ONE of the most popular acts to appear at the New Theatre was the Crazy Gang.

The zany comedians would try out their new review in Oxford for two weeks before taking it to the Victoria Palace in London.

Bob Hounslow, whose mother, Win, worked as a dresser at the New, writes: “It was a good arrangement financially for the theatre and the audience.

“We were treated to a show full of the Crazy Gang’s comedy sketches, showgirls, speciality acts, and spectacular dance routines by the famous Tiller Girls.

“It was an evening of laughter and spectacle, something special that made you feel so glad to see them again.”

The original gang was Nervo and Knox, Naughton and Gold and Flanagan and Allen. Later, when Chesney Allen retired through ill health, the mustachioed Monsewer Eddie Gray, a comic juggler, joined.

They owed much of their success to impresario Jack Hylton.

In the 1930s, he was the leader of a successful showband, but when the war came and several key musicians were called up for military service, he decided to disband it and become a theatrical producer.

Mr Hounslow, of Squires Close, Brize Norton, recalls: “One of the smartest things he did was to reunite the Crazy Gang and install them in the Victoria Palace, where they would reign supreme and become a national institution.

“They had all been ‘top of the bill’ variety artists in their own right before they formed the gang and their years of experience gave them all such stage presence they were at one with their audience from the moment they appeared.”