Richard Bernard Murdoch (6 April 1907 – 9 October 1990) was a British comedic radio, film and television performer.

Richard Bernard Murdoch attended Charterhouse School. He then appeared in Footlights whilst a student at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Murdoch had his radio break in the BBC comedy programme Band Waggon (1938–40) as part of a double act with Arthur Askey, acquiring the nickname "Stinker" as a result. He reprised this role in the 1940 film of the same name and after the war appeared in the TV version, Living It Up. During World War II, he served in the RAF.

He married the actress Peggy Rawlings in 1932, and they had three children, Belinda, Jane and Timothy.

He famously composed rather suggestive doggerel about Ella Wheeler Wilcox as lyrics to the opening bars of Alexandre Luigini's Ballet égyptien.

Murdoch appeared with Kenneth Horne in the BBC Radio comedy series Much Binding in the Marsh from 1944-54. He also appeared in The Men from the Ministry from 1962–77, a radio comedy series about two civil service members, with initially Wilfrid Hyde-White, but more famously Deryck Guyler.

His first film role, according to the IMDb, was as a dancer in Looking on the Bright Side in 1932, a vehicle for Gracie Fields.

He appeared as a Privy Councillor in Witchsmeller Pursuivant, an episode of the first series of Blackadder in 1983.

In the early 1980s, Murdoch provided the English narration for the Polish animated version of The Moomins, from the classic series of books by Tove Jansson.

Murdoch had a regular role as Uncle Tom, the briefless senior barrister of chambers, in Rumpole of the Bailey; this being his last TV role, according to IMDb.

Murdoch died on 9 October 1990, aged 83, with his final appearance broadcast in 1991, a few months after his death.

Selected filmography[link]

• Over She Goes (1938)
• Band Waggon (1940)
• The Ghost Train (1941)
• I Thank You (1941)
• It Happened in Soho (1948)
• Golden Arrow (1949)
• Lilli Marlene (1950)
• Strictly Confidential (1959)
• Not a Hope in Hell (1960)
• Whoops Apocalypse (1986)

References[link]

• Richard Murdoch from IMDB
• Walker, John (1999). Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies. (13th ed.) HarperCollins. p. 297. ISBN 0-00-255905-6

External links[link]

• BBC Comedy Guide information
• Cambridge Footlights history
• Biography at filmreference.com

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Kathleen Harrison (23 February 1892 – 7 December 1995) was a prolific English character actress best remembered for her role as Mrs Huggett (opposite Jack Warner and Petula Clark) in a trio of British post-war comedies about a working class family's misadventures. To modern viewers she is better remembered as Mrs Dilber, Scrooge's charwoman, appearing opposite Alastair Sim in the 1951 film A Christmas Carol.

She lived to the age of 103.

Life and career[link]

Born in Blackburn, Lancashire, Harrison was one of the first 84 pupils of St Saviour's and St Olave's Church of England School in 1903. She studied at RADA in 1914–15, and then spent some years living in Argentina and Madeira before making her professional acting debut in the UK in the 1920s.^[1]

Harrison made her stage debut as Mrs. Judd in The Constant Flirt, at the Pier Theatre, Eastbourne, in 1926. The following year she appeared in London's West End for the first time as Winnie in The Cage at the Savoy Theatre. Her subsequent West End plays included A Damsel in Distress, Happy Families, The Merchant and Venus, Lovers' Meeting, Line Engaged, Night Must Fall—also acting in the 1937 film version—Flare Path, The Winslow Boy and Watch It Sailor!.

She had already made her film debut with a minor role in Our Boys in 1915, when she appeared in the 1931 movie Hobson's Choice. Another 50 films followed, including Gaslight, In Which We Serve, and Caesar and Cleopatra, before making her name in later movies.

Before and during World War II, she played small parts in numerous British films, including The Ghost Train (1941), In Which We Serve (1942), Temptation Harbour (1947), Oliver Twist (1948), and a small but scene-stealing role as Mrs. Dilber in Scrooge (1951, entitled A Christmas Carol in the US).

Harrison also played Kaney in The Ghoul (1933) and the matriarch in Mrs. Gibbons' Boys (1962), as well as two BBC productions of Charles Dickens's novels, Our Mutual Friend and Martin Chuzzlewit. She later commented that Dickens was her favourite author.

