Funniest Christmas stage memory when Simple Speymen came to Blackpool

This is the weekend when pantomimes should be singing out across the land but the Villain has had his wicked way.

“Be off with you,” he roars.

There are shows that meet the limitations imposed by the evil Covid-19 giant but not the full scale singing, dancing and cavorting of days past.

This is the year when Dames have been deflated, Aladdin can’t rub his lamp, Cinderella doesn’t get to the ball, and the Principal Boy can’t slap her/his thigh.

As for Simple Simon, he doesn’t know but he’s sent me off on a weird festive tangent to my funniest Christmas stage memory: Simple Spymen.

It was one of Brian Rix’s Whitehall farces and it opened at Blackpool’s Grand Theatre on Christmas Day, 1961 - a Monday.

This play by John Chapman was the third in the series of farces that enjoyed long runs at London’s Whitehall Theatre.

It came to Blackpool for two weeks after 1,403 London performances. Andrew Sachs was the only original London cast member.

Mischievous Mr Chapman had thought of taking the mickey out of the starched collars in another Whitehall building, the War Office.

His farces didn’t need the plotting of a Shaw or a Rattigan. In this one, two street buskers, by a misunderstanding, are hauled into the War Office and recruited by MI5 for a counter-intelligence mission. It was more like Carry On Spying!

John Slater and Andrew Sachs were the musicians and Timothy West was one of the bungling boffins.

The Gazette’s Brian Hargreaves (later editor) reviewed the play.

He noted: “In Whitehall farces anything goes. Characters in a choice set of disguises pop in and out at the slightest pretext.

“Yes, there is a character whose pants keep falling down, yet it remains family entertainment, cheerful fare that makes an audience laugh. The Christmas Day audience lapped it up.

“John Slater and Andrew Sachs, as the would-be spies, play the parts for everything they’ve got and one suspects get a great deal of personal fun out of doing so.”

He added: “Is there a flavour of sweet corn about Simple Spymen? Of course there is. Does it matter? Not in the least.

“It makes people laugh and, in a world sadly devoid of that quality, that is no mean achievement.”

Just what we need today!

The Grand Theatre didn’t have Christmas pantomimes before it was closed in 1972. In the 1950s and early 60s comedy plays were often the festive feature.

John Slater (1916-1975) and Andrew Sachs (1930-2016) had previously starred there, for two weeks over Christmas, 1956, in Dry Rot, the second of the Whitehall Theatre farces that were produced by actor-manager Brian Rix (Lord Rix, 1924-2016).

Prior to that, John Slater had starred at the Grand in May, 1954, in a tour of the first of the Whitehall farces, Reluctant Heroes, by Colin Morris.

In October, 1964, John Slater returned to the Grand in a tour of another Whitehall success, One For the Pot, by Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton.

John Slater starred in many TV comedies and dramas while Andrew Sachs is best remembered as Manuel, the hapless Spanish waiter in TV’s Fawlty Towers.

Next week: Dropping in on Christmas, 1920.