UK Mega 2021: Lincolnshire
28 Lincolnshire Legends: Old Mother Riley (aka Arthur Lucan)
This a straightforward series which was published for the 2021 UK Mega, held at the nearby Lincolnshire Showground. The series celebrates the many famous people who were either born in, lived in or associated with the glorious county of Lincolnshire!
Arthur Lucan and his wife as Old Mother Riley and her daughter Kitty
Old Mother Riley is a fictional character portrayed from about 1934 to 1954 by Arthur Lucan and from 1954 to the 1980s by Roy Rolland as part of a British music hall act.
Old Mother Riley (full comedy name: Daphne Bluebell Snowdrop Riley) is an Irish washerwoman and charwoman character, devised by Lucan (born Arthur Towle). His wife Kitty McShane played Old Mother Riley's daughter, Kitty. It was essentially a drag act but also a double act. The couple played music halls, theatres, and broadcast on radio and appeared in films. Lucan was voted sixth biggest British box-office star by the Motion Picture Herald in 1943. In 1939, Jimmy Clitheroe appeared in an Old Mother Riley pantomime called The Old Woman who Lives in a Shoe and then the following year had a part in the film, Old Mother Riley in Society. The Film Fun comic included an “Old Mother Riley” strip cartoon in the 1940s.
Old Mother Riley was the first and arguably the most influential drag act on stage and screen. Although nothing like the glamorous acts like Danny La Rue, Old Mother Riley proved that drag could be a smash hit with audiences and make you a star. The Old Mother Riley films also proved that drag could be an acceptable part of comedy and storytelling. Previous to Old Mother Riley, drag was a mixture of singing acts and short comedy sketches in music halls across the UK.
Arthur Lucan was born on 16th September 1885 in Sibsey, near Boston as Arthur Towle, the third of seven children born to Tom Towle, a groom, and his wife Lucy Ann Mawer. When he was five years old, the family moved to nearby Boston, where Arthur later made his first acting appearance at the town's Shodfriars Hall.
