SHOWBIZ YESTERDAYS
This month as the Blackpool illuminations regale miles of Blackpool seafront, Mark Ritchie looks at the Post-War variety theatre bills from the resort, which packed the customers in, as the lights shone bright outside.
Show business nostalgia sites on social media provide a great platform for those who wish to fondly remember the great variety and summer season show. There are many enthusiasts only too willing to try and keep the flame alive by posting about Blackpool theatres, some of which have managed to survive the shifting sands of recent decades.
The eccentric dancer is a term seldom if ever heard and spoken about on the 21st century entertainment scene, but such artistes were often star attractions. A rubber-necked comedian called Nat Jackley became ever so popular during the post-war years. Nat performed a dance which must have been physically exhausting and exacting on the muscles, as the pliable Mr Jackley contorted his body in motion, accompanied by a comic march to a heavy drumbeat. The audiences fell about and a little later a comedian called Billy Dainty used to make such dancing a feature of his extremely physical act. Some would say that the ultimate eccentric dancers were Wilson Keppel and Betty, who performed sand dancing in comic unison.
Comedy plays proved popular in the 1960’s and 70’sm as TV sit-coms and comedy pieces starring sit com stars and variety artistes such as the great Ken Platt sold many seaside venues out.
Drag- artistes were few, with Danny La Rue very much ruling the comedy cross-dressers during a succession of summer season successes. We should not forget however that comedians such as Dick Emery and Les Dawson pitched female parodies into their shows.
At Eastbourne Hippodrome in 1950 Peter Sellers, who openly avoided long theatre runs, appeared in a hit show, which took in Blackpool and stayed there for many weeks.
Seaside resorts throughout the length of breadth of the UK boasted summer shows of course, but Blackpool boasted by far the most theatre venues, so therefore a much wider turnover of acts.
Resort favourites such as Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warriss, Rob Wilton, Al Read, Hylda Baker and George Formby were all Lancastrians, either by birth or adoption, so they were classed as local favourites.
A million lingering memories remain for the Facebook show business variety fans and long may memories be evoked by their posting of some great memorabilia.
