The Arthur Askey Collection

DVD Extras

• 6 discs.

Film Details

Cast

Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch

Technical Details

Star Review

Cheerful, exuberant, energetic and inventive, bespectacled “silly little man” comedian Arthur Askey won the hearts of successive generations of cinema, stage and television audiences over the course of a career lasting more than fifty years.

Giving up his office job to join a seaside concert party in the 1920s, Askey’s unique brand of warm-hearted humour found national popularity in the BBC radio series Band Waggon, beginning in 1938. Alongside dryly charming Richard “Stinker” Murdoch, “Big Hearted” Arthur captured listeners’ imaginations with comic-strip style catchphrase-laden comedy, centred around life in their shared flat, supposedly located on the roof of Broadcasting House.

A film career at Gainsborough studios swiftly followed. Askey first starred in Band Waggon (1940), a splendidly visual adaptation of the radio show. Fast moving and zany, it provides a fine showcase for Askey and Murdoch’s double act, with hilarious support from Moore Marriott. Excellent music comes courtesy of Jack Hylton and his band.

Soon after came I Thank You (1941), a title derived from Askey’s catchphrase, which mimicked the mechanical response of 1930s bus conductors collecting fares. Teaming Askey once more with Murdoch, this was another entertaining comedy, wonderfully detailed in its depiction of Londoners sleeping on underground platforms in wartime.

Back-Room Boy (1942) saw Arthur up against Nazi spies in a remote lighthouse, for some rousing patriotic high jinks with Askey ably accompanied by Will Hay’s old colleagues Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt, both in splendid form.

Askey’s film work remained solidly entertaining, but thematically it grew progressively more unusual. All of it is well worth seeing. King Arthur Was A Gentleman (1942) saw Arthur as a soldier posted to the desert, in possession of a sword that he believes has mystical powers; Miss London Ltd. (1943) saw Arthur as the unlikely manager of an escort agency in charge of the glamour girls (with an unforgettable appearance by future Mr Pastry Richard Hearne as a jitterbugging commodore). Most bizarre of all was Bees In Paradise (1944), which saw Arthur marooned on a desert island ruled by women, where men are used as “drones” for a two-month honeymoon period prior to execution!

Askey’s distinctive string of Gainsborough comedies provided an effervescent tonic for war-weary British cinemagoers in dire need of cheering up. Fast paced, cheerful and inventive, they still retain their comic fizz today.

Vic Pratt on 1st February 2007

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Film Description

Hello Playmates! A collection of six films starring the diminutive English comedian Arthur Askey. Features his first film Band Waggon (Varnel, 1940) which was a spin-off from Askey's popular radio show, I Thank you (Varnel, 1941), Back-Room Boy (Mason, 1942) in which Askey takes himself off to a remote lighthouse after being jilted by his fiancee, King Arthur was a Gentleman (Varnel, 1942), Miss London Ltd. (Guest, 1943) in which Askey has to save his escort business, and Bees in Paradise (Guest, 1944), which takes place on a bee-worshipping island of women. Ay-Thang-Yew!

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