25/03/1976 The Good Old Days

# Has anybody here seen Kelly?

# K-E-double L-Y

# Has anybody here seen Kelly?

# Find him if you can!

# He's as bad as old Antonio

# Left me on my own-i-o,

# Has anybody here seen Kelly?

# Kelly from the Isle of Man! #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

ORCHESTRAL FANFARE

CHEERING

AUDIENCE: Ooh!

Once again, good evening,

ladies and gentlemen!

And now, would you like to say good evening

to the Lord and Lady Mayoress of Leeds?

AUDIENCE: Good evening!

-AUDIENCE MEMBER:

-Lady Mayoress!

LAUGHTER

Heterogeneity...

..harmoniously homogenised...

..for your exhilaration, exhibits initially...

..the potentialities unparalleled...

..of the Players' Theatre,

plus Mr Peter Gale and Miss Sheila Matthews!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

# It's the Soldiers of the Queen, my lads

# Who've been my lads Who've seen my lads

# In the fight for England's glory, lads

# Of its worldwide glory let us sing

# And when we say we've always won

# And when they ask us how it's done

# We'll proudly point to ev'ry one

# Of England's soldiers of the Queen! #

# Tell me, pretty maiden, are there any more at home like you?

# There are a few, kind sir but simple girls, and proper too

# Then tell me, pretty maiden, what these very simple girlies do?

# Kind sir, their manners are perfection

# And the opposite of mine

# Then take a little walk with me and then you will see

# What a most particular girl should be

# I may love you too well to let you go

# And flirt with those at home, you know

# Well, don't mind, little girl

# You'll see I'll only want but you

# It's not quite fair to them if you told them that you were true

# I won't care a pin for your sisters if you love me

# What would you say if I said I liked you well?

# I'd vow to you

# On bended knee?

# On bended knee

# If I loved you

# Would you tell me what I ought to do

# To keep you all mine alone to always be true to me?

# If I loved you would it be a silly thing to do?

# For I must love someone

# Then why not me?

# Yes, I must love someone really

# And it might as well be you. #

# Far away on the ocean of sunshine and foam

# Sailed one day little Cupid in search of a home

# Paused to hark to the sound of the murmuring dove

# On his barque to that wonderful island of love. #

# I may be crazy

# But I love you

# I'll do and dare, oh

# I'm smart vaquero

# You may be shady, but I love you

# So won't you come right here and say goodbye

# Because you may not see me any more

# She's my lady love

# She is my dove, my baby love

# She's no girl for sittin' down to dream

# She's the only queen Laguna knows

# I know she likes me

# I know she likes me because she said so

# She is my lily of Laguna

# She is my lily and my rose

# She's my lady love

# She is my dove, my baby love

# She's no girl for sittin' down to dream

# She's the only queen Laguna knows

# I know she likes me

# I know she likes me because she said so

# She is my lily of Laguna

# She is my lily and my rose

# She is my lily of Laguna

# She is my lily

# And my rose. #

APPLAUSE

From that Leslie Stuart medley,

we modulate to the imponderable...

..improprieties

of a metropolitan nocturnal assignation.

Mr Ted Durante and Hilda!

APPLAUSE

SLURRING: # Everybody loves a baby

# But I'd sooner have a pint

# How's your father?

HE GRUMBLES

Me foot's gone dead.

Not working well.

Ah! Sweet mystery of life.

The greatest mistake...

Arrgghh!

I thought me tongue was hanging out.

HE MUTTERS

Bend, bend! Come on, bend.

Bend, you bugger, bend, bend, bend.

So, you won't bend, then.

Then n-necess-essity...

..is the mother...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Stay there.

I'm going back, too, Mother.

Ahem...

HE COUGHS LOUDLY

# Have you got a light, boy?

Just...just a minute. I've got me finger stuck in this f...

Can you get a good grip?

That's it.

I opened it about half an hour, it's just so happens...

Hang on.

APPLAUSE

I can't see anybody.

There's not nobody there.

Wh-What do you mean? Why?

Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Yes.

Four.

