Merseyside Mirth Makers - Billy Bennett

William Robertson Russell Bennett

Billy Bennett was born in 1887 in Liverpool to stage parents and is recognised as one of Britain's leading stage and radio comedians. This was the same year that the great clown Grimaldi died, and some experts believe he took up the mantle of the famous Victorian entertainer.
His father John 'Jock' Bennett, born in Glasgow, was half of a slapstick knockabout double act named 'Bennett and Martell.'
The pair were regulars in Drury Lane pantomimes and it was there that a young Billy made his first stage appearance - as the back half of a donkey. Trained as an acrobat, Billy hated it so much he ran away from home and joined the Army only to discover he hated that even more.
His father bought him out and after a brief spell in insurance Billy went back to the stage singing and appearing in comic sketches.

When World War I broke out, Billy went back in the Army and was involved in some of the worst campaigns of the war, Ypres, Loos, the Somme, Arras and Peronne. He emerged with 'a couple of wounds' and three medals.

Back in civvy street, he became 'The Trench Comedian', performing a soldier act in khaki. But when he was booked into a Dublin theatre, he realised that the Irish were not too fond of the British soldier. Advised to disguise himself, he pulled down his hair and sported a large false moustache. Ken Dodd has acknowledged the influence of Billy on his career and some say part of Ken's act was derived from this soldier act when he came on and banged his big drum to sing The Road to Mandalay.

Back in Liverpool, he decided to change completely, buying a second-hand evening dress 'which fitted everywhere it touched'. He kept the Army boots though. His favourite act was to mock and parody the dramatic monologues of the turn of the century. He had written parodies when a schoolboy for his father's music hall friends, so naturally he continued, producing monologues which were, in the main, skits on well-known Victorian monologues and poems, such as Robert Service and Cuthbert Clarke's 'The Shooting of Dan McGrew', Kipling's 'Road to Mandalay' and  George R Sims' 'Christmas Day in the Workhouse'.

With the costume a hit, this red-nosed comedian in disreputable tails and an improbable moustache had created a world all his own. - he now styled himself as  'Almost a Gentleman' - and the act took off. Tennyson's 'Charge of the Light Brigade' became a football verse, 'Charge of the Tight Brigade': 'Half a league, half a league, football league, onward, In 15 char-a-bancs rode the 600, This is the tale of a football match where men fought to their death, A tale of forward backs and fronts, and footballs filled with breath...'
His signature tune ' She was poor but she was honest' had the recurring lines;

It's the same the whole world over

It's the poor what gets the blame 

It's the rich what gets the pleasure 

Ain't it all a bloomin' shame?

Billy appeared in a number of Royal Variety Performances and several stage productions including Fred Karno's burlesque company.  As of 1930 he had adapted his act to radio, appearing with James Carew and Albert Whelan. He appeared with Whelan on stage as the black-faced cross-talkers Alexander and Mose.He also had a role in Will Hay's 1934 comedy film 'Radio Parade'.
Billy Bennett gave his final performance in Blackpool, just a few weeks before his death.
While appearing in the first performance of George Black's Black Vanities at the Opera House, Blackpool, on May 23, 1942 Billy collapsed. He died aged just 55 in Blackpool on June 30th, 1942.

See next :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2018/06/merseyside-mirth-makers-billy-matchett.html?q=Robb+wilton