Robey, Sir George Edward

Robey, Sir George Edward [ Sir George Edward Wade] (1869–1954), English actor and music-hall comedian. He made his first appearance at the Oxford Music-Hall in 1891, and was so successful that he was at once engaged to appear again 10 days later. He was soon playing at all the leading London and provincial halls, earning for himself the nickname of ‘Prime Minister of Mirth’. Originally a singer of comic songs, he was equally admired in a series of humorous sketches featuring Shakespeare, Charles II, Henry VIII, The Caretaker, The Gladiator, and other historic and imaginary characters, and he made a great success in the revue The Bing Boys are Here (1916), in which he played Lucius Bing, as he did in the sequel, The Bing Boys on Broadway (1918). He was himself the author of a revue, Bits and Pieces (1927), in which he appeared with great success, but it is for his music-hall turns that he is chiefly remembered. His humour was robust, and on stage he seemed to consist almost entirely of a bowler hat and two enormous black eyebrows. He showed his versatility by appearing as Dame Trot in the pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk (1921); Menelaus in Helen! (1932), a new English version of Offenbach's La Belle Hélène; and Falstaff in Henry IV, Part One at Her (then His) Majesty's Theatre in 1935, being the first music-hall star to appear in Shakespeare.