CLAPHAM AND DWYER

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 41, 18 February 1937, Page 28

CLAPHAM AND DWYER

RADIO'S OWN COMEDIANS

A straight man and a funny man; take either away and where would you get your Spot of Bother? If ever two men were a complete contrast and a perfect complement, they are surely radio's own comedians, Clapham and Dwyer. - - They were meant lor other things. Lightweight Charlie Clapham was trained for the law, became a barrister's clerk, then a Tommy in the London Regiment in 1914, survived a wound, ■ and was given a commission in the Machine Gunners. 'He played straight parts in ■a • wartime concert party—no one thought he was funny. Heavyweight Bill Dwyer was nearer the entertainment 'world, for his father, Harry Dwyer, was a Moore and Burgess minstrel. After leaving school he spent his pocket money on singing lessons. He, too, went to the war, but the trenches sent him back with a, weak heart. He was discharged unfit and worked in'a munition factory near Nottingham. He was nearlyblown up twice; the second time the whole place went up and 150 Were killed in his department. ... At a concert party at the factory he sang songs at the piano. When peace came he put a little money into the clothing business and went out travelling. Then he began entertaining at Masonic and other concerts—and took a partner. '•• A year or two later Clapham was doing a little entertaining in an amateur way—and also took a partner. Then a mutual friend was inspired. Clapham and his partner, and Dwyer and his partner, were good, but they were too much alike. He wanted to see Clapham working with Dwyer. He told Clapham that Dwyer was a good pianist with a good voice—a nice fellow; and Clapham agreed to meet him at lunch and they got on very well together. True, Dwyer thought Clapham a bit excitable, and Clapham thought Dwyer a bit stolid. But somehow the "strong silent man" about Dwyer made Clapham keen to work with him,. for Dwyer didn't seem to care a tuppenny gin whether he came or not. It was all a romance. Their first engagement, in 1925, at a fashionable house in'- Mayf air, with the Duke and Duchess of York present, was such a success that they never looked back. The next year they attended an audition at Savoy Hill, v.ame without songs, and. talked a lot of nonsense. . .*. ■.'■ That's how it started, and how it has been going on;i ever since.- '-Vet-it's doubtful if they would, have remained together six months if it wasn't for Dwyer. Clapham is the live wire— volatile, jumpy; dashes into this, flies into the other, quarrels with everyone. "Four, times out of six, I'm right; the other two I'm hopelessly wrong." Dwyer saves him. He is the strength of the team, being impossible to quarrel with. If people upset him. ho just wisely walks away. One evening at a music-hall a party came round from the front to their dressing-room and a man they had never met before started criticising their performance. Dwyer, ever tactful, tried to change the subject. Clapham went up in the air. "Look here, what's your line?" . . . "Tobacconist." ... "Suppose I came into your shop and said your cigars were mouldy, and your tobacco was stale, and you had an ugly face, and I couldn't understand how you had a single customer, what would you do?" . . . ... "Throw you out.". "And that's what I'm-going to do to you!". - Clapham's top-hat has been an in-, separable prop since he .was a lad of. sixteen when he had the nerve to enter a competition at the Camberwell Palace to impersonate famous artists. He dressed himself up in an old froclr coat, old gloves, an old top-hat, and screwed in a monocle. He sang J. W. Rickaby's .""They .Built Piccadilly for Me," and it was his stock' song for years. He has appeared only once on the professional stage without his tophat. He had left it behind. He felt naked. . ..... He loses everything-^-off the stage and on. His system of keeping contracts is one of the biggest gags in the act, and it is based on his own natural propensity. If he is asked for a letter, he'll produce postcards, cigarette cards, a cheque book,-bus tickets, and Dwyer will say—again both off stage and on— "I see you've filed it!" . . . His bac. full of junk, is the joke of any company. For nearly three years they have been touring with Elsie and Doris "Waters in "Radio Variety." They go from town to town by car—two ears in case Clapham quarrels. Once they had a serious disagreement arid.parted at night never to speak to each other again off the stage. They had to give a show about a hundred miles away the next night, and in the morning Clapham remembered Dwyer's car was in dock. Poor old Bill! He rang him up "How are you going?" ... "By train." ... "Why don't you come with me?" _ One day they were motoring back to town to broadcast and stopped at an inn at Burford Bridge. "How shall we open our act tonight?" said Dwyer. "Bring a horse into the studio."

. Dwyer looked through the window at the fields. "Why not a cow?" . • • "What shall we.call it?" "Oh, I don't know-^-Cissie." And Cissie lasted for three years.

Clapham is the optimist—happy-go-lucky type. Dwyer doesn't appear to worry. Both are married. Dwyer has no children; Clapham has five.