Hare, J. Robertson

Hare, J. Robertson (1891–1979), English comedian and a consummate player of farce, who made his first appearance on the stage in 1911 in Carton's The Bear Leaders, and spent many years touring in the provinces before becoming associated with Ralph Lynn at the Aldwych Theatre in a series of farces by Ben Travers. Hare always played the ‘little’ man, swept along by the succession of outrageous mishaps which constituted the typical Aldwych farce. He was seen in Vernon Sylvaine's Aren't Men Beasts! (1936), but a year later was back with Travers in Banana Ridge, followed by Spotted Dick (1940), She Follows Me About (1943), Outrageous Fortune (1947), and Wild Horses (1952), being reunited with Ralph Lynn in the last two. He also appeared in Sylvaine's One Wild Oat (1948), and in Ronald Millar's The Bride and the Bachelor (1956) and The Bride Comes Back (1960). In 1963 he played Erronius in the American musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and in 1968 appeared in John Chapman's Oh, Clarence!, based on stories by P. G. Wodehouse.