Whimsy: December 2018 Archives

Sixty years ago tonight, Christmas 1958, the BBC aired an entertainment extravaganza featuring Britain's top entertainers of the day: singer Vera Lynn, comedians Tony Hancock, Ted Ray, Jimmy Edwards, Charlie Drake, and Charlie Chester, the Beverley Sisters, and Billy Cotton and his band. The show closes with a sentimental scene featuring the cast of police drama Dixon of Dock Green. Magician David Nixon is the master of ceremonies.

Some highlights:

33:30: Tony Hancock as a budgerigar (parakeet), the pet of an elderly spinster. The costume is different (feathers instead of a homburg hat and astrakhan-collared coat), but it's basically the same put-upon character that made him the top sitcom star of the 1950s.

40:30: Vera Lynn sings "A Window" and "The Bells of St. Mary's."

47:50: Jimmy Edwards plays the headmaster in a Christmas sketch set in a boarding school.