George Formby and Max Miller - two goliaths of 20th Century British Comedy

Having recently watched Frank Skinner's excellent TV documentary on George Formby (above) and read John East's biography of Max Miller (right), I was struck by some of the similarities between these two British 20th century comedy icons.

• George and Max were proud Lancastrian (Wigan) and Sussex-born (Brighton) comedians respectively who built their careers on working class humour and pride in their roots (although George was actually working class made good as his father George Formby Sr had already dragged the family out of poverty through his own music hall success)
• Both changed their names (George Formby from 'George Hoy', Max Miller from 'Thomas Henry Sargant')
• Both George and Max began their careers in the music hall and both progressed to films, although sadly in Max's case his film career was short-lived as he had the misfortune to be cast in several low-budget films which did not capture the public imagination or cast him to make best use of his talents. He was also ten years older than Formby and found it harder to get into his natural stride on film. Max was always more comfortable treading the boards and playing to a live audience and it showed.
• Both married female performers (Beryl Ingham and Kathleen Marsh, respectively) in the early 1920s
• Both attempted comedy double acts with their new wives with limited success before it was realised that the men were the stronger performers at which point both wives made the decision to sacrifice their own stage ambitions and devote their lives to raising their husband's star.
• Both wives proved fiercely astute managers who drove a hard bargain and were widely feared by the showbusiness world (though it needs to be remembered that they were operating in an almost exclusively male environment in an age where women had little choice but to be fierce in order to be taken seriously).
• Both wives edited, approved and coached their husbands with their material and acts (George and Max both struggled with literacy). Kathleen also made most of Max's famously flamboyant stage clothes.
• Both comedians were always impeccably dressed for their performances, although Max would revel in his sartorial derring do with floral fabrics which dared to tease the inflexible masculine norms of the times.
• Neither comedian had children, Kathleen lost a baby, after which she was advised not to risk another pregnancy for medical reasons and Beryl chose to have a hysterectomy shortly after marriage as she did not want children
• Both wives followed their husbands everywhere they performed in their heyday and kept them on a short leash in terms of drink and female temptation (Beryl went as far as to prohibit George from kissing any leading lady, even if the script required it, so his films often involve a romantic moment comically interrupted at the crucial scene. Beryl also made sure she appeared in as many off-screen photographs with George as possible, lest anyone get any ideas!) 
• Both comedians were known for their comic songs and stock-in-trade cheeky double entendres, though Max was far more risque compared to George's mock gormless hero of the hour, coining the term 'blue jokes', a reference to his 'blue book' of jokes, tame as these seem by today's standards. However George went on to have the stellar film career, which eluded music hall 'There'll never be another' Max, albeit Max also made a few films.
• Both were excused from conscription in WWII and became famed for entertaining the troops as their contribution to the war effort (George was awarded an OBE)
• Both were exceptionally mean with money, using their manager wives as an excuse (George was famously only given 5 shillings a week 'pocket money')
• Both shared a love of luxury cars. George also had a boat, Lady Beryl.
• Both comedians lived in the same area all their lives, although their houses became larger as they grew in stature and both dabbled in smallholdings with a few animals for a while. Amusingly each of George's homes was christened 'Beryldene'.
• It was rare for either comedian to spend a night away from home, though this was not necessarily about devotion - both were highly reliant on their wives, almost to an unhealthy degree, to manage every aspect of their lives and careers. Max even called Kathleen 'Mum'. 
• Both comedians would eventually confess (George publicly, Max privately) towards the end of their lives that their marriages had not been entirely happy unions and they had been deprived of marital relations for many years (no matter that their wives would assume jealous reactions of almost epic proportions if they dared exchange more than a glance with another female).
• Both managed to conduct one or two affairs despite stringent marital controls. Or perhaps because of...
• George died in 1961 and Max died in 1963, both following heart problems and having suffered from depression as health and career declined in their final years. 
• Both comedians have societies devoted to them. The George Formby Society and The Max Miller Appreciation Society, still going strong over 50 years after their deaths. Both are also commemorated as bronze statues in their home towns.

In conclusion, these comedy giants were almost brothers by other mothers in my view and I wonder if this ever struck them on the occasions that they met. The world would certainly have been all the poorer without them.
I think it's only right that Beryl and Kathleen are remembered too though. Whatever personal frustrations went on behind closed doors in their marriages, Beryl and Kathleen were undoubtedly devoted to their husbands and sacrificed everything for them (which in itself must have been a hard pill to swallow and not without its tensions). But their talents went on to shine in other respects and they struck their own pioneering blow for female equality in the world of stage management, intentionally or not.

