Call My Bluff

Throughout the 1970s Britain had a prime time TV personality who stuttered. Stuttering was shown in an early evening slot on BBC 2, with over 200 episodes of the game show, “Call My Bluff”, featuring overt stuttering by one of the team captains. These broadcasts were scheduling bedrock, at a time when Britain had just three TV channels. If you lived in Britain in the 1970s, you could not avoid seeing honest-to-God stuttering on your TV.

The presenter was Patrick Campbell. This is not the Patrick Campbell of Stammering Pride and Prejudice fame. Rather, the Campbell of the 1970s was a humorist. His stuttering credentials are impeccable – Campbell would have rated easily in the late 20s, and often in the 30s, on the SSI-3. For readers without a clinical background, we are talking a lot of overt stuttering with head movements, jaw jerks, the whole works.

Campbell built a reputation in the 1950s and 1960s through his humorous writing, notably for Lilliput and the Sunday Times. Many of his columns and essays were compiled into book anthologies by publishers such as Penguin or Methuen. I have counted nearly 40 such volumes – Campbell had a high profile. When Dick Cavett’s US chat show temporarily relocated to the UK, Campbell was an invited guest:

Notice how Campbell adopts a pride narrative (“my attractive impediment”). He puts his audience at ease. One feels able to laugh with Campbell, but not to laugh at him. He ably demonstrates some of the paradoxes involved with stuttering, such as the still hard to pinpoint nature of stuttering’s situational variability. Campbell also describes social barriers associated with stuttering, through his experience in the UK’s House of Lords. He then moves the conversation on, showing that he is not defined by or limited to his stuttering. The host is deferential to Campbell’s wishes, and follows his lead with regard to stuttering.

There is at lot to like about the appearance. Campbell was a BBC regular, including That Was The Week That Was and Parkinson, a flagship British chat show with audiences of around 20 million. Some might wonder why we have not seen more overt stuttering, of the type modelled by Campbell, on TV. I think there are several reasons. For now, consider the claim sometimes made that stuttering is overlooked as a part of TV scheduling. Campbell’s career shows that this is simply not the case. Audiences and TV schedulers were both keen on Campbell, inclusive of his stuttering, and he remained a sought-after TV personality until his death in 1980. There was no social barrier to appearing on TV with stuttering in the 1970s. So, why do we not see more overt stuttering on TV nowadays? An initial conclusion might be that, just as for anyone else wanting to be a TV regular, the appointment is earned on merit. Stutterers don’t get a free ride. Although undoubtedly true, I don’t think this is the main reason. More on the topic later.

Campbell frequently referred to stuttering in his columns and essays. These can be very funny, and are dryly self-deprecating. In one of my favourites, the social-climbing hostess of a lunch party has found herself one guest short. She reluctantly invites Campbell to fill the place, but gives him strict instructions not speak. Another of her guests, Theo, also stutters, and even moreso than Campbell. The hostess is worried about the impression on a diplomat who will attend. Campbell ends up sitting next to the diplomat’s wife, and opposite Theo, who has received a similar instruction not to speak. Neither of the stutterers speaks, and both of them get away with it. The diplomat’s wife can’t speak English, and the focus of conversation shifts to a different part of the table.

Suddenly, though, conversation dries up. The other guests, who had been chattering away, have all at once exhausted their topics of conversation. An awkward silence ensues. Campbell, who had been uncharacteristically quiet for an hour, sees his opportunity. He begins to speak, but immediately begins to stutter. It is not a light bit of stuttering either, but the extended kind with head jerks and body rotations. Whilst he is stuttering, Campbell sees that Theo also took advantage of the break in conversation to begin speaking. And Theo too has become locked into an extended sequence of stuttering. Theo’s stuttering involves tight eye closures and whistling sounds, which for Campbell are reminiscent of folk standard, “The Bluebells of Scotland”. The scene continues, in Campbell’s words, “through all eternity – some of the guests leaning forward with bright smiles, and the perspiration running down their faces, others suddenly exhibiting nervous mannerisms of their own, twitching or plucking on their clothing, or coughing loudly, but all wanting to hear what either Theo or I might have to add to the font of human knowledge.”

I won’t spoil the ending – buy the book. Campbell is a terrific writer, and had been established as such for 20 years before appearing on TV. He was remarkably well-prepared both professionally and psychologically to have stuttering feature in his TV appearances. For example, had Campbell’s initial TV appearances been poorly received, he could have used his newspaper column to gloss any negative audience or critical response. His writing income meant he could have turned down any proposed TV contract or commission about which he felt uncertain. He moreover had an even better fallback – Campbell was the 3rd Baron Glenavy, and could have taken a seat in the House of Lords. This is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It features hereditary appointments, with attendance in the chamber generously compensated. Campbell never took up his seat, but would have relieved himself of any financial worry by doing so. He would also have obtained insider access to an elite network of lawmakers and business leaders. Campbell’s career as a writer, and then as a TV celebrity, was through choice rather than pursuit of either social status or money. It is not for nothing that he titled his autobiography, “My Life and Easy Times”.

Let us return now to the question of why there is not more overt stuttering on TV. Why do we not have a 2020s equivalent of Patrick Campbell, or even several of them? As I described earlier, I don’t think social barriers are the reason. Audiences and TV schedulers both liked Campbell’s stuttering, and Campbell did not find it difficult to obtain media bookings. So, what could be the reason? I have my own ideas, but would love to hear from others who stutter.