The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog

a mini-series which celebrates the age of the British Music Hal​l
Whilst these cameo performances were originally designed to be only short 'filler' programmes on Channel 4, they were re-edited and transmitted as 3 x 30 minute programmes in 1983.

Comic & Dramatic Monologues

Compere and host
Barry Cryer
After dinner performances
by 
star artists,
our Celebrity Guests
Picture
Arthur Askey and Barry Cryer

About the title

Billy Bennett, usually billed as 'Almost a Gentleman' and was characterised by a sergeant-major walrus moustache, a stained shirt and hobnailed boots.  Bennetts monologues in the 1920s often poked fun at other monologues.

The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog, was one of his monologuesand begins:

There's a little sallow idle man lives north of Waterloo.
And he owns the toughest music hall in town.
There are broken-hearted comics, there's a graveyard for them, too.
And the gallery gods are ever gazing down.

Meet the dinner guests ...

About the show

Michael Marshall worked with us whilst compiling and editing this book and the launch of the book was designed to coincide with these short programmes.

They were originally commissioned by Channel 4 so that each monologue could be used as a vignette, a small performance each in its own right, and be used mostly when the transmission controllers needed to synchronise schedules coming up to the hour.  

​Therefore, these were produced at a time when the latest idea (in 1983) was for other programming to be of variable lengths.  But, this new philosophy did not last long and the more standard programme length resumed which viewing audiences have been more familiar with all along.  Hence, when these were transmitted they were re-edited as 3 x 30 minute programmes, a mini-series titled The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog (in itself a parody of another monologue called The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God).
It's also worth noting, the monologues were originally designed to be watched more than once, which is why each item will have a running time of between 2mins and 5 mins so that it could be repeated, as one might do with a favourite sound track or song.  

They were designed to be entertaining and fun, to be appreciated especially by those who enjoy more spoken word, and who get more from each piece the more times they hear it.  The original thinking behind the show was that the monologues would be used rather like listening to music today using a 'shuffle' play-list, i.e. by random selection.

To set the scene for the recordings Barry Cryer is our master of ceremonies at a dinner hosted at a posh London address.  People at the dinner are our household-name artists, famous actors who each get up to perform a monologue to their contemporaries (as their audience) as if one might do after a good feast when the after-dinner speeches are made, or in the Victorian and Edwardian era as one might enjoy in the parlour gathered around the piano.

​It seems today a number of our Celebrity Guests are very sadly no longer with us.  We have some very rare footage captured in these shows, some wonderful actors from 1982/83 and performances which most likely have not previously seen by today's audiences.
Neil Anthony, Producer

TV Times Magazine

 6-15 July 1983
A short extract from the TV Times article:
Monologues hit their popularity peak in a trend which swung away from the cheerful vulgarity of the much-loved music hall songs.  As the Victorian era ended, many music hall acts were seeking more professional dignity and status.

Cockney music hall artists Albert Chevalier was the first really well-known performer to develop the dramatic monologue in his performances between 18989 and 1914, achieving success with My Old Dutch.

Stanley Holloway, Gracie Fields, Will Fyffe, Jack Warner, Chesney Allen were among those who pioneered the comic monologue.  Holloway's most famous monologues Albert and the Lion, by George Edgar, originated from an actual case of a boy mauled by a lion at London Zoo.
Alan Kennaugh

Notes:

The rare footage of some vintage performances is currently only on some surviving VHS tapes, but it is possible they can be salvaged and potentially re-released in a number of formats. 
If there is sufficient demand to republish these many cameo performances, we are prepared to consider the logistics of digitally remastering a selection, or possible all of them on DVD and possibly to stream.  

​If you may be interested and/or feel you would be prepared to support such an initiative, we would be pleased to hear from you to gauge some sense of popularity  towards these celebrity performances from that era and also this type of production now in the 2020s.   So, do please let us know >>