No way, mate. Not four, not for that, no.

Two? Do you accept two?

Right.

Do you want to buy a ferret?

Hey! Down, down, down!

Stay! Ha!

I use it as a guard dog.

Thank you very much, that's one.

Hang on...

And another one makes two. Beautifully, thank you very much.

APPLAUSE

Now you've learnt something.

Scintillant in our glittering galaxy,

we give you that vertiginous vital spark of variety,

Miss Margaret Savage!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

# Erin's a spot famous for greenery

# But we do not match with our scenery

# We're not so green

# We can make hay with you

# Says the colleen "Ah, get away with you"

# Ah, now, stop your philandering

# You can't capture the rogue

# She's heard your blarney from Clare to Killarney

# The dear little girl with a bit of a brogue

# Ah, now, stop your philandering

# You can't capture the rogue

# She's heard your blarney from Clare to Killarney

# The dear little girl

# With a bit of a brogue. #

APPLAUSE

# You made me love you

# I didn't want to do it I didn't want to do it

# You made me love you

# And all the time you knew it I guess you always knew it

# You made me happy sometimes

# You made me glad... #

Do you know this one?

# And there were times, dear

# You made me feel so bad

# You made me sigh for

# I didn't wanna tell you I didn't wanna tell you

# I need some love, that's true

# Yes I do, indeed I do You know I do

# Give me, give me, give me, give me what I sigh for

# You know ya got the brand o' kisses that I'd die for

# You know you made me love you. #

# East Side, West Side

# All around the town

# The kids sang "ring-a-roses"

# "Brooklyn Bridge is falling down"

# Boys and girls together

# Me and Mickey O'Rourke

# Tripped the light fantastic

# On the sidewalks of New York

# Oh... #

# Rock-a-bye your baby with a Dixie melody

# When you croon, croon a tune

# From the heart of Dixie

# Just place my cradle, mammy mine

# Right on the Mason-Dixon line

# And swing it from Virginia

# To Tennessee with all the love that's in ya

# Weep no more, my lady

# Sing that song again for me

# Soft and low, just as though

# You had me on your knee

# A million baby kisses I'd deliver

# If you would only sing that Swanee River

# Rock-a-bye your rock-a-bye baby

# With a Dixie melody. #

APPLAUSE

In a melodic miscellany

commingling titillant terpsichorean corybantics...

..singing and dancing,

Mr Peter Gale!

# All men sing their best beside the old domestic hearth

# Along the garden path and in the morning bath

# Just rejoice and try the voice

# Let the note resound

# Don't forget it's melody

# That makes this world go round

# Never forget that one good tune deserves another

# This is a song we can sing

# Feeling like a nightingale upon the wing

# La-la-la-la-la-la

# I only know I never want to hear another

This is the one that will cling

# Like the story of the roses and the ring... #

All together.

# La-la-la-la-la-la... #

Very nice.

# It would a sheer delight on the phone

# Or trombone, xylophone

# I could dance to it all night on my own

# To a lone saxophone

# Never forget that one good tune deserves another

# This is a song we can sing

# Feeling like a nightingale upon the wing... #

All together.

# La-la-la-la-la-la. #

Very good.

# There's always tomorrow to bring us a smile

# Maybe we should borrow this thought for a while

# For then we'll both remember that life is but a game

# We'll fan the dying ember and coax it into flame

# Tomorrow we'll borrow this thought from a song

# To capture the rapture of days that are gone

# For when we're reunited

# We'll have but this to say

# Tomorrow was yesterday. #

# La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

# Now is the time to say farewell

# Goodnight, Vienna

# You city of a million melodies

# Our hearts are thrilling to the strings that you play

# From dawn till the daylight dies

# Goodnight, Vienna

# Now lovers kiss beneath your linden trees

# The world is waiting on the edge of the day

# Just waiting to say

# Good night. #

APPLAUSE

# Who means my happiness?

# Who would I answer yes to?

# Well, you ought to guess who

# Who

# No-one but you. #

APPLAUSE

Incorrigibly gregarious

in inexhaustible garrulity,

uninhibited in Hibernicism...

