The Cannon and Ball Gospel Show

My favourite and oft-repeated piece of trivia regards the Born Again status of one Syd Little, which occurred backstage of a Blackpool theatre in 1996, during bible study in Bobby Ball's dressing room. Naturally, Tommy was there, along with Jimmy Cricket, who stood watching in his wellies as Bobby encouraged Syd to pray for forgiveness. “I don’t know what I said,” recalled Syd in a 2009 interview, “but I cried, and that’s when I let the Lord into my heart and he’s been there ever since.” Syd would go onto join Christians in Entertainment, an organisation which aids and promotes believers who work in the biz – names such as Cricket, Pam Rhodes, and (up until his death) the vicar off Dad's Army. Consequently, Syd's early post-split work consisted of one-man shows in provincial churches.

As evidenced by the names listed above, the world of British Christian entertainers is somewhat of a shallow pool, so when one of the big boys comes over – Syd Little! Off the telly! – it's like Gazza signing for your non-league club. Like with Bibleman, many faith-based families seek to avoid the muck of yer secular comedians, always talking about their toilet-parts and “do you ever notice when you're having intercourse...” So to land a new signing, even the most D-level showbusiness player can instantly find themselves a massive fish in a tiny, very lucrative pond, with eager new fans slinging tenners across merch tables to support one of their own, fighting the good fight against Old Scratch's Hollywood minions. I don't want to cast aspersions, but one wonders how, say, Cliff Richard's career would've done without the nitrous boost of Britain's church-goers behind him once we got out of the sixties.

In terms of fresh blood, the arrival of Cannon and Ball must've sent shockwaves through the church community, and the closest thing yet to the actual second coming. I've told the story more than once, about the lads bringing their faith-based show to my family's church, and me going along, to find myself affixed with what can only be described as violent eye contact from Bobby when he put out a plea for any non-Christians to come onstage in front of everyone and pray with him and Tom, while giving their life to Christ. It's testament to my commitment to sin that even under the Hypnotoad gaze of Ball, I remained in my seat. Proceedings that night were a stripped-down version of a show they'd taken out on tour for 27 dates in 1995 – and Satan only knows what sort of foul depravities Syd was getting up to back then, a year before being saved.

What with Russell Brand getting baptised in the Thames recently, I want to be clear in discussing this that Cannon and Ball always felt very genuine in their faith and their desire to share it with others, and it never came across like a grift or cynical way of tapping into a new market. I'm aware you mentally read these written pieces in my sarcastic YouTube voice, but for once I'm being earnest. I've always had a huge affection for the pair, in a non-ironic, non-Syd 'n' Eddie way, as evidenced by my short-lived series to dissect every episode of their TV shows, which ceased when Bobby died as I felt like a bit of a turd. That said, The Cannon and Ball Gospel Show – or at least the VHS release – absolutely belongs in my catalogue of television oddities. For your regular punter expecting a secular night's entertainment, it's a bit of a con-job, because even seeing the title on the poster, you'd be thinking “probably won't be that gospely...” You would be wrong.

Things open normally enough, with home movie style camcorder footage of Southampton beach and the sort of theatre you'd expect to see Billy Pearce laying on his back and kicking his legs in. A poster outside advertises C&B with a hyphenated “to-night” like in Victorian times, as crew members with mullets and missing teeth lark about on a tour bus and heave lighting rigs and massive road cases. It's a real circus vibe; Bob and Tom are coming to town! Which is fitting, for what's basically a light-ent tent revival, albeit inside a seaside theatre. And there's a leather-jacketed Bobby, accompanied by some young teenager in a blue baseball cap. Hold on; it's Cannon! Holding back the years with the renewal of God's love.

Blinding white spotlights search a black stage, the Riverdance song from an unseen angelic voice – “...hear my cry in my hungering search for you.” Onscreen text informs us “Britain's Kings of Comedy” launched a nationwide tour “with a difference...” Such excitement in those ellipsis, a tease possibly suggestive of full penetration or live firearms, but which tonight simply means they'll be talking about God and that. Live musicians are the Mike Ryal Band; one man with a pony tail cranking on a tremolo, another wearing sunglasses indoors and finger picking a bass, grey hair bobbing; a bloke blowing into the rarely seen wind synthesiser. I feel awful for whoever's first out of those wings. Imagine opening for Cannon and Ball!

