manchester Irish circuit.

* TheNotCatch: mike's comic monologue ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4yDzZOEKjA A 'Uming Face]]'', in which he signally fails to catch a woman trying to escape from a building on fire.

Harding served his apprenticeship, both as solo performer and as part of a group - the uniquely named Eric Spanner and the Rhythmaires - in the pubs, clubs and occasionally larger venues in and around Manchester. Mike Harding has not forgotten his roots and can still be seen popping up in pubs and social clubs of the ''{{Phoenix Nights}}'' type, especially those on the Manchester Irish circuit.

* RecordedAndStandUpComedy: he worked the [[PhoenixNights club circuit]] and recorded many LP's.

After a series of day jobs including bus conductor, carpet-fitter, dustman and road-digger, Mike demeaned himself to a ''really'' dirty unappreciated low-status job, of the sort that inevitably attracts misfits. He went to university, paying his way through a degree by playing folk clubs and [[PhoenixNights working-mens clubs]] at nights and weekends, and became a [[SchoolTeachers teacher]]. However, his solo career bloomed and he left teaching in 1967 to become a full-time professional. As with Billy Connolly, with whom his career has interesting parallels, he stepped into comedy almost by accident. During a gig at Leeds University with a pick-up band called the Edison Bell Spasm Band, he began to tell jokes to fill in the awkward dead space while the not-very-good group tuned up. He discovered he had a talent for stand-up comedy, and, as with Connolly and Carrott, the spoken comedy bits in between the songs grew longer and longer, until the songs became mere musical interludes between long rambling observational comedy monologues.

more LP's followed, including a deliberate parody of an EltonJohn smash hit - Harding's version was called ''Captain Paralytic and the Brown Ale Cowboy''. More LP's and TV work followed throughout the 1970's and 1980's, but Harding was beginning to feel the pressure of TV work, which as many comedians have observed, really eat into the available material and stretch creativity. Mike freely admits that around this time, a drinking problem began to seriously affect him, and he gradually withdrew from live concerts and TV work to pursue an alternative career of writing comedy books - in the mode of Creator/SpikeMilligan, these ran the gamut from nonsense comedy to fully-fledged novels. He also began to write poetry and serious works, including ''Bomber Moon'', a moving tribute to the dead father he never knew. As his performing career took a hiatus, and by the middle nineties he had virtually ceased public appearances to concentrate on writing.

Mike Harding was born in Crumpsall, Manchester, a child of a working-class immigrant Irish Catholic family with roots in Galway (where Mike today has a home). He lost his father in infancy, a casualty of RAF Bomber Command raids over Germany. Loss of his father at this young age profoundly affected him and underpins a lot of his later work as a comedian, singer, musician and folklore historian. Like others who later made their name as folk singer/comedians, such as Creator/BillyConnolly and Creator/JasperCarrott, Mike might have become a pop or rock performer, playing in various rock and roll and skiffle bands in the late fifties and early sixties. He still speaks proudly of being on the same bill as headlining acts such as Music/CliffRichard and the Shadows, Hank Marvin, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Lonnie Doneghan, Billy Fury, and on one occasion with an [[Music/TheBeatles obscure beat combo from Liverpool]].

* Noodleincident: In one of Harding's monologues about growing up in Crumpsall, he recollects his father slapping him round the head and saying "you never did own up to where you got that Davy Crockett hat, did you, you little bugger?" This is followed by a mysterious reference to a neighbour's missing cat, but is never followed through.

Mike Harding was born in Crumpsall, Manchester, a child of a working-class immigrant Irish Catholic family with roots in Galway (where Mike today has a home). He lost his father in infancy, a casualty of RAF Bomber Command raids over Germany. Loss of his father at this young age profoundly affected him and underpins a lot of his later work as a comedian, singer, musician and folklore historian. Like others who later made their name as folk singer/comedians, such as Creator/BillyConnolly and Creator/JasperCarrott, Mike might have become a pop or rock performer, playing in various rock and roll and skiffle bands in the late fifties and early sixties. He still speaks proudly of being on the same bill as headlining acts such as CliffRichard and the Shadows, Hank Marvin, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Lonnie Doneghan, Billy Fury, and on one occasion with an [[Music/TheBeatles obscure beat combo from Liverpool]].

after a series of day jobs including bus conductor, carpet-fitter, dustman and road-digger, Mike demeaned himself to a ''really'' dirty unappreciated low-status job, of the sort that inevitably attracts misfits. He went to university, paying his way through a degree by playing folk clubs and [[PhoenixNights working-mens clubs]] at nights and weekends, and became a [[SchoolTeachers teacher]]. However, his solo career bloomed and he left teaching in 1967 to become a full-time professional. As with Billy Connolly, with whom his career has interesting parallels, he stepped into comedy almost by accident. During a gig at Leeds University with a pick-up band called the Edison Bell Spasm Band, he began to tell jokes to fill in the awkward dead space while the not-very-good group tuned up. He discovered he had a talent for stand-up comedy, and, as with Connolly and Carrott, the spoken comedy bits in between the songs grew longer and longer, until the songs became mere musical interludes between long rambling observational comedy monologues.