Trevor and Simon - Trevor Neal and Simon Hickson to give their full names - became comedy heroes on Saturday morning telly on Going Live! and Live & Kicking... whatever happened to them...?
Trevor and Simon were children’s TV legends back in the 80s and 90s, first finding fame on Going Live, which was hosted by Phillip Schofield (not forgetting Gordon the the Gopher) and Sarah Greene, and then going onto Live & Kicking, whose presenters included Andi Peters, John Barrowman, Zoe Ball and Jamie Theakson.
Comedy double act Trevor and Simon did loads of sketches together, including memorably The Singing Corner, which gave birth to their most famous catchphrase, “Swing Your Pants”. Among their special guests on The Singing Corner was a young Kylie Minogue, who played along merrily with their daft antics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahJY_cjP6XE
Mind you not everyone would play along. “I remember exactly who refused to do sketches with us – Bros wouldn’t, but I can’t remember why,” recalled Simon once to The Guardian before Trevor added: “I think they were just too protected. They were nice lads, but they weren’t very good at taking the mickey out of themselves, they were too humourless.”
The fun on Live & Kicking ended for the comedy duo, who first met at Manchester University, in 1997, so what have they been up to since…
Rocker Trev!
Trev has played in not one but two bands. SUCKER, from south east London, and Thanet City Rockers, who are based in Broadstairs, in Kent. Meanwhile, Simon sings in a choir… the comedy duo recently posted a Hattastic selfie in support of Brain Tumour Research which made them look like members of Madness!
Behind the camera…
Trevor and Simon are still very much in showbiz and have been doing lots of scriptwriting including for the CBeebies animation Dinopaws. “The good thing about Dinopaws was that Alan Gibley, who created it, had a vision to create something that had silly fun and slapstick at the heart of it,” said Trevor. "So he was keen to get writers with a bit of comedy history, rather than children's scriptwriters who happened to have done comedy as well."
They also wrote for another children’s show, CITV sitcom My Parents are Aliens. Plus they wrote for the ITV OAP prankster series, Off Your Rockers. While in front of the camera they popped up on Pointless!
Main pic: NILS JORGENSEN/REX/Shutterstock
