Harry Secombe - As An Entertainer

As An Entertainer

Secombe joined the cast of the Windmill Theatre in 1946, using a routine he had made up in Italy about how people shaved. Secombe always claimed that his ability to sing could always be counted on to save him when he bombed. Both Milligan and Sellers credited him with keeping the act on the bill when club owners had wanted to sack them.

After a regional touring career, his first break came in radio when he was chosen as resident comedian for the Welsh series Welsh Rarebit, followed by appearances on Variety Bandbox and a regular role in Educating Archie.

Secombe met Michael Bentine at the Windmill Theatre, and was introduced to Peter Sellers by his agent Jimmy Grafton. Together with Spike Milligan, the four wrote a comedy radio script entitled Crazy People. Produced by the BBC's Peter Ross, this was eventually to turn into The Goon Show. First broadcast on 28 May 1951, the show remained on the air until 1960. Secombe was notable for playing Neddie Seagoon, the focus of many of the show's absurd plots.

While the success of The Goon Show meant that he needed to do no other work, Secombe continued to develop a dual career as both a comedy actor and a singer. At the beginning of his career as an entertainer, his act would end with a joke version of the duet Sweethearts, in which he sang both the baritone and falsetto parts. Trained under Italian maestro Manlio di Veroli, he emerged as a bel canto tenor (characteristically, he insisted that in his case this meant "can belto") and had a long list of best-selling record albums to his credit.

In 1958 he appeared in the film Jet Storm, which starred Dame Sybil Thorndike and Sir Richard Attenborough and in the same year Secombe starred in the title role in Davy, one of Ealing Studios' final films.

The power of his voice allowed Secombe to appear in many stage musicals. This included 1963's Pickwick, based on Dickens' The Pickwick Papers, which gave him the number eighteen hit single "If I Ruled the World" – his later signature tune. In 1965 the show was produced on tour in the United States, where on Broadway he garnered a nomination for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. He also appeared in 1967's The Four Musketeers, as Mr. Bumble in Carol Reed's 1968 film of Lionel Bart's Oliver!, and in the Envy segment of The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins.

He would go on to star in his own show, The Harry Secombe Show, which debuted on Christmas Day 1968 on BBC One and ran for thirty one episodes until 1973. A sketch comedy show featuring Julian Orchard as Secombe's regular sidekick, the series also featured guest appearances by fellow Goon Spike Milligan as well as leading performers of the time such as Ronnie Barker and Arthur Lowe. Secombe later starred in similar vehicles such as Sing a Song of Secombe and ITV's Secombe with Music during the 1970s.