The Chuffer Dandridge Diaries -

Chuffer's Lovely Wogan Chums

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One of the nicest surprise benefits resulting from co-hosting a morning show with dear Terry Wogan is the plethora of my dear old theatrical colleagues and contemporaries who have got in touch, wanting to renew my acquaintance now that I'm famous again.
Below is a cast list of correspondents, or rogues gallery if you prefer. I'd like to share my memories of them with you. After all, as they used to say at the end of those old Universal horror movies, "A good cast is worth repeating!"

Here they are - every one a star !!

Basil "Bunty" Carruthers: Matinee idol and quick-change artiste. Doyen of musical comedy. Spent the war disguised as a nun.

Beachy Head: Always remembered his cues but left his trousers on the stage door. Frequently mistaken for Bruce Forsyth and Jimmy Hill at the same time !!

Dylan Coriander: Had an almost psychic ability to deliver the correct line. You'd almost think he learned his bally part word for word. This ability later led him to specialise in "supernatural" parts and old men.

Compton Paunce-Foot: Specialised in titled maniacs and compromised seafarers. His nautical walk was worth the price of the ticket alone.

Compton Valence: Master of the double-take. Drunk par excellence. His insistence on doing all the big Shakespearean roles mystified everyone.

Dame Poppy Fanshaw: Real name Fanny Popshaw. Not an actual Dame of the theatre. Got the nickname for turning every production she was involved in into a pantomime.

Buffét Maltravers: Called The Old Master, or something very similar! 4 ft 11 in his socks with a booming, rumbling voice. Prone to work behind a huge convex screen to compensate for his stature.

Tarrant Winton: Home Counties Tragedian. Former knife thrower. Dealt with hecklers in his own way. Didn't so much die on stage as kill, really. Offers of work dried up. They never found his agent's body

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Wilton Shagpile: The man of a thousand faces. None of them his own. Voted "Man most likely to play Tommy Steele in his life story" in 1965 by readers of the New Musical Express.

Tosser Strangeways: The suave sophisticate and cad. Chuffer's one-time partner in the "All-Stars", now his arch rival and the man who stole Chuffer's wife !!

Myrtle Jollyp: Chuffer's wife, who leaves him for Tosser Strangeways.

Dickie "Touch" Tingles: An overtly camp entertainer, whose friendship with Chuffer has survived despite the fact that it is obvious that Dickie is deeply in love with him. Obvios to everyone except Chuffer, that is !!

Olga Kolchezck: Chuffer's mother. A refugee from Eastern Europe, she suffers aloveless marriage to Chuffer's father, also a failed entertainer. Her only joy in life is taking every opportunity to espouse her Communist beliefs.

Drax Dandridge: Chuffer's father. Instilled in Chuffer a love of performing that dictates the course of his life. Quite possibly a nazi spy during the war. Defintiely the inventor of "Composite Alloy Shoes".

Dix and Dex Dandridge: The "Terrible Twins". Chuffer's younger and more successful brothers, of whom he is tragically envious.

Bunty Beauchamp: Hopelessly inept escapologist. One-time member of Chuffer's war-time entertainment troupe, the "All-Stars". Believed that his catchphrase on conclusion of his escapology act should be "Easy as pie !!". His audiences however, came to believe it to be "Help me, help me .... I think I'm smothering".

Smudge Keppler: Another "All-Stars" alumnus. An avant-garde comic genius, whom Chufer inadvertantly crippled during an on-stage mishap at the end of the war.

Titch Kitchener, Tufty Abernathy, Hedge Motherwell and Jumbo Carstairs: Ex-"All-Stars". A raggle-taggle bunch of entertainers who find their post-war careers hopelessly intertwined with Chuffer's.

Goldie Boules: Chuffer's post-war protege. Later to die in mysterious circumstances.

Beryl Boules: Goldie Boule's wife and Chuffer's secret lover.

Pulcifer Wrath: Chuffer's sinister lodger. What is his secret ?

Bingo Bowles-Barringtom and Cadger Carew: Chuffer's first performing partners.

Plus a cast of performing polecats, pigeons, gerbils, a badger, porcupines and sundry celebrities down through the years.

Smudge Keppler Oriel Talmadge Tosser Strangeways JumboCarstairs BuntyBeauchamp

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Click on the pictures below for links to more information on Chuffer's contemporaries.