British Comedy Guide

Music hall and variety Page 5

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 5th September 2023, 7:21 PM

Oh yes, I certainly know the face. I see she played the Kathleem Harrison role in the 1935 film of Scrooge. Not sure I've ever seen that version though.

So she did. Watched that a couple of years ago, and it was shown again on TPTV recently - if I see it listed again I'll let you know, as I only watched it out of curiosity as the 1951 Scrooge with Alastair Sim, is one of my all time favourite films.

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On 4 June 1962 Professor Stanley Unwin (well known to fans of the Small Faces amongst others) interviewed the man who voiced Bill & Ben, Peter Hawkins. You have to be of a certain age...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfe4RwkNB5I

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I was listening to my usual wireless station this morning - Angel Radio of Havant (check it out on-line http://www.angelradio.co.uk - music and the odd comedy programme up to 1969 only) - and they had a segment of onion related songs (as you do) and played The Beatles, Marvin Gaye & Tammy Terrell, Booker T & the MGs and... ...

Robb Wilton live on the Home & Forces Programme "from a canteen of a war factory somewhere in the south":

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONEsorRkxH0

One can never have enough Robb Wilton, I always feel.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 7th September 2023, 6:59 PM

One can never have enough Robb Wilton, I always feel.

He played the magistrate in Arthur Askey's "The Love Match" - very funny, as was the whole film, especially the short appearance of Danny Ross as Shirley Eaton's soppy boyfriend

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 7th September 2023, 11:33 PM

He played the magistrate in Arthur Askey's "The Love Match" - very funny, as was the whole film, especially the short appearance of Danny Ross as Shirley Eaton's soppy boyfriend

Ah yes, Danny Ross

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and the famous pratfall! www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vH9gm6YmvE

Of course he was also the "soppy boyfriend" of Jimmy Clitheroe's sister on the wireless.

Thanks to Robert Ross's impressive +600 page tome Forgotten Heroes of Comedy, which I have just purchased, I learn that: Danny Ross had originally trained as a serious actor and trod the boards with several repertory companies before he became the bumbling perpetrator of slapstick that we now know.

And, after Jimmy Clitheroe's accidental (per the coroner's verdict) death from the effects of barbiturates and alcohol on 6 June 1973 - the day of his mother's funeral {with whom he still lived) - Ross returned to variety theatres with his tried and tested befuddled comedy act. It was on his way to one such engagement on 2 February 1976 that he suffered a massive heart attack and died aged just 45.

He was also in the film Ramsbottom Rides Again, along with Arthur Askey, Sid James and, of all people, Frankie Vaughan, an "unofficial" copy of which I purchased off ebay some years ago, just to witness Ross's performance as there is not much of his work around but, unfortunately, the copy was virtually unwatchable. He was in the short-lived attempt to bring Jimmy Clitheroe to the small screen, That's My Boy (with Molly Sugden as Clitheroe's mother} - available on DVD - but it's a pretty disappointing series.

Yes, I mentioned the Love Match pratfall in 2019.......................

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 1st August 2019, 2:39 PM

Rob Wilton ALWAYS worth a look - I fondly remember his magistrate in "The Love Match" when he asked them to explain what happened at the football match, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeR78KFYjYo

AND THIS superb scene with AA, Glenn Melvyn and the superb Danny Ross................

Worth it just for the prat-fall Laughing out loud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7wIAzdW-Qk

And the brilliant instant recovery.

The other joke I love in the kitchen is when AA says "And you know what think of you, don't you.........." and the front door buzzer goes, and when AA cleans his glasses to get a better look at Ross - so funny.

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 8th September 2023, 3:01 PM

He was in the short-lived attempt to bring Jimmy Clitheroe to the small screen, That's My Boy (with Molly Sugden as Clitheroe's mother} - available on DVD - but it's a pretty disappointing series.

Is he?! I don't have that credit recorded here!

Quote: Aaron @ 8th September 2023, 6:25 PM

Is he?! I don't have that credit recorded here!

Well I did say in my post that "thanks to Robert Ross's impressive tome Forgotten Heroes of Comedy... ...I learn that..." and it clearly states therein that he was. I quote "For Danny, television was rather a revelation... ...In 'That's My Boy' he is like a free spirit". I'd like to have thought that the information in the book would have been reasonably accurate at a cost of £35!

Danny Ross is also credited in one of the episodes on the Network DVD of That's My Boy.

However, having spent all evening doing a bit more research, it would appear that that episode, although on the That's My Boy DVD, is there as the one surviving episode of the following year's Just Jimmy (although it doesn't make that clear). That would also appear to tie in with Mollie Sugden being Clitheroe's mother (which Robert Ross also attributes to That's My Boy when it actually seems to have been June Monkhouse in that series}. To confuse matters even further, Mollie Sugden was in a series called That's My Boy but that was in 1981-86.

Confused? You will be.

I have just watched the start of the one episode of Just Jimmy on my DVD and Danny Ross is definitely in that. Probably explains why I found That's My Boy disappointing when I first bought the DVD. The person I mainly wanted to see wasn't in it! I'd probably given up by the time it got round to the one episode he was in and never watched it.

Apologies for the duff info. Maybe not such an impressive tome after all. Now excuse me, I'm getting one of my headaches 😀

Quote: Aaron @ 8th September 2023, 6:25 PM

Is he?! I don't have that credit recorded here!

I have that DVD somewhere, which I quite enjoyed.

