His talent, hard work and an impeccable work ethic was all he had to go by. He had no personal managers, yet he always maintained a high standard of entertaining radio programmes and stage shows and was loved by all the Maltese. This was Charles Clews, the most popular broadcaster of comedy shows of his times.

The third child of William George Clews and Mary née Scerri, Charles was born in Senglea on September 27, 1919 – 100 years ago. He was educated at the Lyceum and at the Dockyard technical college. In 1935 he entered the Dockyard where he worked as an engine fitter apprentice and, later, as a surveyor. It was there, at the shipyards, where he started, by accident, his career as a comedian during World War II.

During the rest hour, he and Johnny Catania would get together and entertain all the other workers, cracking jokes and doing impersonations; even during air raids. His jokes and songs routine kept the morale of his workmates high.

One day, an official from the Admiralty Office informed Charles that the Admiral himself had asked to see him. Somewhat frightened, he went to the office expecting a telling off; he thought he was in trouble with the Dockyard management over his sketches. When he was called in, the Admiral thanked him for his com­edy which was relieving the workers’ minds and keeping people’s spirits up in the face of grave danger.

These impromptu vaudeville-style performances first showcased Clews’ talent for comic scriptwriting; and though they lacked the polish and perfectionism that would characterise his later work, they proved a runaway hit with his beleaguered colleagues who often worked around the clock under circumstances only very few can imagine today.

That is how the celebrated Stage Commandos was born. The stage company was formed in 1945 and its repertoire included sketches, plays and musi­cals.

In the meantime, in 1939, Charles met Anne Pavia, whom he married on August 14, 1943. Together they brought up a family of eight children.

In 1953, Clews was co-founder and main scriptwriter of the celebrated Radju Muskettieri (The Radio Musketeers). At a time when listeners had very little to amuse them, Charles and his friends kept the Maltese islands laughing. Charles had invented the radio comedy ‘wheel’.

He starred in radio sitcoms which were new to Maltese listeners at the time. This made him one of the very first contributors of the local radio (then Rediffusion). Although he worked closely with a number of other well-known personalities, namely Ġemma Portelli, Vitorin Galea, Johnny Navarro, Terry L. Bencini, Josette Ciappara, Nosi Ghirlando and Ġuża Caruana, his clos­est partner was Johnny Catania.

In those post-war years, the only link to the outside world for anyone in Malta was the BBC, and its radio programmes included comedy shows by Arthur Askey, The Goons and Educating Archie. Charles was the Malta equivalent. He garnered his material from the numerous BBC Radio comedy shows.

To cater for parts of the Maltese audience who could not sing along in English with George Formby, the English actor, singer-songwriter and comedian, Clews wrote Maltese lyrics to the established wartime tunes, such as Maħbuba Katie Sejjer Insiefer to the tune of You Are My Sunshine.

With such manic mentors, Clews developed an equally energetic and infectious comic style of his own. However, the stroke of genius consisted in his reinvention of the mentioned influences within the context of traditional folklore staples, to produce an original and idiosyncratic signature that continues to exert enormous influence to this day.

His inspiration for jokes was quintessentially Maltese. His mother-in-law in particular, whom he depicted as a monster – even though, in reality, he loved and respected her – was often the butt of his jokes. Other popular jokes revolved around his large family.

One of his favourite jokes was that of his wedding anniversary when his wife wanted to celebrate the day by eating out. Charles obliged by telling her they were going to eat out, taking a table out into the courtyard.

The man who epitomised the magic of stagecraft to so many people for so long, was shy and unassuming in his private life

For a number of months Charles took part in the Radju Malta programme Ħallina Minnek!, presented and produced by Charles Abela Mizzi. In this production, Clews used to play the role of a British Army deserter in Malta who didn’t want to go back to the UK because he was afraid his colleagues would not be pleased with him, eventually marrying a Maltese woman. Listeners were entertained by the hilarious way he spoke in broken Maltese and English.

