Charley's Big-Hearted Aunt DVD, 1940

Arthur Askey had been playing pantomime dames long before his radio hit Band Waggon established him as one of the top British comedy stars of the late 1930s. Indeed, such was the popularity of his adventures atop Broadcasting House with roommate Richard `Stinker' Murdoch, their cleaner Mrs Bagwash and her daughter Nausea, that vicars with dwindling congregations asked the BBC to move the show from its Sunday evening slot. Charley's (Big-Hearted) Aunt allows his Oxford undergrad to don drag in the guise of an elderly aunt with an interest in Egyptology in order to impress the testy dean. Typically, after much quick-changing farce, the ruse backfires.
Walter Forde's version of Brandon Thomas's 1892 stage farce more than holds its own among the play's several film incarnations, thanks to the impish byplay between Askey and Murdoch and the practised support of Will Hay's former stooges, Graham Moffat and Moore Marriott. Moreover, the scenario is strewn with gags designed to sustain the spirits of embattled audiences; its anarchic sense of fun owes more to the madcap humour of ITMA and 'The Crazy Gang' than Thomas's play. David Parkinson

David Parkinson on 15th July 2006
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