Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
Harry S PEPPER (1891-1970)
THIS IS YOUR LIFE – Harry S Pepper, songwriter, composer, actor and BBC producer, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews as he arrived at the King's Theatre, Hammersmith.
Harry, who was born into a theatrical family in London, first began writing songs as a youngster for his father's seaside concert parties. He became a prolific songwriter - producing almost 200 throughout his career - and would later establish and run his own music publishing company.
He joined the BBC in 1931, and in addition to writing songs and theme tunes, he presented various shows and devised the first radio quiz show, Puzzle Corner. As a producer, he was responsible for the long-running magazine programme Monday Night at Eight and the popular variety show Band Waggon, which made stars of Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch.
programme details...
- Edition No: 20
- Subject No: 20
- Broadcast live: Mon 26 Nov 1956
- Broadcast time: 8.15-8.45pm
- Venue: King's Theatre, Hammersmith
- Series: 2
- Edition: 5
on the guest list...
- Doris Arnold - wife
- Leslie Bowker
- Fred Benson
- John Watt
- Leslie Woodgate
- Ike Hatch
- Ronnie Waldman
- Judy Shirley
- Richard Murdoch
- Arthur Askey
- Charles Shadwell
- Joan Winters
- Jack Warner
- John Peter Jones
- Ben Lyon
- Vic Oliver
- Benno Moiseiwitsch Recorded tribute:
- Stanley Holloway
related appearance...
- Stories behind This Is Your Life - Jun 1957
production team...
- Researchers: Peter Moore, Nigel Ward
- Writer: Gale Pedrick
- Director: unknown
- Producer: T Leslie Jackson
- names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life
tuning in the broadcasters
Stories behind This Is Your Life
a review of the second series
Interview with the first producer of This Is Your Life
Harry S Pepper recalls his experience of This Is Your Life in the end of series review programme, Stories behind This Is Your Life, broadcast in June 1957
Photographs of Harry S Pepper This Is Your Life
The Liverpool Echo 27 November 1956
TELEVISION last night paid its tribute to one of the lions of another entertainment medium which to many people today must seem as dead as a dodo. I am referring - somewhat disrespectfully, I fear - to sound radio. But sound radio had its golden age, and one of the men who was much concerned with it was a very good producer by the name of Harry S Pepper.
Harry arrived at the TV studios last night to find himself the subject of the BBC's "This Is Your Life." And the programme became a parade of some of the famous names in radio over the past twenty years.
Remember Ike Hatch? He came along to remind us of the immensely successful shows Harry S Pepper put on in the early thirties, when some people were still listening to radio through earphones or speakers shaped like megaphones.
In later years Pepper produced the Askey-Murdoch shows and among radio stars who owe much to his gift for shaping hit programmes were Jack Warner, Ben Lyon, Vic Oliver, Charles Shadwell and a score of others.
Radio's hey-day, when Harry S Pepper's name was known to every listener, seems an age away now that television has elbowed sound radio off the picture. To-day television sets a challenge to sharp young men with bright ideas, who must pit their wits against the sort of competition that sound radio never experienced.
And the competition is fierce.
Daily Herald 27 November 1956
By Philip Phillips
BBC television's "This Is Your Life" last night seemed almost like an obituary for radio. The life was that of the kindly Harry S Pepper.
Harry produced some of the greatest radio shows in the days when radio was at the peak of its power - the middle and late 1930s and the war years.
It was a time when radio catch phrases - "Mind my bike," "I thang yew" and "Not, you Mama" - were heard everywhere.
There were "Hi, Gang," "Happidrome" and "Monday Night At Eight." Few people under 30 remember them.
I suspect they may have come back, as they did last night, as something of a shock, even to older listeners.
Lancashire Evening Post 27 November 1956
SOME of us thought there was something indecent about the BBC's decision to put on "This Is Your Life". We foresaw an inevitable element of vulgarity about the embarrassing confrontation of unfortunates with ghosts from their pasts, the squeezing, so to speak, of the emotional pips of individual existences until they squeaked distressingly.
TELE-VIEWPOINT
This revolting prospect was conjured up by reports of the brash American version of the show, which, so we were told, was liable to reduce victims to tears, even if they managed to escape hysterics.