Irishness.

Mr Frank Carson!

Hi, lads! My, what a fantastic...

Hi!

HE LAUGHS

LAUGHTER

Was it something I said?

Well, I must say, once again, I'd like to thank the staff

here at the city varieties for the lovely lodgings.

A beautiful 29-bedroom, semidetached slum.

I knew it was semidetached

because it was moving away from the rest of the street.

A knock the door and it was an old Irish lady who came to the door.

79 years old.

Big, long, green dress, beautiful white hair

and one of the softest Irish accidents I've ever heard.

She said...

"What the hell d'you want, what are you doing here?!

"What the hell d'you want?"

I said, "Do you think the lady next door would give me a glass of water?"

HE LAUGHS

You see me laughing - I've heard them before.

Good comedian, me.

She said, "Come in to the dining room.

"I've prepared a running buffet."

Epsom salt sandwiches.

I was going up to the bathroom.

She says, "Have you a good memory for faces?"

I said, "I have - why?"

She says, "There's no mirror up there."

The old gags are the best, aren't they?

It's the way I tell them.

Her husband was a nice fella.

He was lying in bed, looking for work.

He got a card from the dole to go about a job

and he brought it to the police.

He said somebody had sent him a threatening letter.

I said, "Can you not get a job?"

He said, "There's no work at my trade."

I said, "What's your trade?"

He said, "I'm a coronation-flag seller."

I called into the bedroom.

I said, "I couldn't sleep in that bed last night.

"There was a dead flea in the bed."

She says, "A dead flea will do you no harm."

I said, "I know that, but there was 40,000 came to the funeral."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

She said, "This is a five-star hotel."

I said, "I know, I counted them through the slates in the roof."

And I said, "I'd like to talk to you about the ceiling in my bedroom.

She says, "What about it?"

I says, "I'd like one."

She says, "You needn't worry,

"cos the people upstairs won't walk about much.

"But they'll drop in now and again."

They had a funny way of dividing the chicken.

She said to the fellow, "What football team do you support?"

He said, "Scunthorpe." She gave him a left leg.

She says to the fella, "What team do you support?"

He said, "Cleethorpes." She gave him a right leg.

She says to me, "What team do you support?"

I said, "Arsenal, but I'm not hungry."

ORCHESTRA PLAYS JIG

AUDIENCE CLAPS IN TIME

Ineluctably...

..luminous embodiment of lissom elegance,

none other than Miss Sheila Matthews!

# Every, every, every little while

# I miss you my darling when you are away

# I find myself dreaming of you night and day

# I'm losing my appetite, losing my mind

# I try to forget for a while

# Then I find

# Every little while I feel so lonely

# Every little while I feel so blue

# I'm always dreaming

# I'm always scheming

# Because I want you and only you

# Every little while, my heart is aching

# And every little while I miss your smile

# And all the time I seem to miss you

# I want to, want to kiss you

# Every, every, every little while

# Every little while I feel so lonely

# Every little while I feel so blue

# I'm always dreaming

# I'm always scheming

# Because I want you and only you

# Every little while, my heart is aching

# Every little while I miss your smile

# And all the time I seem to miss you

# I want to, want to kiss you

# Every, every, every little while

# And all the time I seem to miss you

# I want to, want to kiss you

# Every, every, every little...

# ..while. #

APPLAUSE

Definitive indubiety,

ambiguity incarnate,

that arch exponent,

the one and only Mr Larry Grayson!

# No doubt you've heard that well-known song

# They sang in bygone days

# My Fiddle Is My Sweetheart

# It used to be the craze

# But fiddling I have always thought

# Infra dig, you know

# My bicycle is my sweetheart

# My friends will tell you so

# My bicycle brings me such

# Brilliant pleasure

# I pedal up hill and down dale

# My wheels are ball bearing

# They are such a treasure

# I never have known them to fail

# My doctor said cycling is healthy and nice

# But for one's pleasure one must pay a price... #

LAUGHTER

# I think I've been lucky

# I've been punctured twice... #

LAUGHTER AND CRIES What a gay day.

