Keith Harris with Orville The Duck
Keith Shenton Harris (21st September 1947 – 28th April 2015) was an English ventriloquist best known for his television show "The Keith Harris Show (1982–90), audio recordings, and club appearances with his puppets "Orville the Duck and Cuddles the Monkey. He had a UK Top 10 hit single in 1982 with "Orville's Song" which reached number 4 in the charts.
The son of variety performers, Harris assisted in his father's ventriloquy acts as a child; as a teenager, he created his own ventriloquism characters which he performed at holiday resorts in the summer season, attracting the attention of television producers. He debuted on screen in 1965 and became a popular act guest starring on various shows; he had his first solo series Cuddles and Company in the 1970s, but got his big break in 1982 with The Keith Harris Show. He, Orville and Cuddles became popular performers on primetime television until the show was cancelled in 1990, as audiences and television producers began to move away from variety performances. After a low period and two failed business ventures in the early 1990s, he embarked on a busy stage career (mostly in pantomime) and found new appreciation in the 2000s, appearing as a guest in several television programmes. His output declined after a 2013 cancer diagnosis and he died two years later.
Keith Harris with Cuddles the Monkey 1976 (Image: Daily Record)
Born in Lyndhurst, Hampshire on 21st September 1947, Keith Harris grew up in North Baddesley in Hampshire and near Chester (where he attended a secondary modern school. His parents were variety performers; his mother Lilian "Lila", née Simmons (born 1917), was a dancer; his father, Norman Harris (born 1912), was a singer, comedian and ventriloquist. From age nine Harris appeared on his father Norman's knee as a "dummy" in his ventriloquist act. Harris was severely dyslexic at school and in 2014, he claimed that his dyslexia had cost him millions of pounds because of his inability to read contracts accurately.
Keith's mother Lilian "Lila", née Simmons (born 1917)
Lyndhurst, The Grand Hotel c.1955
MORE than 4,000 knitted and crocheted poppies are now covering the wall of a Hampshire church located in North Baddesley near where Keith grew up. St John the Baptist Church has been made even more beautiful with the poppies, each flower has been knitted from people from all over the world who have had links with North Baddesley. The initiative is part of a community project from Companions of St John in partnership with the Church of England in Ampfield, Chilworth and North Baddesley.
Ian Wyllie, a veteran and member of the congregation at St John the Baptist’s sister church, said: “There is nothing to celebrate on this 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, but everything to remember. We are deeply affected by how many people in our community of North Baddesley have knitted or crocheted poppies for this poppy cascade. The whole church across the world longs for God’s plan for peaceful earth to be achieved. It’s appropriate then for this cascade, in which every poppy is an act of remembrance and hope to be hosted by the ancient church of North Baddesley.” Celia Dowden, councillor for North Baddesley, said: “The poppies were knitted by residents, some from different parts of the UK and even from America, but all by people with a connection to North Baddesley. This moving and spectacular display is a fitting memorial for us all to remember the sacrifice made by so many in war.
So many different groups from North Baddesley have contributed to this, it is a show of community spirit, such as would have been seen during those war years.”
Former Vicars Cross resident Lila Harris reached the milestone of 100 years of age on Tuesday 11th July 2017. The mother of the celebrated late Chester entertainer Keith Harris marked the milestone of her 100th birthday on Tuesday (July 11). Former Vicars Cross resident Lila Harris has been connected with theatre for most of her life in her own right, as well as being mum to famous ventriloquist Keith Harris of Orville the Duck fame. Born in Stratford, east London, she met her husband Norman while she was singing and dancing in a touring version of the show No No Nanette back in the 30s. During World War Two Norman was enlisted and Lila - by this time the mother of two young boys Colin and Keith - was evacuated to a village in Hampshire where she started a dancing school for the local children. After the war Lila, Norman and the boys moved to Chester where Norman was employed by a dispensing chemist in Bridge Street. Meanwhile, with the boys in full time education at Overleigh School, Lila again started a small Saturday morning dancing school and later began working for local showbiz personality Dennis Critchley as his wardrobe mistress at the old Royalty Theatre on City Road. It was at this venue that son Keith got his first taste of show business by appearing with his father in a music hall double act. From those early beginnings Keith’s career took off and in the late 70s and 80s he had his own regular TV shows. When Keith married his fourth wife, a Blackpool girl named Sarah Metcalf, and settled in that town, Lila and Norman, now in their 80s, left Vicars Cross and moved up to the old seaside resort to be closer to Keith, Sarah and their two children Kitty and Shenton. Norman passed away and Lila moved into sheltered housing at Croft House, Poulton Le Fylde, just round the corner from Keith and Sarah.