The Huggett family[link]

The Huggett family made their first appearance in Holiday Camp (1947). Harrison played the London East End charwoman Mrs Huggett. The actress continued with the role, alongside Jack Warner as her screen husband, in Here Come the Huggetts, Vote for Huggett and The Huggetts Abroad, as well as a radio series, Meet the Huggetts, which ran from 1953 to 1962. Although criticised by critics, almost immediately it became one of the most popular programmes of the decade. Five years later, Harrison turned down the title role in writer Jeremy Sandford's acclaimed BBC play Edna, the Inebriate Woman, which later won Patricia Hayes a Best Actress on TV Award.

In 1956 Harrison also starred with Warner in the film Home and Away about a working-class family that wins the football pools.

Later career[link]

As her cinema appearances became less frequent, Harrison turned to television. In 1966, she starred on television as Mrs. Thursday, a charwoman who inherits £10 million pounds and the controlling interest in a major company, opposite Hugh Manning, who later appeared in the soap opera Emmerdale Farm.

Kathleen Harrison died in 1995 at the age of 103. She had been married to John Henry Back and the couple had three children.^[1]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Kathleen Harrison at the Internet Movie Database

Lily Morris (September 30, 1882 – October 3, 1952), born Lilles Mary Crosby, was an English music hall performer, who specialized in singing comedic songs, notably 'Why Am I Always The Bridesmaid' and 'Don't Have Any More Missus Moore".^[1]

Morris was born in the Holborn area, London, and began performing professionally at the age of ten.^[1] She built a formidable career, including several successful international tours.^[2] She had a particularly successful run at the Palace Theater in New York in 1928.^[3] She also appeared in the musical revue film Elstree Calling (1930), co-directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and a later appearance in the film Radio Parade of 1935.

She retired from the stage in 1940, except for a brief appearance in 1948.^[4] In 1941 she appeared as the formidable "Lady Randall" in the Arthur Askey comedy I Thank You but reverts to type in the final scene where she gives a rendition of the old music hall standard "Waiting at the Church" at an impromptu concert in a tube station bomb shelter.^[5]

Song hits[link]

Lily Morris's most popular song hits include:

• Because he loves me.
• My Old Man (Said Follow the Van) (original performer: Marie Lloyd)
• Don't have any more Mrs Moore.
• He's only a working man
• The old apple tree
• Waiting at the Church
• Why am I always the bridesmaid - Never the blushing bride?

References[link]

Kenneth Horne is not to be confused with the playwright Kenneth Horne (1900–1975)

Kenneth Horne (27 February 1907 – 14 February 1969) was an English comedian and businessman. The son of a clergyman and politician, he combined a successful business career with regular broadcasting for the BBC. His first hit series, Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh, written with his co-star Richard Murdoch, arose out of his wartime service as an officer in the Royal Air Force. Ill health forced him to choose between commerce and show business after 1958, and, choosing the latter, he made two further popular radio series, Beyond Our Ken (1958–1964) and Round the Horne (1965–1968)

Early life[link]

Charles Kenneth Horne^[3] was the seventh and youngest child of Charles Silvester Horne and his wife, the Hon. Katherine neé Cozens-Hardy.^[4] Silvester Horne was a Congregationalist minister, Liberal MP for Ipswich, and powerful orator. His maternal grandfather was Herbert Cozens-Hardy, the Liberal MP for North Norfolk who became both the Master of the Rolls and Baron Cozens-Hardy on 1 July 1914.

Horne was educated at a preparatory school in Shrewsbury, followed by St George's School, Harpenden and the London School of Economics. His tutors at the LSE included Hugh Dalton and Stephen Leacock. Horne was dissatisfied there, and through the generosity of an uncle, Austin Pilkington of the Pilkington glassmaking family of St Helens, he was enabled to go instead to Magdalene College, Cambridge. He represented the university at tennis, partnering Bunny Austin, but was academically undistinguished and so neglectful of his studies that he was sent down in 1927.^[5]

Austin Pilkington was aggrieved at Horne's failure to make the most of the opportunity he had provided, and he decided against offering him a post in the family firm. However, through his contacts within the industry, he secured for the young Horne an interview with the Triplex Safety Glass Company at King's Norton, a district of Birmingham.^[6] Horne's sporting record commended him to the manager of the Triplex factory, and he was taken on as a management trainee on a very modest salary.^[7] In 1930, despite his unimpressive finances, he married Lady Mary Pelham-Clinton-Hope, daughter of the 8th Duke of Newcastle. The marriage was happy at first, but they were sexually incompatible. His wife left him and returned to her family home. The marriage was annulled in 1933 on the grounds of non-consummation, although the two remained on friendly terms thereafter.^[8]

When Horne's first marriage was dissolved, he was sought out by a former girlfriend, Joan Burgess, daughter of a neighbour at King's Norton. Unlike his first wife, she had much in common with him, including a liking for squash, tennis and golf and for dancing. A month before her 21st birthday they were married, in September 1936.

