One Leg Is Enough

One of the most famous comedy sketches in Britain is the Peter Cook sketch One Leg Two Few. This concerns a one legged actor called George Spiggott who arrives to audition for the role of Tarzan. The casting director tries his hardest to point out politely that the actor is unsuitable for the role because he only has one leg. The actor cannot understand this at all and keeps asking him to explain. The embarrassment and incomprehension of both parties makes for high comedy.

Peter Cook wrote the sketch at eighteen. He did not live long enough to tell the full story of George Spiggott. Only now is it presented to the world for the first time.

George Spiggott is not a fictional character played by Dudley Moore. He was a real one legged actor trying to make his way in the world. Peter Cook encountered him when he turned up in Torquay to audition for a part in a pantomime. Cook was perfectly polite to him then but later wrote the famous sketch which Spiggott saw as vicious mockery. Spiggott never forgave Cook and protested by letter several times to no effect. He was even more outraged when he discovered that his name was to be used in the Cook film Bedazzled without his permission. Furthermore it was the name adopted by the Devil. On this occasion Cook pacified him by offering him a part as his stunt double and many of the long shots of Cook in the film are actually a computer elongated George Spiggott with a false leg attached.

When not auditioning for acting roles Spiggott worked in a hardware shop. It is where the mac in the sketch came from. It was the same hardware shop in which the Two Ronnies sketch Four Candles was subsequently set. Spiggott had considerable objections to this too. Firstly his name and image had been used without permission and now his place of work was referenced without him being offered a part. Although not interested in politics he became a campaigner on image rights and disability issues. The BBC was at pains to point out that it was not his disability which had led to him being overlooked for the part. This cut no ice with Spiggott. Others had gained wealth and fame off his back and it was no coincidence for him that they were all able bodied.

Spiggott continued working in the hardware shop by day and taking the odd acting job. He made a memorable King Lear at the Warehouse Theatre in Tooting and a sardonic police inspector interviewing a patient in Emergency Ward Ten. What happened next took him completely by surprise. Spiggott lived in Holloway in the London Borough of Islington. A new left wing council was elected which gave considerable financial support to local groups but had very strict criteria for doing so. Only the most radical and politically correct groups were considered for funding. Perhaps it was inevitable that one of these would be the Alternative Film Unit. This was formed to challenge the stereotypical portrayal of certain groups in the media by remaking films from their point of view. The gay version of Ben Hur entitled Ben Him was perhaps the most famous. When the disabled insisted on fair representation in the organisation they could have only one standard bearer. George Spiggott as a local one legged actor was made for the Alternative Film Unit. Similarly there was only one role he could play. On 23rd January 1984 production of the Alternative Film Unit's version of Tarzan began at the Unit studios at the back of St. Thomas' Church in Highbury. The legend had already been created and was now taking tangible form.

"Tarzan of the Limps" is not the best Alternative Film Unit production but it does have considerable merits. The scene where Spiggott as Tarzan arrogantly directs the council officials who have come to fit a disabled modification to the rope he swings through the trees on is very impressive. The premise of the film is that the disabled boy has been lost in the jungle to which all the able bodied have been banished as deviants and the poignancy of this is expressed in the fights between Tarzan and the muscular white man he catches stealing food from his adopted family. Though clearly determined to beat his opponent he clearly retains sympathy for this ignorant creature with more legs than he knows what to do with. One of the film's drawbacks is that Tarzan appears to know too much about the world of the disabled outside his jungle with the references to car adaptations and the like. Nevertheless the film provided some fulfilment for Spiggott and was widely shown in council run cinemas and particularly among disabled groups in the area.

Of course Spiggott then demanded his due. He banged on the door of the BBC and every theatre in the land shouting about integrated casting and their legal obligation to consider disabled men for roles. To an extent he was successful. He appeared as a female doorframe in several episodes of Eastenders and in a religious documentary called "Attila the Nun". He also gained a victory over Torquay when he appeared in panto there as Long John Silver's parrot with an able bodied bird as Long John Silver. He never achieved star status but there were more roles now. Although badly affected by the political crushing of the Alternative Fim Unit and official disapproval of those associated with it he started to find film roles in Canada where the National Film Board was undergoing a funding crisis due to its failure to adopt sufficient political correctness in the eyes of the government. Leading roles in The Search For The Four Eyed Moose and screen adaptation "Der Frozenkavalier" made him familiar to a new audience. He eventually moved to Canada in 1993 and died there on September 4th 2004 at the age of sixty three after a long battle with woodworm. He has ensured that he is not solely remembered as Peter Cook saw him. He had his place in the world and did well enough to demonstrate that he deserved it.

Most people will always prefer One Leg Too Few to Tarzan of the Limps. Nevertheless they each have an audience. We all have the right to exist on our own terms and not simply as others see us. But maybe the misinterpretation of others can give us the start we need to be mentioned at all.