A young Keith Harris when he performed at the Royalty Theatre in Chester.
Harris began creating ventriloquism characters as a teenager. After appearing in summer seasons at holiday resorts, he had spots on the television series Let's Laugh (1965). Harris became a popular act on television variety shows, and following a spell as the host of "The Black and White Minstrel Show, was given his own show called Cuddles and Company. He appeared several times on BBC TV's long-running show The Good Old Days. Harris' best known creation, Orville the duck, came about after he saw some green fur lying around backstage at a performance of The Black and White Minstrel Show in Bristol. Orville, recalled Simon Farquhar in his Independent obituary of Harris, was "a huge, gormless, falsetto-voiced green duckling sporting a nappy fastened by a giant safety pin". Harris recorded "Orville's song", written by Bobby Crush. It made the Top Ten in the UK singles chart in 1982 and sold 400,000 copies. It was later voted the worst song ever recorded.
The Black & White Minstrel Show 1978 - Part 6
The Black & White Minstrel Show 1978 - Part 6
Ventriloquist | Keith Harris | London Night Out | 1978
Ventriloquist | Keith Harris | London Night Out | 1978
The Good Old Days (featuring Keith Harris & John Inman) - 17th January 1978
The Good Old Days (featuring Keith Harris & John Inman) - 17th January 1978
Keith Harris and Orville the Duck - I wish I could fly - CHRISTMAS TOTP - 1982
Keith Harris and Orville the Duck - I wish I could fly - CHRISTMAS TOTP - 1982
Orville: I wish I could fly
way up to the sky but I can’t,
Keith: You can,
Orville: I can’t!
Orville: I wish I could see what
folks see in me but I can’t,
Keith: You can,
Orville: I can’t!
Keith: Look, Orville,
Orville: Yes?
Keith: Nothing that you can say
Will change how I feel today:
I know that we’ll never part;
Now hear what I’m saying, Orville?
Orville: Yes?
Keith: Who is your very best friend?
Orville: You are.
Keith: I’m gonna help you
mend your broken heart.
Orville: Thank you.
Orville: I wish that I had a
mummy and dad but I don’t,
Keith: You don’t?
Orville: I don’t!
Orville: I often pretend my
sadness will end but it won’t,
Keith: It will,
Orville: It won’t!
Keith: Look, Orville,
Orville: Yes?
Keith: Now that I’m here with you,
There’s nothing that you can’t do,
So why don’t you make a start
And hear what I’m saying, Orville?
Orville: Yes?
Keith: Who is your very best friend?
Orville: You are.
Keith: I’m gonna help you
mend your broken heart.
Orville: Ahhh…
Orville: So does this
mean although I’m green
And not exactly bright,
You want to care and will be there
To tuck me in at night?
Keith: Well, I’ll always
be there, Orville!
Orville: The other birds laugh
and say that I’m daft and I am,
Keith: You’re not!
Orville: I am!
Orville: They tease me a lot
and call me a clot and I am,
Keith: You’re not!
Orville: I am!
Keith: Look, Orville?
Orville: Yes?
Keith: Nothing that you can say
Will change how I feel today:
I know that we’ll never part;
Now hear what I’m saying, Orville?
Orville: Yes?
Keith: Who is your very best friend?
Orville: You are.
Keith: I’m gonna help you
mend your broken heart.
[Spoken]
Orville: Thank you. ‘Cos I’ve
got a broken heart, haven’t I?
Keith: Yes, I know, but I’m
going to help you mend it.
Orville: You, you will do it,
won’t you. You’ll help me?
Keith: Of course.
Orville: ‘Cos you love me, don’t you?
Keith: We all love you, Orville.
Orville: How, how, how
much do you love me?
Keith: Ooh… this much!
Orville: As much as that?
Keith: Yeah.
Orville: Ahhh… my broken heart.
The Keith Harris Show ran on Saturday evenings on BBC1 from 1982 to 1990 and a series for children The Quack Chat Show (1989–90) also on BBC1. Harris appeared in several Royal Variety Performances and also performed privately for the Royal Family. At the request of Diana, Princess of Wales he was booked as an act for the birthdays of Princes William and Harry at each of their respective third birthdays at Highgrove and Kensington Palace. The end of Harris's television show coincided with a period when television was "turning away from variety acts". He entered a period of depression, drank heavily and was arrested for drunk driving; his third marriage collapsed during this period. He also opened clubs in Blackpool and Portugal which failed, leading him to declare bankruptcy twice. However, he recovered and began performing in clubs, in pantomimes and at holiday camps, touring the United Kingdom; he wrote 17 of his own pantomimes and had his own pantomime company, Keith Harris Productions, which he sold in 2009 to Richard Jordan.