Royal Air Force[link]

Shortly before the Second World War, Horne enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve on a part-time training scheme. He was commissioned as an acting Pilot Officer, and on the outbreak of war he served in the RAF full time.^[9] In between carrying out his RAF duties, Horne formed a concert party from his friends and colleagues.^[10] On the strength of this he was invited by the BBC to take part in a programme for the armed forces, Ack-Ack, Beer-Beer (the title taken from the then-current phonetic alphabet), which he compered. It eventually ran to 324 episodes.^[3] Within a year, Horne was promoted to Squadron Leader, and in 1943 he was posted to the Air Ministry in London with the rank of Wing Commander. In his spare time he made more BBC broadcasts, during the course of which he met Flight Lieutenant Richard Murdoch. They quickly formed a friendship, and Horne arranged for Murdoch to be promoted and posted to his department at the Ministry.^[11] Murdoch, a professional actor and entertainer for 12 years before the war, recognised Horne's talent as a performer, and used his contacts to secure him more broadcasting work. The principal result of this was their joint invention of Much-Binding-In-The-Marsh, a fictitious Royal Air Force station.

The BBC producer Leslie Bridgemont was responsible for a show called Merry-go-Round, which featured, in weekly rotation, shows based on the Army, Navy and RAF. In 1944 he gave Horne and Murdoch a trial, and Much-Binding, with Horne as "an officer so dim that even the other officers noticed" and Murdoch as his harassed second-in-command, became a popular hit.^[12] In 1944, Horne met and fell in love with Marjorie Thomas, a war widow with a young daughter. Joan agreed to his request for a divorce; she soon remarried very happily.^[13] Horne and Marjorie were married in November 1945.

Postwar[link]

In 1945 Much Binding was well enough established to be given its own weekly slot for a 39-week run. With the coming of peace, the supposed RAF station became a civil airport, and the show continued much as before, written by and starring Horne and Murdoch, with Sam Costa and Maurice Denham.^[12] By now, Horne had been demobilised from the RAF and returned to civilian life as Sales Director of Triplex. His business career was demanding, and his radio commitments had to be fitted in around it.^[14] After nine years in his senior position at Triplex, he moved in 1954 to be Managing Director of the British Industries Fair, a government-backed organisation promoting British goods worldwide. In the same year, Much Binding came to the end of its run.^[15] In 1956, the government withdrew its funding and the BIF closed. Horne received several attractive invitations, and chose the post of Chairman and Managing Director of Chad Valley toy manufacturers. He was a success in the post, but in 1958 he suffered a debilitating stroke. His doctors warned him that when he had recovered he would never be fit enough to combine a full-time business post with his broadcasting work. He decided to give up the former in favour of the latter.^[16]

After easing himself back into broadcasting as chairman of the radio panel game Twenty Questions, he began the second of his three major BBC radio series, Beyond Our Ken. This show was written by Eric Merriman and, for the first two series, Barry Took; Horne's supporting players were Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden and Ron Moody (soon succeeded by Bill Pertwee).^[17] Around the imperturbable establishment figure of Horne the other performers played a gallery of grotesque characters, including the exaggeratedly upper class Rodney and Charles, the genteel pensioners Ambrose and Felicity, the cook Fanny Haddock, and the gardener Arthur Fallowfield.^[18]

When Beyond Our Ken came to an end in 1964, the BBC commissioned a replacement series, Round the Horne, on similar lines, from Barry Took and Marty Feldman. Horne remained the genial and unflappable focal figure, and the writers invented a new lot of eccentric characters to revolve round him. They included J. Peasemold Gruntfuttock, the walking slum; the Noël Coward parodies Charles and Fiona; the incompetent villain Dr Chu En Ginsberg; the dreadful folk singer Rambling Syd Rumpo and the outrageously camp Julian and Sandy.^[19]

Towards the end of his life, Horne starred in the ABC television series Horne A'Plenty. With Barry Took as script editor (and later producer), this was an attempt to translate the spirit of Round the Horne to TV, though with different actors supporting Horne: Graham Stark, for example, substituted for Kenneth Williams and Sheila Steafel for Betty Marsden. The first six-part series ran from 22 June to 27 July 1968, the second (by which time ABC had become Thames Television) from 27 November to 1 January 1969. No recordings survive of either series other than a videotape of the Christmas edition in rehearsal.

