Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Producer and director of musical shows, songwriter, and the man behind the Scout Gang Shows.
On the island
Eight records
There's No Business Like Show BusinessFavourite
Disc 1: 'There's No Business Like Show Business'
Disc 2: The Irish record described; song title misheard or garbled in transcript, identified as 'The Bridge Below the Town' performed by Bridie Gallagher based on lyric snippet and context.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Not recorded.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:17How did you set about choosing your eight records?
Well, I like to be in good company. And uh The first one I chose was from a very great artist whom she matter of fact she gave me about the biggest thrill I've had in years since I saw Jolson. I saw her in gipsy. in New York a couple of years ago, and I'd take with me to be in really great company Ethel Merman singing perhaps the truest title of any song, There's No Business Like Show Business.
Presenter asks
3:46How did the gang show start?
Well they started a complete flute. Sir Jeremar Coleman had given a big camping ground to the boys at Down. They wanted to build a swimming pool there, so they asked me if I would put on a show with a bunch of the London boys to raise money for it. We played for three nights at the Scarlet Theatre. Nobody'd come. Most we ever got, I think, was about a half a house. But those who did come liked it. And I agreed to do it only on conditions that I could do it under a non-diplome because, you see, I didn't want to get mixed up with my professional side, the scouting side, and so on. Anyway, we played for the three nights and the committee thought it had possibilities and they suggested we do it again the following year. Well within three years we began to fill the house. ... Throughout the world there is a gang show playing every night of every year. Somewhere.
Presenter asks
In 1937 your London cast was the first amateur company ever to appear in a Royal Command performance. How quickly did it grow? And what happened during the war?
Yes, we were. We we've appeared twice now, as a matter of fact. Mm-hmm. And then when war started, the the gang shows became the REF gang shows. Well, yes. A actually when I came into the Royal Air Force, I thought I should leave behind me the gang shows. But before I knew it, I was in charge of the REF Entertainments as well as being an intelligence officer, and I was then before I hardly realized it, in charge of about twenty five units, two of them were completely filled with WEF. Mhm. And they traveled to every theater of war. We found boys in cookhouses, we found them in nephews. We recruited them from all over the place, and it's a great thrill to me now when I look back and see some of those boys that came with us passing by theater now and see their name up in the lights. Norrie Parramore was one of my boys. So was Reg Dixon. Tony Hancock, Graham Stark, Dick Emery, and of course Peter Sellers.
Presenter asks
6:27You write all the material for the gang shows yourself – songs, sketches, everything? How many would that have added up to over the years?
Yes, I've written every lyric, every tune, and of course, all the scripts for the sketches. Well, that must have added up to a... to a lot throughout the years. Oh crumbs, I I couldn't count them now, Roy. There's been hundreds of them.
Presenter asks
6:47You've produced some big Boy Scout pageants as well. What's the biggest cast you ever handled?
Biggest cast I ever handled was the Royal Air Force pageant Paradi Rodastro. We had a cast of just under 2,500. We actually opened up the RAF station at Chippingonga and the Air Ministry sent all the whole crowd down there to rehearse under me. And it was quite exciting because outside the orderly room they had, in big letters with white pebbles, RAF, and some wag or wags changed this around and called it Reader's Air Force. And I I I still believe that one of those boys who helped do that was a a youngster, a sergeant, who used to carry my scripts around for me. Uh you'll know him now as Richard Attenborough.
“Yes, I I think I could. You see, I'm I'm a lucky bloke because I'm not afraid of silence.”
“I saw her in gipsy. in New York a couple of years ago, and I'd take with me to be in really great company Ethel Merman singing perhaps the truest title of any song, There's No Business Like Show Business.”
“Within three years we began to fill the house. ... Throughout the world there is a gang show playing every night of every year. Somewhere.”
“We found boys in cookhouses, we found them in nephews. We recruited them from all over the place, and it's a great thrill to me now when I look back and see some of those boys that came with us passing by theater now and see their name up in the lights. ... Tony Hancock, Graham Stark, Dick Emery, and of course Peter Sellers.”