CHRISTMAS DAY SWING

The Phantom Dancer is on Christmas Day this year. I’m bringing you a mix of Christmas Day and Christmas themed swing and jazz from live 1930s-50s radio & TV.

Hear the Xmas Show online at radio 2ser.com

On your non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio you’ll hear plenty of Jingle Bells by Fats Waller, The Delta Rhythm Boys, Benny Goodman, Paul Baron and more. Lena Horne, Frances Langford, The Three Sisters and Chiquita also bring some Christmas cheer. And in the first set of the show we hear this week’s Phantom Dancer feature artist, Oliver Wakefield.

“H-h-hello everybody. Ladies and men. Women and those of you. Oliver Wakefield, the Voice of Inexperience, speaking.”

Oliver Wakefield, the Voice of Inexperience

Christmas songs, jazz and swing from Christmas season broadcasts are the mix for this week’s non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV. Hear the show only for the next four weeks at radio 2ser.com

The Phantom Dancer, presented by authentic 1920s-1930s singer, Greg Poppleton, also brings you a one-off Yuletide BBC broadcast from Oliver Wakefield, the Voice of Inexperience, with Henry Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra.

INEXPERIENCE

Oliver Wakefield, actor, comedian and monologuist, had the perfect English ‘upper class twit’ accent even though he was born in Zululand and died in New York City aged only 48.

He was ‘The Voice of Inexperience’. You’ll hear him in full flight on today’s Phantom Dancer in the 1936 Christmas broadcast by Henry Hall and his BBC Dance Orchestra.

Dressed in full dinner suit, Wakefield delivered his wry, double entendre monologues through stuttering, disjointed syntax, malapropisms, spoonerisms, dropped words and unfinished sentences.

They are stunningly complex works of vocal art – and entertaining.

COMEDIAN IN RESIDENCE

Oliver Wakefield was the first Resident Comedian on the BBC. He appeared on 1930s BBC TV and also had a US career in the ’30s. One of his first New York appearances was in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934.

He appeared in British Pathé newsreels in the late 1930s (one of them is your Phantom Dancer Video of the Week) and in the 1937 movie, ‘There Was Young Man’. These lead to featured roles in British films from 1938 to 1942 including The Peterville Diamond (1942), playing a gentleman jewel thief whose partner-in-crime was played by future Doctor Who star William Hartnell.

He was booked to open at the Rainbow Room in New York three weeks after the outbreak of World War II. He chose to remain in England to serve in the RAF.

VARIETY

After the war, Wakefield toured Australia,. He performed on stage for a year in Melbourne and Sydney, followed by a 52-week radio series for the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

In 1952 he moved to the United States, appeared in nightclubs, on Broadway, frequently was on CBS TV, and hosted his own CBC TV panel show, ‘Make a Match’.

Variety summed him up by writing, “Wakefield seems strong for any medium.”

LAST WORD

It was said, that Oliver Wakefield’s “grasp of current affairs was only exceeded by his inability to express it.”

See what ‘they’ mean in this stand-up clip by Oliver Wakefield ‘The Voice of Inexperience’ from 1936 when he was 27.

The Pathe announcer does a terrible imitation of him at the opening of the clip. It only goes to highlight the stunning artistry of Oliver Wakefield’s complex monologues. It’s your Phantom Dancer Video of the Week-

25 DECEMBER PLAY LIST

Make sure you come back to this blog, Greg Poppleton’s Radio Lounge, every Tuesday, for the newest Phantom Dancer play list and Video of the Week!

Thank you.