Graham Hoadly performs the Vicar & Budgerigar gag - 1992

This is an excerpt from a 1992 Old Time Music Hall bill produced by the late Ian Liston for his Production Company Hiss & Boo.
Ian was an actor, but also founded his own Production Company, Hiss & Boo in 1977, regularly producing plays, pantomimes and Variety / Music Hall bills all over the UK and overseas.
Having begun his career as an actor, he was seen in William Douglas-Home’s The Dame of Sark at the Wyndham's Theatre in 1974 and enjoyed a seven-year spell in Crossroads. Appearances in Doctor Who (1979) and the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) - he maintained a website dedicated to his character, the rebel alliance pilot Wes Janson - saw him attract a cult following and make regular attendances at science-fiction conventions around the world.
Ian Liston / Hiss and Boo were the original producers of Cluedo as a stage play and first brought The Mr Men to the stage. West End credits included the award-winning Groucho: A life in Revue, Neil Simon's Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Gerald Moon’s CORPSE! and Nunsense : The Funny Nunny Musical.
Elegant and entertaining shows including The Shakespeare Revue (which Hiss & Boo originated with the RSC), Come Rain Come Shine (with a cast from BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Archers’) and Dear Ivor - a celebration of the life of Ivor Novello, originally created with Welsh National Opera.
In his Variety shows, Ian drew performers from a pool of established actors and actresses whose highly specialised Music Hall work was an adjunct to their professional careers.
He drew from a list of bill-toppers, some of whom were the last surviving stars and big names from the world of Variety.
The style of his Variety bills was a pastiche of all that was best of Victorian Music Hall and Edwardian and post-war Variety: a fast moving blend of comedy, melodrama and song which involves the audience to the full.
Ian Stuart Liston was born on August 4, 1948. He died on October 12016, aged 68.
This particular show played at the Pavilion Theatre, Cromer in September of 1992 and featured among others vocalist Michele Summers, actress and comedienne Christine Pilgrim, and the Chairman was Graham Hoadly.
Here, Chairman Graham Hoadly tells a story that he originally heard performed by his friend Peter Spraggon.
Actor Peter Spraggon was also a much-loved Music Hall Chairman who performed regularly for Aline Waites at her Aba Daba Music Hall Company at the former Pindar of Wakefield public house in Grays Inn Road (now The Water Rats).
Graham was first asked by Aline, when quite young (!) to perform as Chairman in about 1980. In those days the main Chairmen at the Pindar were Peter Spraggon and Geoffrey Robinson, both of whom were inspirations to Graham, despite their style being almost polar opposites! He used elements of their different styles to evolved his own unique Chairman persona, but has always been grateful for their inspiration.
Graham has regularly been compering Music Hall and Variety bills in the UK and all over the world, and is proud to have been a popular Chairman at the famous Players’’ Theatre in Villiers Street, Charing Cross.
Peter Spraggon passed away on 27th February 1999 aged 70.