Brian Whittle / Streatham High Road, summer 1978
I remember less about this panto than the Cinderella event the previous year with Dick Emery and Joe Brown:
That’s probably because I enjoyed a fleeting moment of stardom in Cinderella (interviewed on stage), whereas I was overlooked in the throng of eager children during Aladdin.
In my mind, I had MET Dick Emery and would share that vignette with anyone who might listen, whereas I had merely “seen” Norman Vaughan and never warmed to the latter as a comedian…there might have been other reasons for that lack of warming of course.
As for Joe Brown and Peter Noone, my memory is mightily confused now that I have done a bit of research into these two pantos and acts. The It’s Behind You! – Pop Stars In Panto piece linked here explains a bit more. In truth, I remember Peter Noone’s performance (and Herman’s Hermits as an act) far more vividly than I remember Joe Brown’s performance or Joe Brown & The Bruvvers as an act.
I don’t remember seeing a collective of Hermits, only Peter “Herman” Noone, but the recorded history suggests a plurality of Hermits, as does a lisgting from The Observer at the time
Aladdin Listing Observer 14 Dec 1969, Sun The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Anyway…
…I do recall that one of my very early “party pieces” was to sing, I’m Henery The Eighth, I Am. No doubt encouraged by both of my parents, who were great lovers of Edwardian-style music hall.
My (possibly flawed) memory has Peter Noone singing it in Aladdin, but possibly I saw Joe Brown singing it in Cinderella instead…or as well…or neither – perhaps my parents simply taught me that song ahead of seeing one or other of those performers because my parents knew that they had famously sung that song.
The hive minds in the Streatham Balham & Tooting Memories Facebook Group on balance suggest that it was most likely Joe Brown in 1968 who performed that song.
Below is Joe Brown & The Bruvvers singing it:
While below is a vid of Peter Noone singing it with Herman’s Hermits:
Anyway, point is, possibly on the back of seeing that song performed in these pantos, it became one of my party pieces for much of my infanthood.
Then I more or less forgot about it for best part of 50 years…
…until I remembered it again and wrote an adaptation of the song, which I retitled The Thomas Gresham Nativity Song and performed for The Gresham Society…
…which might only be described as a mock Tudor performance piece. Well, I suppose I was a kid from a mock Tudor house in Streatham:
For those especially interested in this sort of thing, below is a recording of the original music hall version of I’m Henery the Eighth, I Am, sung by Harry Champion: