Ian Tough takes a seat and hoists his 4ft 5in tall wife on to his lap, just as he’s done for the past half century.
Janette perches on his left knee with her tiny size ones dangling before turning to give him a big, cheeky grin.
But then, for the first time in 50 years, the couple just stare into each other’s eyes, enjoying the moment.
Instead of Ian grabbing Janette by the scruff of the neck and throwing her around like a ventriloquist’s dummy as she sings 'But You Love Me Daddy' through a gottle-o-gear grin.
Because – cue gasps of anguish from every child of the 70s – The Krankies have called it a day.
Yes, the fan-dabi-dozi comedy legends beloved of millions of Crackerjack and panto fans, have announced their retirement from showbiz.
In an exclusive interview, Ian and Janette scotched recent claims by pal Christopher Biggins that political correctness has killed off their innuendo-laden act. And they revealed, sadly, that it is ill health which forced Wee Jimmy to hang up his school cap forever.
“I was diagnosed with osteoporosis three years ago,” explains Janette, 73.
“My back’s not good and I can’t do as much as I used to. So, when Ian and I went off on a Caribbean cruise to celebrate our golden wedding last month we decided it’s time to put our feet up.”
Chatting over tea and jam sandwiches at their home in Torquay, Devon, the couple share hilarious stories from their career – and some saucy tales of Krankie-panky too.
They admit they are a psychoanalyst’s dream – a woman playing a 10-year-old school kid married to a man who’d dress up as her aunt, with a routine heavy on winkie jokes.
“There won’t be another character like Wee Jimmy Krankie,” says Ian, also 73.
“Today he’d be called transphobic. But it was just innocent fun – traditional pantomime humour.
“Everyone loves a double entendre – the kids get the humour on one level and the adults get the gag.”
They had never had a complaint until 2017 when they appeared in Dick Whittington with their good friend John Barrowman.
“One woman called it smutty” Janette says. “We did a scene in bed with John. Wee Jimmy said ‘I can feel your Tinkie Winkie’ and pulled out a Teletubby. Then John said ‘No – this is MY Tinkie-Winkie’ and pulled out a big one.”
'Dirty Thirties'
There were other asides too though... poking fun at reports that the Krankies were, erm, swingers. So, is it true?
“No,” says Ian. “It was never orgies or wife-swapping parties or swingers’ clubs. We just had a bit of a wild spell when we had lots of fun – our Dirty Thirties.”
And what exactly did that involve?
“Well,” Janette explains: “We were doing a revue act in 1981, which featured a magician who had a leopard called Scorpio in his act.
“He had a lion tamer called Rocky and an assistant called Angie – so I had a little ding-dong with Rocky and Ian did the same with Angie.
“Ian used to joke that I’d come home smelling of leopard while he’d get back with glitter on his bits.”
“We had an anywhere, anytime attitude to sex but we each knew what the other was doing,” says Janette.
““But as we got more famous on kids’ TV we were playing with fire. We didn’t want kiss and tell stories coming out, so we calmed down.”
After the incident with Status Quo’s tour bus, presumably?
“Ah yes,”says Ian. “We needed a bus for our support act, a five piece band and a troupe of dancers. Status Quo kindly leant us theirs.
“But when we handed it back a week later it was trashed. Even the rockers were gobsmacked.”
Ian and Janette met when she was working in Panto at the Glasgow Pavilion and he was the theatre electrician. They married in 1969 but were already a double act, learning the trade in working men’s clubs.
“At first we did visual humour with big props,” says Janette. “I impersonated Moira Anderson singing These Are My Mountains while my boobs inflated with a pump.”
(Prince Philip was a fan and once told them he “loved the boobies.”)
“I used to dress as a Womble too,” she says. “It scared the hell out of a drunk by the stage door in Partick who thought he’d seen an enormous walking rat.”
His wife’s childlike appearance landed them in difficulty. Ian says: “In 1969 we were driving back from a gig when the police pulled us over. They were hunting the Cannock Chase child murderer and wanted to know what I was doing with a little girl.
Wee Jimmy is born
“Janette, said ‘I’m not a child’ and had to explain our act before they’d let us go. It wasn’t very nice being mistaken for a weirdo.”
It could have been worse. The original plan was for Janette to be a St Trinian-style schoolgirl. “But as soon as she put on a gymslip and ripped stockings we went ‘Whoa, no...Too sexual!’”
Then they found Ian’s brother’s school cap and his grandfather’s boots – and Wee Jimmy was born.
The Krankies got their big break on TV’s Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club in 1974.
Four years later they won the comedy Club Act of the Year and landed a slot on the Royal Variety Show in front of the Queen Mum. “It was amazing,” Janette recalls.
“I did the joke where Jimmy’s counting his fingers, with his hands in his pockets... And gets to 11. The Queen Mum loved it. Next morning people in the street began calling out ‘Hey, Jimmy’ because 24 million people watched.”
The Krankies were stars and, when they joined TV’s Crackerjack, viewing figures rocketed from 2.5 million to 8.5 million. They had their own show, The Krankies Klub and recorded an album called Fan-dabi-dozi – Jimmy’s popular catchphrase.
They were so famous they even had a stalker. “She was about Janette’s height and I think she fancied me,” says Ian. “She started writing fan letters to Jan but then began saying she was going to kill her.
“She would turn up in the theatre in the second row. We never took police action but I think she was eventually sectioned as she disappeared.”
In later years The Krankies became panto favourites. But, in 2004, tragedy struck during Jack and the Beanstalk in Glasgow. Janette fell 15ft from the mechanical beanstalk, suffering a fractured skull, collar bone, ribs, and two vertebrae. “I thought I’d lost her,” says Ian. “It was terrifying.”
Janette recovered physically (later winning £130,000 compensation) but the psychological impact was huge. “She lost her confidence and was going to quit the business,” says Ian. “But Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders sent her a get well present and asked her on to their show.”
Janette made a series of hilarious cameos and Ian joined her in a brilliant spoof of Silence of the Lambs.
“French and Saunders got Janette back in the business,” says Ian.
“But I really am ready to quit now though,” she says. “It was getting harder to learn new panto parts. Last year Ian was Donald Trump and I was Kim Jong Un – guests at Cinderella’s ball. Now I just want to be me.”
But won’t they be bored after half a century of high jinx?
“Oh no,” says Ian. “We still love a good party – they’re just a bit tamer...
“We’ve always been careful with money – so now going to spend it and enjoy our retirement.
“It’s going to be fan-dabi-dozi.”