“…OWN, your very owwwwn!” bellowed the master of proceedings above the hubbub. “Mistah … George … Robey! Ey thank yew!”
Hang on a mo’, I thought. I’d heard that name. George Robey, the Prime Minister of Mirth, was one of Mr Luscombe’s favourites.
Robey had transformed himself. His already luxuriant eyebrows were heavily accentuated with make-up and were now two huge black half moons covering most of his forehead. A little round derby perched up top, with two small tufts of dark, curly hair sprouting above his ears. His jacket was a couple of sizes too small and his trousers and shoes a couple of sizes too large, and he supported his weight on an achingly slender ribbed cane which looked like it might snap at any moment.
The crowd were still rowdy from their success in banishing the upstart beginner, but Robey stood before them with a look of benign puzzlement on his face. He began telling tales of an everyday life not so very different to their own, except that everything about him said “fallen on hard times” as clearly as if he had it written on a sign hanging round his neck. All his stories were designed, I could see, to make the audience feel smarter than Robey himself, and he was the unwitting butt of every one of them. He even became indignant that he was not getting the sympathy he felt he deserved.
“I am not heah,” he protested, “to become a laughing stock!”
As I watched the audience, not a couple of minutes earlier a rabble throwing missiles and shouting abuse, calm down, relax and begin to laugh as one, I realised that I was seeing The Power in action. Robey was a master of it, in complete control.
“Desist!” he cried haplessly, meaning them to continue, and they did.
I found that I was not laughing myself. It was funny, I could see it was funny, and I wanted to laugh, I really did, but I didn’t want to miss even a moment of the experience. It was as if I was thrilled beyond laughter by Robey’s display, and was already processing it, dissecting it, taking it apart in my mind to see how it worked. And in my youthful arrogance I felt that I had been shown a vision of my own future, that I too was capable of this mastery.
Too soon Robey was done, and exited the stage to rapturous acclaim. I gave the next acts a few minutes, but they were pale shadows in comparison. I was on pins, anxious to commune with the master, and hurried round to his dressing room as soon as I thought decent.
“Come!” he boomed in response to my knock, and there he sat at a large mirror with a pot of cold cream, wiping away at his huge eyebrows.
“Come in! Sit!” he cried, wafting his arm at a battered but comfortable armchair. “How d’ye like it? Eh?”
“Um … marvellous. You were marvellous!”
“You’re very polite,” Robey smiled. “Bit of work to do after that walking calamity just before me, but in extremis we find ourselves, don’t you think?”
“I’m sure you are right,” I said.
“So, you are under Alf’s wing, are you? I often think of Alf as a mother hen, clucking around his chicks, making sure they all get their peck of corn, don’t you know?”
I smiled, nodded.
“Good fellow, Alf. Salt of the earth. And if you can make your way with Karno you’ll not go far wrong. Some very fine comedians he has brought on in his time, and no mistake. Fred Kitchen, now, he’s as good as anyone, and Harry Weldon, too. Karno won’t pay them a quarter of what they’re worth, but they won’t leave him, because they’re safe, they feel comfortable. It’s guaranteed work, fifty-two weeks a year, and they never have to go out and sell themselves. It’s never their name on the bill, it’s always Karno’s, and Karno’s name will always bring a crowd. Now maybe a crowd would come to see good old Fred Kitchen, or Harry Weldon, but they’ll never find out, will they, because they haven’t got the nerve.
“Now, say what you like about that sorry youth tonight. He may have stunk worse than a week-old halibut, but it took courage to go out there like that. Especially with that material, by the way, which was somewhat second-hand, and second-hand old hat at that. Some of Karno’s lads could do with striking out on their own and testing themselves. They won’t, though, because they don’t see the bigger picture. Not like me. But then I have the benefit, you see, of a Cambridge heducation,” he announced grandly.
“Really?”
“Oh yes, I am the finished article, you might say, both comedically and intellectually.”
“Which college did you go to, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Of course I don’t mind, young man, of course not. Cambridge, of course, as I said…”
“No, I meant which Cambridge college? I am from Cambridge, you see, and I know them all.”
“Oh?” His eyes narrowed.
“Oh yes, I used to play cricket with porters from all the colleges. Jesus, Emmanuel, Clare, Trinity Hall, Peterhouse…”
Robey looked a bit shifty now. “Ahem, indeed, indeed. What was the second one?”
“Emmanuel? You were at Emmanuel, sir?”
“Now, you see, you are running ahead of yourself. What I said was I had the benefit of a Cambridge heducation, which is to say, my tutor was a Cambridge man, yes, my tutor was heducated at … um…”
“Emmanuel College?”
“Just so, my tutor, the man who gave me the benefit of his Cambridge heducation…”
“I see…”
“…when I was at Oxford.” Robey allowed himself a little beam of self-satisfaction at having turned this round. I judged it was time to shut up. In any case just then there was a knock on the door, and Alf Reeves’s head poked into the room. The rest of him seemed reluctant to follow.
“Alfred, there you are. Time for a snifter, what do you say?”
“No thanks, George. I find it hard enough to control that blasted jalopy when I’m sober, and I should get this lad back to his bed.”
“Suit yourself. Goodnight, young man. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.” George reached over to shake my hand, and as Alf retreated into the corridor I felt myself pulled in close for a last private word.
“I trust we can keep our earlier conversation, ahem, about my heducation, between the two of us? One doesn’t like to brag, you know?”
That night at Forester’s was my first experience of music hall, and I fell in love with it. I saw success and I saw failure, and the heady balancing act between the two. I had a glimpse of what it was like to be a member of that secret brotherhood behind the scenes, how special that felt. Best of all, in Robey’s performance, I saw the Power in action, and I knew that was what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be. How to get there, of course, that was the tricky part, but all thoughts of slinking back to the college were put to one side.
I was sure that I had, that very evening, met a man who would have a profound influence on the course of my career, and my life.
What I didn’t realise was that I’d actually met two.