Just Jimmy
TV adaptation of the long running BBC radio show (on the old Light program from 1959 - 1972, 280 episodes) with 'Jimmy Clitheroe' as the naughty schoolboy Jimmy.
52 episodes from 1964 - 1968 of which one only is known to survive, with Mollie Sugden as his mother in 9 and Danny Ross as cousin Danny in 7

That's My Boy
Previous short-lived sitcom from 1963, starring June June Monkhouse and Deryck Guyler

Not to be confused with the 1980s TV sitcom That's My Boy, also starring Mollie Sugden!

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 8th September 2023, 9:06 PM

Well I did say in my post that "thanks to Robert Ross's impressive tome Forgotten Heroes of Comedy... ...I learn that..." and it clearly states therein that he was. I quote "For Danny, television was rather a revelation... ...In 'That's My Boy' he is like a free spirit". I'd like to have thought that the information in the book would have been reasonably accurate at a cost of £35!

Danny Ross is also credited in one of the episodes on the Network DVD of That's My Boy.

However, having spent all evening doing a bit more research, it would appear that that episode, although on the That's My Boy DVD, is there as the one surviving episode of the following year's Just Jimmy (although it doesn't make that clear). That would also appear to tie in with Mollie Sugden being Clitheroe's mother (which Robert Ross also attributes to That's My Boy when it actually seems to have been June Monkhouse in that series}. To confuse matters even further, Mollie Sugden was in a series called That's My Boy but that was in 1981-86.

Confused? You will be.

I have just watched the start of the one episode of Just Jimmy on my DVD and Danny Ross is definitely in that. Probably explains why I found That's My Boy disappointing when I first bought the DVD. The person I mainly wanted to see wasn't in it! I'd probably given up by the time it got round to the one episode he was in and never watched it.

Apologies for the duff info. Maybe not such an impressive tome after all. Now excuse me, I'm getting one of my headaches 😀

Ahhh. Of course. Indeed, very disappointing Robert let such a howler through.

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Back on safer ground (hopefully) the classic Saturday night TV of my childhood & adolescence, after getting home from an afternoon on the terraces, would have been Juke Box Jury, Doctor Who, Dixon of Dock Green and the Billy Cotton Band Show. Here is a complete episode of the Billy Cotton Band Show originally broadcast in 1964 with guests Russ Conway, Ted Rogers, Frankie Vaughan & Spike Milligan. "Wakey Wakey!"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEOFYcV1opQ

Billy Cotton (great uncle to Fearne of that ilk) was a former racing car driver and Wimbledon & Brentford centre forward. This is him in his footballing days (fifth from the left/third from the right in the front row):

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Quote: Billy Bunter @ 9th September 2023, 8:11 PM

Back on safer ground (hopefully) the classic Saturday night TV of my childhood & adolescence, after getting home from an afternoon on the terraces, would have been Juke Box Jury, Doctor Who, Dixon of Dock Green and the Billy Cotton Band Show. Here is a complete episode of the Billy Cotton Band Show originally broadcast in 1964 with guests Russ Conway, Ted Rogers, Frankie Vaughan & Spike Milligan. "Wakey Wakey!"

(That photo of Billy Cotton had a massive code!! Why is that, as its the second or third one I've seen like that of yours)

Not forgetting the Sunday (dinner) lunchtime radio broadcast!! Which we used to listen to after the traditional Sunday roast.

And not forgetting the father of Bill Cotton!! Head of BBC Variety and light entertainment in the late 60s into the late 70s

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 10th September 2023, 12:28 AM

(That photo of Billy Cotton had a massive code!! Why is that, as its the second or third one I've seen like that of yours)

Yes, Billy Cotton himself thought it was a beauty - he'd never seen one as big as that before. He thought it must be two foot long or even more.

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Born on this day (10 September) in 1894, Annette Mills was presenter of the iconic "Muffin the Mule". She was the sister of Sir John Mills, aunt to Hayley and Juliette Mills and grandmother of the actress Susie Blake.

She trained at the Royal Academy of Music and, after meeting dancer Robert Sielle (born Cecil Leon Roberts, who she later married and divorced), they formed a dancing partnership. They put on exhibition dances, had a residency at the Piccadilly Hotel, and, after a visit to the United States, were credited with introducing the Charleston to Britain in 1925. Although divorced, they continued to perform together until she was forced to give up dancing after breaking her leg on stage.

She then turned her hand to song writing and singing and began to appear regularly as an entertainer on BBC Radio, singing light comedy songs and accompanying other singers on the piano. She wrote A Feather in Her Tyrolean Hat, recorded by Gracie Fields in 1936:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKXJl1LvsaY

wrote and sang the novelty dance song Boomps a-Daisy, recording it with the Joe Loss Orchestra in 1939:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZErUWG84N2Q

and also composed "Adolf", sung by Arthur Askey in the 1940 film Band Waggon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETAFrmjVHOQ

In 1942, she was on her way back from entertaining troops in France when she was involved in a serious car accident, which left her hospitalised for the next two years. She wrote short stories and plays during this period, some of which were broadcast. Her comic play Rotten Row was later televised in 1947 starring, among others, Esma Cannon..

She made her first BBC Television appearance in June 1946, as a singer, pianist and story teller on For the Children. She suggested that the top of her piano could be used as a stage for puppets to illustrate her stories, and a disused marionette of a mule, whom she called "Muffin", was used...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spQY2FbCUtM

She was the partner of Muffin from 1946 until her death in 1955 and wrote the songs and music, including the theme song. Her last TV appearance was on 2 January 1955 and she died in hospital on 10 January. She had been a life member of the Vegan Society and an advocate of the humane treatment of animals.

Muffin. That's the longest, politest, phwooor I've ever read. You're a true gentleman Billy.

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