Ventriloquist Keith Harris has revealed he lost a £7 million fortune because his dyslexia meant he could not read contracts.
The 66-year-old, who found fame in the 1980s with his puppet sidekick Orville the Duck, said he was dubbed "thick" at school and never learned to read.
He claims this meant he was duped into signing unfavourable contracts. Harris told the Mail on Sunday: "I've made about £7 million throughout my career, but I've lost it all too. "It's all down to the dyslexia. I can't read or write. Reading contracts? I didn't, I just signed them."
The Keith Harris Christmas Party (26/12/1983, BBC 1)
The Keith Harris Christmas Party (26/12/1983, BBC 1)
1984 Royal Variety Juggler Anthony Gatto followed by Keith Harris
1984 Royal Variety Juggler Anthony Gatto followed by Keith Harris
The Royal Variety Performance is a televised variety show held annually in the United Kingdom to raise money for the Royal Variety Show (of which Queen Elizabeth II is life-patron). It is attended by senior members of the British Royal Family. The evening's performance is presented as a live variety show, usually from a theatre in London and consists of family entertainment that includes comedy, music, dance, magic and other speciality acts. The Royal Variety Performance traditionally begins with the entrance of the members of the British Royal Family followed by singing of the national anthem, God Save the Queen, which was also performed by the participating acts as a traditional end to Royal Variety Performances. The first performance, on 1st July 1912, was called the Royal Command Performance, and this name has persisted informally for the event. This was held in the Palace Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, in the presence of King George V and Queen Mary. After correspondence with Sir Edward Moss, the King said he would command a Royal Variety show in his coronation year, 1911, provided the profits went to the Variety Artistes' Benevolent Fund, as the Royal Variety Charity was then known. It was planned to be in the Empire Theatre, Edinburgh, part of the vast Moss Empire group, but the building caught on fire a month before the show. After the death of Moss, Sir Alfred Moss was chosen as the impresario and it was staged in 1912. This was a lavish occasion, and his London Palace Theatre was lavishly decorated, complete with some 3 million rose petals.
The Beatles meet the Queen Mother at the Royal Command Performance, 4 November 1963
This was the night of The Beatles’ famous appearance at the Royal Command Performance at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London, in the presence of the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret.
By this point Beatlemania was an established phenomenon, with the group drawing huge and frenzied audiences across the country and beyond. Although they were seventh on the 19-act bill on this night, they were by far the most anticipated performers to appear.
Keith Harris and Orville made several appearances at the Royal Variety Performance in the 1980s
Image Right - November 19, 1984: Princess Diana at the Royal Variety Performance at the Victoria Palace Theatre, London. Photo by David Levenson
The Beatles began playing their opening song, "From Me To You", before the curtains had opened. After the final chord John Lennon and Paul McCartney moved their microphone stands nearer the edge of the stage to get closer to the audience. The group bowed in unison at the end of the second song, "She Loves You", after which McCartney made a nervous joke about Sophie Tucker being their “favourite American group”. They followed this with a performance of "Till There Was You". When the applause died down John and Paul moved their microphone stands back to their original positions, and Lennon made the announcement which won over any remaining doubters and guaranteed them headlines in all the next day’s newspapers. For our last number I’d like to ask your help. The people in the cheaper seats clap your hands. And the rest of you, if you’d just rattle your jewellery. We’d like to sing a song called "Twist and Shout". At the close of the song Ringo joined the others centre stage and the curtain closed behind them. They bowed, firstly to the audience, then to the royal box, before running off the stage. Marlene Dietrich was also on. I met her and I remember staring at her legs – which were great – as she slouched against a chair. I’m a leg-man: ‘Look at those pins!’ (Ringo Starr)
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The Beatles’ appearance was a triumph. However, they declined all subsequent invitations to reappear on the show, despite repeated attempts to lure them back.
We managed to refuse all sorts of things that people don’t know about. We did the Royal Variety Show, and we were asked discreetly to do it every year after that, but we always said, ‘Stuff it.’ So every year there was a story in the newspapers: ‘Why no Beatles for the Queen?’ which was pretty funny, because they didn’t know we’d refused. That show’s a bad gig, anyway. Everybody’s very nervous and uptight and nobody performs well. The time we did do it, I cracked a joke on stage. I was fantastically nervous, but I wanted to say something to rebel a bit, and that was the best i could do. (John Lennon) 1970 Anthology
Top performers included Vesta Tilley, Sir George Robey, David Devant, Anna Pavlova, Harry Lauder and Cecilia Loftus. The organisers did not invite Marie Lloyd because of a professional dispute. Her act was deemed too risqué and her three public, unsuccessful marriages were thought to make her unfit to perform in front of royalty. She held a rival performance in a nearby theatre, which she advertised was "by command of the British public". The name of the event was changed to prevent possible royal embarrassment. The Royal Variety Performance became an annual event at the suggestion of King George V from 1921 and the British Broadcasting Corporation began to broadcast it on radio.
Vesta Tilley
Matilda Alice Powles (13th May 1864 – 16th September 1952), was a popular English music hall performer. She adopted the stage name Vesta Tilley and became one of the most famous male impersonators of her era. Her career lasted from 1869 until 1920. Starting in provincial theatres with her father as manager, she performed her first season in London in 1874. She typically performed as a dandy or fop, also playing other roles. She found additional success as a principal boy in pantomime. By the 1890s, Tilley was England's highest earning woman. She was also a star in the vaudeville circuit in the United States, touring a total of six times. She married Walter de Frece, a theatre impresario who became her new manager and songwriter. At a Royal Command Performance in 1912, she scandalised Queen Mary because she was wearing trousers. During the First World War she was known as "England’s greatest recruiting sergeant" since she sang patriotic songs dressed in khaki fatigues like a soldier and promoted enlistment drives. Becoming Lady de Frece in 1919, she decided to retire and made a year-long farewell tour from which all profits went to children's hospitals. Her last ever performance was in 1920 at the Coliseum Theatre, London. She then supported her husband when he became a Member of Parliament and later retired with him to Monte Carlo. She died in 1952 on a visit to London and is buried at Putney Vale Cemetery. Her life story was commemorated in the 1957 film After the Ball.
Sir George Edward Wade, CBE (20 September 1869 – 29 November 1954), known professionally as George Robey, was an English comedian, singer and actor in musical theatre, who became known as one of the greatest music hall performers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a comedian, he mixed everyday situations and observations with comic absurdity. Apart from his music hall acts, he was a popular Christmas pantomime performer in the English provinces, where he excelled in the dame roles. He scored notable successes in musical revues during and after the First World War, particularly with the song "If You Were the Only Girl (In the World)", which he performed with Violet Loraine in the revue "The Bing Boys Are Here" (1916). One of his best-known original characters in his six-decade long career was the Prime Minister of Mirth.
Born in London, Robey came from a middle-class family. After schooling in England and Germany, and a series of office jobs, he made his debut on the London stage, at the age of 21, as the straight man to a comic hypnotist. Robey soon developed his own act and appeared at the Oxford Music Hall in 1890, where he earned favourable notices singing "The Simple Pimple" and "He'll Get It Where He's Gone to Now". In 1892, he appeared in his first pantomime, Whittington Up-to-date in Brighton, which brought him to a wider audience. More provincial engagements followed in Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool, and he became a mainstay of the popular Christmas pantomime scene.
Robey's music hall act matured in the first decade of the 1900s, and he undertook a number of foreign tours. He starred in the Royal Command Performance in 1912 and regularly entertained before aristocracy. He was an avid sportsman, playing cricket and football at a semi-professional level. During the First World War, in addition to his performances in revues, he raised money for many war charities and was appointed a CBE in 1919. From 1918, he created sketches based on his Prime Minister of Mirth character and used a costume he had designed in the 1890s as a basis for the character's attire. He made a successful transition from music hall to variety shows and starred in the revue Round in Fifty in 1922, which earned him still wider notice. With the exception of his performances in revue and pantomime, he appeared as his Prime Minister of Mirth character in all the other entertainment media including variety, music hall and radio.
Image Left - Date 1931
Object type print
Medium stone lithograph on paper.
Artist - Mark Wayner (1888-1980) Born Lomza, Poland, Died Saffron Walden, Essex, England - Art work info - Unframed 37.2 x 25.3 cm - Signed (lower left): 'Wayner'
In 1913 Robey made his film debut, but he had only modest success in the medium. He continued to perform in variety theatre in the inter-war years and, in 1932, starred in Helen!, his first straight theatre role. His appearance brought him to the attention of many influential directors, including Sydney Carroll, who signed him to appear on stage as Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1 in 1935, a role that he later repeated in Laurence Oliver's 1944 film, Henry V. During the Second World War, Robey raised money for charities and promoted recruitment into the forces. By the 1950s, his health had deteriorated, and he entered into semi-retirement. He was knighted a few months before his passing in 1954.
