Submitted by
Roger P Mellor
Maurice Denham
(23 December 1909 - 24 July 2002)
The Independent - July 26, 2002
Actor of many characters and voices
Maurice Denham, actor: born Beckenham, Kent 23 December 1909; OBE 1992;
married 1936 Margaret Dunn (died 1971); died Northwood, Middlesex 24 July
2002.
Richard Murdoch and Kenneth Horne were taking a seasonal stroll around Much
Binding in the Marsh. They encountered numerous villagers.
"Morning, Mr Blake, have a nice Christmas?"
"Oo-ar-um-m'dear-oh-ee-er-Postman's Knock!"
"Morning, Vicar."
"Good marning, deah boys!"
"Have a good Christmas, Miss Clingbine?"
"Yes, thank you, sir."
"Happy New Year, Percy."
"Yes, isn't it, what?"
"Good morning, Mrs Dimsdale."
"Getting' on nicely thanks, ducks!"
"Good morning, Mr Denham."
There came a pause. Then, "Er - oh yes - good morning!"
For the first time in that long- running 1940s radio series Much Binding in
the Marsh, Maurice Denham appeared as himself, instead of virtually
everybody else. Best remembered of the many characters he played was Dudley
Davenport, well-spoken and polite. "Good morning sir, Dudley Davenport at
your service, sir!" But the catchphrase that brought the audience applause
was "Oh, I say, I am a fool", followed by a curious chuckle, "keogh! keogh!
keogh!"
This highly individual laugh had been borrowed by Denham from an officer in
the army, with whom he later had a somewhat embarrassing encounter in Horne
Brothers. Other Much Binding characters by Denham were Fred (pronounced
"Fraid"), who answered yes ("yaice"), Group Captain Funnybone, Lt-Gen Sir
Harold Tansley-Parkinson, Winston the dog, Gregory the sparrow and Nigel the
silkworm.
Much Binding was Denham's post-war triumph. Just before the Second World
War, he had joined the team of Itma, as It's That Man Again would soon be
known. Shipped out to Bristol with the evacuated BBC Variety Repertory
Company, he was commandeered by the Tommy Handley company for their second
series of the show, starting 19 September 1939. Enter alongside Sam Costa
(Lemuel the office boy), Vera Lennox (Dotty the secretary) and Jack Train
(Funf the German spy), the new boy Denham as Mrs Lola Tickle, the first Itma
char. "Oooh Mister Itma," Mrs Tickle cried, "I always do my best for all my
gentlemaine!" The sound of "her" voice echoes down the corridors of time to
stir the soul of every wartime evacuee who was allowed to listen in.
Denham's record as a British actor-cum-entertainer is second to none - by
1989, the 50th anniversary of his first appearance, he had made 985 radio
broadcasts; more than 100 films; and more television appearances than one
can easily count.
He was born in Beckenham, Kent in 1909, the son of a dental surgeon. Maurice
Denham made his stage début at the age of five as "the Spirit of 1917".
Educated at the Abbey School, he moved on to the public school at Tonbridge
where, he recalled, he "acted the Fool in King Lear".
Those early stage shows gave him a taste for the theatre but, to please his
parents, he signed on for a four-year apprenticeship with Waygood-Otis,
lift-makers to the élite. These included the actress Jessie Matthews, then
rehearsing for Evergreen. "She had a wonderful sylph-like figure. The job
should have taken half an hour. I was able to swing three days out of it,"
Denham recalled with considerable relish. He also oiled the lifts at the
home of the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, as he reminded them many
years later when they attended a royal broadcast of Much Binding. Perhaps
the oddest coincidence was that he helped to instal the lifts in the
newly-built Broadcasting House, long before he ever dreamed how many times
he would use them when he became a radio star.
After a few amateur theatrical performances in Beckenham, Denham told his
parents he wanted to turn pro. To his surprise they agreed and, after
answering an advertisement in a trade paper, he embarked for Hull Repertory
Theatre. He arrived on Wednesday, was sacked on Saturday, re-engaged on
Sunday and on stage on Monday. His pay was £2 a week, as was that of another
keen young beginner, Stewart Granger. "I played anything and everything,"
Denham remembered, "from Oxford in Richard of Bordeaux to Ratty in Toad of
Toad Hall." At Hull, he met the actress Margaret Dunn, and they were married
in 1936.
Denham's special ability at playing all manner of characters, of virtually
any age or nationality, blossomed throughout his long years in weekly rep.
After Hull he acted at Croydon and Brighton, finally making his London stage
début in 1936, in Rain Before Seven at the Arts Theatre Club. This led to a
better role in the detective thriller Busman's Honeymoon at the Comedy.
