Tiddles
11-10-2005, 06:15 PM
I am saddened to have discovered today the death of another AYBS? co-star, Avril Angers.
Her body of work: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0029792/
Comedy great Avril Angers dies at 87
Patrick Newley, The Stage
Avril Angers, one of Britain's finest comedy actresses, has died at
the age of 87.
Once dubbed Britain's answer to Lucille Ball, the Liverpool-born
actress lived in Covent Garden, London, for more than 50 years.
The daughter of music hall parents, Angers went into showbusiness at 14
and throughout the thirties worked in light comedy and revues. During
the Second World War she was one of the hardest working members of
ENSA, touring the remotest parts of West Africa.
She was awarded the Africa Star for her work and during the forties and
fifties was rarely off the West End stage or the cinema screen. She
played everything from Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday to Marigold in the
classic film The Green Man, opposite Alistair Sim. On television, she
partnered comedians such as Arthur Askey, Dick Emery and a young Bob
Monkhouse.
She won critical praise for her role as Liz Piper in Roy Boulting's
film The Family Way and was cast opposite Richard Burton and Rex
Harrison in the offbeat comedy Staircase.
She had been suffering from pneumonia and died in the University
College Hospital, London on November 9.
Her close friend, the variety artist Joan Rhodes, paid tribute saying:
"Avril was was one of the funniest and most gifted people in
showbusiness. She was very unassuming and comediennes such as Victoria Wood adored working with her."
---------------------------------
Avril Angers
(Filed: 11/11/2005) Telegraph
Avril Angers, who has died aged 87, was one of the most
zestful, charming and reliable character comediennes in the
post-war London theatre; she also appeared in television
series such as Dad's Army, All Creatures Great and Small,
Are You Being Served?, Minder, Coronation Street and The
Tomorrow People.
A trouper who was a Tiller Girl at 14 and took leads in
provincial pantomime at 15, Avril Angers wrote her own
material as an adolescent in summer shows. With her
ebullient personality, sharp sense of timing and sound
theatrical training, she was fitted for anything from radio,
cabaret and television series to West End thrillers,
classical revivals, musical comedies and farces.
It was, however, on the stage that she made her name in the
now defunct but once popular tradition of West End satirical
revue, presided over in the 1940s by such comediennes as
Hermione Gingold and Hermione Baddeley.
As Avril Angers moved commandingly about the stage, with a
gleam in her eye and pertness of manner which heralded the
delivery of a barbed comment or a cruel lyric, the shapely
young brunette was often compared with the two Hermiones as
a likely successor in their brand of satire.
If she arrived in the West End a little late to triumph in
revue, her comic persona flourished on stage and television,
particularly in provincial pantomime and in television
partnerships with comedians like Benny Hill, Arthur Askey,
Frankie Howerd, Terry-Thomas and Les Dawson, and in shows
such as Dad's Army and Coronation Street.
In a career that spanned six decades, West End credits
included revue with Max Wall in Make It a Date (1946); the
musical comedy Little Me (1964); the farce The Mating Game
(1972); and the tribute to CB Cochran, Cockie (1973). She
was in the American comedy Norman, Is That You? (1975); the
long-running farce No Sex, Please, We're British (1975);
Agatha Christie's whodunnit Murder at the Vicarage (1976);
and was the Mother in the Gershwin musical Crazy For You
(1993).
The daughter of the comedian Harry Angers, she was born in
Liverpool on April 18 1918 and educated at schools in
England and Australia before making her first appearance at
the Palace Pier, Brighton, in 1936.
After stints as a Tiller Girl and in assorted alternative
capacities in pre-war summer shows, cabaret, pantomime and
Fol-de-Rols revues, she joined Ensa in the Second World War,
serving five years in the official organisation for
entertaining the troops. She started broadcasting for the
BBC radio service in 1944. It was when she was in Cairo with
the troops that Douglas Moodlie saw her as a future radio
personality, and Variety Bandbox gave her her big chance;
followed by more than a year with the Carroll Levis radio
show.
She first appeared in the West End in the Cyril
Fletcher-Betty Astell revue Keep Going (Palace, 1944),
followed by the Leslie Henson-Hermione Baddeley revue The
Gaities (Winter Garden, 1945), in which her comedienne's
gift for the non-sequitur and the moonstruck look first
earned critical praise.
A year later, opposite Max Wall in Make It a Date (Duchess),
Avril Angers won recognition for her way of achieving a
style both matter-of-fact and boisterous and of delivering a
monologue with finesse.
