Colin Wheeler Remembers…….A Lifetime's Interest
My main interest has been variety, comedy, music and band music, I have never followed, or been involved in the activities, of the legitimate theatre or the local operatic societies, although I have in my possession a near complete record of the plays etc.
Next came someone, who in my opinion was the most professional manager that the theatre has had during my lifetime, I refer of course to Jack Leuty, 1947 -
Upon his death, I was asked to do and obituary for him for the Stage Newspaper, copy attached, I made one small error, a short time afterwards I had phone call from Bernard Cribbins to say that he did not appear at the Palace.
Jack tried every type of entertainment, and I remember his twice nightly variety shows with great enjoyment. One that comes to mind is one headed by a virtually unknown cockney comic call Sam Kern whose gimic was that he could put his tongue out and touch his chin. His real claim to fame however is that in the Express Dairies, in the Edgeware Road in London, when he was unemployed and starving he composed, on the back of a Woodbine Packet the song Mary From the Dairy, which he sold the sole rights to the great Max Miller who paid him the sum of £4 and it became Maxie’s signature tune.
It was during this period show presented by comedian Tubby Bennett came and was so successful that he stayed for six weeks and did a different show every week, I sat in the café and was witness to the business arrangements between Jack and himself, I can remember the smell of this pipe tobacco now it was lovely.
Several large scale shows which had toured the Number One’s ie the Moss empires Curcuit came to the Palace in a smaller scaled down version, two I remember were Randles Scandels, starring Frank Randle, and Benson Dulay and Company, you may recall his son Peter Dulay who together with Jonathan Rouse used to present that long running television programme Candid Camera, I had seen both these shows previously on the Birmingham Hippodrome and Dudley Hippodrome. After a very successful week with Randles Scandels, after executing as a result of a dare, to everyone’s surprise, a brilliant tap dance on stage, Jack announced that the show would be returning in six weeks. Six weeks later, on the Monday night I was at home watching a popular television programme called What’s My Line when the mystery guest walked onto the screen and it was Frank Randle. All television was live in those days and so I thought Frank should have been at the Palace, however when the Monday night audience discovered he wasn’t in the show, word got around and no one turned up on the Tuesday and the cast walked out on the Wednesday.
As a result Jack sued in the courts and Franks defense was that he had had the publicity changed and it didn’t include his name as appearing. The Judge awarded Jack £106 damages.
When Benson Dulay came, he called the same volunteers, up from the audience that I had seen at the Hippodrome, they were obviously part of the Company.
In later years, Norman Vaughan topped a bill presented by Birmingham comedian Johnny Carroll, there were 24 of us in the stalls, I counted them, Norman came on stage and said I started my first professional engagement here in 1950, did a few steps of tap dance, and then said I shan’t ever bloody come here again”. It was reported that the same show appeared at the Alvechurch Social Club a week later to a packed audience.