TOP CLASS
Happily, we have been spared this unsavoury fate. Even if there is a dash of lump-in-the-throat sentimentality now and again, under the deft control of Eamonn Andrews the show has not been even remotely offensive. It has, indeed, been top class television.
"This Is Your Life" lends itself particularly well to Show Business personalities. Last night, we had the story of Harry S Pepper, which covered such a range of pre-war and war-time radio that it developed into a parade of star entertainers which would have cost a mint of money to assemble on the same bill under any other circumstances.
Very interesting, and so nostalgic, with memories of "Band Waggon," "Hi, Gang!" and "Garrison Theatre" making us realise how the years have flown away.
Halifax Daily Courier and Guardian 27 November 1956
THERE'S a bit of the nosey-parker in every one of us. In varying degrees we are all curious, and on such a basis was born the successful "This Is Your Life" - on BBC TV last night.
In 30 minutes the potted version of somebody's life story is told through the eyes of a selection of friends representing the milestones of progress, adversity, joy, sorrow, achievement.
But it is a programme with an exciting twist. The person whose life story is about to be told is not aware, until he or she appears on the stage, whether out of the audience or through some carefully laid plan, that cherished memories are to be relived.
I have watched this programme from its inception, and I am certain that the subject is always taken by surprise. Some have already been at the studios, recording (as they thought) another programme; others have been duped into thinking that they were sharing the producer's secret and merely escorting that night's subject, only to find the tables turned; several have arrived at the stage door after the programme had started - and stepped unsuspectingly before the cameras.
As each story unfolds - and there have been more less-famous people than famous - friends are reunited after years of separation, and some travel thousands of miles to be there. Some of these reunions have been very emotional.
Incidentally, and he is by no means incidental to the smoothness of this unrehearsed programme, Eamonn Andrews is a most polished interviewer. He is adept at helping the surprised person to recover from the initial shock, and his charmingly disarming smile quietens those whose eloquence tends to disrupt the running of the programme.
It is a real tear-jerker and one which the more sentimental of us say "It was lovely - I had such a good cry!"
Daily Express 27 November 1956
Robert Cannell, Express TV reporter, tells of a party for two stars of yesteryear
ONE of the nicest guys in show business last night got what has been coming to him for a long time - the publicly expressed love and admiration of the stars he helped to make.
It was done before a TV audience made up of millions to whom Harry S Pepper was for years another word for entertainment in the days before TV.
It was done in a parade of nostalgic melodies - many of them written by "Pep" - and of faces who first became famous as voices in Pepper productions.
For "Pep" wrote the music for scores of songs and signature tunes which the nation hummed before and during the war. He produced dozens of radio programmes which became household names including his evergreen radio minstrel shows.
Yet he was the most surprised man in London when he stepped through the BBC studio doors with his wife, pianist Doris Arnold, to be greeted by Eamonn Andrews with "This is your life - Harry Pepper."
There was Jack Warner identifying himself by "Letters from my brovver Sid."
There was conductor Charles Shadwell and Judy Shirley, who flew from Cyprus to sing again her opening announcement that "Monday Night at Eight is on the Air."
In came Ike Hatch, the fruity voice from the minstrel shows. Arthur Askey and "Stinker" Murdoch were there cracking gags from their first starring show "Band Wagon."
There was Ben Lyon and Vic Oliver repeating another triumph, "Hi, Gang."
Finally a hidden piano sounded softly with a master's touch, introducing Benno Moiseiwitsch to wind it all up.
A great show - but it told only a fraction of the Pepper story. Harry was still blinking back the tears when the curtain came down.
Evening Telegraph 27 November 1956
'Telegraph' Teleview
"This Is Your Life" appropriately adopted "These you have loved" as its motto. Harry S Pepper and Doris Arnold were greeted by a heart-warming parade of wartime favourites, including Arthur Askey, Richard Murdoch, Ronnie Waldman, Ben Lyon, Vic Oliver, Jack Warner, Charles Shadwell and Joan Winters.
The Stage 29 November 1956
SURVEYS of the lives of show people rank high in entertainment value on BBC-TV's This Is Your Life. The secret seems to stem from the fact that their friends and acquaintances are necessarily personalities already familiar to the viewer, that they are seldom afraid to show their delight at seeing those they warmly regard, and that being connected with show business, they have lives which, to the general public at any rate, are surrounded by an air of glamour and magic.
Radio-producer Harry S Pepper, chosen to appear with his wife, Doris Arnold on Monday provided the subject for one of the most interesting programmes of the series. Introduced by that likeable television personality, Eamonn Andrews, Mr Pepper's life-story unfolded like a fairy tale before the bedazzled eye of many a stage-struck home viewer.
Brought up in a show business family, his father and mother both being in the entertainment world and his brother Dick a banjo-player, Mr Pepper had his early days brought back vividly to him with the description of how his mother used to make all the dresses and the family took their place in the entertainment world.
His early concerts at school, when every Friday he played the piano, and later, reminiscences of the shows he had been concerned with, all came clearly to mind when he recognised the voices of those who visited him in the programme.
Judy Shirley, his first woman singing compere, flew in from Cyprus specially to be with him on Monday, and Stanley Holloway, speaking from New York, reminded him of days together in the Co-optimists. Ike Hatch represented the Kentucky Minstrels, for whom Harry S Pepper especially composed "Carry Me Back to Green, Green Pastures"; Richard Murdoch and Arthur Askey brought to mind "Bandwagon" days; Charles Shadwell, Joan Winters and Jack Warner from the Garrison Theatre; Ben Lyon and Vic Oliver from "Hi, Gang", and John Watts, producer, Moiseiwitsch and Ronnie Waldman all contributed towards this most satisfying television fare.
Daily Express 3 December 1956
A REAL TV secret service has been built up by the BBC to cover inquiries by the "This Is Your Life" researchers.
Take Harry S Pepper, for example. "Pep" has been in on the "cover story" for several shows. He was regarded as a tough proposition. But Harry was deceived - by his wife too.
Their cottage is next door to that of Michael Barry, TV drama chief, at Denham, Buckinghamshire. When producer Leslie Jackson wanted to talk to Mrs Pepper - pianist-composer Doris Arnold - Mrs Barry put a blue scarf on the hedge. And Doris went next door "for a cup of tea and a gossip."
On the night, Harry was invited to Broadcasting House to confer with Ronnie Waldman and a number of music publishers at 6.
Harry didn't know the real conference was from five to six o'clock. And the group solemnly went right through the agenda.
Waldman asked "Pep" if he minded being driven home by way of Riverside Studios so that Ronnie could pick up his car. A huge sign met Harry's eye as he stepped out of the car - BBC Riverside Studios.
But the sign was fake, specially done. They were at the King's Theatre, Hammersmith, a mile away.
And Harry Pepper went unsuspectingly through the door into millions of viewers' homes.
Weekly News 7 December 1956
"This Is Your Life". What a problem programme. It offends every standard I try to apply to television. It's appeal is founded on all the things I decry. Yet I am invariably charmed by this programme. Last week it was Harry S Pepper (did you know Doris Arnold was Mrs Pepper?) to be betrayed into the hands of Eamonn Andrews to have his senses surprised and surprised again, to see friends of his youth appear after twenty years, to hear voices from the other side of the world. And all this before a studio audience and a TV audience of - well, millions?
I should hate it; I should condemn it as being a nightmarish mixture of "Is this your problem" and "Ask Pickles."
But I cannot. Since Eamonn Andrews' touch became so sure, there have been no embarrassing moments. There have been tears (of joy) and smiles (of delight), but the whole thing has been conducted so neatly, so pleasantly that even the harshest critic cannot forbear to praise.
Series 2 subjects
Peter Scott | Ada Reeve | Peter Methven | Sue Ryder | Harry S Pepper | Compton Mackenzie | Maud Fairman | Billy SmartBrian Hession | John Barbirolli | Duncan Guthrie | Esmond Knight | Sammy McCarthy | Edwin Madron | Diana Dors
Parry Jones | Percy Flood | G H Elliott | Stuart Hibberd