Think Again

Simon Stabler talks to a television maths and science legend about his previous life in comedy and as the drummer who stood in for Ringo Starr

- Simon Stabler

Although best known for making learning fun through programmes such as Play School, Cabbages and Kings and Think of a Number, Johnny Ball had, to quote the title of his new autobiography, a previous life in comedy.

Born in Bristol and educated in his father's native Bolton, Johnny was recognised by the head of maths at Bolton County Grammar School as possessing "a brilliant mathematical brain".

"Right from childhood, I had very few books," recalls Johnny, "but my dad bought me a children's encyclopaedia, and I read that because I had nothing else to read before television."

A fan of radio comedy and modern jazz, he had ambitions to be a drummer and would practise his drumming for 24 hours a week, learning The Drum Suite, a 1956 album featuring four distinctive drummers, by heart.

About 20 years ago, Johnny got in touch with the Roland Corporation to enquire about buying an electronic drumkit, which led to an invitation to demonstrate the kit on the Roland stand at Music Live, Birmingham NEC's festival of music making.

"After practising for an hour every day for six months, I played five of the six Drum Suite tracks, and about four Buddy Rich tracks from Big Swing Face. There were 200 drummers present, and I began by telling them: 'When I started playing, I didn't even own a pair of sticks. I used to use rolled-up newspapers. So today, I'm going to play Bristling from The Drum Suite,' and I took out my rolled-up newspapers. They couldn't believe it.

"Rolled-up newspapers, I find, are slightly better than brushes on a synthetic kit. So, I opened with Bristling but then changed to sticks for the rest. I did 45 minutes, and they went wild."