Alongside his continued pantomime performances, from the late 1990s Harris and Orville also enjoyed what The Stage described as a "long Indian summer" as they re-emerged on television in a new "era of knowing post-modern irony". Harris made guest appearances in a number of television shows during the 2000s including Harry Hill, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Little Britain, Al Murray's Happy Hour, Banzai and The Weakest Link (2004). In 2002, Harris was the subject of a Louis Theroux documentary "When Louis Met...Keith Harris. Keith and Orville also won the Channel 5 reality TV show The Farm in 2005, the same year that he featured in Peter Kay and Tony Christie's music video to "(Is This the Way to) Amarillo". Keith became an auctioneer on Bid TV and also appeared in an episode of the first season of the children's television programme The Slammer (2006). According to The Guardian, this renewed attention "established a new cult status for Harris and Orville and triggered a small comeback". Keith also appeared in Ashes to Ashes (2009) and Shameless (2011), in student unions (with his more adult show, Duck Off),[6] and performed to the housemates in Celebrity Big Brother (2012).
The Harry Hill Show, C4 - S3 E5, part 1
The Harry Hill Show, C4 - S3 E5, part 1
Never Mind The Buzzcocks Identity Parade Prime Puppet Talent
Never Mind The Buzzcocks Identity Parade Prime Puppet Talent
One of Harris's earlier characters was Percy Picktooth, a gregarious rabbit
"I obviously created a monster," Keith Harris told Louis Theroux in 2008. "It's very hard to get away from that. "Everybody knows Orville, not everybody knows Keith Harris." The children's entertainer insisted he was not bitter - Orville had made him a household name, after all - but he could never escape the nappy-wearing, flightless bird. "I can't say he's been a burden, but he put me into a pigeon-hole." Born in Lyndhurst, Hampshire, Harris was introduced to showbusiness at a young age, when his father, Norman, incorporated him into his stage show, performing in working men's clubs around the UK. From the age of six, he would sit on his father's knee and pretend to be a puppet called Isaiah - "because one eye's higher than the other". Theatre became a safe haven from school, where he struggled with reading and was labelled "thick". He later discovered he had dyslexia. By 14, he had turned professional, becoming a solo act after Norman retired.
He appeared in summer seasons at holiday resorts before booking his first TV appearance on Let's Laugh, which aired in the same week he auditioned for Opportunity Knocks. At the time, his main character was Freddy the Frog, a puppet who said he was going to be Prime Minister "because he was always in deep water and he had a big mouth". But it was Orville that made him a household name. The idea for the puppet - which was later insured for £100,000 - came to him while he was starring with the Black and White Minstrels in Bristol. "I just happened to have this green fur lying about and had this idea for a little bird that was green and ugly and thought he wasn't loved," he told the Independent in 2002. He sent a rough sketch to his puppet maker, but was disappointed with the result. "I hated him," he confessed. "But I took him to the girls in the dressing room next door and they said, 'ah, ain't he lovely'.
"The first time I used him he was an instant hit. There were tears in people's eyes."
The bird was named after the American aviator Orville Wright, who, with his brother, Wilbur, made the first manned powered flight in 1903. It was a name laden with irony, as Orville - a shy, under-confident orphan - could not fly. The success of the puppet and his simian nemesis Cuddles earned Harris a Saturday evening TV show that ran for eight years. Orville also became an unlikely chart star when Harris released a single in 1982. Orville's Song, popularly known as I Wish I Could Fly, reached number four, selling more than 400,000 copies.
Keith, Sarah and children Kitty and Shenton (Image: Studio D Blackpool)
But not everyone was a fan. After one Royal Command Performance, a reviewer wrote: "I'm sure Charles and Diana would like to take a gun and blow the duck's head off." Harris had the last laugh, though, as the day after the performance, he was invited to perform at Prince William's third birthday. "I arrived there and Charles came out and we had a Pimms," he later recalled. "Diana helped me in with the boxes, she was absolutely lovely. We were asked back to do Prince Harry's third birthday, too. "Diana sent us a lovely letter saying: 'The Princess hopes that Orville did not suffer from too much bruising after the rather rough patting he received from one or two of the smaller members of the audience.'"
But the success didn't last. After The Keith Harris Show ended in 1990, the characters were given a lower-profile series called The Quack Chat Show, after which television work dried up altogether. Harris did not adjust well. His marriage ended and he started drinking heavily. Convinced his talents were being overlooked, he opened clubs in Blackpool and Portugal, declaring himself bankrupt twice in the process. He later ended up in AA after being arrested for drink driving. "When your bubble bursts and you're not as popular - you'd been playing to 3,000 people in a theatre and then go out and there are 30 people - it's very deflating,' he told the Daily Mail last year. The entertainer spiralled into depression and even contemplated drowning himself, ironically, in a local duck pond.
