Web Page 3018 16th November 2022 Comedy Bands First Picture: Sid Millwall and his Nitwits

Second Picture: Dr Crock and his Crackpots

Third Picture: Nuts & Bolts

Around the later years of the 1940’s right up to the mid 1960’s one of the most popular forms of entertainment was the comedy musical groups with their acts based on classical music. Here are three of the most popular. Sid Millward and his Nitwits Sidney Millward (9th December 1909 – 2nd2 February 1972) was a British musician who led the comedy band Sid Millward and His Nitwits, performing comedy classical music from the 1930s until the 1970s. Sid Millward was born in London, and raised in the East End. He left school in his teens but studied woodwind at the Royal College of Music. By the mid-1930s he was known as a leading saxophone and clarinet player in swing bands, including the Jack Hylton Orchestra. He formed his own band in 1937 naming them the Nitwits the following year. They made regular appearances on BBC radio, and became the resident band at the Café Anglais in Leicester Square. In the Second World War they performed as part of Stars in Battledress in ENSA. After the war, they were the house band on the BBC radio show Ignorance Is Bliss, and featured in the 1949 film The Nitwits on Parade. In 1950 they had their own radio show, Nitwit Serenade, and later were frequent performers on British television variety shows. Beside Sid Millward, band members included Wally Stewart, Cyril Lagey, Charlie Rossi, Arthur Calkin, Sid Flood, Harry Coles, Ronnie Genarda and Tony Traverci. They played "wild versions of classical hits, interspersed with madcap, visual jokes", and were an influence on the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. Comedian Roy Hudd described them as "an idiot conductor in an ill-fitting tail suit with mad hair and a Hitler moustache... [with] a bunch of idiot-looking senile delinquents...". By 1960, as theatre work dried up in Britain, the band started working regularly at Le Lido nightclub in Paris, and moved to the Stardust Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, run by Moe Dalitz, in 1962. They returned to Britain in 1967, before a short stint working in Teheran just before the Six Days War. The band then returned to Las Vegas. Following several heart attacks, Sid Millward gave up playing the clarinet, and instead "wandered around the stage in tails and spats, waving a baton around rather pointlessly. He died in 1972, from another heart attack, in a hotel in Carolina, Puerto Rico, during a season performing there. He was buried in Puerto Rico after his widow refused to pay for his body to be repatriated. Dr. Crock and his Crackpots Dr. Crock and His Crackpots were another British comedy band popular between the 1940s and 1960s. They were led by saxophone and clarinet player Harry Hines. Henry Albert "Harry" Hines (born Henrick James Albert Rudolph Hinz; 9 June 1903 – 14 May 1971) was a jazz musician, born in Tottenham, London. He learned clarinet when in the Royal Navy, later learned the saxophone, and became a professional musician in 1933. In the 1930s and early 1940s, he played in various dance bands, including those of Ambrose, Ray Noble, Teddy Brown, and Maurice Winnick, and wrote arrangements. In 1947, Maurice Winnick persuaded Harry Hines to take over the musical interludes in the popular radio programme Ignorance Is Bliss, after Sid Millward and His Nitwits left the show. Though he as a serious musician, was initially reluctant, he formed a band, which was given the name Dr Crock and His Crackpots by Maurice Winnick. They typically played classical themes at breakneck speed, interspersed with noises such as cowbells and hooters; "like a cross between a small symphony orchestra and a Dixieland jazz band". Soon afterwards, when Harry Hines wanted to leave the radio show, he took a successful legal action against Maurice Winnick, who claimed he had the legal right to use the band name. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Dr Crock and His Crackpots, with a line-up comprising both musicians and comedians, toured successfully, often topping the bill at variety shows and performing in a style similar to the American combo, Spike Jones and His City Slickers. Harry Hines died in London in 1971, aged 67. Nuts and Bolts Nuts & Bolts were another world-famous musical comedy orchestra from the UK. This absurd act performed their last American tour in 2000 to rave reviews. Before that they toured all over Europe and South America performing their hilariously funny 'Concert Of Music'. The fun started when you thought you were about to hear a concert of classical music and then mayhem came to call in the shape of Count Rossini! Each of the characters in the show had a strange, quirky personality and played even stranger musical instruments! Nuts & Bolts left you aching with laughter and wondering what on earth had just hit you! Stay in touch Peter GSSEditor@gmail.com