That's why they've gone with a real heavyweight in Danny Owen, suit like a country and western undertaker, jet black and dotted with a silver lining and buttons plus a white tie, as he belts out Power of Love from Back to the Future, with flicks of the ankle like he's avoiding leg kicks at a UFC. More scrolling text informs us “Danny celebrates 30 years in showbiz as Tommy and Bobby's special guest.” Watching Danny do that dance where one merely hops from one foot to the other, you can't help but feel for a pair who played Royal Varieties and headlined their own series for a decade, where they played alongside enormous guest stars from stage and screen. This is like seeing them at Butlins – or even busking outside of Butlins – sharing the bill with the sort of act who'd not make it past the comedy montage on Britain's Got Talent.

Owen's down on his knees for the big finish, arms outstretched, illuminated by four criss-crossing spotlights, for an emotive number which surely must be from the Christian rock playbook? Turns out, this is from the Jekyll and Hyde musical, and what's more, a deep cut which only appeared on the soundtrack album and not the stage show; a song about drinking a potion which unleashes the monster within, at least that's how it was conceived. This will be one of tonight's themes; appropriating existing songs, and through either subtle lyric re-edits or dramatic posture, repurposing them to be about Christ.

House lights drop, a background of tiny lights like a starfield, and the band breaks into the instantly recognisable opening notes of our national anthem, by which I mean Together We'll Be Okay. The lads run on as everything kicks into high gear, Tommy in a mustard coloured jacket singing Jackie Wilson's Higher, with Bobby as hype man – “Oh yeah! Alright!” I'm gonna need someone to edit Ghostbusters II so it's this version which makes the Statue of Liberty walk. There's a cracking bit of business where Bobby reaches down into the front row to heave an old lady onstage for a dance but pulls his hand away at the last second – like offering a handshake then running it through your own hair. Realising she's been Ball'd, she slaps the back of his legs. Tommy swivels his hips like 'Ravishing' Rick Rude and crescendos with a 360 spin and a “hey, alright!”

At 12:57 mins, we get our first of many leh-geh-man, though it's here a good chunk of the audience will realise this is not what they were expecting. “We're havin' a great night tonight,” promises Tom, “we're gonna be singing, we're gonna be dancin', we're gonna be laffin', but most of all, we're gonna be praising the Lord.” And then, viewers find themselves in the sudden confusion of waking from a fainting fit. You know I'm all about the tonal shifts, but even I'm thrown, as we're in the middle of a classic Tom 'n' Bob argument, with a punchline about the drummer's bad breath, and then – BANG – different camera angle, different clothes; markedly different atmosphere. Bobby in close-up, gone from shouting to completely sedate, telling the audience “I used to drink a bottle of whiskey a day.”

This is the real story of The Gospel Show; not the rags to spiritual-riches tale of two rugged club comics who found their faith, but that the editing of its commercial release was handed over to a maniac. I think what's happened is someone worried the audience wouldn't stick with all the religious stuff – put it at the beginning, they'll fast-forward through; at the end, they'll just switch it off – so decided they'd simply just cut the two things together; a live variety show and sit-down testimonial, bleeding into each other, like eating a big bowl of spaghetti bolognese and ice cream at the same time. Done properly, this is a familiar technique in documentaries, but never, ever so haphazardly. It's like someone shuffled together a pack of playing cards and an Uno deck, lurching us back and forth during the middle of routines – the middle of songs – from Bobby dicking around onstage to confessionals about how much they hated themselves in their heyday.

