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24th May 2014

Top Picture:  Cardew Robinson in a still from Fun at St. Fanny’s

Bottom Picture: Remember reading very old copies of Radio Fun in the classroom on wet days?

Cardew the Cad

Douglas Robinson was best known for his characterisation of 'Cardew the Cad of the School'. Dressed in a striped school cap with a long scarf draped about his thin neck, this tall, bony bodied man with prominent teeth, once described as 'a double row of tombstones hanging out to dry', was a familiar figure during the last legs of the variety theatre and the early days of black & white television. So popular was his schoolboy persona that he adopted his fictional name, becoming Cardew Robinson for professional purposes from the Fifties.

He was born in Goodmayes, Essex, in 1917 and appeared in many of the Harrow County School concerts as a boy. Already six feet tall and as skinny as a rake, his appearance alone was enough to win the laughs. His ambition to become a writer led him to a local newspaper job, but hardly had he learned to type when the paper closed down. 

Remembering the fun of performing before his schoolmates, he bought a copy of the Stage, price at 2d. and immediately spotted an advertisement placed by Joe Boganny who needed recruits for his touring team of Crazy College Boys. One look at the long, lean lad with the protruding teeth was enough he was signed up on the spot.Boganny's Crazy College was a sort of downmarket Will Hay team. It consisted of Boganny and his dog, whose sole purpose was to walk across the stage with a false dog's head tied to its backside  The human part of the act was Robinson, two other boys, and two dwarfs. He took over from a small boy and was given the original cut-down costume to wear. 'That will look very funny on you, so you can be the comic,' said Boganny. And he was. He was given one line.  

In May 1934 he and the Crazy Collegians opened at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, dashed over to the Balham Hippodrome for two more houses, and rushed back to Hammersmith for the second house where they played to packed houses. Following an unsavoury episode when the College Boys escaped out of a boarding- house window to do a moonlight flit at the end of a hard week in Swansea, he decided the theatre' was more suitable a career. 

Enlisting with a touring repertory company, he followed a part in Peter Pan with perhaps his most macabre moment in his career, as the monster in Frankenstein. Then came the Second World War.Joining the RAF in 1939, AC2 Douglas Robinson found himself stationed at Uxbridge, where he quickly found a place in the camp shows. It was in 1941 that Squadron Leader Ralph Reader who had formed the pre-war Boy Scout Gang Shows and now organised the RAF Gang Shows, arrived at RAF Uxbridge to put on a performance. Robinson seized his chance, did a working audition, and soon found himself posted to RAF Gang Show Unit Number Five. 

His pre-war experience now came in handy, and he was promoted to Flight-Sergeant and put in charge of the unit. They played at RAF camps all over the country, and when the 'second front' was opened up in Normandy, Unit 5 followed, eventually touring through Belgium and Holland giving entertainments on the tail-flap of their lorry. A tour of the Far East followed, including a sudden detour when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Japan.

After demob, he continued his association with Ralph Reader, starring in a variety tour of the RAF Gang Show. Given the chance to perform a solo act as a stand-up comic, he developed an idea he had first tried out in 1942. This was 'Cardew the Cad of the School', inspired by his own boyhood reading of the weekly magzine the Gem. This featured tales of St Jim's school he had always enjoyed the caddish capers of Ralph Reckness Cardew, the schoolboy who was suave and slightly sinister, first as a rhyming monologue, then as a comedy act, eventually as a radio personality, the character began to take over his life. 

Listeners to the BBC's Variety Bandbox responded with delight and he became the programme's resident comedian for a while, reading out a weekly bulletin of school reports: 'Here is the news from St Fanny's and this is Cardew the Cad reading it]' In 1954 he formally changed his name from Douglas to Cardew, and established his catchphrase, 'This is Cardew the Cad saying Car-dew do'. 

He had entered films as early as 1938, when he appeared in a short in the series Ghost Tales. He resumed his film career in 1948 in a slightly longer cheapie entitled A Piece of Cake, starring Cyril Fletcher. He would continue in films for the rest of his working life, appearing in more than 50 parts, medium-sized, small and smaller, but never larger than the one film in which he starred. This was Fun at St Fanny's (1955), with a cast of comedians of every shape and size, from the Fred Emney to the diminutive Davy Kaye, plus the veteran Claude Hulbert, incomprehensible Stanley Unwin, bumbling Peter Butterworth and plump Gerald Campion, television's Billy Bunter. Young Ronnie Corbett played a schoolboy.

The film, still unshown on British television, was recently revived at the Museum of London, where Cardew Robinson himself emerged to introduce his one and only starring epic. The packed audience loved him, and also the film which, incidentally, was based on the comic strip which began in Radio Fun in 1949.

His longest stage stint was as King Pellinore in the Drury Lane production of Camelot - he appeared in all 650 performances - and in more recent times he was well received as an after-dinner speaker. His early hopes to become a writer were eventually realised, and, apart from comedy scripts for himself and fellow artistes including Dick Emery and Peter Sellers, he wrote a book, How to Be a Failure.

He also devised the radio game show You've Got to Be Joking, and guested on many television panels including Call My Bluff, Looks Familiar and Quick on the Draw.

Stay in touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

You Write:

Jonathon writes:

One of my vivid memories from the late 50's early 60's was listening to the Radio production of "Journey into space" starring amongst others Alfie Bass as Lennie. I was transported by the sounds of airlocks closing and rockets firing up and could imagine just what it was like to travel on a space ship to Mars. I have the full set of CD's from the BBC and have listened to them recently........very simple stories now but still magic.

News and Views:

On this Day 24^th May 1960-1965

On 24/05/1960 the number one single was Cathy's Clown - Everly Brothers and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Wagon Train (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Stirling Moss wins Monaco Grand Prix.

On 24/05/1961 the number one single was You're Driving Me Crazy - The Temperance Seven and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 24/05/1962 the number one single was Good Luck Charm - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 24/05/1963 the number one single was From Me To You - The Beatles and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Conservative Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the week was Manchester Utd win FA Cup.

On 24/05/1964 the number one single was Juliet - Four Pennies and the number one album was Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 24/05/1965 the number one single was Where Are You Now (My Love) - Jackie Trent and the number one album was Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the week was Muhammed Ali floors Sonny Liston.