Notable dates and events 1938 - 1980
NOTABLE DATES & EVENTS
A working list which will continually be added to as new information emerges.
Any help filling the gaps is—as ever—greatly appreciated.
1938
Christmas 1938 – Birmingham
Pantomime Cinderella with Tommy Trinder and Elsie & Doris Waters (musical number).
1939
19 October 1939 – Tower Circus, Blackpool closes.
Philip returns to France. He is reputed to have destroyed all his instruments and never rejoined the Cairoli Trio.
Christmas 1939 – Leeds Grand
Pantomime Cinderella with the same cast as Birmingham 1938.
1940
February 1940 – London Palladium
Revue Black and Blue with Stell Fletcher and Jack Stanford.
Transfers to:
• Leeds Empire
• Cardiff New
• Croydon Empire
• Oxford New
Buffoon Barrage – Birmingham Hippodrome
With Nervo & Knox, and De Haven & Page.
Radio Fan – Swansea Empire & Wolverhampton Hippodrome
With Nat Jackley.
May 1940 – Tower Circus
Father and son appear for two weeks before being deported to the Isle of Man as “enemy aliens” (due to holding Italian nationality).
Father liberated in August due to age.
French naturalisation papers arrived September, allowing Charlie to be freed.
1941
November 1941 – London Hippodrome
“Get a Load of This.”
Agent Stanley Waltham was arrested (German origin).
1942
October 1942 – Glasgow
You'll See Stars.
The Cairoli family apply for British naturalisation at the request of the Tower; reportedly delayed due to quota problems.
November 1942 – Coventry Hippodrome
Dilly Two Shoes.
1943
Film: “Happidrome”
With Harry Korris, Ramsbottom & Enoch (hugely popular variety act of the time).
November 1943 – Leeds & Glasgow Empires
With Ben Wrigley and Jack Clifford.
December 1943 – London Palladium
Look Who’s There with Old Mother Riley (Arthur Lucan) and Rawicz & Landauer (piano duettists).
During the day, Charlie worked in a munitions factory.
1944
October 1944 – London Palladium
Happy Inglorious with Tommy Trinder.
Other Palladium productions the Cairoli act featured in around this period:
• Best Bib and Tucker
• Black Velvet
Newcastle Empire
Showboat of the Air with Jewel & Warriss, Benson & Dulay.
1945–1946
Talk with Tom Arnold – Mammoth Circus.
1946–1947
Touring again with Tom Arnold’s Mammoth Circus and The Circus Comes to Town.
Then “Clowns in Kingsway” at the Stoll Theatre.
February 1947
Show renamed and toured as “Stars on Ice.”
Post–1947 Tower season
Father retired to France.
1947
Pantomime: “Humpty Dumpty” – Alhambra, Glasgow
This is when Paul Freeman joined as the new whiteface clown—he had been playing in the Alhambra band.
Big Frank (Charlie’s prop man) acted as stooge.
1952
Charlie and Paul travel to New York to perform cabaret in Follies Parisienne.
This led to appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.
1954
Summer 1954 – Tower Circus appoints new ringmaster Henry Litton, best known in Gilbert & Sullivan circles.
He quickly joined Tower pantomimes, being an excellent dame.
Sadly, he died at the end of the 1963 season.
Circus Daze with Charlie Cairoli and Company (alongside The Voice of the Highlands with Calum Kennedy and Very Common Market with Johnny Beattie & Eric V. Marsh) was presented at the Glasgow Empire Theatre sometime before its closure in March 1963—so the show would have taken place no later than 1963.
1964
February 1964 – Touring South Africa with the “Frank Ifield Show”
Press comment noted:
“The supporting acts are all of a high standard. Charlie Cairoli is an excellent clown of the old music-hall type, with incredible musical dexterity. With the aid of colour film he simulates a hair-raising ride—an original and effective number of considerable polish.”