Harris refused to appear on Ricky Gervais' Extras in 2006, telling the Independent: "He wanted me to be a racist bigot. "I read the script and thought, this isn't clever writing, it's pure filth. I turned it down. I'm not desperate." In one of his final interviews, Harris spoke of his desire to return to television. "There's nothing for kids to laugh at now," he said. "I thought I could do a TV show with Cuddles and Orville that teaches children manners. "But the TV people don't like to back an old horse." Harris announced that he had cancer on stage last April, breaking down in tears while telling his audience he was set to have a bone marrow transplant.
He underwent stem-cell replacement treatment which appeared to be going well, said his agent, Robert C Kelly. But in January 2015, he was told the cancer had spread to his liver and there was nothing more doctors could do. Paying tribute to his friend, Kelly said: "Keith was not only a technically great ventriloquist, he was also a gifted mimic and an extraordinarily funny man both onstage and off. "Over the past few months, Keith has enjoyed several holidays to his second home in Portugal, taking walks along the Blackpool sea front and sitting in the park eating ice cream and watching the world go by." Harris is survived by his fourth wife Sarah and their two children. He also has a daughter, 27, from a previous marriage.
Celebrating 'Little Britain'
Celebrating 'Little Britain'
It Goes Like This - Cuddles & Orville
It Goes Like This - Cuddles & Orville
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Banzai - Orville & The Man Monster Pump Off Puzzle
Banzai - Orville & The Man Monster Pump Off Puzzle
Banzai - Orville & The Man Monster Pump Off Puzzle
Harris had his spleen removed and chemotherapy after a cancer diagnosis in 2013. He subsequently returned to work. The cancer returned in 2014 and he died on 28 April 2015, at the age of 67 at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.
In Harris's obituary in The Stage, Michael Quinn noted that "For more than a decade, ventriloquist Keith Harris was one of the biggest stars in light entertainment... Together, the saccharine-sweet avian [Orville], acerbic simian [Cuddles] and Harris as straight man and stooge were one of the most high-profile acts of the 1980s". Quinn also pointed out that this popularity faded after that decade, but that Harris nevertheless remained appreciated by audiences until his retirement.
The Telegraph however, remarked that the 2002 Louis Theroux documentary exposed a "darker side" of Harris, "a nervous, edgy man who kept telling rotten jokes" and who struggled to forgive past slights against him. In the same documentary Harris said of Orville that he had "created a monster ... Everybody knows Orville, not everybody knows Keith Harris", but also recognised that the bird had not "burdened" him and had contributed towards his success.
Harris lived with his fourth wife (married in 1999), Sarah Metcalf (b. March 1966), and his two youngest children, Shenton (born in 2001) and Kitty (now a singer, born in 2000), in Poulton-le-Fylde near Blackpool, where he converted the local cinema and bingo hall into a jazz nightclub called "Club L'Orange. He had his first daughter, Skye, in 1986 with his second wife of nine years, singer Jacqui Scott, a winner of a BBC talent show in 1979 who entered the 1980 A Song For Europe contest with her own composition.
In 1995 Keith met his fourth wife Sarah – who was working as an international fashion model at the time.
They met at Keith’s former club – Club L’Orange in Poulton – but she was initially disappointed when he wasn’t the man with the bird she was expecting.
“I thought it was Rod Hull and Emu. When I saw Keith I was quite disappointed!”
She didn’t stay upset for long thought and the couple married in 1999. Keith has appeared on a total of five Royal and Children’s Royal Variety Performances.
Harris holds the record for the longest pantomime run ever of 22 weeks in Aladdin at Theatre Royal Nottingham and the all-time record for seats sold for his early nineties summer season at The Grand Theatre Blackpool.
In the West-End of London, as top-of-the-bill, Keith played two seasons at The London Palladium and a season of pantomime at The Dominion Theatre.
Louis Theroux makes his stage debut in the company of ventriloquist Keith Harris and his feathered friend Orville during their pantomime season in Cinderella, at Crewe's Lyceum theatre.
Nina Margarita Conti
Nina Margarita Conti (born 25th August 1973) is a British actress, comedian, and ventriloquist. Conti was born and raised in Hampstead, London, the daughter of actors Tom Conti and Kara Wilson. She was educated at King Alfred School, London, and graduated with a first class honours degree in philosophy from the University of East Anglia in 1995. She trained with Ken Campbell.
Conti has worked as an actress since 1996. She appeared in several roles in Daisy and Ken Campbell's 1999 and 2000 productions of The Warp, Neil Oram's 24-hour play cycle, and was a member of the RSC's 2000/2001 company in Stratford and London. Ken Campbell subsequently devised the ventriloquist play Let Me Out!!! for her, which she took to the 2001 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She appeared as half-Afghan camera operator Azadine in Henry Naylor's play Finding Bin Laden at the 2003 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In 2005, Conti voiced Latrina in the animated comedy series Bromwell High.
South Hill Park houses overlooking the pond on Hampstead Heath (Nina Margarita Conti was born and raised in this area.)
An every-day scene in Hampstead village, with cafe-dwellers and pedestrians going about their business (Photo: Siim Teller via Flickr)
Thomas Antonio Conti
Thomas Antonio Conti (born 22nd November 1941) is a Scottish actor, theatre director, and novelist. He won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1979 for his performance in Whose Life is is Anyway? and was nominated for an academy award for Best Actor for the 1983 film Reuben, Reuben. Thomas Antonio Conti was born on 22nd November 1941 in Paisley, Renfrewshire, the son of hairdressers Mary McGoldrick and Alfonso Conti. He was brought up Roman Catholic, but is now antireligious. His father was Italian, while his mother was born and raised in Scotland to Irish parents. Conti was educated at independent Catholic boys' school Hamilton Park and at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, both located in Glasgow.
Unconventional: Soon after he married Kara, in a Catholic church in Glasgow 44 years ago, they thought 'to hell with the rules' and decided to have an open marriage. He says it works
Open marriage is a form of non-monogamy in which the partners of a dyadic marriage agree that each may engage in extramarital sexual relationships, without this being regarded by them as infidelity, and consider or establish an open relationship despite the implied monogamy of marriage.
Conti is a prominent resident of Hampstead in northwest London, having lived in the area for several decades. Conti was part of a campaign against the opening of a Tesco supermarket in nearby Belsize Park. Conti put his Hampstead house up for sale in 2015 for £17.5 million after his long-running opposition to the building plans of his neighbour, the footballer Thierry Henry. Conti had also opposed development plans for Hampstead's Grove Lodge, the 18th-century Grade II listed former home of novelist John Galsworthy. Conti participated in a genetic-mapping project conducted by the company ScotlandsDNA (now called BritainsDNA). In 2012, Conti and the company announced that Conti shares a genetic marker with Napoleon Bonaparte. Conti has said that he "burst out laughing" when told he was directly related to Napoléon on his father's side.
Grove Lodge (with the blue plaque): Caspar Berendsen has upset neighbours over his plans to dig a vast basement beneath his property.
Thierry Henry
Footballer Thierry Henry's new house plan has angered his neighbours but now the plan for an aquarium (bottom left) will not go ahead
Conti has appeared in several television shows, including Black Books, Holby City, Single, and the Australian panel show Spicks and Specks. Her radio performances include characters in Radio 4 comedy Clare in the Community. Conti and Monk portrayed a morning weather team on the fictional "Wake Up L.A." in Christopher Guest's 2006 film, For Your Consideration. Conti was awarded joint "Best Performance" in the Maverick Movie Awards for Her Master's Voice, a 2012 film. In 2013, she portrayed the part of Bea Chadwick in Christopher Guest's HBO mockumentary Family Tree.
Black Books is a British sitcom created by Dylan Moran and Graham Linehan, and written by Moran, Kevin Cecil, Andy Riley, Lineham and Arthur Matthewss. It was broadcast on Channel 4, running for three series from 2000 to 2004. Starring Moran, Bill Bailey and Tamsin Grieg, the series is set in the eponymous London bookshop and follows the lives of its owner Bernard Black (Moran), his assistant Manny Bianco (Bailey) and their friend Fran Katzenjammer (Greig). The series was produced by Big Talk Productions, in association with Channel 4. The show was produced in a multiple-camera setup, and was primarily filmed at Teddington Studios in Teddington, Lomdon, with with exterior scenes filmed on location on Leigh Street and the surrounding areas in Bloomsbury. The first episode was broadcast on 29 September 2000 and a total of three series were made, the final episode airing on 15 April 2004. Black Books was a critical success, winning a number of awards, including two BAFTAs for Best Situation Comedy in 2001 and 2005 and a Bronze Rose at the Festival Rose d'Or.
Holby City (styled as HOLBY CI+Y) is a British medical drama television series that airs weekly on BBC One. It was created by Tony McHale and Mal Young as a spin-off from the established BBC medical drama Casualty, and premiered on 12th January 1999. It follows the lives of medical and ancillary staff at the fictional Holby City Hospital, the same hospital as Casualty, in the fictional city of Holby, and has featured occasional crossovers of characters and plots with both Casualty (which featured dedicated episodes broadcast as Casualty@Holby City and the show's 2007 police procedural spin-off HolbyBlue. It began with eleven main characters in its first series, all of whom have since left the show. New main characters have been both written in and out since, with a core of around fifteen main actors employed at any given time. In casting the first series, Young sought actors who were already well known in the television industry, something which has continued throughout its history, with cast members including Patsy Kensit, Jane Asher, Robert Powell, Ade Edmondson and John Michie.
![Nina Conti - Talk To The Hand [Full Stand-up Show]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Qm_yFkNM6Wg/maxresdefault.jpg)
Nina Conti - Talk To The Hand [Full Stand-up Show]
Nina Conti - Talk To The Hand [Full Stand-up Show]
In 2002, Conti won the BBC New Comedy Awards, came second in the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year and came third in "Laughing Horse New Act of the Year" competitions. Conti regularly headlines at London comedy venues and has appeared at The Comedy Store. She took her first solo full-length show, Complete and Utter Conti, to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2007, where she introduced some new characters as well as performing familiar routines. In 2008 she won the Barry Award for this show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, tying with Kristen Schaal. At the Melbourne Comedy Festival 2010 she debuted a new puppet, an elderly woman who is her "Granny".
Nina Conti and Monkey visit the Gynaecologist
Nina Conti and Monkey visit the Gynaecologist
Nina Conti and Monkey being stopped by a policeman (Dan Lees)
Nina Conti and Monkey being stopped by a policeman (Dan Lees)
Conti and Granny appeared in episode six of the I Series of the BBC comedy quiz show QI in 2011. On that episode, Conti noted that she inherited the Granny puppet from Ken Campbell on Campbell's death. In 2012, Conti appeared in Russel Howard's Good News with Granny. She also used a mask on an audience member to persuade him to dance. On the series 8 premiere of Live at the Apollo, Conti expanded the act to provide voices for two audience members in masks. In March 2013, Conti appeared on Let's Dance for Comic Relief with Monk. She danced to "I Like to Move It" by Reel 2 Real. In June 2013, Conti appeared on Channel 4's Comedy Gala.
![Nina Conti, In Therapy-First session. [strong language]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/APwrf3mG924/maxresdefault.jpg)
Nina Conti, In Therapy-First session. [strong language]
Nina Conti - In Therapy. First session. [strong language] see nina live - www.ninaconti.net/live
Conti appeared as a guest host on the final episode of the ninth series of the BBC stand-up comedy programme, Live at the Apollo, performing her act with Monkey and an additional dummy-mask routine. In October 2014, Conti appeared on Channel 4's The Feeling Nuts Comedy Night raising awareness of testicular cancer In 2015, Nina appeared on BBC Four's Clowning Around, where she trained to be a giggle doctor and clown, and performed to children in hospitals. In May 2015, Nina appeared on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown in Dictionary Corner and used Fabio, the show's regular prop guy, as a dummy.
Nina Conti Monkey act and Ventriloquism LIVE at The Apollo
Nina Conti Monkey act and Ventriloquism LIVE at The Apollo
Nina Conti | You wanna dance | Live Puppet
Nina Conti | You wanna dance | Live Puppet
Conti's radio work includes Clare in the Community, Sneakiepeeks and guesting on Parson's and Naylor's Pull-Out Sections. Conti's television work began in 2002 with parts in Black Books and Holby City. In 2003 she starred as Mary in a series called Single, then in 2005 voiced characters in another series entitled Bromwell High. She played a part in Blunder, The Golf War and featured in Comedy Cuts in 2006, 2007 and 2008 respectively. In 2013 Conti, along with her puppet Monkey, played a feature role in Family Tree as Bea Chadwick.
Nina Conti, In Therapy-Second session.
Nina Conti - In Therapy. Second session.
Monkey is a cynical monkey who is continually insulting Conti and swearing when he does not have his demands fulfilled. He often deliberately shows irritation towards performing on stage and makes Conti laugh at his words.
Granny is an elderly Scotswoman to whom Conti refers as someone who is a lot like her own grandmother. Granny often chides Conti for the simplest things Conti has done; for instance, when Conti reveals she has two legs, Granny responds by saying "Oh, two legs? You're spoiling me!" Her main act is to telepathically guess numbers or words, which she always guesses correctly. She also talks about her dead husband, Frank. Granny refers to people with words like "dear", "child" or "my daughter". The original prop was donated to Vent Haven Museum in July 2009, in memory of Ken Campbell, from whom Conti received her, but Conti had a replica made which she continues to use in her acts.
The face mask, rather than an actual puppet with a personality, is a mask that covers the lower half of an audience participant's face and can be manipulated by a hand-piece held by Conti to make it look like the participant is talking. Conti often uses this to put the participant in awkward and funny situations, such as making them say that they want nothing more than to dance in front of the audience, while their body language suggests the opposite.
Conti was in a relationship with the comedian and actor Ken Campbell, from whom she inherited his collection of ventriloquist dummies after he died. She has two sons from her marriage with fellow comedian Andrew "Stan" Stanley, from whom she is separated.
