Web Page No 2558

27th February 2019

                              The Good Old Days 1 9 5 3 – 1 9 8 3

1st Picture. Leonard Sachs

 2nd Picture. The Audience

3rd Picture. Rob Wilton

 4^th Picture. Eleanor Summerfield

The Good Old Days was compulsive watching at home for my parents and grandmother. Was it in your house? It ran for an amazing thirty years from 20^th  July 1953 and was introduced for the majority of its run by celebrated chairman Leonard Sachs (Don Gemmell for the first two shows).

Out of 245 episodes, 108 are believed to survive complete and 63 of the programmes were broadcast on BBC Four between November 2015 and January 2018.

On Friday 30 December 1983 a Goodbye to the Good Old Days was shown, a documentary celebrating the end of the 30-year run that year; Barry Cryer served as narrator. 

The show was broadcast from the City Varieties in Leeds, one of the last true Victorian Music Halls still in existence.

On its present site since 1865, the City Varieties is one of the few remaining music halls in Britain and of those, undoubtedly the best preserved.

A fitting period venue with plush drapes and galleried upper floor with boxes, the theatre only required a chairman’s desk and the extra stage between orchestra and audience built specially for the programme.

The assembled audiences for The Good Old Days were expected to dress in period costume (and stick-on side-whiskers and fake moustaches) and ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ in all the appropriate places as leonard Sachs introduced the next act with alliterative attacks of alarming alacrity in a constipated display of perspicacious polysyllabic peripatetics,  which heralded the appearance of a teaming torrent of tempting talent . . . for our delight and delectation, naturally.

Finally, as the atmosphere reached fever pitch, he would activate his gavel, shriek “your own, your very own . . .” and often introduce an act that nobody had ever heard of!

Authenticity was a very important factor. Women were forbidden from smoking in the hall (they didn’t in the 1900s) and the audience were discouraged from using cigarette lighters – they hadn’t been invented back then.

All the money for the costumes, false beards, stick-on moustaches and side-whiskers came out of the audience members’ own pocket, although some were known to cheat by only wearing costumes from the waist up since only their top halves were visible on television.

Entertainers performed musical, comedy, magic and recitation acts on stage in Edwardian costume, in some cases appearing as famous Edwardian music hall performers such as Vesta Tilley. Even the famous Rob Wilton appeared in the show in 1955 performing his favorite act was as an addle-brained, incompetent fireman, only 18 months before he died.

Regular acts on the show were Ken Dodd, Danny La Rue, Roy Hudd, Arthur Askey, Hilda Baker, Bernard Cribbins, Max Wall and Les Dawson. This was the last chance that the general public got to see some of the well respected and venerable acts from the hey day of the music Hall while they were still able to perform. Even the Portsmouth lass who had a great future in from of her, until a terrible fatal accident, Audrey Jeans appeared twice on the bill.

Many of the acts were singers, and most bills included relatively unknown performers, often speciality acts from abroad. As years passed, recent stars – including pop musicians – began to appear.

But the show regularly used artistes from the Players Theatre in London (which also revived music-hall and with which Leonard Sachs was associated) to maintain the faux-Edwardian feel.

At the end of each show, the audience would join in with the performers in a rousing chorus of The Old Bull and Bush.

At the height of its popularity, in 1975, there was an audience waiting list of over 24,000 people.

But who was Leonard Sachs? He  was born in South Africa in the town of Roodepoort, Transvaal (now Gauteng). He had many television and film roles from the 1930s to the 1980s, including Mowbray in the 1950 version of Richard II, John Wesley in the 1954 film of the same name and Lord Mount Severn in East Lynne from 1976.

He had appeared in Danger Man with Patrick McGoohan. He had two appearances in Doctor Who: as Admiral Gaspard de Coligny in The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve in 1966 and as Lord President Borusa in Arc of Infinity in 1983. He also appeared in the 1985 Royal Variety Performance in a tribute to The Good Old Days.

He married the actress Eleanor Summerfield in 1947. They had two sons, the actor Robin Sachs and Toby Sachs.

Leonard Sachs died in London in 1990 at the age of 80 and Eleanor died in London in 2001, she was also 80.

So as Leonard Sachs would say “ there is just time for one more chorus of ‘The Old Bull and Bush’ feature all the artists, the entire company but chiefly YOURSELVES………………”

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On this day 23rd February 1960-1965.

On 23/02/1960 the number one single was Why - Anthony Newley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was not listed and the box office smash was Some Like It Hot. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 23/02/1961 the number one single was Are you Lonesome Tonight? - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) 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 23/02/1962 the number one single was The Young Ones - Cliff Richard & the Shadows 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 23/02/1963 the number one single was The Wayward Wind - Frank Ifield and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) 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 day was New £5 note.

On 23/02/1964 the number one single was Diane - Bachelors and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Steptoe & Son (BBC) 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. The big news story of the day was £10 notes printed for first time since WW2.

On 23/02/1965 the number one single was Tired of Waiting For You - The Kinks and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. 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 Malcolm X shot dead.