Saturday, December 11, 2010

Cheeseford Virtual Archive TV Advent Calendar day 11

This one is inspired by recent events, namely the picture of Dave Gilmour's son swinging from a flag on the Cenotaph. Twitter was alight with amusement and disgust in equal measure. The thing that disturbed me most was that a Cambridge history student claimed not to know what he was swinging from. The act itself reminded me of nothing so much as a charming routine devised by the French humorist Robert Dhery in the 1950s, and made popular over here by the Crazy Gang in their Victoria Palace revue Jokers Wild. Dhery and company came over for the 1984 Royal Variety Performance and revived the routine, which I present for your delectation here. If there was anything this skilful or delightful on the bill at this year's show, I'll eat any one of my many hats. Over to Denis Norden for some excellent context:

No comments: