Sam Spoons returns to Barnstaple with the Bonzo Dogs Doo Dah band

By awilshaw

AS a founding member of one of the most experimental and unique rock-jazz-performance art acts of the 1960s, Martin Ash — stage name: Sam Spoons — helped to influence some of the biggest names in British comedy.

He played spoons and percussion with the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band and has since been told by Stephen Fry and Paul Merton, among others, that his on-stage antics shaped their off-beam views of the world.

In the late 1960s, Martin, who went to school in Barnstaple, and his musical pals were rubbing shoulders with the likes of the Beatles, Cream, and the Monty Python team. Now, three original members of the Bonzos have reformed and are playing a gig in Ilfracombe, which 67-year-old Martin promises will be a high-energy show of barely concealed chaos — with lots of laughs.

Martin attended Barnstaple Grammar School, where he was taught art by the inspirational Ken Doughty, who recently died; Martin went on to college in Plymouth and then to the Royal College of Art in London to study industrial design.

He said: "When I was at the college, the Bonzos used to practise there along with all the other groups; it was a Mecca, a place to be and I couldn't even afford to have a drink in the bar.

"I started to wash up in the canteen and I got a free meal and a few shillings. I could always play the spoons as a party piece and the Bonzos said they had a few gigs lined up and they asked me to join them.

"I went to the flea markets and bought any bits and pieces that made a noise and hung them all on an iron bedstead."

Even for the boundary-breaking 1960s, the Bonzos were eccentric: they performed a mixture of trad jazz, surreal Spike Milligan-esque comedy routines, and psychedelic pop rock. They filled their stages with weird props, wore outlandish costumes, and their songs were called things like I'm The Urban Spaceman and I'm Going To Bring A Watermelon To My Girlfriend Tonight.

Martin was on the road with the Bonzos for a few years and then became a lecturer at the Chelsea College of Art, where he remained until his recent retirement. He has continued to play music over the years with the group Bill Posters Will Be Band.

The group now on tour — known as Three Bonzos And A Piano — features original members Roger Spear, Rodney Slater, as well as Martin, and David Glasson (who played in Bob Kerr's Whoopee Band) but a full reunion of all the surviving founding members was apparently blocked by that perennial bugbear of performers everywhere: musical differences.

Martin, who in recent years reestablished his North Devon link by joining the Barnstaple and Pilton Cricket Club (he has notched up a 50 and a 70 so far this season), has bought a thatched cottage in Fremington. As he approaches his 70th birthday, he is not pretending to be a swinging young musician, is happy to be known as an "old geezer", and a new song even refers to "senior moments".

The Bonzos have remained a cult band with a fanatical following. "At the time we didn't realise to what extent it might be influential. We were just enjoying ourselves and messing around," Martin said.

And he added: "Paul Merton came up to me in person and said: Sam, if I hadn't seen you doing what you were doing I wouldn't have taken up comedy."

● Three Bonzos And A Piano will play at the Landmark Theatre in Ilfracombe on Thursday, June 25, during the North Devon Festival.