If you saw the documentary Freddie Davies: A Life in Show Business on Talking Pictures TV recently you will have caught a glimpse of his grandfather, Jack Herbert, walking past a theatre and standing on its stage (above). The footage comes from a 1969 documentary about Sid Field, the sketch comic revered by Tony Hancock; Jack and Sid had worked together in revue in the 1920s, Sid as juvenile lead and feed to Jack, an up-and-coming comedian by then, thanks to his success in several revues produced by Clara Coverdale.
Sadly, however, there is very little of Jack Herbert on film; the two-part Field programme, part of a Thames Television series called Applause! Applause!, contains almost all there is, and he had retired from performing by then - or rather, as Freddie has put it, "the business gave him up": theatres began to close in the fifties and not all variety acts were able to adapt to the brasher style demanded by the clubs.
When I was working with Freddie on his autobiography Funny Bones it was assumed that the theatre in which Jack had been filmed had been the long-derelict Argyle, Birkenhead, a victim of wartime bombing; there had been no reason to question this as the source was Jack's half-brother John. Seeing Martyn Tott's documentary about Freddie online in 2017 and then again recently on TPTV I was reminded that the archive footage showed a street name by the side of the theatre, and indeed a name running up the building: Her Majesty's. I couldn't work out where it was, however, until a recent search of social media put it beyond doubt that the venue was actually Her Majesty's in Barrow in Furness.
The Sid Field programme was presumably made around the time of its broadcast; I think Her Majesty's, like the Argyle, had become derelict by that time, which might explain how the mistake occurred - and at the time of the book Jack's brother was recalling something from about 45 years ago.
There is another minor mystery which I haven't yet been able to solve. The Sid Field documentary was shown in two parts of half an hour each - The Stage has a review of the first programme - but when I obtained a screener from Freemantle, taken, I believe, from a videotape, the DVD seemed only to contain the second programme - or maybe even just a rough assembly. I didn't push the matter but it may be that the first programme survives in film form, if not video.
The Stage critic makes the point - which would certainly apply to the second part too - that as there is so little film of Field around it was largely a case of bricks without straw, using shots of railway timetables, etc., to pad it out. (A more recent programme about Field presented by David Suchet, who played the comedian onstage, suffered from the same, perhaps unavoidable, fault, exemplified by a particularly pointless scene with Suchet in the chip shop where Field might have celebrated his marriage with a glass of Tizer.)
It may be, therefore, that there was nothing of any import in the missing Field programme, and at least Freddie's grandad is prominently featured in the follow-up. Having been first transmitted in the days before video recorders or online catch-up, Freddie had never seen it before, so watching it almost half a century on was an emotional experience, as recounted in Funny Bones:
I shed a tear at seeing him just as I last remembered him; he had a face that I just loved to look at.
The following three images from Jack's interview in the programme give a hint of the mobility of the face which once endeared him to audiences:
I won't quote too much from the book as the story of Jack's life, and his relationship with Freddie, is better read as a whole; I will say, however, that I remain very proud of it, and treasure the assessment of John Fisher, who has described it as "In every way, a cornerstone of its genre".
An example of Jack's quirky humour - not to mention promotional flair - can be found in advertisements placed on two separate pages in a 1927 edition of The Stage:
The extracts from Applause! Applause! included in the Freddie documentary also include interviews with Philip Hindin and Myrtle Grove; the latter had appeared with Jack in revue and both testify that Jack had been a major influence on Sid's act. But it's interesting to see how the elderly Jack reacts to the idea that his former colleague went on to greater things by pinching some of his mannerisms: as you can probably make out from the above triptych above he seems to be brushing the suggestion off, laughing ... while seeming, at the same time, to be providing a demonstration. So when Olivier praises Sid Field and cites him as an inspiration the shade of Jack can surely claim some of the credit.
If the name of Jack Herbert is new to you I wrote a piece for the British Music Hall Society magazine the Call Boy about him, which you can find reproduced here - and if that whets your appetite you could do worse than search out the book what I cowrote - though be warned that one possible consequence of the Talking Pictures screening of the Freddie programme is that secondhand copies, cheaply available until recently, seem to have escalated in value. (You'll probably be out of luck at your local library too, as I've seen a number of "WITHDRAWN" copies on secondhand sites in the past.)
Jack is mentioned at the beginning of the book but it's the final chapter which is devoted to Jack's life and career in depth, exploring why he didn't become a major star like Sid Field.
I mentioned at the start of this piece that Applause! Applause! included almost all there was of Jack which had been captured on film. When we were working on the book, Freddie told me that Jack and his partner Ruth had been extras in A Journey for Jeremy, a 1940s short about a little boy who literally dreams about being a train driver on the Glasgow to London route. I tried to obtain a copy of this while writing the book but the one person in a position to help made it clear in a telephone call that for all my talk about the sentimental associations for Freddie in seeing his grandfather again no help would be forthcoming from that quarter and I may as well give it up; like a Pinter character he wasn't equivocal, he was unequivocal. (Maybe he thought I was scheming to set up a rival series of train talks.)
Anyway, there the matter was left ... until a happy discovery a couple of days ago.
Not expecting anything new, I made yet another of my periodic searches for the film's title online and this time discovered that there was a complete version viewable online on the Huntley Film Archives website, albeit without sound; Jack, and his (personal and theatrical) partner Ruth Beaumont, are glimpsed getting off the train when it finally arrives at a still-arched Euston. The visual quality isn't all that great - it's from a 16mm film - but I was glad that I could let Freddie know about; he'd last seen it many years before in the cinema, as a supporting feature.
Postscript:
I note there is an obituary for Jack Herbert in a 1971 edition of the BMHS magazine The Call Boy; I presume details were provided by Freddie.
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