Leave 'Em Laughing (III): Arthur Askey, the Crazy Gang, the Carry On films

In the same ‘little man’ mould as Norman Wisdom, but a comic who had made his mark through the medium of radio many years previously, was Arthur Askey. Askey was a native of Liverpool which was at the time a fertile breeding ground for comedians: Ted Ray, Ken Dodd, Tommy Handley, Jimmy Tarbuck, and a host of other popular British funny men learned their craft in the cosmopolitan seaport city. Askey began his comedy career in a concert party, and for fourteen years appeared at end-of-the-pier shows, cracking gags, singing his silly little songs (like ‘Busy Bee’ song, which he always performed with eternal freshness) and doing dance routines.

In January 1938, he made his first radio broadcast with long-time foil, Richard ‘Stinker’ Murdoch, in a show called Band Waggon. It was, for its day, an innovative concept, and it worked on the premiss that Arthur and Dickie were squatters in a small flat on the top of Broadcasting House. Keeping them company up on the roof were a whole menagerie of animals, Lewis the goat, Hector the camel, and pigeons named Lucy and Basil. The show, which poked fun at the BBC, was initially slow to capture a big audience, but soon the catchphrases ‘Ay thang-yew’ and ‘Hello, playmates’ became part of everyday street conversation, and become Band Waggon was a national hit. It was the forerunner and format-setter of nearly all of Britain’s classic comedy radio shows, from It’s That Man Again to the Goon Show to Hancock’s Half Hour.

It was such a success, in fact, that a film was made using the same title and idea, and started a movie career for Askey that lasted from the late 1930s well into the 1950s. Most notable of the films were Charley’s Big-hearted Aunt (1940), The Ghost Train (1941), King Arthur Was A Gentleman (1942), The Love Match (1954) and Friends And Neighbours (1959). The diminutive Askey promoted a ‘big-hearted’ persona in every sense of the phrase and was a genuine original.

In 1932, the impresario George Black tried an experimental week at the London Palladium. He called it ‘Crazy Week’, and the basis of the show was to link together three well-known provincial comedy double acts, and a comedy juggler. They were Nervo and Knox, Naughton and Gold, Caryll and Mundy, representing the cross-patter duos, and Eddie Gray, with his handlebar moustache, fractured French and Indian clubs as the solo juggler. All the acts got involved with each other in ‘impromptu’ running gags and slapstick routines – and the audiences loved it.

When ‘Crazy Week’ was extended to a month, another double act called Flanagan and Allen replaced Caryll and Mundy, and the Crazy Gang was born. It was the beginning of a whole series of separate, individually titled, riotous revues for the team, who became a national institution, favourites to the Royal Family and just about everyone else. Soon their exploits were to be seen on the screen and the same team that made such a success of the Will Hay film comedies, director Marcel Varnel and comedy writers Marriott Edgar and Val Guest, were responsible for such hits as Alf’s Button Afloat (1938), The Frozen Limits (1939) and the wartime farce Gasbags (1940).

It was the War that rudely interrupted their Palladium season, and when it ended in 1945, Val Parnell, who was now in charge of booking for the theatre, thought that the ‘Gang’ might no longer have their previous drawing power. He could not have been more wrong, and when Jack Hylton presented them at new venue the Victoria Palace, they proved more popular than ever. Only one more film resulted after the War, Life Is A Circus (1954), but their spontaneity and impish sense of fun could never really be captured fully on film. The stage was their true métier, a live audience their meat and drink.

What the Crazy Gang were to the London stage, the ‘Carry On’ team were to British film and, like the Crazy Gang, they too had a run that spanned three decades. The ‘Carry On’ films began with a low-budget comedy on the Army in 1958 called Carry On Sergeant. After that, almost two a year were made right up until 1978. Titles such as Carry On Nurse (1959), Carry On At Your Convenience (1971), Carry On Loving (1970) and Carry On Up The Khyber (1968) became as much a part of British cinema as the girl in the spotlight with the ice cream tray, the organist rising from the pit on the wurlitzer, and the house manager in his immaculate evening suit.

All the ‘Carry On’ films were in the confident hands of producer Peter Rogers, and director Gerald Thomas. Rogers’s background was steeped in film comedy, beginning in 1942 when he worked as a writer, and continuing as co-producer during the 1940s and early 1950s. Experience gave him the uncanny knack of gauging just what the British public wanted – a mixture of farce, innuendo, scantily clad girls, and an ensemble of professional buffoons. Plots were merely an excuse to combine and recycle the prime ingredients, and scriptwriter Talbot Rothwell kept the stories and gags bubbling over, even making old chestnuts seem appetizing enough.

Thomas had begun his directing career on a more serious note, with thrillers such as Time Lock and Vicious Circle (both 1957). His comedy touch came to the fore when he directed a relative newcomer to films, rock ‘n’ roll singer Tommy Steele, in The Duke Wore Jeans (1958). That same year he began the first of the ‘Carry On’ films, and he carried on directing all of them until the final curtain.

Although there were occasional variations in personnel, the principal cast members remained very much the same, a collective of comedy character actors rather than variety comedians. Stalwarts such as Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor, Hattie Jacques, Bernard Bresslaw, Joan Sims, Barbara Windsor, and Jim Dale among those who made the most consistent appearances.

The ‘Carry On’ films were always dismissed by critics as crude and trivial, and with 21st century eyes can be primitive and reactionary. Yet their enduring popularity has elevated some of the best to cult status and, as such, the series has a permanent place in the history of British cinema, demonstrating that distinctive combination of the absurd and the self-deprecating.