I'm a George Formby fan. He doesn't play the ukelele, by the way - it's often a banjolele. If you listen to a whole album, you soon get the idea that he's deeply disturbed - almost every song is about voyeurism: either seeing other people naked or being seen naked.
He's the epitome of British music-hall entertainment - cheeky, witty and fun. We'll all need more of this in the dark years to come. While I'm at it, have some Gracie Fields too - another Northern entertainer who kept the music hall tradition alive on film - I love 'What Can You Give A Nudist On His Birthday?' and 'Looking on the Bright Side' seems perfect for today… Gracie had an odd life - sharing her marital home with husband and his mistress, early cervical cancer, a tense relationship with her public, partly because her second husband was Italian: they stayed in the US during WW2 because he'd have been interned in Britain. A vanished world…
No comments:
Post a Comment