“I used to have a different woman every night, and I were married. I used to fight about three times a week.” Goddamn if I don't need to see the Bobby Ball biopic. Fightin', fuckin', twinging on the braces. I'd love to hear more about it, but the tape puts us back onstage, pointing out a fella in the audience with big ears. The viewer's forced to piece it together themselves, even though born again testimonies are always a bit 'you've heard one, you've heard 'em all.' He was rich and successful, but unfulfilled inside. Then he was quite rude to a vicar, forcing him to remove his collar before even letting him in the dressing room – “I've got a Rolls Royce outside. What have you got? You've got nothing.” Fair point. Though the vicar replied “I've got Jesus,” and soon Bobby was doing his first prayer since school assembly. “And I felt washed. And I felt clean. And more than ever, I felt loved.” Bobby knew he'd been forgiven for all his sins, which presumably included Boys in Blue.

As the tape goes on, the cuts gather momentum, like whizzing down a water slide which is starting to tilt at an increasingly steep angle, allowing us less than ten seconds of the lads dressed like Teddy Boys, Bobby with teetering ducktail wig sat on his head like Frankenstein's, before we're dropped into Tommy's anecdote about Bobby grinding him down into entering a church for his grandson's dedication. If it carries on like this, we'll be down to a single frame of each, flickering like a zoetrope of a galloping horse, except with Bob saying both “he's got me piggin' skin!” and “I love you, Lord!” simultaneously. We learn Tommy got caught during the old “does anyone here want Christ in their life? Identify yourselves!” sign-up routine, and from that day forwards, never swore again. “And I used to swear with the best of 'em.” “He did,” confirms Bobby, goading him “give 'em one now.” As if to rub in our faces they can no longer make dirty jokes, Tom says the words “unless you've had the holy spirit come inside yer,” and neither have so much as a wry smile on their faces.

Tommy's now looking Heavenward for a solo Wind Beneath my Wings, though he could be singing All Things Bright and Beautiful and still look like he'd make you bite down on an ashtray before stamping the back of your head. “I would be nothing without you-oooo!” he croons, finger pointed at who Hulk Hogan would refer to as The Big Man Upstairs. The final note of Tommy's performance is lost to yet another cut. We also meet the final bosses of Redcoat style entertainment, with male/female singing duo Perfect Match. They're one of those ones who could be husband and wife or brother and sister, and three whole numbers feel unfair when escape artist Steve Legg's upside down straight jacket routine barely gets two minutes, via insulting 'page flip' transitions from whatever Fisher Price editing suite this was cut on. Barely legible text whizzes by informing us Steve beating Houdini's time was “to illustrate what the bible says about Christ setting people free.”

As far as actual laffs, the show is almost entirely free of them, and at points, it's the earnest sections which end up feeling like a skit; Bobby in a gold jacket singing “make someone happy, make someone smile, LET'S PRAISE JESUS!” with the cadence of an American Southern Baptist preacher, though still with that Bobby Ball twinkle in his eye. Even the 'fun bits' highlight the sense that any comedian moving into religion neuters themselves creatively. But regardless, the editing makes for an infuriating watch, pulled between the Good Cop of Bobby with his thumb hooked in his red braces, calling Tommy a little liar, and the Pious Cop, telling how they did loads of fucking back in the day, but it was Bad, Actually, and none of us should do it.

But it's fine, as it's another thing I'm aware I'm not the intended audience for. Except, I think I am? Hellbound non-believers like me are exactly who they hoped to reel into the fold here, it's just a shame whoever put this together didn't have the conviction to let their stories be told coherently. At one point, Bob gives such a top class analogy about what the cross means to him, I briefly consider tossing all my Baphomet memorabilia and giving the old God thing a try. Reminiscing about seeing crosses next to his maths tests, putting one on the bottom of a teenage love letter, and on a ballot paper when voting, Bob says “the cross means to me: we were wrong, he loves us, and he gives us a choice.” For a final treat, the entire cast come out for a big Greatest Love of All, where once again, lyrics have been amended to keep things on-topic. “It makes no difference because He still loves me,” and “no matter what they take from me, they can't take away my eternity.” All of them stood in a line, fists clenched, singing with their whole chests, feels like being ganged up on, inducing a flashback in me of the stare I got that Sunday evening in 1999. “Learning to love the Lord,” they sing, “is the greatest love of all!” But the moment, and whole tape, could've been saved with a Lord-based rewrite of Together We'll Be Okay. “Laugh me a laugh, purge me a sin, cos it's with Jesus I can win...”