ZANI are proud to remember a great forgotten comedian Frank Randle, which came to our attention during the short lived British B Movies season on BBC 4. Hopefully a whole new generation can appreciate this wayward and at times anarchic comic.
Frank Randle (b 30 Jan 1901 d 7 Jul 1957)
“The greatest character comedian that ever lived”, Gracie Fields
Born in 1901 in Standish, Wigan, the illegitimate Randle was actually christened Arthur Hughes. When his mother married a retired soldier he took his name of McEvoy – Frank and Randle were to come later in his career. From around the age of eleven the young McEvoy would walk to Blackpool with a mate and entertain holidaymakers on the beach by applying a fake moustache with a piece of burnt cork and doing Chaplin impressions. With the few coppers they made they’d buy a fish supper and hopefully have enough for transport home. Sent to work in a mill at the age of thirteen young Arthur was found asleep at his post by the foreman – Legend has it that when he was woken the foreman said to him – “Nathen’, tha’rt tired out lad. Tha’d better get home and get some sleep.” The departing lad replied – “Aye. And it’ll be a long sleep too cos I’m not comin’ back!”
Shortly afterwards he went to live in his beloved Blackpool taking any job he could. He joined a gymnasium and there began his lifelong obsession with keeping fit. Despite the unbelievable quantities of alcohol that he drank he always believed that he’d be immune from illness and live well into his nineties as long as he practised on his Indian clubs every day (a set always stood in his dressing room right up to the very end). It was at the gym that he became a very proficient tumbler and trampolinist. This led to his first break in show business when he was invited to join an acrobatic troupe, The Three Ernestos, who had a booking at the 1922 Tower Circus. Over the next ten years he worked with Astley’s Trapeze Troupe, became Arthur Twist when he was in The Bouncing Randles Trampoline Act, and Arthur Heath when the mood took him.
It was in 1922 when he took part in a marathon walk from Blackpool to Manchester and met a character who was to inspire one of his greatest comic turns – an eighty-two year old hiker.
He began filling in during set changes as a ‘Front Cloth Comic’ and developed the first of his comedy turns – the boatman – a down at heel seaman with a rowing boat touting for customers on Blackpool beach – “ Any more for the Skylark! Come on, Hurry up – they’ll be taking the sea in in a minute! – Do you know I’ve had numerous offers for this vessel.. numerous. But what good’s a yo-yo to me?”
It was the success of this character that gave him the confidence to turn into a full-time comedian. He also changed his name again – this time to Frank Randle. In 1935 he got his big break from the promoter Jack Taylor and was put second on the bill to George Formby at the Blackpool Opera House.
By 1940 he had his own touring revue – The Scandals – and was about to enter the big league, earning up to a thousand pounds a week, when he signed a lucrative film contract with John E Blakeley and Mancunian. The first movie in which he co-starred with another Blackpool legend Harry Korris, was Somewhere In England and this was quickly followed by a succession of low budget films, quickly produced to cater for the tastes of a primarily Northern audience. By 1945 his star was huge and he even had a yacht moored off the North pier at Blackpool, but his behaviour was becoming more and more erratic as drink and quite possibly psychosis exacerbated his mood swings. Two bottles of whisky plus a crate of Guinness a day combined with a loaded Luger pistol is a heady mix and one that frightened a fair number of his contemporaries.
In the end it was TB along with the alcoholism that carried him off in 1957. He was the dark side of northern comedy to Formby’s light, but much more besides. Frank was about class, masculinity, regionalism, envy, anger, hatred even. He was a man who, for better of worse, made absolutely no compromises throughout his entire life. He was a unique comic talent who we can only view today through the lens of the eight movies he made for Mancunian and the two movies he made for Butchers (see List Below) – Long live Frank Randle!
FRANK RANDLE'S FILMS (all Mancunian unless otherwise stated): Somewhere in England (1940)
Somewhere in Camp (1942)
Somewhere on Leave (1942)
Somewhere in Civvies - Butchers Films (1943)
Home Sweet Home (1945)
When You Come Home - Butchers Films (1947)
Holidays With Pay (1948)
Somewhere in Politics (1948) - MISSING - CONTACT CP Lee if you know of a copy
School For Randle (1949)
It's A Grand Life (1953)
FRANK RANDLE'S GRAVE is at I238 in Blackpool's CARLETON CEMETERY
SPECIAL THANKS TO CP LEE in allowing ZANI to reproduce this article from his website
It’s Hot Un Please
check out CP Lee on
CP Lee
