Reviewed by Frank McKone
Nov 15th
Written and Performed by: Marcel Cole as George Formby
Performed by: Katie Cole as Formby’s wife and manager Beryl, and other roles as necessary.
Directed by: Mirjana Ristevski
‘The Ukulele Man’ is the true story of wartime comedian and ukulele legend George Formby. From the Music Halls of Blackpool to the battlefields of Europe, this is the untold history of Britain's greatest entertainer!
He was banned by the BBC and committed to a psychiatric hospital by his wife, and yet still became the UK’s biggest star.
__________________________________________________________________________________
 |
| Katie Cole as Beryl and Marcel Cole as George Formby in The Ukulele Man 2024 |
For an hour while thoroughly engaged in Marcel Cole’s re-creation of George Formby’s unassuming, I might even say shy, positivity – his humanity – I never for one moment thought of Donald Trump. Not one jot.
Mirjana Ristevski’s thoughtful, careful, tight directing of still relatively youthful Marcel Cole’s remarkable capacity for living in the moment as if from within his character, while also placing his musician mother, Katie, into roles particularly crucial to Formby’s life, makes us feel we are in the presence of the real George Formby – even up to the point when he describes the crowd of 150,000 lining the way from the funeral parlour to the site where his ashes are interred next to his father’s.
The Ukulele Man is real theatre. Absolutely Not Netflix. It’s weird but wonderful to find oneself responding to Formby, laughing and singing along with him, just as I remember we did when I was a child in England in the nineteen forties and fifties, seeing him on our brand-new television in the same year as we had the set switched on for 12 hours straight for the coronation of the new Queen Elizabeth.
But Marcel Cole has done much more than bring back memories for old people. The story of George Formby’s life through World War I and his entertaining the troops through World War II is disturbing. He is still entertaining us today until, after the show has ended, we are left with the real possibility of World War III.
I don’t want to think about Donald Trump again, but will remember the artist, George Formby, keeping up his ordinary person’s gentle, if a little bit risqué, sense of humour, leaning on a lamp-post, watching and waiting for a certain little lady to pass by.
If you want to know about the whole story of George Formby, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Formby#Biography .
To understand George Formby and feel for the life of an independent artist, go to Marcel Cole’s The Ukulele Man.
About Marcel Cole
Marcel Cole is a multi-disciplinary artist from Canberra. He comes from a family of musical performers and so music, singing and performing have been a part of life ever since he could walk. Since then, he has trained extensively as a dancer in Canberra and at the New Zealand School of Dance in Wellington, NZ, and has studied theatre, mask and clown in Australia, London and Paris, most notably at the prestigious École Philippe Gaulier.
Wikipedia records:
Formby’s films are, in the words of the academic Brian McFarlane, "unpretentiously skilful in their balance between broad comedy and action, laced with ... [Formby's] shy ordinariness".
The film Keep Your Seats, Please in 1936 contained the song "The Window Cleaner" (popularly known as "When I'm Cleaning Windows"), which was soon banned by the BBC. The corporation's director John Reith stated that "if the public wants to listen to Formby singing his disgusting little ditty, they'll have to be content to hear it in the cinemas, not over the nation's airwaves"; Formby and Beryl were furious with the block on the song. In May 1941 Beryl informed the BBC that the song was a favourite of the royal family, particularly Queen Mary, while a statement by Formby pointed out that "I sang it before the King and Queen at the Royal Variety Performance". The BBC relented and started to broadcast the song:
"To overcrowded flats I've been,
Sixteen in one bed I've seen,
With the lodger tucked up in between,
When I'm cleaning windows!
Now lots of girls I've had to jilt,
For they admire the way I'm built,
It's a good job I don't wear a kilt,
When I'm cleaning windows!"