Whilst stuck in this play's long run, he sent a letter to the BBC for an
acting audition. It took his name a whole year to work its way to the top of
the list. He passed with flying colours, immediately being cast in a radio
documentary written by John Pudney, The History of Flight, broadcast on 13
March 1938.
Denham's début in radio comedy was in Mr Muddlecombe, a series starring Robb
Wilton as the magistrate of Nether Backwash, where he sat in the Court of
Nothing Common Place. Then came his extraordinary casting as a little
cockney boy, Reggie, son of Billy Caryll and Hilda Mundy, a variety
double-act starring as Mr and Mrs Neemo. This ran from 5 September 1938 and
was scripted by Vernon Harris, later a great name amongst cinema
screenwriters.
Pre-war television also made good use of Denham, and he appeared in a number
of plays and revues transmitted from Alexandra Palace, supporting the two
Hermiones (Baddeley and Gingold), Edward Cooper and the young ballerina
Wendy Toye. He also enjoyed moonlighting from the BBC by using his many
voices for commercial programmes from Radio Luxembourg.
Jack Hylton, whose dance band backed up the Itma broadcasts in the early
months of the Second World War, was an emergent impresario and helped the
writer Ted Kavanagh fashion a stage show built around the programme. Using
Billy Cotton and his band, plus Tommy Handley's famous First World War
sketch, "The Disorderly Room", as the first half, the Itma cast performed
the second half of the bill. Denham, in drag for the first time, opened the
show as Mrs Tickle calling for her "Oooh Mister Itma!" Denham never forgot
the experience: "It was wonderful getting my first laugh from a packed
audience."
Denham had been an officer in the OTC at Tonbridge School and in May 1940
was enlisted as a Captain in the Buffs, which were converted later to the
Mediums, Royal Artillery. He was made responsible for a series of armed
forces shows in Belgium and France. At Christmas 1943 the Allies captured a
theatre in Brussels and Denham was ordered to hold inter-regimental
auditions in search of suitable performing talent. On D-Day he was stung on
the mouth by a Normandy wasp, resulting in an agonising swelling that
worried him far more than the German bombardment. He was mentioned in
despatches for bravery.
Demobilised in November 1945, Denham made his cinematic début just four
months later. It was in a documentary called Home and School, a Crown Film
Unit production and no great start to what would become an almost unique
film career His second film was more auspicious, although the part was
small. This was as a policeman in Daybreak (1946), produced by Sydney Box,
who had employed Denham before the war to play the voice-over for "Mr Therm"
in a cinema commercial. Box had rocketed to feature film fame with The
Seventh Veil (1945), and was now taken on board by the cine-magnate J.
Arthur Rank and put in charge of Gainsborough Studios to produce a feature
every month. The first actor he put on contract was Denham.
Denham made a dozen films or more a year, in parts both large and small,
whilst under contract to Box, often causing confusion in the make-up
department. Titles range from The Man Within, Take My Life, The Upturned
Glass, Captain Boycott and Jassy (all in 1947) to The Purple Plain (1954),
for which he won a British Film Academy nomination. Large parts were usually
in smaller films, such as the role of Otto Fisch the nasty Nazi who sought
stolen gems hidden in a ball in the Basil Radford/Naunton Wayne comedy It's
Not Cricket (1949). Probably his greatest role, and one he loved to
remember, was unseen. He performed all the many voices in the Halas &
Batchelor feature-length animation Animal Farm (1954): pigs, horses, Farmer
Jones et al.
Between films, Denham remained a stalwart of the stage. A selection of
titles includes the double-bill of Fallen Angels and Fumed Oak at the
Ambassadors (1950), a selection of G.B. Shaw one-acters at the Arts (1951),
the dual role in The Daisies Grow at Windsor (1952), John Mortimer's
double-bill at the Garrick, The Dock Brief and What Shall We Tell Caroline
(1958), Macbeth at the Old Vic (1960), The Andersonville Trial at the
Mermaid (1961), and a version of Uncle Vanya (1979) directed by Harold
Pinter.
Television appearances included Giles Cooper's Pig in the Middle, Len
Deighton's Long Past Glory, Bill Naughton's Chance in Life, Jimmy Sangster's
I Can Destroy the Sun, Edward and Mrs Simpson, The Return of the Saint,
Minder, The Hope and the Glory and Rumpole of the Bailey. On radio,
programmes included Inspector Maigret, and, in 1998, The Oldest Member,
based on P.G. Wodehouse's golfing stories. One could select a completely
different catalogue of titles, so vast was Denham's repertoire.
"People are seeing me on the films as a spiv, a clergyman, a country yokel
or an RAF officer," he remarked back in 1949. "They hear me on the radio as
half-a-dozen characters. There's a danger that they might forget about me!"
I think not.
Denis Gifford
Denis Gifford died 20 May 2000.
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