RAY ALAN
(1930-2010)
(1930-2010)
I've always loved ventriloquist from my first radio-listening days which were dominated by Educating Archie with Archie Andrews and Peter Brough to my earliest TV-watching days when I fell under the spell of the Lenny the Lion and his wrangler, Terry Hall.
Ray Alan, who died yesterday aged 79, was one of the all time great masters of ventriloquism who endeared himself to adult audiences with his ever-so-slightly-inebriated companion Lord Charles who would repeatedly dismiss Alan as a "silly ass!" I saw them perform in the flesh (and veneer) at a Magic Circle banquet and they were a class act.
Alan also delighted young audiences with a cheeky schoolboy and cute duck duo called Titch and Quackers and with a magic-performing feline in a fez named Ali Cat.
There can be no better example of the ventriloquial art that this routine from the Bob Monkhouse Show in which Ray Alan demonstrates how to do it, while Lord Charles does the precisely the opposite! Pure genius!
Ray Alan, who died yesterday aged 79, was one of the all time great masters of ventriloquism who endeared himself to adult audiences with his ever-so-slightly-inebriated companion Lord Charles who would repeatedly dismiss Alan as a "silly ass!" I saw them perform in the flesh (and veneer) at a Magic Circle banquet and they were a class act.Alan also delighted young audiences with a cheeky schoolboy and cute duck duo called Titch and Quackers and with a magic-performing feline in a fez named Ali Cat.
There can be no better example of the ventriloquial art that this routine from the Bob Monkhouse Show in which Ray Alan demonstrates how to do it, while Lord Charles does the precisely the opposite! Pure genius!
Asked once what was the secret of good ventriloquism, Ray Alan replied: "Cractice!"
