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FORMBY, George: It's Turned Out Nice Again (1932-1946) (Formby, Vol. 2)

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FORMBY, George: It's Turned Out Nice Again (1932-1946) (Formby, Vol. 2)

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GEORGE FORMBY, Vol. 2

'It's Turned Out Nice Again' - Original 1932–1946 Recordings

The real secret of his success was personality. That wide grin of his seemed to spread across the screen. (Basil Dean)

George was a superb actor … He always played himself. (Emile Littler)

The charismatic fool with the ukulele, who brought music-hall slapstick to the picture-house and embodied Blackpool seaside levity during the Depression years and Wartime, George Hoy Booth was a top British Commonwealth box-office draw between 1935 and 1945. Born in a Wigan terrace house, on 26 May 1904, the eldest of a large family, George had the stage, or at least a strong native performing instinct, in his blood, for his father, George Formby Sr (alias James Lawler Booth, 1875-1921) was a celebrated Edwardian music-hall comedian who, after rising from dire poverty had acquired national fame through musical-hall and recordings, before dying prematurely, from tuberculosis. From the age of seven George Jr worked as a stable lad. He loved horses, but despite being an apprentice jockey from the age of fifteen, and notwithstanding his father's opposition to him entering show business ('one fool in the family is enough', he reportedly said) George was irresistibly drawn to the world of entertainment. George even succeeded in combining both worlds, when he played a child jockey in a silent entitled By The Shortest Of Heads, in 1915.

By 1921 George, already too heavy to ride racehorses professionally, had set his heart on a stage career and within two months of his father's death, coached and encouraged by his mother Eliza, was following in his footsteps, initially as George Hoy. After a first appearance, performing between reels in a silent cinema in Earlestown, George got a booking at the Argyll, Birkenhead, for the princely wage of £17.10s.0d (£17.50p) per week. There, he perpetuated (unconvincingly, many critics thought) his father's routines, which hinged around the vicissitudes, with songs tailored to suit, of John Willie, an idealised Lancashire halfwit created by George Sr. George struggled to make his mark in the halls of the North until around 1925, when he added the ukulele (in fact a 'banjulele', a banjo/ukulele hybrid) to the more permanent trademark of the toothy grin. The rest was history and thereafter he never needed to change the formula.

In 1924, George married comic actress and champion clogdancer Beryl Ingham – and his whole world changed. Assessments of Beryl's character vary; generally regarded as domineering ('shrew' and 'harpy' were among the kinder names applied to her), her unflagging devotion and strong showbiz instinct nonetheless galvanised George's own will to succeed. Under her management George polished his act and progressed by leaps and bounds. In 1924 he made a test record and two years later his first records, for the Edison Bell Company, were released. Much in the manner of those left by his late father, these are, however, in style and delivery, a far cry from the later George Formby records with which he is still associated. Prior to 1930, he toured with Beryl in revues (including Formby's Road Show and Formby Seeing Life) and reached a wider audience, via radio. In 1932 he added pantomime to his curriculum vitae (a new trade, painstakingly acquired, with coercion from Beryl and financial backing by hard-driving Northern theatrical impresario Bert Loman).

Throughout the 1930s and mainly for promoter Bert Feldman on variety theatre circuits, George projected a comic image of the perfect fool. However, this was but a mask, for in reality George was an extremely canny Lancashire lad. Via the silver screen, despite the self-acknowledged limitations of his range as a performer, George was able to communicate with a much wider 'audience'. Even before 1933, when he made the first of two shorts (Boots! Boots! and Off The Dole), for J. E. Blakely's Mancunian Films), he was already a well-established top-liner on the Northern variety theatre circuit, and on the strength of these films secured lucrative contracts. In total, he went on to make a further eighteen, the first eleven for Associated Talking, Ealing, Pictures (beginning with No Limit, a TT racing extravaganza set on the Isle of Man, in 1935) and, from 1942 onwards, for Columbia, commencing with South American George (this included the numbers "Swing, Mama", "I Played On My Spanish Guitar" and The Barmaid At The Rose And Crown). His screen 'discoverer' and Ealing producer, former actor Basil Dean (1888-1978) made this assessment of George's dramatic talent: 'Fortunately, he had a very shrewd idea of his own capabilities, and was always determined never to step outside them … George never acted gormless, like some successful comedians. He was gormless, so far as the audience was concerned, and they took him to their hearts accordingly.'

Spurred by the enthusiastic reception of No Limit, George committed himself with vigour to an annual or twice-yearly production schedule of ATP situation comedy features which, combined with record sales and other revenues, secured him by the decade's end an annual income in excess of £100,000. In the first of the series, Keep Your Seats, Please (1936; co-starring Florence Desmond and featuring Alistair Sim), apart from the title-song, George memorably introduced his theme song "When I'm Cleaning Windows"). He followed this success with Keep Fit (1937), I See Ice and It's In The Air (both 1938; generally rated among his best screen efforts, the last-named finds accident-prone RAF recruit George singing the title-song and "They Can't Fool Me") and, in 1939, Trouble Brewing and Come On, George. From 1940 onwards the films were geared to providing a comic morale boost during wartime, with titles including Let George Do It (1940) and (his last for Ealing/ATP) Turned Out Nice Again (1941; in this George aired another perennial Formby favourite, "Auntie Maggie's Home-Made Remedy").

