LAUREL and Hardy’s final visit to these shores, in 1953/54, is the subject of Jon S. Baird’s excellent film, Stan & Ollie, which has just been released on DVD. Steve Coogan plays Laurel opposite John C Reilly's Hardy.
The film covers the duo’s performance at the Glasgow Empire, in March 1954.
On their visit here they were photographed (right) with one Jack Ritchie. Their time at the Empire coincided with a serious power-cut in the city, an occurrence mentioned by the Evening Times’s Meg Munro in her interview with the duo and their respective wives. She observed that the four had so far visited Denmark, Sweden, France and Belgium, and were planning to go to Australia and New Zealand.
Read more:
Alison Rowat's review of Stan & OllieThe couples led separate social lives. “It’s better that way,” said Laurel. “We all see so much of each other when we are working that we feel we can stay friendly by not getting in each other’s hair all the time.” Munro interviewed Hardy and his wife, Lucille, in their hotel bedroom, and Laurel and Ida in the Empire dressing-room.
Lucille spoke of her passion for collecting miniature horse ornaments; Oliver said he was trailed by autograph-hunters whenever he stepped outside, which was why he didn’t really know Glasgow despite having made several visits.
Read more:
Herald DiaryLaurel, who spent his boyhood days in Glasgow, said he enjoyed Ida’s exotic Russian dishes, but what he most enjoyed was real ‘home’ food: tripe and onions, rice pudding and haggis.
Reviewers spoke warmly of Laurel and Hardy’s stint at the Empire, the Glasgow Herald’s critic saying that their entire act, “put over so unaffectedly, was good fun of its kind”; Hardy had opened by saying their act was ‘a bit of nonsense’ but our critic observed: “’Nonsense’ can be a lot more preferable than pretentious, clever stuff.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here