Renée Houston

Renee Houston & Donald Stewart - Workers' Playtime excerpt (18/06/1946)

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• published: 28 Jun 2012
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Renée Houston (24 July 1902 - 9 February 1980) was a Scottish comedy actor and revue artist who appeared in television and film roles. Born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, as Katherina Houston Gibbin, she toured music halls and revue with her sister Billie Houston as the Houston Sisters. In 1926, the sisters made a short musical film, the script of which Reneé had written. It was produced by Lee de Forest, whose process, Phonofilm, enabled a soundtrack to be played alongside the film (a year before The Jazz Singer). Houston married three times, the second was to Patrick Ahearne, the brother of Brian Aherne. Her third husband was the actor Donald Stewart (who appears alongside her here on Workers' Playtime). In her later years she specialised in battleaxe roles, notably as shop steward Vic Spanner's (Kenneth Cope) formidable mother in Carry On At Your Convenience (1971). She published her autobiography in 1974 which was entitled Don't Fence Me In. Houston was also in the early episodes of radio's The Clitheroe Kid and a regular guest on radio panel show 'The Petticoat Line' chaired by Anona Winn. She died in London at the age of 77 on 9 February 1980. The idea of entertaining and rewarding war workers was first explored by the BBC through the programme Music While You Work, first broadcast in June 1940. The show was intended to relieve the monotony of the factory production line and was aired at 10.30 and 15.00, judged to be the times at which concentration (and thus production) dipped most. The show was repeated at 22.30 for the benefit of the night shift. Partly on the suggestion of Ernest Bevin, companion lunchtime roadshow Workers' Playtime first aired in May 1941. A live morale-boosting music, comedy and variety show, it was broadcast live from different factory canteens and shop floors across the country. BBC engineers would erect a small wooden stage and sling microphones from the roof for a 'studio' audience consisting of as many workers as could physically cram themselves into the venue. The producer, Bill Gates, signed off each programme with the cheery phrase Good Luck, All Workers! Originally broadcast on the Home Service, Workers' Playtime transferred to the Light Programme in 1957, eventually running for 23 years until 1964 and serving the British public from the Blitz to the Beatles. Many famous variety, vocal and comedy artists appeared over the years such as Charlie Chester, Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Frankie Howerd, Ann Shelton, Betty Driver, Eve Boswell, Dorothy Squires, Julie Andrews, Morecambe and Wise, Peter Cavanagh, Janet Brown, Bob Monkhouse, Peter Goodwright, Percy Edwards, Ken Dodd, Ken Platt, Elsie and Doris Waters and many, many more.