Perhaps too it was hard to sustain a romantic relationship when Beryl and Kathleen knew and helped with every last detail of their husbands' lives and were no nonsense business partners as well as spouses. Beryl's last few years were also spent battling leukaemia (and alcoholism to control the pain) which can't have been easy for her.

           (Shyer) Kathleen Marsh Miller           

       

Beryl and George Formby

George and Beryl attempt to make it as a double act (1920s)

Kathleen and Max also attempt to make it as a double act (1920s)

Fun With Dick, George & Mildred

While The Two Ronnies, Morcambe & Wise and Benny Hill are endlessly repeated, you will seldom see a repeat of either The Dick Emery Show or sitcom George & Mildred, yet in their day they were just as big, winning massive ratings for their channels.

I don't know why either Dick Emery or George and Mildred should have left such an indelible impression on a young child but they did. Perhaps because they contained such colourful characters and Dick Emery and Yootha Joyce (aka Mildred) had such wonderfully mischievous smiles with matching glints in their eye.

For a while it was impossible to obtain even tribute videos/DVDs, though these are at last available.

Watching them now it is easy to see why Dick Emery has fallen out of favour as his shows lampooning the little-Hitlerdom of railway station masters (oh where have they gone now we need them?), his man-eating females, insincere vicars and outrageously cliched homosexuals have dated badly, cutting-edge though they may have been when he first rose to stardom in the late 1950s. On the other hand they are also uproariously un-PC, and to be fair to Mr Emery, he always wanted to be more adventurous and develop his comedy more innovatively but a staid BBC refused to let him take risks with one of their biggest hit shows, insisting he carry on churning out comedy for mass consumption, forever employing his cast of tried and trusted characters. However Harry Enfield has more than once generously credited Dick Emery as his greatest inspiration, and when you watch Mr Enfield's shows you can see the comedy lineage. Here is a clip of 'Hettie' unselfishly thinking of others.







George and Mildred was a spin-off from hit-com Robin's Nest and G&M were originally cameo characters who played the neighbours of man-about-town Robin who rather daringly (for the 1970s) shared a flat with two hot chicks, albeit neither of whom actually fancied him, much though he tried to pretend otherwise to the world.

Mildred was the undisputed Queen of Brentford Nylon, childless and sexually frustrated and forever trying to seduce her hapless, sexually-terrified and underachieving husband George, whose job it was to try and dodge her amorous advances. A loveable monster, Mildred was a curious hybrid of traditional and liberated woman who aspired to better things but could never quite escape the 'you've made your bed so you must lie in it' doctrine of her parents' generation and admit that she'd married the wrong man. However she did break free when it came to fashion, wearing the most extraordinary clashes with her equally-loud floral wallpaper and wafting about in aforementioned glamorous negligee's of the nylon persuasion, teamed with colourful plastic earrings and occasionally macs as she led a life of loud-but-quiet desperation. George too managed to be so much more than a foil and was funny in his own right, and secretly caring and loyal too, despite living in fear of his overbearing wife. They had equally memorable neighbours in the 'perfect' middle-class Fourmile family who seemed to have everything Mildred had ever aspired to, including an absurdly precocious son Tristram, and to whom Mildred alternately sucked up and was green with envy towards. Here's a cute YouTube clip of George & Mildred babysitting, posted by the young actor featured.

British Comedy Is All The Poorer

Britain may not have much to shout about anymore, but just occasionally we do still manufacture a great comedy show as our nod toward a GDP.

Last Friday one of the writer/producer lynchpins of our comedy world (and former BBC Head of Light Entertainment) who had a hand in many of our comedy hits over the last 20 years - Geoffrey Perkins - was tragically killed in a hit and run accident on Marylebone High Street in Central London, at the age of only 55, and still at the peak of his career.

There is not a great deal I can add to this excellent Telegraph obituary of him, except to say that it shouldn't be forgotten that Geoffrey was also an excellent performer in his own right, co-writing and co-starring in the precursor to The Day Today - KYTV - as 'Mike Flex' - taking the mickey out of how terrible digital TV was going to be, back in the days when most of us only had 5 terrestrial channels - which makes KYTV's version look a REALLY quality digital TV channel now! (see clip below)

Reading the obituaries over the weekend, it is clear that Geoffrey was much loved in the television industry, and his judgement, highly respected. In addition he was not of the faceless bland accountancy or bean counting ilk who sadly run so much of television these days, but someone who came from the performing arena himself and could see things from all sides, but particularly the all-important creative side, without which there is not a great deal of point in commissioning a TV series!

RIP Geoffrey - I do hope Father Ted (aka Dermot Morgan, whom we also lost far too soon) was there to meet you after all you did for him!



Geoffrey Perkins fan tribute site