# As I jump on my push-bike and pedal away. #

APPLAUSE

LAUGHTER

Well, I'm worn out before I start.

Do you know, I stand here like this, but I'm in a terrible agony.

-Aren't I? Speak.

-Yes.

He's as common as dirt. Do you know...

LAUGHTER

I stand up with all this damp weather...

I'm riddled with arthritis. I'm riddled.

-AUDIENCE:

-Aww...

-Yes, I am!

What a common audience.

The other day I was at home and, of course,

I don't get up too early, you know.

I've never been an early riser.

LAUGHTER

Isn't it funny? You always get the common lot on this side.

There came this knock on my door. I think, "Who could it be?" I thought.

Is it the postman - Pop-It-In Pete?

LAUGHTER

"Come in," I cried. It was Apricot Lil.

She came rushing in. I said, "Sit down, Lil," I said.

I've just got to do me legs.

She said... Listen, she said...

"Have you heard about the vicar?" I said, "What's he been up to now?"

She said, "Oh, terrible," she said.

She said, "Well, he was coming down the hillock the other day

"and he caught his surplus in the spokes."

And he'd thrown himself off, you see,

and he was going to sell his bicycle.

She said, "Now, you get around there as quick as you can, go round

"as quick as you can," she said, "and make him an offer he can't refuse."

Well, I said... LAUGHTER

I said, "What would I want a bicycle for?" I said.

"Everard and I have got the tandem."

She said, "Be independent. Because Brenda Allcock..."

She said, "She's just started a cycling club called

"the Wobbly Wheelers."

He said, "If you buy the vicar's bicycle, you can join us."

I said, "I'd like to feel a bit of freedom and it does me

"good to get me legs working, you know.

"This last few months I haven't felt so limp as I usually do."

You know.

Anyway, so I got myself all ready,

we met outside at ten o'clock on the Sunday morning. Everybody came.

There was Slack Alice, Apricot Lil, Easy Edna...

Once-A-Week Nora.

They were all there and, of course, Slack,

though she slept in a hedge all night,

she brought a packed lunch -

bottle of vodka and a banana.

LAUGHTER

He's anybody's for a doughnut.

UPROARIOUS LAUGHTER

I got on, you see, I was all right, I was comfortable,

I'd talcced the saddle.

And then...

They said, "Here we go."

Well, down we went, down through the lanes, through the field

and I was peddling, I was freewheeling, backpedalling,

doing the lot and then going down this hillock...

Do you know, I go cold when I think about it.

..this vision passed me doing about 90mph.

It was Slack Alice.

Her mouth was open, she was trying to say something.

Like, "Help."

Well...

I could see her going down.

Is he with you?

I could see her...

And I could see her going down the hillock and she turned

and she went into a farmyard.

I have never seen so many feathers in my life.

It's the first time I've seen chickens go up in the air

and come down plucked.

It's the truth.

We couldn't find her for an hour.

And when we found her, she was on top of the haystack.

I thought it was a scarecrow.

She got all straw stuck in her ears, she thought she'd gone deaf.

Anyway, it's the last time she went on her bicycle,

so we had a whip around, all of us, we had a whip around

and we bought her a tricycle now, so she'll be safe on that.

So if you see her out on a Sunday morning,

give her a wave and shout, "What a gay day!"

She'll always come back with two words for you, but...

Mind you, I've been very fortunate because, you see... Me legs,

you know, I mean, I get it all down, terrible...

-AUDIENCE:

-Aww.

-Oh, I do. Do you get it?

I bet YOU get it, don't you?

You look a funny age to me.

APPLAUSE

You see...

# My bicycle brings me such innocent pleasure

# I pedal up hill and down dale

# My wheels are ball bearing

# They are such a treasure

# I never have known them to fail

# My doctor said cycling is healthy and nice

# But for one's pleasure you must pay a price

# I think I've been lucky

# I've been punctured twice

# Ha-ha-ha! #

Shut that door.

