JACK House, the venerable Evening Times writer, recalled the day that the great comedian Tommy Morgan spoke enthusiastically about a new double act he had signed for his season at the Pavilion Theatre. “They’re the funniest thing you ever saw,” Morgan declared, “but I’ll never be able to keep them. Where they’re getting tens today, they’ll be getting hundreds tomorrow.”
House, writing about the conversation in 1957, thought that Morgan was merely promoting his company, but when he saw the double act for himself, “I realised how right he was. This act, where the pretty blonde accordion player gave the usual accordion selection, and the tall chap with the bunnet stood at her back and made inconsequential remarks, was a riot.”
It was, of course, the husband-and-wife team of Chic Murray and Maidie Dickson, who were billed as the ‘Tall Droll with the Small Doll.’
Recounting the story of the duo, House said that some music-hall managers had been left baffled by Chic’s style of humour, who were accustomed to a certain style of stand-up comedian. “Indeed, when Chic went into his inconsequential routine and made jokes that required almost an intellectual approach, some of the managers watched the act with awe.”
He related an incident when Chic and Maidie were in London, for their debut at the Prince of Wales Theatre. They were sitting in a restaurant across the road, having a steak dinner, when Chic glanced up and saw the poster for the show being put up. He lost his appetite, discouraged by the size of his name on the billing. It was far too big, he reckoned: London audiences would be expecting something sensational, but all he was was an ex-shipbuilding engineer from Greenock.
He needn’t have worried, House wrote: the couple were a fabulous success at the Prince of Wales.
Chic and Maidie had made the front page of the Evening Times in May 1955 (right, top) when he signed a year’s contract for £6,500 with Billy Marsh, director of the Bernard Delfonte Agency, the same agency that had given such high-profile entertainers as Norman Wisdom, Frankie Vaughan, Joan Regan and the Beverley Sisters their first big chance. Maidie and Chic had been appearing in the Spring Show at the Pavilion, in a six-week run that still had a few days to go.
The agency would arrange engagements for Chic “in halls throughout the provinces and in London,” the paper reported.
Chic was, apparently, a table-top football fan, and was pictured with a game backstage at the Glasgow Empire in 1957 (right, bottom).
In April 1983 Chic was photographed in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow (main image, far right) with Sir Harry Lauder’s old pipe. Chic was in the process of making a play for Scottish Televison, called ‘Do You Get Paid for Doing This?’ He had just returned from Morocco, where he had been filming with Judi Dench.
He said it had been a long time since he had worked in Glasgow. “Too long,” he conceded. “I’d forgotten just hoiw warm it was. Just like Morocco.”
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