If you go to Marrakesh in Morocco you will find a show that goes on right round the clock. Copyright © 2020 Royal Variety Charity. Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. It was this: don’t be clever. If they didn’t like you, they would let you know it. Kindly collect my music, and I bid you a fond farewell.’ And he left the stage. They would have been closed down. At first his attitude was challenging and slightly hostile as he weighed me up with disconcerting intensity. But after a while, in that sunny study, walled with his own paintings and old variety bills and certificates testifying to his appearances in Royal Variety shows, he relaxed and opened up, the steady ticking of the grandfather clock pacing him as he ruminated about a career that had begun in the first year of the twentieth century. So I told the chap at Clapham that I would play the date for him at the reduced money, but that on the Friday Regal Zonophone were to record my act. Full information about safety measures and requirements are available in our Audience Guide and will also be sent to ticket holders ahead of the event. “He told me that a famous artist had been ‘done’ that week – for pretending to smack his wife’s bottom on stage. I knew a few young comedians back in 1971, and I’ve known plenty since, and a constant complaint is the cardinal crime of joke-stealing. He’d be there now if I hadn’t had the presence of mind to pick him up by the ankles and push him along to the depot. He most certainly did not! Well done. He appeared in Old Time Music Hall shows from time to time, along with most of the others in Voices of Variety, speaking, as ever, ‘on behalf of the working classes,’ but being an astute and adaptable man, he had forged a new career in the winter of his life as a film, stage and television actor, enlivening many one-off dramas, crime shows and soaps, being particularly remembered as Adam Lambsbreath in a BBC version of. But I look back on those days with a good deal of affection because I was learning. I tugged and tugged but I couldn’t get him out. Not long ago I was in Yorkshire recording an episode for a television series. Laughter was the main theme of the 1947 Royal show at the Palladium. I only had three years’ formal education, that’s all. “The copper says: ‘Do you know exactly where?’ and I says: ‘No.’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘it’s no good looking for him in the blackout. He had to provide nothing, just the mirrors, and people would walk around and scream with laughter. I played North Shields once and there was an act on the bill who was excellent, but the audience just didn’t want to know. ‘What do you mean?’ I always answer. Cartoonist and serving officer Bruce Bairnsfather invented the stoical and phlegmatic old soldier in a famous series of wartime drawings. ON November 25th, 1971, just a few weeks after we met, Billy Russell was at the BBC studios in London, rehearsing a new play. I don't say that variety is exactly on trial at the show, but it is a test performance and obviously, for the sake of the business, we have to put on the very best possible show.". Despite his acknowledged success with Royal Variety audiences, Tommy Trinder showed that performers can be very superstitious. I have been searching for many years for my Great Uncle Mr Albert Edward Rayner who went under the name of Dan Rayner. For instance, a fellow I knew by sight used to go into a pub in London, the Crown. They were so shy, and they went up to the desk and signed in and the clerk said: “Here’s the key to your room, Mr and Mrs . Billy Russell, has humour changed much since your day?’, “I said: ‘Don’t mention it in the same breath! For many comedians, being invited to do a spot at the London Palladium means they’ve made it especially when it’s being broadcast on ITV. That’s been half the fun of it for me because I always like to solve problems and accept challenges. Thank you for your patience and ongoing support at this time. It’s a funny thing – I paid that much just yesterday for a load of manure for the garden. Filming & Production I’d say: Put on a Punch and Judy show; it’d be a bloody sight more entertaining and adult. They went back on their word, in fact. You just wouldn’t be allowed to say that sort of thing in the old days.’ He said: ‘Oh, come on, Bill. I used to say she was too big to get in the bath. But, you see, there are no holds barred today. "Song Time" With Three Beverley Sisters, Deep River Boys, Billie Worth, Jeff Warren, Donald Burr. The moment the curtain fell on the evening's performance of Annie Get Your Gun, she had to dash from the Coliseum to the Palladium, arriving in the wings just one minute before her cue! When his rage had subsided, he closed his eyes and was silent for a while and I thought he’d nodded off or, for an alarming second or two, died. “He just had time to do his make-up and tie the string round his trousers and he was on. He did all right on the radio, but he never seemed to go down very well in the theatre. That was Old Bill.”, At 79, Billy Russell had outlived the act and the theatres where he had toured it for forty years. Cookie Policy. ?’, “ ‘Just a minute,’ I said. You learned there because every house was different. “Well, after we’d done the recording, the musicians stepped in. I had seen Russell plenty of times on television and there he gave the impression of being a large and robust old man, so the tiny, frail figure who opened the door to me came as a surprise. My God! A different presentation, perhaps, but they are still those self-same acts. After a bit the copper says: ‘Blimey, this is going to take hours.’ And a bloke in the crowd says: ‘It’s going to take weeks if you don’t lift his backside out of the water!’, “That was the kind of stuff I did. Site Accessibility | | You have to know your audience. If anyone has copyright or permission issues, please contact me. Billy Russell, Actor: Gazette. This called for split-second timing on her part. One wrote of her 'charm of personality, glittering technique and appeal of warmth and human feeling'; though the same critic missed the Rochdale-born singer's 'robust fun' and 'honest-to-goodness vulgarity' which marked her earlier years. Hancock, frustrated. As a matter of fact, I did it. You can’t blame them if they don’t like what you are selling. Bung the tube down his throttle, and I’ll do the pumping.’, “And that’s what he done. Cookie Policy. The Crazy Gang. People would roar, and what they were laughing at was themselves, through a distorting mirror. He used to open his act: ‘Last evening at approximately twenty minutes after high tide at Runcorn . It’s not in the same street. Brand-emic sees Russell Brand take a playful, spontaneous, socially distant look at fast approaching Armageddon. They were also highly amused by her blouse, which was adorned with an image of the Bay of Naples. I fixed it up and I agreed with the orchestra that I’d pay them so much, and I made all the arrangements. how you gettin’ on? Well, she could get in, but there was no room for the water. "We try to show off our variety business to Their Majesties The King and Queen to the best possible advantage. So any help you maybe able to give me would be really appreciated. Every time they pull the chain next door, they empty our bath’.”, Billy Russell was not a prolific recording artist, but the two live shows he recorded in the late 1930s, in London and Birkenhead, are superbly evocative examples of what it must have been like to be in a variety theatre, and have been included in several music hall compilations of more recent years. "In Town Tonight" : Terry-thomas, Gerry Brereton, John Ellison, George Cameron, Ted Ray. When the show folded Dan was asked along with Stan to stay in America. He also recorded ‘On Behalf of the Working Classes’ in Australia when he was touring there in the 1950s. I won’t work the clubs because all they want is muck, and I won’t prostitute what talent I possess. For the Royal Party it was already a happy occasion - the Princess Elizabeth appeared in the Royal Box with her fiance Philip Mountbatten and the romance of the occasion bestowed a special atmosphere on the evening. Take Off That Hat (1938) Night Train to Munich (1940) For Freedom (1940) The Man in the White Suit (1951) Judgement Deferred (1952) Negatives (1968) Start Counting (1969) Leo the Last (1970) The audience of a Royal Variety Performance is 'hard boiled' and there's nothing worse than for an act to be received in stony silence. Privacy Policy | ! He wouldn’t go North. His real name was Adam George Brown, and, billed as ‘The Son of Toil,’ he was a star comedian during decades when a considerably downtrodden section of the community needed all the spokespeople they could get, even one who could only liberate through laughter. He looked at me and he said: ‘I believe you used to be a bit of a comedian, Bill’.”. Billy Russell was born on July 16, 1893 in Birmingham, England as Adam George Brown. | Copyright © 2020 Royal Variety Charity. Billy Russell was a comedian of great skill who did not fear the difficult first spot. Everyone at LW Theatres is looking forward to reopening the doors and welcoming you back to The London Palladium. Edwin did a lot of work for this charity in his day. Tony Hancock was a particular hit with the Duke of Edinburgh in his sketch featuring a lieutenant-commander in the Royal Navy. I’ve done three Royal Variety Command performances – 1933, 1947 and 1954. ‘I TELL these ‘mocky’ comics, these young ones who come along, to do what I did. People like Bransby Williams, who later became a very good friend of mine. He died on November 25, 1971 in London, England. He was booked into the London Palladium on the same bill as Danny Kaye, when Kaye was at the height of his fame. An audience bubble must be a group of 6 people or less from a single household or support bubble. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh K.G., K.T. But is it humour? Information about your device and internet connection, including your IP address, Browsing and search activity while using Verizon Media websites and apps. I got an offer to go in a tatty little revue in Birmingham and when I was on the top of a tram one day I saw a bunch of fellows working on the line, a bunch of navvies. . Bud Flanagan had the dubious honour of warming up the audience at this year's show. I write my own songs and I write my own jokes. User Polls. The cast list was virtually guaranteed to produce humour. I do believe he was one of the first members of the charity named water rats, I know star was spelt back wards to get the rats part. The best-known of these shows Old Bill and another soldier up to their knees in mud in a dug-out as bombs light up the sky and shrapnel rains down on them. His Majesty King George VI Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth Her Royal Highnesses Princess Elizabeth Her Royal Higness Princess Margaret Philip Mountbatten. It’s got a searchlight on the top.’ Anyway, we finds him floating in the water, held up by the air in his raincoat. “About a fortnight ago one of the TV directors rang me up and said: ‘Bill, I’m in a bit of trouble. I’d finish in pantomime in Manchester and then stay near the city – this was before I got to the top, of course – working the small halls. He starts pumping, and out comes fag ends, matchsticks, orange peel and gallons and gallons of water. J.Sherman Fisher's Palladium Girls.