DUKE SEES STAGE SKIT ON OWN MANNERISMS

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28457, 11 December 1957, Page 15

DUKE SEES STAGE SKIT ON OWN MANNERISMS

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 10 pan.) LONDON. Dec. 10. When Peter Cavanagh, the impersonator, set out to poke a little fun at Prince Philip’s around the world and Geophysical Year telecasts, there were no half measures, the “Daily Mail” diarist said today.

First he sought permission from Buckingham Palace —“Will it be all right if I do a skit on His Royal Highness?” They said: “Yes.” Then he ordered a blond wig—an exact copy of the Duke’s thinning hair, said the diarist. He also fitted himself out with a uniform of Admiral of the Fleet. Next he borrowed the scripts of Prince Philip’s telecast from the 8.8. C.

Finally Cavanagh spent days watching films of the Duke, studying his voice and mannerisms and stood for hours cocking his head from one side to the other before a mirror.

So when Prince Philip went early this morning to the Victoria Palace for the first midnight matinee, attended by Royalty, he was flabbergasted to see himself in action on the stage. His secretary, Mr James Orr, who was in on the secret, leaned forward to explain ‘'You won’t find this in the 8.8. C. version of your programme, sir.” It began all right, said the diarist, with “Prince” Cavanagh delivering an erudite lecture from beside an outsize globe of the world—just' as on television. But then things got out of hand. In his Royal voice, now so well known, he promised the audience that the sphere he was holding was bound to fall to earth by the law of gravity. He let it go. Up it shot into the spotlights. Meanwhile “Professor Markski” from the Moscow Institute was insisting that the world • was square so that there should be no such thing as rock *n’ roll. “Prince” Cavanagh plodded on. But somehow his “Signal to the Moon” became the first few bars of “Oh Mein Papa.”

“Astronomer” Jon Pertwee chimed in with “Remember me to your lad—l am an old Cheam boy myself.” Later, said the diarist, Peter Cavanagh said he had to keep

pinching himself to make sure he was really doing the skit. “I felt sure that at any moment a directive would come from the Palace forbidding it.” Cavanagh is reported to have said. “But they gave me a final go ahead to appear in naval uniform a few hours before the show.” So he became the first man to guy living Royalty in public with official permission, the diarist said.