Read my lips – ventriloquism is a radio success
THE appeal of a ventriloquist appearing on the radio might seem difficult to fathom. Surely the whole point of such an act is that you can’t see the ventriloquist’s lips move.
But if the performance is on the radio you can’t see the lips anyway, or anything else come to that.
However, those with memories that stretch back to the 1950s will recall a show called “Educating Archie” that was a huge success.
Not only did it regularly notch up audience listener figures of over 15 million, it was a show that launched the careers of such well known British actors and comedians as Dick Emery, Benny Hill, Tony Hancock, Hattie Jacques, Bruce Forsyth, Harry Secombe, Max Bygraves and Beryl Reid. Oh yes, and Julie Andrews who played the part of Archie Andrews’s girlfriend.
Archie Andrews was the puppet and man whose hand was up the back of his jacket turning the head and working the eyeballs was Peter Brough. Although Peter Brough began broadcasting on radio shows in the 1940s, he didn’t introduce Archie Andrews to the act until 1950 when a tour of the provinces brought him to Cheltenham Town Hall.
That’s when the picture you see here, which appeared in the Cheltenham Chronicle, the Gloucestershire Echo’s sister newspaper, was first seen.
The story was that a Gloucestershire ventriloquist named Johnny Walker brought his puppet called Ossie Evans, to meet Peter Brough and Archie Andrews.
Apparently Ossie and Archie were made at the same factory.
By way of a plug for the Cheltenham Chronicle, Archie told the reporter that he enjoyed reading the paper and Ossie said he was a member of Uncle Charlie’s Corner. For those who can’t remember (which I suspect is almost everyone), Uncle Charlie’s Corner was a column in the Chronicle for children.
Members had their birthdays printed with a message from Uncle Charlie, who also offered youngsters a useful weekly snippet such as “How to add a jet engine to your balsa wood boat with a teaspoon of baking powder from your Mum’s larder”. That was for the boys. And the snippet for girls was usually about pressing flowers.
Peter Brough was no stranger to Cheltenham Town Hall, or to the area, because he spent his two years’ National Service as an ERK at RAF Innsworth. (If anyone knows why National Servicemen in the RAF were called ERKS, please let us know.)
During his time in the county he compered and appeared in shows at local venues.
Peter Brough’s contemporaries at RAF Innsworth incidentally included the author, journalist and playwright Keith Waterhouse and the broadcaster Barry Took, host of TV’S “Points of View” and radio’s “The News Quiz”, who also co-wrote such long running radio comedies as “Round the Horne” with Marty Feldman.
This name dropping throws up a number of coincidences. Marty Feldman was one of the writers who worked on Educating Archie. The star of “Round the Horne”, Kenneth Horne’s first wife came from Cirencester.
And Keith Waterhouse wrote “Billy Liar”, which was the first play performed by the Gloucester Operatic and Drama Society at the city’s Olympus Theatre when the venue reopened after a major facelift in 1970.
The Gloucester Journal’s theatre critic saw the production and wrote “The more I think about it and the more I see Billy Liar the less I like the play and the idea which must have prompted its writing”. Oh dear.
“Educating Archie” transferred to TV from radio, which sadly proved to be the end of Peter Brough’s career. Putting it bluntly, he wasn’t a very good ventriloquist. Even people who were being kind said his lips moved more than the puppet’s.
Never mind. After retiring from the stage Peter Brough ran his family’s successful clothing business. But his puppet creation must have been remembered with affection, because Archie Andrews was sold at auction in 2005 for £34,000.