# As I jumped on my push-bike and pedalled away. #

APPLAUSE

-Illustriously immaculate lion comique.

-AUDIENCE:

-Ooh!

Your own, your very own Mr Edward Woodward.

APPLAUSE

# Champagne Charlie is his name

# Champagne drinking is his game

# He likes lots and lots of fizz, fizz, fizz

# He'll drink every drop there is, is, is... #

APPLAUSE # Champagne Charlie is my name

# Champagne drinking is my game

# I'm the idol of the barmaids

# Champagne Charlie is my name

# But I'm shy, Mary Ellen

# I'm shy

# It does seem so naughty Oh, my

# Kissing is nice so I've often heard say

# Still, how to do it I don't know the way

# So you put your arm round my waist

# I promise I won't scream or cry

# But you do the kissing

# And cuddling instead

# Cos I'm shy, Mary Ellen

# I'm shy

# I'm shy, Mary Ellen, I'm shy

# It does seem so naughty Oh, my

# Still, we got married and got home all right

# Kept up the fun with our friends until light

# They said, Mary Ellen, goodbye

# They started to go, so did I

# I said, you're not going and then said, I am

# Cos I'm shy, Mary Ellen, shy

# I'm shy, Mary Ellen

# Shy, Mary Ellen

# Shy, Mary Ellen, I'm shy

# So shy

# I'm shy

# So shy. #

APPLAUSE

# I'll take you home again, Kathleen

# Across the ocean wild and wide

# To where your heart has ever been

# Since first you were my bonnie bride

# The roses all have left your cheeks

# I've watched them fade away and die

# Your voice is sad whene'er you speak

# And tears bedim your loving eyes

# Oh, I will take you back, Kathleen

# To where your heart will feel no pain

# And when the fields are fresh and green

# I'll take you to your home again

# And when those fields are fresh and green

# Oh, I'll take you to your home again

# Kathleen. #

APPLAUSE

Thank you, thank you.

And now, ladies and gentlemen,

let's see what the Band Of Hope can do with this one. Sir.

# Who were you with last night

# Out in the pale moonlight?

# It wasn't your sister it wasn't your ma

# Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah-ah ah-ah

AUDIENCE JOINS IN # Who were you with last night

# Out in the pale moonlight?

# Are you going to tell your missus when you get home

# Who you were with last night? #

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the chorus, I beg your pardon,

choral, ladies and gentlemen, and yourselves,

join me in the next ve-e-rse.

-# Who where you with last night?

-That's my business

-# Who were you with last night?

-I'm not telling you

-# It wasn't your sister

-No

-# It wasn't your ma

-How dare you?

# Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah-ah ah-ah

# Who were you with last night

# Out in the pale moonlight?

# Are you going to tell your missus when you get home

# Who you were with last night? #

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the orchestra have your heads.

All those who can't swim, hang onto the banisters.

ORCHESTRA PLAY VIBRANTLY

Come on!

Play the trumpet, play the trumpet.

Point that stick up. Watch it, watch it.

# Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah-ah ah-ah

# Who were you with last night

# Out in the pale moonlight?

# Are you going to tell your missus when you get home

# Who you were with last

# Who you were with last

# Who you were with last night?

APPLAUSE

And now, ladies and gentlemen,

there's just time to ask Mr Edward Woodward

and Mr Larry Grayson to lead the company and yourselves

in the last chorus for tonight - Down At The Old Bull And Bush.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Edward Woodward, Mr Larry Grayson,

the entire company, Mr Bernard Herrmann,

the entire and indefatigable orchestra...

CHEERING

..and, this time, chiefly, yourselves.

# Come, come, come and make eyes at me

# Down at The Old Bull and Bush Ah-ah ah-ah-ah

# Come, come drink some port wine with me

# Down at The Old Bull and Bush

# Hear the little German band oompah-pah, oompah-pah

# Just let me hold your hand, dear

# Come, come, come and have a drink with me

# Down at The Old Bull and Bush Bush-Bush. #

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

AUDIENCE CLAPS ALONG TO MUSIC