During WW2 George worked tirelessly for ENSA, endearing himself, uke in hand, to millions of British and Allied services around the world – in recognition of which achievement he was awarded the OBE, in 1946. Beginning in 1942 with South American George (with George posing as a South American opera divo, this provided one of his best vehicles) George sated the British hunger for tomfoolery with a succession of high jinx comedy morale-boosters, made for Columbia by his own company, Hillcrest. Much Too Shy appeared the same year (in which George the handyman airs They Laughed When I Started To Play and "Delivering The Morning Milk"), followed by Get Cracking and Bell-Bottom George (both 1943), He Snoops To Conquer (1944) and I Didn't Do It (1945). George's last screen appearance, George In Civvy Street (1946) was a comparative flop in which George the soldier home from war, redeems all only by songs, like The Mad March Hare and You Don't Need A License For That).

During the post-war years George made successful tours of Australia, Canada and South Africa, but having previously made only sporadic appearances in London (notably, topping the bill at the Palladium), had to wait until 1951 to fulfil a long-cherished ambition to star in the West End. Emile Littler's comedy about money, Zip Goes A Million, at the Palace, proved the perfect vehicle for the more mature George's talents. After a six-month run playing to full houses, however, a serious heart condition forced George to quit the show. Subsequently, he entered a period of semi-retirement (amusing himself aboard the several yachts and motor cars afforded him by his large fortune, and in the luxurious home he had built and dedicated to Beryl, in Penwortham, near Preston). He did however continue to make intermittent comebacks in variety and pantomime, and during 1960, the year of his last Blackpool summer season (at the Queen's Theatre), he appeared in a much-praised one-man show on BBC TV.

George Formby died at his Lancashire home on 6 March 1961, aged 57 years.

Peter Dempsey, 2007

---

The Old Kitchen Kettle (Harry Woods–Jimmy Campbell–Reg Connelly)

Decca F 3222, mx GB 5023-1. Recorded 13 October 1932, London

I Told My Baby With The Ukulele (Robert Hargreaves)

Decca F 3219, mx GB 5025-1C. Recorded 13 October 1932, London

If You Don't Want The Goods Don't Maul 'Em (Jack Cottrell)

From film Off the Dole

Decca F 3219, mx GB 5027-1C. Recorded 13 October 1932, London

Levi's Monkey Mike (Rick–Jack Cottrell)

Decca F 3458, mx GB 5533-3. Recorded 29 January 1933, London

With My Little Ukulele In My Hand (Jack Cottrell)

Decca F 3615 (withdrawn), mx GB 6017-2. Recorded 1 July 1933, London

She's Never Been Seen Since Then (Jack Cottrell)

Decca F 3666, mx GB 6105-1. Recorded 27 August 1933, London

You Can't Keep A Growing Lad Down (Harry Gifford–Fred Cliffe)

Decca F 5183, mx TB 1200-4. Recorded 12 June 1934, London

Madame Moscovitch (Harry Gifford–Fred Cliffe)

Decca F 5287, mx TGB 6724-3. Recorded 20 October 1934, London

Fanlight Fanny (Harry Gifford–Fred Cliffe–George Formby)

Decca F 5569, mx GB 7172-1. Recorded 29 May 1935, London

The Isle Of Man (Harry Gifford–Fred Cliffe)

Regal Zonophone MR 1932, mx CAR 4485-1. Recorded 28 November 1935, London

Oh Dear, Mother (Harry Gifford–Fred Cliffe–George Formby)

Regal Zonophone MR 2431, mx CAR 4406-1. Recorded 24 January 1937, London

Keep Your Seats Please (George Formby–Harry Gifford–Fred Cliffe)

From film Keep Your Seats Please

Regal Zonophone MR 2199, mx CAR 4188-1. Recorded 27 September 1936, Feldman Theatre, Blackpool

The Lancashire Toreador (George Formby–Harry Gifford–Fred Cliffe)

Regal Zonophone MR 2399, mx CAR 4485-1. Recorded 21 March 1937, London

It's In The Air (Harry Parr-Davies)

From film It's In The Air

Regal Zonophone MR 2891, mx CAR 5070-1. Recorded 17 July 1938, London

It's Turned Out Nice Again (George Formby–Harry Gifford–Fred Cliffe)

Regal Zonophone MR 3022, mx CAR 5347-1. Recorded 2 April 1939, London

You Can't Go Wrong In These (Roger MacDougal)

From film It's Turned Out Nice Again

Regal Zonophone MR 3512, mx CAR 6117-1. Recorded 28 July 1941, London

The Barmaid At The Rose And Crown (George Formby)

From film South American George

Regal Zonophone MR 3567, mx CAR 6135-1. Recorded 24 August 1941, London

They Laughed When I Started To Play (George Formby–Fred Cliffe)

From film Much Too Shy

Regal Zonophone MR 3648, mx CAR 6342-1. Recorded 31 May 1942, London

The Mad March Hare (George Formby–Fred Cliffe)

From film George In Civvy Street

Columbia FB 3251, mx CA 20020-1. Recorded 23 March 1946, London

You Don't Need A License For That (George Formby–Fred Cliffe)

From film George In Civvy Street

Columbia FB 3251, mx CA 20019-1. Recorded 23 March 1946, London

Disc 1

The Old Kitchen Kettle

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FORMBY, George: It's Turned Out Nice Again (1932-1946) (Formby, Vol. 2)

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