Two master dispensers of laughter
Bill and Janet Crouch have recently returned from an Adriatic cruise.
One evening the Guest Act was female performer K-LO. Part of her superb act was ‘Icons who have remained true to themselves'. The first image to appear on screen was that of Laurel and Hardy. A very pleasant surprise indeed and it reminded Bill of an article from the Daily Record (10.06.47.), when Laurel and Hardy were in Glasgow...
Stars of the cinema make frequent stage appearances these days.
All too often the reception they get for their boosted “personal appearance” springs less from appreciation than from an audience’s charity.
And what a relief to find two famous screen performers who are not less worth looking at on the stage but more!
Meeting Laurel and Hardy in Glasgow on Sunday and watching 5000 people milling and crushing round Central Station for a glimpse of them, I felt that no stage deserved such adulation. Watching them on the Empire stage last night, I had to agree that there was at least something to be said for it. For these two lads are master dispensers of the world’s most priceless commodity - laughter. They really are genuinely and truly funny.
EMBARRASSED
Behind the make-up you could get a glimpse of two blokes genuinely embarrassed at the warmth of public approval.
As Stan Laurel said to me backstage, “If you built the most wonderful bridge in the world or made the greatest scientific discovery nobody would look the way you’re on. But make the people laugh…”
I think there is a little more to it than that. The kind of appreciation Laurel and Hardy get is the kind the world keeps for those of its clowns who are lovable as well as laughable.
Eddie Campbell