247:...the music-hall is no longer in existence. It was essentially a national institution: no foreigner except as a first or last turn—and that a dumb one—had any place in it. It reflected in general the life of the nation; that of the people in particular. The Italian acrobats may have come first and the German strong men appeared last, but between such foreign covers came page after page that only British eyes might read aright, for the language of the music-hall was understanded of the people. Its successor is the Variety Theatre; a dual misnomer since it is never a theatre and its fare is ever unvaried—the alien crooner, the alien comic: the fatuous and the filthy...
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He deplored what he believed were the BBC's decline in moral standards and so became a spokesman for the
Popular Television Association which campaigned in the early 1950s for a commercial television station as an alternative to the BBC. He also thought of standing for election to the House of
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Potter spoke to his audience in "deadpan tones on unlikely and esoteric themes peppered with literary, historical, and linguistic allusion. Though a classical education was needed fully to appreciate his act, it was widely popular: in 1930 he appeared in the
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He continued to broadcast through the war but his style went out of fashion in the post-war years. His last radio series was broadcast in 1952, titled
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after the war. He cultivated an individual style and persona, wearing a straw boater, wide grey flannel trousers (he claimed he invented the
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Commons as an independent candidate on the platform of "England for the
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entries. His most famous turns were his tales of the mythical
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in 1920), and an "Old
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who bears upon his blazer the broad arrows of a blameful life".
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Brewer's
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Nineteenth Edition
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was the abiding passion for Potter, being an authority on
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and his last broadcasts as a comedian on radio were for
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in 1953. That year he also appeared on television for
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minister, and
Elizabeth Stimson. He was educated at
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514:(London: Hodder Education, 2012), p. 658.
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205:Beachcomber
183:James Agate
175:Oxford bags
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408:required.)
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241:music hall
171:music hall
46:1887-09-14
524:The Times
421:The Times
310:genealogy
293:in 1970.
265:Priestley
214:Who's Who
187:Harrovian
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328:and the
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