Where the Comedians Come From

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 86, 2 July 1927, Page 22

Where the Comedians Come From

England’s Nursery for Funny Men CHAT WITH DICK HENDERSON

Dick Henderson will top the J. C. ’Williamson vaudeville hill when the company arrives in Auckland on July 10. He is a Yorkshireman —the nursery icith Lancashire for most of England’s brilliant comedians.

Lancashire and Yorkshire have long been noted for the many performers they have supplied to the vaudeville stage. “From Lancashire,” Mr. Henderson remarks, “came George Formby, Harry Weldon, George Carney, Rob Wilton, Wilkie Bard and Whit Cunliffe. contribution includes Tom Foy, Jack Pleasants, Ernest Shand and Talbot O’Farrell. The lastnamed is generally supposed to have been born In Ireland. His birth-place is Hull (Yorkshire).

• the two places in proportion to population outf distance all other parts of England. “ For the explanation you have only to go to the free's and-easies held in j Lancashire and ■J Yorkshire. At

these you strike the roughest anrli-

the roughest audiences in the world. Get past them, in the way of a try-out, and you’re pretty safe in feeling that you’re all right wherever you may go. “Of those whose names I have given, I have known no less than six to appear in Yorkshire at the one free-and-easy. The biggest money paid was £2 10s a week. There was always great rivalry as to who topped the looking-glass—the practice in those days being to give the names on the mirror.”

Mr. Henderson was principal comedian in ttue last three pantomimes at the Lyceum—the theatre which, in succession to Drury Lane, has become the London home of that form of entertainment.

He has had the distinction of appearing at two command performances. In its review of the second —held on May 26, 1926——“ The London Daily Mail” declared him to be the comedy hit of the first half of the programme. Mr. Henderson has a vaudeville style entirely his own.

He affects natthing in make-up, beyond a diminutfve bowler hat. Except for this he appears on the stage just as he is seen in the street. Surprise follows his entry after singing a verse of “Until” behind the wings. For he has a particularly fine voice, excellently produced, with the result that a comedian is the last thing expected. Other songs folUpw—humorous and sentimental.

But, after all, thqse—most enthusiastically received—are incidental to Mr. Henderson’s line of talk. This is quick, effective, origttjal. Laughter so hearty and so sustained has probably never before been provided by a comedian at the Tivoli.