The era of such revues was drawing to a close; and Avril
Angers found herself as often as not out of town in the
legitimate theatre - as Miss Prue in Congreve's Love for
Love; as Billie Dawn, the dumb blonde, in Born Yesterday and
as Madeleine in Guitry's Don't Listen, Ladies, though she
was back in the West End in 1951 in a dullish farce, Mary
Had A Little... (Strand), which she helped to brighten.
Meanwhile, she had a topical musical slot called Look Back
with Angers on the BBC radio show Roundabout, from which she
was upset to be "given a rest" in 1959. From the 1930s
through to the 1950s, she was a fixture as a cartoon
character in Radio Fun, in a comic strip entitled The
Adventures of Avril Angers.
After playing a charlady in a quirky comedy, The Nightlife
of the Virile Potato (Lyric, Hammersmith, 1960), she went to
Australia with the revue Paris by Night and then, in the
West End, took the title role of the glamorous Belle
Poitrine in an imported Broadway musical comedy, Little Me
(Cambridge, 1964).
Other West End credits in the 1970s included Mrs Finney in
the Ray Cooney production of The Mating Game (Apollo) and
Peter Saunders's musical Cockie! (Vaudeville), again playing
opposite Max Wall, in which she stopped the show with what a
critic called her "brilliant, heartbreaking" version of Noel
Coward's song If Love Were All. In the West End comedy
Norman, Is that You? she partnered the comedian Harry Worth.
In No Sex, Please, We're British (Strand 1975), she took
over the role of Eleanor Hunter. She also toured as Miss
Skillon in the farce See How they Run and took over as Miss
Marple in Murder at the Vicarage (Savoy).
Regional work included Mrs Hardcastle in She Stoops to
Conquer (Birmingham Rep), a tour as Madame Arcati in
Coward's Blithe Spirit (her favourite role), Miss Marple in
A Murder is Announced, and tours of Cluedo, Oklahoma!, When
we Are Married, The Killing of Sister George and, in the
Middle and Far East, Cooney's Move Over Mrs Markham.
Film credits included Skimpy in the Navy, Lucky Mascot, The
Green Man, Devils of Darkness, The Family Way, Staircase, A
Girl in My Soup and Two a Penny, a dire vehicle for Cliff
Richard and (implausibly) Billy Graham, in which she was
splendid.
In the 1980s she appeared in two of Coward's lesser-known
plays Easy Virtue and Post-Mortem (King's Head, Islington)
and in pantomime at Croydon, Richmond, Bath and Eastbourne.
She never married.
Her body of work: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0029792/
Comedy great Avril Angers dies at 87
Patrick Newley, The Stage
Avril Angers, one of Britain's finest comedy actresses, has died at
the age of 87.
Once dubbed Britain's answer to Lucille Ball, the Liverpool-born
actress lived in Covent Garden, London, for more than 50 years.
The daughter of music hall parents, Angers went into showbusiness at 14
and throughout the thirties worked in light comedy and revues. During
the Second World War she was one of the hardest working members of
ENSA, touring the remotest parts of West Africa.
She was awarded the Africa Star for her work and during the forties and
fifties was rarely off the West End stage or the cinema screen. She
played everything from Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday to Marigold in the
classic film The Green Man, opposite Alistair Sim. On television, she
partnered comedians such as Arthur Askey, Dick Emery and a young Bob
Monkhouse.
She won critical praise for her role as Liz Piper in Roy Boulting's
film The Family Way and was cast opposite Richard Burton and Rex
Harrison in the offbeat comedy Staircase.
She had been suffering from pneumonia and died in the University
College Hospital, London on November 9.
Her close friend, the variety artist Joan Rhodes, paid tribute saying:
"Avril was was one of the funniest and most gifted people in
showbusiness. She was very unassuming and comediennes such as Victoria Wood adored working with her."
---------------------------------
Avril Angers
(Filed: 11/11/2005) Telegraph
Avril Angers, who has died aged 87, was one of the most
zestful, charming and reliable character comediennes in the
post-war London theatre; she also appeared in television
series such as Dad's Army, All Creatures Great and Small,
Are You Being Served?, Minder, Coronation Street and The
Tomorrow People.
A trouper who was a Tiller Girl at 14 and took leads in
provincial pantomime at 15, Avril Angers wrote her own
material as an adolescent in summer shows. With her
ebullient personality, sharp sense of timing and sound
theatrical training, she was fitted for anything from radio,
cabaret and television series to West End thrillers,
classical revivals, musical comedies and farces.
It was, however, on the stage that she made her name in the
now defunct but once popular tradition of West End satirical
revue, presided over in the 1940s by such comediennes as
Hermione Gingold and Hermione Baddeley.