His other TV appearances included Down You Go, What's My Line?, Camera One, Ken's Column, Trader Horne (a weekly advertising magazine for the Tyne Tees region), Let's Imagine, Call My Bluff (as team captain), and various specials with Richard Murdoch such as Free and Easy (1953) and Show for the Telly (1956).^[20] In addition, he hosted a 1965 game show called Treasure Hunt for Westward Television.^[21] He was the subject of This is Your Life on 19 February 1962.

His radio appearances were legion, including hosting Housewives' Choice and acting as chairman of Twenty Questions and Top of the Form.^[20] He was twice a castaway on Desert Island Discs – first in April 1954 in tandem with Richard Murdoch and then on his own in January 1961. He was also popular on Woman's Hour and wrote a monthly article for She magazine for over a decade, starting in January 1957.

Because of his heart condition, Horne had been prescribed blood-thinning pills, but had stopped taking the anti-coagulants on the misguided advice of a faith healer. He died of a heart attack on Friday 14 February 1969, while hosting the annual Guild of Television Producers' and Directors' Awards at the Dorchester Hotel in London.^[20] Presenting the awards was Earl Mountbatten of Burma; an award had just gone to Barry Took and Marty Feldman (writers of Round the Horne) for their TV series Marty, and Horne had just urged viewers to tune into the fifth series of Round the Horne (due to start on 16 March) when he fell from the podium. The televised version of the event omitted the incident, bridging the gap with announcer Michael Aspel saying, "Mr Horne was taken ill at this point and has since died."

He was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium.

Tributes[link]

After his death, Horne was eulogised in The Times as "a master of the scandalous double-meaning delivered with shining innocence," while The Sunday Mirror called him "one of the few personalities who bridged the generation gap" and "perhaps the last of the truly great radio comics."

In The Sunday Times for 16 February 1969, Paul Jennings wrote of him: "If I ever knew a gentleman, it was Kenneth Horne. He moved, after all, in a world with a plentiful supply of synthetic personalities, but you never saw that glazed showbiz look in his eye. He gave you his whole attention, his whole courtesy. And what a courtesy it was! He would go literally miles out of his way to do anyone a kindness. I knew him in the context of panel games, to which his marvellous unforced humour, spontaneous but beautifully timed, always added sparkle."

In the December 1970 issue of The Listener, Barry Took recalled Round the Horne and said of its star: "He was an unselfish performer, but it was still always his show. You just knew it. A Martian would have known it. His warmth tempered the sharpness of the writing ... To say that everyone loved him sounds like every obituary ever written – nonetheless it's true ... Horne was one of the few great men I have met, and his generosity of spirit and gesture have, in my experience, never been surpassed. I mourn him still."

Legacy[link]

By 24 February 1969 it had been decided that Round the Horne could not continue without its star. As a result, the scripts for Series Five (which Horne had jokingly suggested should be subtitled 'The First All-Nude Radio Show') were hastily adapted into a new series for Kenneth Williams called Stop Messing About, which was widely judged a failure and discontinued in 1970.

Horne has since been made the subject of two biographies, Norman Hackforth's Solo for Horne in 1976 and, 30 years later, Barry Johnston's more detailed Round Mr Horne.

Editions of Beyond Our Ken and Round the Horne are regularly broadcast on the digital radio service BBC 4 Extra.

In October 2003 a successful stage show called Round the Horne ... Revisited opened in London, compiled by Series Four co-writer Brian Cooke from original scripts, and ran until April 2005 – also siring three nationwide tours and a BBC television film.

Horne was played in the West End and in the film by Jonathan Rigby, who in 2008-9 reprised the role in a new show, devised this time by Barry Took's ex-wife Lyn, called Round the Horne – Unseen and Uncut. In the touring version of Round the Horne ... Revisited (2004-5), Horne was played by Stephen Critchlow, who also played him in the BBC television drama Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!

On 27 February 2007 (Horne's centenary), BBC Radio 4 broadcast a half-hour documentary tribute entitled Sound the Horne. The following year, on 18 September, another Radio 4 documentary was broadcast; called Thoroughly Modest Mollie, this one focused on Horne's frequent ghost-writer, Mollie Millest, and featured Jonathan Rigby as Horne.

