Tommy Cannon is hoping to take a show on tour about his life with Bobby Ball - and says he can “still feel him standing by my side”.
In one of his first in-depth interviews since comedy pal Bobby died in October 2020 aged 76 after testing positive for Covid, comedian Tommy, 83, has opened up about his life without his comedy partner of six decades and also the late star’s final days.
Tommy said: “Even now, I can feel him. I can feel him stood at the side of me here saying, ‘Go on Tommy, lad. Go on, you can do it.’
“I’ve got some of Bobby’s ashes outside in the hallway and every morning I get up and touch the box with the ashes in and say, ‘Alright, pal.’ He’s up there now with a lot of famous people. I think he’ll be having a great time, bless him.”
On the new stage show which he is working on with Bobby’s sons, Tommy said it would be the first time he has toured since performing as Cannon and Ball. He added: “I haven’t worked, not because Bob’s passed away but certainly because of Covid, I haven’t done any work in the past two years.
“So, I’m hoping to take a show out where I’m going to be interviewed by a guy, and tell the world about our story together. 60 years in the business.
Our ups, our downs, the daft things that Bob did and I did. Then I’m going to ask the audience if they want to ask me any questions.
“I want it to be a tribute, but I also want it to be a celebration of Bob’s life. I’ll feel really good about that if we can get that together. I think we will.”
Cannon and Ball met in the early 1960s while working as welders and began singing in pubs and clubs before turning to comedy and hitting the big time with TV appearances in the Seventies which led to them getting their own series The Cannon And Ball Show, which ran from 1979 to 1988.
Shortly before his death, Bobby had played a show with Tommy at the Viva Club in Blackpool and then tested positive for covid shortly afterwards.
Tommy recalled his best friend saying he was “not feeling too special” and then leaving the venue he struggled with his breathing.
Tommy said: “The funny thing about it, bless him, is he walked down the stairs to the car, because it was an underground car park, and he was panting and puffing. I took all the stuff off him that he was carrying and I waited in the car park to make sure he’d got in his car and drove off OK, which he did.
“Then on the Sunday, he went into hospital, and I just couldn’t believe it.
One of his lads rang me and said, ‘Dad’s in hospital.’
Initially he joked on the ward and FaceTimed Tommy with nurses on the ward but then his condition deteriorated.
Speaking on The God Cast podcast, Tommy added: “The biggest problem for me was I couldn’t visit him because of Covid regulations. Then 10 days later he passed away. It was so quick. I didn’t know where I were.
“I felt like I’d had my right arm taken off me.”
Tommy will honour his late pal this July when he and Bobby’s wife Yvonne unveil a statue of the comedian in his adopted hometown, Lytham St Annes, Lancashire.
He added: “We’ve got a statue to unveil on July 31st, that I’m going to do with Bobby’s wife Yvonne. We’re going to cut the ribbon for that. It’s going to be at a theatre in St Annes. There’s big gardens at the back of the theatre and there’s been a rose bed done. So that’s where the statue is going.”