As Avril Angers moved commandingly about the stage, with a
gleam in her eye and pertness of manner which heralded the
delivery of a barbed comment or a cruel lyric, the shapely
young brunette was often compared with the two Hermiones as
a likely successor in their brand of satire.
If she arrived in the West End a little late to triumph in
revue, her comic persona flourished on stage and television,
particularly in provincial pantomime and in television
partnerships with comedians like Benny Hill, Arthur Askey,
Frankie Howerd, Terry-Thomas and Les Dawson, and in shows
such as Dad's Army and Coronation Street.
In a career that spanned six decades, West End credits
included revue with Max Wall in Make It a Date (1946); the
musical comedy Little Me (1964); the farce The Mating Game
(1972); and the tribute to CB Cochran, Cockie (1973). She
was in the American comedy Norman, Is That You? (1975); the
long-running farce No Sex, Please, We're British (1975);
Agatha Christie's whodunnit Murder at the Vicarage (1976);
and was the Mother in the Gershwin musical Crazy For You
(1993).
The daughter of the comedian Harry Angers, she was born in
Liverpool on April 18 1918 and educated at schools in
England and Australia before making her first appearance at
the Palace Pier, Brighton, in 1936.
After stints as a Tiller Girl and in assorted alternative
capacities in pre-war summer shows, cabaret, pantomime and
Fol-de-Rols revues, she joined Ensa in the Second World War,
serving five years in the official organisation for
entertaining the troops. She started broadcasting for the
BBC radio service in 1944. It was when she was in Cairo with
the troops that Douglas Moodlie saw her as a future radio
personality, and Variety Bandbox gave her her big chance;
followed by more than a year with the Carroll Levis radio
show.
She first appeared in the West End in the Cyril
Fletcher-Betty Astell revue Keep Going (Palace, 1944),
followed by the Leslie Henson-Hermione Baddeley revue The
Gaities (Winter Garden, 1945), in which her comedienne's
gift for the non-sequitur and the moonstruck look first
earned critical praise.
A year later, opposite Max Wall in Make It a Date (Duchess),
Avril Angers won recognition for her way of achieving a
style both matter-of-fact and boisterous and of delivering a
monologue with finesse.
The era of such revues was drawing to a close; and Avril
Angers found herself as often as not out of town in the
legitimate theatre - as Miss Prue in Congreve's Love for
Love; as Billie Dawn, the dumb blonde, in Born Yesterday and
as Madeleine in Guitry's Don't Listen, Ladies, though she
was back in the West End in 1951 in a dullish farce, Mary
Had A Little... (Strand), which she helped to brighten.
Meanwhile, she had a topical musical slot called Look Back
with Angers on the BBC radio show Roundabout, from which she
was upset to be "given a rest" in 1959. From the 1930s
through to the 1950s, she was a fixture as a cartoon
character in Radio Fun, in a comic strip entitled The
Adventures of Avril Angers.
After playing a charlady in a quirky comedy, The Nightlife
of the Virile Potato (Lyric, Hammersmith, 1960), she went to
Australia with the revue Paris by Night and then, in the
West End, took the title role of the glamorous Belle
Poitrine in an imported Broadway musical comedy, Little Me
(Cambridge, 1964).
Other West End credits in the 1970s included Mrs Finney in
the Ray Cooney production of The Mating Game (Apollo) and
Peter Saunders's musical Cockie! (Vaudeville), again playing
opposite Max Wall, in which she stopped the show with what a
critic called her "brilliant, heartbreaking" version of Noel
Coward's song If Love Were All. In the West End comedy
Norman, Is that You? she partnered the comedian Harry Worth.
In No Sex, Please, We're British (Strand 1975), she took
over the role of Eleanor Hunter. She also toured as Miss
Skillon in the farce See How they Run and took over as Miss
Marple in Murder at the Vicarage (Savoy).
Regional work included Mrs Hardcastle in She Stoops to
Conquer (Birmingham Rep), a tour as Madame Arcati in
Coward's Blithe Spirit (her favourite role), Miss Marple in
A Murder is Announced, and tours of Cluedo, Oklahoma!, When
we Are Married, The Killing of Sister George and, in the
Middle and Far East, Cooney's Move Over Mrs Markham.
Film credits included Skimpy in the Navy, Lucky Mascot, The
Green Man, Devils of Darkness, The Family Way, Staircase, A
Girl in My Soup and Two a Penny, a dire vehicle for Cliff
Richard and (implausibly) Billy Graham, in which she was
splendid.
In the 1980s she appeared in two of Coward's lesser-known
plays Easy Virtue and Post-Mortem (King's Head, Islington)
and in pantomime at Croydon, Richmond, Bath and Eastbourne.
She never married.