Stanley Unwin (comedian)

Stanley Unwin
Born	(1911-06-07)7 June 1911 Pretoria, South Africa
Died	12 January 2002(2002-01-12) (aged 90) Danetre Hospital, Daventry, Northamptonshire, England
Resting place	Long Buckby, Northamptonshire, England
Occupation(s)	Comic actor, writer
Spouse	Frances Anne (1916–1993) m. 26 December 1937
Children	Marion (b. 1939) Lois (b. 1940) John (b. 1944)
Parent(s)	Ivan Oswald Unwin (d. 1914) Jessie Elizabeth, née Brand (d. 1967)

Stanley Unwin (7 June 1911 Pretoria, South Africa – 12 January 2002 Danetre Hospital, Daventry, Northamptonshire), sometimes billed as Professor Stanley Unwin, was a British comedian and comic writer, and the inventor of his own language, "Unwinese", referred to in the film Carry On Regardless as "gobbledegook".

Unwinese was a mangled form of English in which many of the words were corrupted in playful and humorous ways, as in its description of Elvis Presley and his contemporaries as being "wasp-waist and swivel-hippy". Unwin claimed his gift came from his mother, who once told him that on the way home she had "falolloped over and grazed her kneeclabbers".

Early life

Unwin's parents emigrated from the United Kingdom to South Africa in the early 1900s, and their son was born in Pretoria in 1911. Following his father's death in 1914 his mother arranged for the family to return to the United Kingdom. By 1919, Unwin had been sent to the National Children's Home at Congleton in Cheshire. In the late 1920s he studied radio, television and languages at the Regent Street Polytechnic.

In the 1930s, he married his wife Frances, with whom he had two daughters and a son. Unwin later stated Unwinese had its roots in enlivening the bedtime stories which he told his children. In 1940, Unwin got a job at the BBC working on transmitters and was stationed at the Borough Hill transmitting station in Daventry, England. Unwin, his wife and their nine-month-old daughter Marion moved to Long Buckby in Northamptonshire, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Comedy career

His early career and training introduced him to wireless and radio communication, and this, coupled with work in the BBC's War Reporting Unit from about 1944 was ultimately to prove to be a conduit into the media.

It was whilst based in Birmingham, between 1947 and 1951, that Unwin made his first accidental broadcast. Whilst testing equipment, he handed the microphone to broadcaster F.R. "Buck" Buckley who ad-libbed a spoof commentary about an imaginary sport called "Fasche". Buckley then encouraged Unwin to join in and introduced him as "Codlington Corthusite", handing back the microphone - he continued in Unwinese.

The recording was played back to two BBC producers, who added some sound effects. The recording was eventually broadcast on Pat Dixon's Mirror of the Month programme and after receiving a good response led to another sketch in which Unwin was interviewed as a man from Atlantis being asked about life in the sunken city. The broadcast produced Unwin's first fan mail, from a lady who had been impressed by his performance – Joyce Grenfell. Since Grenfell was Unwin's heroine, the encouragement gave Unwin a tremendous boost and he was inspired to break into show business.

After the war, but still with the BBC, whilst in Egypt and recording a series of shows by Frankie Howerd, the star was taken ill at the last minute and Unwin was pushed onto the stage and told to "do a turn".

Back in the UK, Unwin began to do more on the performing side of the microphone. His next major breakthrough came when producer Roy Speer introduced him to leading comic Ted Ray. Once Ray had heard Unwin talking he said simply: "I want him in the series." The series was The Spice of Life which also featured June Whitfield and Kenneth Connor. During the mid 1950s, Unwin did about a dozen of these shows and in the process met agent Johnnie Riscoe and daughter Patsy who were to become his managers for the rest of his career. By the end of the fifties Unwin had ventured into the film industry, winning a part in the 1956 Cardew Robinson film Fun at St Fanny's.

Unwinese

Unwinese, also known as "Basic Engly Twenty Fido" was a special, ornamented and mangled form of English in which many of the words were corrupted in a playful and humorous way. Unwin’s performances could be hilarious yet disorienting although the meaning and context were always conveyed in a disguised and picturesque style.

Unwinese might also be traceable to Lewis Carroll's 1871 poem, Jabberwocky.

Some phrases from Unwinese

NB: Although 'Unwinese' was largely improvised and spontaneous, with many actual English phrases and sentences thrown in for contrast, the following list of examples may give an impression of the 'language'. Of course the best way to experience it is to hear it spoken by Stanley Unwin himself.

Afterlubrious/afterloon: afternoon

Atmosfold: atmosphere

Automotakaty: automatic

Back dorm: back door

Backgrove: background

Backwode: backwards

Basel: basin

Baselode: bowlful

Bedder pinger: bed thief

Bedding/bedder: bed

Beethove: Beethoven

Begrail: to begin

Bilode!: 'bye!

Brewflame/brewflade: beer

Cavage: cave

Cavemolder: caveman

Childer/childers: child/children

Churver: dirty

Comftibole: comfortable

Deep folly: Incorrect, wrong, unsatisfactory, mistaken.

Deep joy: Very pleasing, excellent, very satisfactory.

Do a snufflode: to die.

Dreamymost: to dream

Exterrestrial thorkus: depression

Falollop: fall, or go

Falolloper: thing, thingumabob, thingamajig.

