HALF OF FORMBY, WAS NO FORMBY AT ALL - BUT THE REST WAS WORTH WATCHING ON TV, OR GOING TO SEE AT THE THEATRE ! youtube/watch?v=oQf4diy8dCs My pal Anthony Mason posted a clip from a 1959 television show starring George Formby, which was called *Stepping Out With Formby*; a show which - then aged 20, and on embarkation leave for RAF Christmas Island - I was overjoyed to see. but once seen, I realised that my hero was not the man I had seen on the pictures, since, in reality, he was visibly-dogged by the Coronary Thrombosis that had nearly killed him seven years before, since he was over-weight, *tired*, and labouring under the strain to be the George Formby who had thrilled us at the cinema, just 15 years before. In *Stepping Out With Formby*, George opened with *When Im Cleaning Windows*, in which he was seen on the top of a ladder, wearing a boiler-suit which made him look much fatter than he really was at the time, despite the steroids he was taking to relieve his heart pain. The high-spot of the show was a production number, in which George - surrounded by chorus girls, in a sort of Conga routine - sang *Piccolo Pete*, without ukulele, as I remember, and which Beryl told me afterwards, she had coached and rehearsed her hubby for, since otherwise he would have danced *like a stick of firewood*, but for her. *Im the dancer, you know*, she added. As you can see in this number, George is *tired* and the normally *unaffected* Formby grin looks *laboured* and *contrived*, and this is due to his heart-condition, which was weighing-heavily on him at the time, and of course - compared with his Ealing and Columbia days, only 15 years earlier - he looked like a different man, and it was obvious that the Coronary Thrombosis suffered at Whitsuntide, 1952. had taken its toll. One year earlier - in April 1958, when he was starring in Leslie Sands *Beside The Seaside*, at the Manchester Opera House - George talked to me for about 10 minutes outside the Stage Door, until Beryl, who had gone in earlier, suddenly pulled-back the door, and seizing the collar of his tweed overcoat, grabbed her protesting hubby, and dragged him in, saying: *You havent got time to stand here talking; youre *on* in five minutes !* I was shocked by his appearance. He was prematurely grey, and gasping for breath. His cheeks were *stippled* with red and purple blotches and he looked much older than his 53 years. Even so, he turned-on the Formby charm, when Barbara Mitchell (who played *Mrs Pearson* his wife in this Northern comedy), arrived, and this was enough to trigger Beryls *sentinel-at-the-gate* reaction, since Im sure she had been listening on the other side of the door, throughout my talk with her by then *agitated* husband. That said, he was *magic* on-stage - I saw every single performance of the show that week, from a front seat in the orchestra stalls. But, as with everyone else in that packed theatre - what I went for was to see him bring-out his Ludwig, half-way through the play, when in front of the tabs he resurrected the *real* Formby of old, by singing half a dozen songs, including *Taint no Sin*, which he told the audience he had sung at Ardwick Hippodrome, not far from the Opera House, 30 years before. Otherwise, he sang *Grand And Healthy Life, and then the famous three that he always finished-up with, ergo: *Mr Wu, *Windows*, and the inevitable *Lamp-post*. At every performance, he underwent a *sea-change*, and lit-up like a Klieg-light, once he took that ukulele-banjo out of its case, and - turning to the audience, said: *Ee, ah used to play one of these. Shall I ave a do ?* upon which everyone in that packed Howard & Wyndham theatre went near berserk, while screaming for him to forget the play, and get on with what they had paid to see him do. This he did, at every performance, and it was a wrench when he had to, almost-reluctantly, put that Ludwig back in its case, and carry on with the play.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 00:47:34 +0000
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