Although the origins of the modern English comic monologue predate William Shakespeare, it was during the late 19th and early 20th centuries that a specialized tradition of rhythmic, rhyming humorous storytelling evolved in British music halls and theaters. Actor and comedian Stanley Holloway established himself as the archetypal monologist on-stage, over the radio, and through the medium of phonograph records during the late '20s and throughout the 1930s. He invented his own sanguine characters named Albert and Sam Small, ...
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Although the origins of the modern English comic monologue predate William Shakespeare, it was during the late 19th and early 20th centuries that a specialized tradition of rhythmic, rhyming humorous storytelling evolved in British music halls and theaters. Actor and comedian Stanley Holloway established himself as the archetypal monologist on-stage, over the radio, and through the medium of phonograph records during the late '20s and throughout the 1930s. He invented his own sanguine characters named Albert and Sam Small, and breathed life into the Ramsbottoms, those North Country figments of George Marriott Edgar's imagination. Often involved in military exploits, Sam Small was clearly inspired by Holloway's four years in the Connaught Rangers infantry during the First World War. Others who helped in the composition of Holloway's monologues were R. Harris Weston, Robert Patrick Weston, Bert Lee, and Greatrex Newman. This Living Era compilation presents a bracing passel of 20 vintage Holloway performances, as entertaining as they are unusual. Accompanied by pianists Leo Conriche or Wolseley Charles, backed on occasion by a theater orchestra, Holloway spins yarns, inverts logic, and reconstitutes reality according to his own whimsy. He actually sings rather than wholly declaims "Keep Smiling," "My Missus," "The Parson of Puddle," and a deliciously morbid posthumous portrait of Anne Boleyn entitled "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm." Good clean fun! ~ arwulf arwulf, Rovi
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