Half an hour before the recording started, he used to go to the studios prepared with the script. That is how professional he was. Apart from his professionalism, the most important thing, however, was that whenever some ‘naughty’ actors branched into double sense jokes, he never participated or prolonged the joke. Clews also illustrated that a good joke need not necessarily descend into vulgarity and double-entendre to be funny.

An exemplary family person, for whom wife and children never strayed far from his immediate plans, Charles Clews never considered using a seemingly vulgar phrase or situation, and his numerous jokes were always clean. Truly, his polished style of doing stand-up comedy in the cleanest, wittiest and family entertainment model has never since been taken up by anyone.

He was the brains behind the comical soap opera It-Tieġ ta’ Karmena Abdilla, culminating in a sumptuous ‘wedding’ (to which the whole country was invited) on February 8, 1957, at the Radio City Hall, Ħamrun. Considered by many as his masterpiece and played by the inimitable Nosi Ghirlando, this hilarious play was not only repeated in nearly every hall in Malta and Gozo but had the same success in Australia when performed to the Maltese community.

In the 1950s and 1960s, when emigration was the solution of endemic unemployment, Charles was again responsible to keep up a high morale for those left behind. Grass widows stayed tuned to Rediffusion programmes, especially where Charles wrote the scripts and interpreted iconic comedy characters like Mabli l-Kuntistabbli.

The comedian helped in children’s programmes and, in the 1970s, he invented the weekly comic adventures of the mischievous boy Fredu Frendo Sghendo (played by Johnny Navarro), who used to amuse the young (and not so young) listeners with his adven­tures.

Clews also regularly per­formed at Christmas parties organised for needy children. This he did without asking for any payment despite needing the money. He also helped in organising variety and entertaining evenings for charity purposes.

And like many other comic talents – Bob Hope being perhaps the most famous example – he was also driven by a deep-seated social conscience, which would take his plays and performances to hospitals, institutes and charity homes throughout the country and beyond.

The man who epitomised the magic of stagecraft to so many people for so long, was shy and unassuming in his private life. Indeed, and for all the success of his London and Australia tours, he rejected the call of the international stage, preferring in his later years to perform at the Catholic Institute in Floriana, or for the patients of the St Vincent de Paul Hospital.

Clews, besides being the author of seven booklets of a humorous nature in Maltese and of a great number of scripts for radio and stage comedies, sketches and songs for the stage, also pursued a career in journalism with the same discipline normally reserved for radio scripts. In fact, he is counted today among Malta’s most prolific press commentators ever.

Clews’s last appearance was during the Iljieli Mediterranji cultural festival in August 2001. He was out on stage for 30 minutes, and told the same old, simple jokes that had worked so well for him for over 60 years. His pace, his timing and his versatile warbling voice made each person in the audience feel he/she was listening to him on a one-to-one basis. It was a memorable performance, the last of a brilliant, crowded career.

The comedian served as chair­man of the Stage and Film Censors Board between 1955 and 1958 and member on the same board between 1971 and 1987. He was awarded the Midalja għall-Qadi tar-Repubblika (MQR) in 1996 and a year later a Special Award for Light Entertainment from the Broadcasting Authority.

When Clews passed away on January 29, 2009, Malta was in mourning for it had lost one of its most loved personalities ever. He was described as a stalwart of Maltese theatre but, above all, a family man. With his death, the last bead was torn from the chain of a number of actors of particular standing and of a special era. I cannot imagine the welcome he received from the other actors, friends and his son who departed before him.

Though no man is indispensable, some are irreplaceable. I think it’s a safe bet that no one will ever replace Charles Clews. This humane joke-machine possessed that rare magic. Blessed with that indefinable something called genius, he didn’t just stand on a stage, or in a studio, he did not just take part in a comedy, or programme... wherever he was, when he opened his mouth, he owned it.

His artistic skill entertained listeners both at the most difficult of times as well as during more quiet times when the Maltese people had few means of recreation. However, he will mostly be remembered for strengthening the Maltese language and culture. Truly, he deserved the MQR, but the highest recognition is given to him by the Maltese, whom he greatly entertained without ever hurting anyone’s feelings.

Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Alan Clews for providing the images for this feature.