Biography
A seasoned performer from Britain's traditional music-hall circuit would naturally develop resilience, which helps account for comedian and songwriter Arthur Askey's boldness in confronting the global bee population as a potential threat; he faulted the insects for "building up the honey-comb that looks like tripe" and "stinging all the cows upon the parson's nose." The song's closing barb, from the frequently recorded "Bee Song," runs: "Bees are allright when alive you see/but when bees die you really should see 'em/pinned on a card in a dirty museum."
Askey may simply have sought an opponent smaller than himself. Standing well below average height, he offset this from the outset of his professional life with an abundance of frenetic vigor. Spanning roughly forty years, his work bridged radio, television, variety, and pantomime, while he also supplied material for the emerging children's-record market during the 1950s. He entered the profession only in his early twenties, initially touring concert halls as an itinerant comic who supplied jokes, songs, and dances, all of them, in his own later description, "really really silly."
The radio series Band Waggon furnished his first substantial exposure, though the program was dropped after its third episode. Askey and castmate Richard Murdoch then secured the vacated slot and fashioned a replacement built around their shared anarchic wit. The retooled Band Waggon became a major success, notable as one of the earliest programs to mock its own production methods, and its popularity prompted a screen version that introduced Askey to cinema.
He remained active in films throughout the Second World War. The bee-themed grudge may have originated with his first commercial failure, Bees in Paradise. Following that setback he returned to radio and stage work, gradually shifting toward television with the series Before Your Very Eyes. Audience approval of the new show revived interest in film offers, although the later pictures favored a gentler, less absurdist style of comedy. Askey kept appearing in pantomime into the 1970s, stopping only when poor circulation necessitated the amputation of both legs.
Askey may simply have sought an opponent smaller than himself. Standing well below average height, he offset this from the outset of his professional life with an abundance of frenetic vigor. Spanning roughly forty years, his work bridged radio, television, variety, and pantomime, while he also supplied material for the emerging children's-record market during the 1950s. He entered the profession only in his early twenties, initially touring concert halls as an itinerant comic who supplied jokes, songs, and dances, all of them, in his own later description, "really really silly."
The radio series Band Waggon furnished his first substantial exposure, though the program was dropped after its third episode. Askey and castmate Richard Murdoch then secured the vacated slot and fashioned a replacement built around their shared anarchic wit. The retooled Band Waggon became a major success, notable as one of the earliest programs to mock its own production methods, and its popularity prompted a screen version that introduced Askey to cinema.
He remained active in films throughout the Second World War. The bee-themed grudge may have originated with his first commercial failure, Bees in Paradise. Following that setback he returned to radio and stage work, gradually shifting toward television with the series Before Your Very Eyes. Audience approval of the new show revived interest in film offers, although the later pictures favored a gentler, less absurdist style of comedy. Askey kept appearing in pantomime into the 1970s, stopping only when poor circulation necessitated the amputation of both legs.
Albums
