Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Music hall star, also a producer, journalist and theatrical manager.
On the island
Eight records
Claire about singing Abide With Me. Why did you choose this? Well It was the first record I ever had. Remind me of very many cup finals. I can't have Stanley Matthews on the Desert Island with me. I can think of his memorable cup final when he won his cup medal and die. Not only that, you know, it's a pretty nice line help of the helpless to have on a desert island with you.
My second choice Ms. L. Johnson. Al Jolson singing Keep Smiling at Trouble. 1943 in the Hotel Alette in Algiers. I landed English. And I sitting there with Graci feels. And Al whom I'd known for many years. Took me over in one corner. I need it. Well, I guess I'm a forgotten man, and these young guys won't even remember me. Well, we were a friend for very many years and I want to keep smiling at trouble because in 1923 when they opened the Liverpool Empire with a Julian Wire production. Julian was one of my producers. I love very much. And George Biker, who was University of the Savage Club for so many years, He sang this very number, so he got all sorts of associations and. Well, Joely sings it where you ain't heard nothing yet.
Owen Branicle. Now, he's done a recording. of a number that I used to do. But concerts and things, and I fancied myself in it because it was written by another fellow mine, Sterndale Bennett Leaning.
Keep Right On to the End of the Road
Let's have Sahari Lord for the next one because it was in 1917 that Willie Scott, Dolly Harmer's husband, was playing in three chairs with him. At the Shawsby Theatre, and the news came through about Captain John Lauder. His only son being killed in action. In order with the tradition, the show must go on.
Someday I'll Find You (from Private Lives)Favourite
Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence
North Carolina Gertrude London. They're both very, very good friends. I saw Gertie give her last performance in The King and Die in New York. And my memory of Nerl goes back to 1912 at the Coliseum. He was a little boy in a play with Sir Charles Horty, a little foul play. And I was big name and came and said, could I get him a ride on the revolving stage? I called the assistant stage manager, Mr. Mutton, I said, let's have a ride. Then I took him home in my car to Hampstead. I never knew that was now a card until the first night of Cavalcade at Drury Lane, when he came and told me, let's have the the scene from Private Lives.
Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759 'Unfinished'
Schubert's Unfinished Symphony conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. I met Sir Thomas at the late Sir Louis Dirling's home where I met a lot of celebrities. That brings that back. When I was in South Africa producing Pantomime, they gave me a symphony orchestra and I decided to start Cinderella Pantomime with the Volonov twins dancing a mime ballet as a prologue to Cinderella to Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, so that I must have.
The Seven Ages of Man (from As You Like It)
If I was there, I'd naturally want to feel that I had something that was really beautiful English being spoken. And I can think of nothing better, and I I sort of feel a personal application to it. of Sir John Gillgood reciting Seven Ages.
Misher Ellman Very old friend again playing Raph's Cavatina in a sketch I did called Half a Clown. I used Rav's Cavatina as the closing me loss we call it. Sort of background music. When the leader of the orchestra in the provincial places was particularly good as a violinist, I used to change the ending and walk off as a little clown. And the light, the spotlight, came from me and went on to the leader and he played Raf's Cavatina and had his hour of glory. And believe you me, I got more applause as you usually do for somebody else's effort than anything I'd done for myself.
In conversation
Presenter asks
5:58How old were you when you made your first appearance in public?
My first professional appearance I I'd be five. I used to do, buddy. Church anniversary concerts. and they had their Sunday school treats at the Victoria Hall grounds at Sam Harbour. And I was put up to sing and recite and my Auntie Maggie stood on the outside of the crowd and she threw a penny at me uh when I'd finished and then all the others threw their money so I really was receiving money at as an early age as that, wasn't I?
Presenter asks
7:31When did you start playing those famous sketches of yours of The Little Boy and His Mother?
Well, 1917 and 18 I was doing a play called Some Detective and Dolly Harmer was in that play with me.
Presenter asks
11:39Do you think television is mainly responsible for the virtual disappearance of the old music hall?
Oh, I It had its fact better than 'Cause it has with a lot of things, but I don't think that was the main thing. I think that the music hall were going before that'cause there are no training grounds anymore, no juvenile schools where they learnt their jobs, cases caught and all those sort of troops.
The keepsakes
The book
Walter de la Mare
I'd I'd like to take Walter Delamere's Memoirs of a Midget. I read it and thought it was a wonderful book. I always meant to read it again, but felt I wanted to read it just alone. This will be the opportunity.
The luxury
Alright, well then I'll settle for lots of scribbling pads and ball pens and I will write the biographies of ever so many people and believe you me If ever I'm rescued and they're red, they'll throw me overboard right away.
Presenter asks
12:02Was it a hard life, a good life, for young children [in the music hall]?
One minute. Get right back to the first one if you want a musical. It's like acrobats, you gotta catch'em young and train'em. Personally I hated it and I never dared let anybody know because my mother loved seeing me doing it and so did everybody else and Made it all harder for me.
Presenter asks
12:48Have you still any one main ambition unfulfilled?
Yeah, and I I don't want to be a a big shutter in but but I'd like to do something in television, not exactly in the way of producing, but kind of advising. And I would love to do The equivalent of a Jack Pa Mike Wallace Pa. You know the late night interviews they have in New York where they get somebody and they really grill'em and put'em through the mill. I would like to do one of those and show really how gentle some of the present Inquisitors are.
Presenter asks
16:20How good do you think your qualifications are as a castaway? Could you look after yourself?
Oh yes, I think so. I never do, so I think I could. I'm I'm tidy as I like, it wouldn't matter. I'm I'll be all right.
“When I was ten I was with Levy and Cardwell's Juvenile Pantomime Company. Yes. And uh in one of my scenes I had a couple of gollywogs, one of them They famous it became eventually they didn't have to do anything. And he was booked in those days because his father had two theatres that we could get dates at. His name was Stanley Jefferson. He became Stanley Lottle of Lodrell and Hardy. But I was the star of that company. By the way, Chaplin, well I likes this story, Charlie Chaplin. He speaks of when we were playing at Eldham and he was there with the eight Lancashire lads and he said he used to look at the bills and see We Georgie Wood and the Sleeping Beauty and wonder, would I ever be as big as that?”
“Personally I hated it and I never dared let anybody know because my mother loved seeing me doing it and so did everybody else and Made it all harder for me.”
“I would love to do The equivalent of a Jack Pa Mike Wallace Pa. You know the late night interviews they have in New York where they get somebody and they really grill'em and put'em through the mill. I would like to do one of those and show really how gentle some of the present Inquisitors are.”
“I'd I'd like to take Walter Delamere's Memoirs of a Midget. I read it and thought it was a wonderful book. I always meant to read it again, but felt I wanted to read it just alone. This will be the opportunity.”
“Well, thank you for letting me on your program at last. I've waited a long time for this.”