Farflummers: far-flung

Fatherbold/fardel/fardi: father

Garbidge path: garden path

Goodlibilode: goodbye

Goodlilode: good or excellent

Guitarma: guitar

Harkus: heart

Heartloder streels: heart strings

Horribold: horrible

Huffallo-dowder: up and down

Human been/beel: human being

Human specie: human species

Mardi: mother

Molecube: molecule

Mord(y), afterlubrius, eveage: morning, afternoon, evening

Mozarker: Mozart

Nockers (as in "I did nockers"): not

On the other emma: on the other hand

Once a polly tito: once upon a time

Remarkibold: remarkable

Ribbage: river

Right hand sigold: right hand side

Roamer: road

Roofus rackus: car roof-rack

Roucus: route

Rubelode: money

Slammery slammery: slum dwelling

Sleevers: to sleep

Stervers: to die

Suddly: suddenly

Tabloid: table

Tchaikobber: Tchaikovsky

Tenemold: tenement dwelling

Terribold: terrible

The teardrop of Ceylon: the island of Ceylon

The time is scole: the time has come

Thriftymost on your banky balancer: very good value

Throacus: throat

Through timelymost: after a time

Thru dimensional: three dimensional

Titchy peagers: small peas (petits pois)

Trabbered in the garbidge: trapped in the garden

Underestimail: underestimate

Understab: understand

Understoob: understood

Upside-dadle: upside down

Viabilly: viability

Vibrail: vibration

Violim/violeed/cat gut and scrapey: violin

Waverly: to wave

Wegwhisker: eggwhisk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&v=R2nI_3VBEtA

Some appearances and works

In the ensuing years, Unwin made the following:

• 1956 Fun at St. Fanny's a 1956 film vehicle for English comedian Cardew Robinson.
• 1958 a cameo appearance in the first episode of the radio series Beyond Our Ken
• 1959 A television commercial for Flowers IPA beer, with the slogan "For the best pickit in a brewflade, pick Flowers".
• 1960 an LP of gobbledegook entitled Rotatey Diskers with Unwin. This has since been reissued on CD.
• 1961 The Miscillian Manuscript, a collaboration with artist Roy Dewar; a kind of Unwinese travelogue with cartoons and collages by Dewar.
• 1961 Carry On Regardless, fifth film of the series as "Landlord".
• 1962 House & Garbidge, a spoof of home and lifestyle magazines, again with Dewar.
• 1966 Rock-a-bye Babel and Two Fairly Tales, a selection of spoof nursery rhymes and fairy tales in which Unwinese surrealism almost reaches Joycean levels; with Dewar. The film Press for Time starring Norman Wisdom.
• 1968 narration for "Happiness Stan" on side two of The Small Faces' LP Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake.
• 1968 an appearance in a small role, and a few lines of gobbledegook, in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, as the Chancellor of Vulgaria.
• 1969 He appeared in Gerry Anderson's puppet series The Secret Service, a mixture of live and puppet action in which he and his puppet double played Father Unwin. Each episode contained a scene where he would try to confuse people with his gobbledegook. Unfortunately as soon as Anderson's boss Lew Grade heard Unwin's character speaking gobbledegook he cancelled the show on the grounds that people would not understand it - despite the fact that they were not meant to.
• 1980s a press advertisement for IBM word processors with the prophetic 'throw away your old tripewriter'.
• 1980s a Pirelli tyre advert on television, using the slogan 'Outstandifold in the wetty grippers'.
• 1987 a television advertisement for the Amstrad 9512 computer, with the slogan "it's word perfectilode".
• 1987 appearing as Number Three in The Tube's parody of The Prisoner, The Laughing Prisoner.
• 1987 and 1989 appearing in BBC Radio's Just a Minute.

Unwin was less active in later decades, but still made occasional appearances. In the 1970s, he appeared in The Max Bygraves Show on ITV, sometimes speaking normally and sometimes in gobbledegook. In the final episode Bygraves tried out some gobbledegook phrases on Unwin, who claimed he could not understand them.

In 1994, Unwin collaborated with British dance music act Wubble-U, on their single "Petal". A 1998 re-release took the track to number 55 in the UK Chart.

In 1998, Unwin made a cameo appearance on the Aardman Animations series, Rex the Runt, as an accountant who spoke almost entirely in Unwinese.

Death and legacy

Stanley Unwin died in 2002 in Daventry. He is buried in the churchyard at Long Buckby, with Frances, who died before him. Their gravestone has the epitaph, "Reunitey in the heavenly-bode – Deep Joy". A service of thanksgiving was held at St Lawrence's Church in Long Buckby a couple of weeks after his death and ended with a rendering of "Bye, Bye, Blackbird" by John Percival and friends.

The valediction had been prepared by Unwin himself: "Goodly Byelode loyal peeploders! Now all gatherymost to amuse it and have a tilty elbow or a nice cuffle-oteedee - Oh Yes!"

His work is thought to have been a significant influence on the two books written by John Lennon in 1964/5 – John Lennon In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works.

References

• Unwin, Stanley (1984). Deep joy: master of the sproken [sic] word. Whitby, Yorkshire, England: Caedmon of Whitby. ISBN 0-905355-30-X.

External links

• Official website
• Stanley Unwin at IMDb
• Obituary of Stanley Unwin in The Guardian
• Video clip of Stanley Unwin on Parkinson