Will Hay Collection [DVD]

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Ask a Policeman is a 1939 British comedy film directed by Marcel Varnel and starring Will Hay, Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt. a b "Jimmy Perry obituary: Creator of Dad's Army who used his own life experiences in much-loved sitcom". The Independent. London. 24 October 2016 . Retrieved 9 May 2017. He was known to be a hypochondriac, and would often complain of illness to his colleagues when working. [6] The Will Hay Appreciation Society' was founded in 2009 by British artist Tom Marshall and aims to preserve Hay's legacy and bring his work to a new generation of fans. As of October 2023, the organisation has over 8000 members. [44] The Will Hay Appreciation Society unveiled a memorial bench to Will Hay, Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt in October 2018, in Cliddesden, Hampshire, the filming location for 'Buggleskelly' in Oh, Mr. Porter!. The bench was unveiled by Pete Waterman. [45] a b c d e f g h i j k "Will Hay – Master of Comedy". YouTube. BBC Radio 4. 2 June 1976 . Retrieved 10 May 2017.

The Fourth Form At St. Michaels Will Hay & His Scholars". A.J.H. Computer Services . Retrieved 10 May 2017. Sergeant Dudfoot is talking about his life as a policeman at Turnbotham Round (pronounced Turn Bottom Round) during a radio broadcast. His staff Albert and Harbottle (played by Graham Moffatt and Moore Marriott) enter after they have been poaching and Harbottle ruins the broadcast. I founded the Will Hay Appreciation Society in 2009 when writing my university dissertation about Hay and his films. Porter writes a note and places it in Harbottle's 'medicine' bottle. He throws it through the window of the station master's office when they pass a large station,alerting the authorities. The entire railway goes into action, closing lines and re-routing trains until Gladstone can crash into a siding where the gun runners are arrested by waiting police. In March 1952 he was admitted to hospital in Kettering after two weeks of hiccuping. [3] He still made sporadic cinema film appearances in minor parts, the last being in the 1963 film 80,000 Suspects, directed by Val Guest, who was a writer of many of the films that Moffatt starred in with Will Hay and Moore Marriott. [4] Personal life and death [ edit ]

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Will Hay's new direction: My Learned Friend". The British Film Institute. 1 June 2015 . Retrieved 11 May 2017. In 2009 a biography of Hay by Graham Rinaldi was published with a foreword by Ken Dodd. Hay never published an autobiography during his lifetime; however, when ill in the 1940s, he had begun writing one, entitled I Enjoyed Every Minute. Excerpts from this unpublished autobiography were included in the 2009 book. [43] Archive of Channel 4 Review (UK)". Archived from the original on 29 August 2005 . Retrieved 16 March 2007. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL ( link)

Will Hay was a comic genius, years ahead of his time and we believe that he deserves to be remembered.Hay published a magazine piece entitled Philosophy of Laughter, in which he discussed the psychology of comedy. In the essay he rhetorically asks, "Why does every one of us laugh at seeing somebody else slapped in the face with a large piece of cold custard pie? Is it because we're all naturally cruel? Or is it because there's something inherently funny in custard pies? Or in faces? Or in throwing things? No, no, and no! The real reason why we laugh is because we are relieved. Because we are released from a sense of fear. Wherever we may happen to be – in the cinema, theatre, or music-hall – we tend to identify with the actors we are watching. So that when a custard pie is thrown we fear for a moment that it has been thrown at us. And then, immediately we realise that it hasn't hit us, we experience a feeling of relief, and we laugh". [8] Moffatt's life story was made into a short film by The Will Hay Appreciation Society which features interviews from his three children, Richard, Chris and Jayne. The film is called Graham Moffatt: Britain's Favourite Fat Boy. [1] The society has since grown to over 8000 members (as of Sept 2023) and his work is now reaching new generations of fans. The society has hosted several annual 'Hay Day's with members attending from around the world, including Hay's family and the last actor to work with him, the late John Clark (Just William). Moffatt married Joyce Muriel Hazeldine in 1948. He died on 2 July 1965 in Bath, Somerset from heart failure at the early age of 45. His ashes were scattered in the English Channel at the village of Beer in Devon. He is survived by his three children Richard, Jayne and Chris. [5] Tributes [ edit ] The Will Hay Appreciation Society's plaque commemorating Graham Moffatt, best known as 'Albert'.

The plot of Oh, Mr Porter was loosely based on the Arnold Ridley play The Ghost Train. The title was taken from Oh! Mr Porter, a music hall song. Despite the majority of the film being set in Northern Ireland, none of the filming took place there; the railway station at Buggleskelly was the disused Cliddesden railway station on the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway, which had closed to goods in 1936. [1] Oh, Mr Porter! was filmed at Cliddesden between May and July 1937. All the interior shots were made at Gainsborough Studios, Shepherds Bush, during the August. [2] The windmill in which Porter and his colleagues are trapped is located at Terling, Essex, [3] and "Gladstone", the ancient steam locomotive, was portrayed by No. 2 Northiam 2-4-0T built by Hawthorn Leslie in 1899 and loaned by the Kent and East Sussex Railway to the film. The engine was returned to the company after completion of the film and remained in service until 1941, when it was scrapped. [4] [5]

The humour of Hay's films has been described as subversive and similar to that of fellow English comedian Frank Randle. His films are often characterised as exhibiting traits of anti-authoritarianism and having a satirical approach towards how authority figures are portrayed. This is notable with Hay himself, who often played an incompetent authority figure who struggled not to be found out, but whose idiocy was discovered by those around him. [11] a b c d e "Will Hay: the lost master of British comedy". The Daily Telegraph. London. 16 January 2009 . Retrieved 10 May 2017. Top 100 Movie Lists – BFI's 360 Classic Feature Films". Archived from the original on 27 October 2009 . Retrieved 16 March 2007. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL ( link) Greene, Graham (23 August 1935). "Where's George?/The Great God Gold/Boys Will Be Boys/The Murder Man". The Spectator. (reprinted in: John Russel, Taylor, ed. (1980). The Pleasure Dome. Oxford University Press. p. 16. ISBN 0192812866. )

From 1934 to 1943, he was a prolific film star in Britain and was ranked the third highest grossing star at the British box office in 1938, behind George Formby and Gracie Fields. He is widely regarded as one of the most prolific and influential British comedians of all time. [6] Hay was scheduled to star in another film for Ealing in 1943, Bob's Your Uncle, but his diagnosis of cancer prevented him from proceeding. [27] Hay worked with Gainsborough Pictures from 1935 to 1940, during which time he developed a partnership with Graham Moffatt, playing an insolent overweight schoolboy, and Moore Marriott as a toothless old man. Hay's 1937 film, with Moffatt and Marriott, Oh, Mr. Porter! was credited by The Times as being "a comic masterpiece of the British cinema", [9] while the writer Jimmy Perry cited the film as an influence on key character development for Dad's Army. [10] Colonel Stephens' New Locomotives". The Colonel Stephens Railway Museum, Tenterden, Kent . Retrieved 13 May 2011. After a celebration in which Harbottle points out that Gladstone is ninety years old and Porter claims it is good for another ninety, the engine explodes. Porter, Harbottle and Albert lower their hats in respect.

Hay kept his career in astronomy separate from his comedy career and published Through My Telescope under the name of W.T. Hay, using the same title when giving lectures on astronomy. [6] Hay was an advocate for education on astronomy and considered those who had an interest in astronomy "the only men who see life in its true proportion". In a 1933 interview with the Daily Mail he stated "If we were all astronomers, there'd be no more war." [33] He was a friend of William Herbert Steavenson, who would go on to become the President of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1957. [33]