Acting
Classic comedy starring Arthur Askey. The perils, humiliations and humour of trying to run a second-rate theatrical company are further compounded when financial aid, given by the former famous music-hall star Lady Randall (Lily Morris), is withdrawn. Not to be defeated, the stars decide the show must go on and devise a plan to persuade her to reinvest
A series of 19 musical and comedy "vaudeville" sketches presented in the form of a live television broadcast hosted by Tommy Handley (as himself).
One of the first screen outings for Will Hay. Hay plays the Director General of the National Broadcasting Group (NBG) who hides away in his office unaware that the general feeling about his programming is that it is too high-brow and the public are not happy. However, when he discovers this he decides to take action and promotes Jimmy, his Head of the Complaints Department, to Programme Director. Jimmy decides that a series of variety spectaculars are what the public want and sets about hiring the acts. But obstacles are put in his way and he discovers that the NBG has its own cluster of wannabe variety stars.
Follows the development of the variety theatre from 1892 to the present day, centred on a family in show business.
Lockdown is over, the boy is back in town: after two years of global/domestic chaos, Ivo blasts through his most urgent concerns of the early 2020s, plus a few from the late 1990s, in a critically acclaimed show ("mastering his craft with motormouthed finesse...if self-deprecation were a sport, Graham would have a gold medal round his neck": The Times), beautifully filmed in London at the end of his "My Future, My Clutter" UK tour, with a freshly ironed shirt, a handful of schoolboy stories and a really quite outlandish amount of lamps on the stage.