Then, in 2009, an unproduced pilot script written by Horne and Millest in 1966 was revived by the same Radio 4 team. Called Twice Ken is Plenty and intended as a two-man showcase for Horne and Kenneth Williams, the 21st century version was performed by Jonathan Rigby and Robin Sebastian. The show was recorded at the Radio Theatre, Broadcasting House on 10 June 2009 and first broadcast on 1 September.

(There was also a playwright named Kenneth Horne, 1900–1975, author of such comedies as Love in a Mist, And This Was Odd, Wolf's Clothing and A Public Mischief.)

Radio[link]

• Ack-Ack, Beer-Beer (1939–44)
• Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh (1944–53)
• Twenty Questions (as panellist, 1956, 1958; as chairman, 1949–51, 1961–68)
• Beyond Our Ken (1958–64)
• Top of the Form (1965–66)
• Round The Horne (1965–68)

Television[link]

• Free and Easy (with Richard Murdoch) (BBC, 1953)
• Down You Go (BBC, 1953–54)
• Find the Link (BBC, 1954–56)
• What's My Line (BBC, 1955)
• Camera One (BBC, 1956)
• Show for the Telly (with Richard Murdoch) (BBC, 1956)
• Trader Horne (Tyne Tees, 1959–60)
• Top Town (BBC, 1960)
• Let's Imagine (BBC, 1961–63)
• Ken's Column (Anglia, 1963)
• First Impressions (BBC, 1965)
• Home and Around (Tyne Tees, 1965–66)
• Treasure Hunt (Westward, 1965–66)
• Top Firm (BBC, 1965–67)
• Happy Families (Southern, 1966)
• Celebrity Challenge (Southern, 1966)
• Strictly for Laughs (ABC, 1967)
• Horne A'Plenty (Thames, 1968–69)

References[link]

Notes

Bibliography

• Hackforth, Norman: Solo for Horne: A Biography of Kenneth Horne (Angus & Robertson 1976; hardback, ISBN 0-207-95650-2; Coronet Books paperback, ISBN 0-340-24274-4)
• Johnston, Barry: Round Mr Horne: The Life of Kenneth Horne (Aurum Press 2006; hardback, ISBN 1-84513-123-1)
• Took, Barry: Laughter in the Air: An Informal History of British Radio Comedy (Robson Books 1976; hardback, ISBN 00903895781)

External links[link]

• Kenneth Horne at the Internet Movie Database

Samuel Gabriel 'Sam' Costa (17 June 1910 - 23 September 1981) was a popular singer of the British dance band era and a voice actor on the show Much Binding in the Marsh. He was also a disc jockey for Radio Luxembourg and the BBC.

Life[link]

Costa was of Sephardic Jewish-Portuguese ancestry (Costa is a Portuguese surname). The son of journalist Gabriel Costa and Annie (née Sawer), he married Esther Comer in 1938, and they were married for over 40 years until he died in 1981. He was the great uncle of the radio presenter Andy Jacobs.

Career[link]

Sam Costa began as a pianist with Bert Firman's band and later became a popular British dance band singer in the 1930s making many records with bands such as Lew Stone, Harry Leader, Maurice Winnick and Jay Wilbur.

After his crooning days, his BBC radio career began with the It's That Man Again shows with Tommy Handley, then he worked with Kenneth Horne, Richard Murdoch and Maurice Denham in Much Binding in the Marsh]]. On Sundays he did both Breakfast Time and Glamorous Nights and he also presented Housewives' Choice and Midday Spin, transitioning into BBC Radio 2 from 1967. Costa would sign off saying "Thank you for the pleasure of your company".

While he generally disliked TV work, he did appear on several Juke Box Jury shows.

On BBC Radio 2 he had various shows, morning, lunchtime, afternoon, drivetime, into the late 1970s.

Filmography[link]

• A Piece of Cake (1948)

Further reading[link]

• Obituary, Jewish Chronicle, 2 October 1981
• R2OK! Radio 2 Preservation Society and Radio 2 Timeline Project (2007)
• This England's Second Book of British Dance Bands (2001).
• British Dance Bands On Record 2nd Ed. (1989) by Brian Rust and Sandy Forbes.

External links[link]

• "Internet Archive Search: Sam Costa - archive.org (multimedia content in the public domain)". http://archive.org/search.php?query=%22Sam%20Costa%22. Retrieved 30 April 2012. 
• "British Pathé Search: Sam Costa - britishpathe.com". http://www.britishpathe.com/search/query/sam+costa. Retrieved 3 May 2012. 

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