Stanley Holloway made bluff working people worth watching without asking us to find them quaint. We rate him for the comic confidence that gives a small part weight, though the familiar manner can make the individual harder to see.
Fi1m perspective
In Brief Encounter (1945), Stanley Holloway's cheeky station porter Albert Godby brings a confidence that Laura can scarcely manage. We were grateful for his good humour, because Celia Johnson makes Laura's anxiety so painful that a little ease matters. David Lean gives Holloway room without letting him distract us from her. His ordinary assurance makes her distress more noticeable; other people can evidently get through the day without such difficulty. It is a useful supporting performance precisely because Holloway does not ask us to stop watching the film and start watching him.
His experience in concert parties, music hall and comic monologues helps explain that confidence. The Lancashire-accented monologues, including The Lion and Albert, were one part of a working life that accommodated singing and straight acting without much apparent difficulty. By the 1940s, he had become a familiar character actor in British cinema, particularly as working- and lower-middle-class men. What we value in Brief Encounter is the sense that Godby has business beyond the love story: Holloway makes a supporting character feel occupied rather than merely available when the script needs him.
The surrounding parts gave that practical air several uses. He played the Gravedigger in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), then the shopkeeper-councillor Arthur Pemberton in Passport to Pimlico (1949). In The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), he was Albert Pendlebury, the souvenir-maker alongside Alec Guinness. These characters have trades, and Holloway's solidity helps us accept that they know how to do them. The familiar bluffness does have a cost: we sometimes recognise the type before taking much interest in the individual, and cheek alone is not enough to sustain our curiosity.
My Fair Lady (1964) gave his singing and comic character work a more conspicuous place together. He had originated the dustman Alfred P. Doolittle in the 1956 Broadway production and returned to the part for the film, with With a Little Bit of Luck among his songs. Doolittle is an obvious place to appreciate the entertainer, comfortable with a number as well as a character. We would start with Brief Encounter, though, and notice how much he contributes without needing the evening arranged around him.
Biography
Stanley Augustus Holloway, OBE (1890–1982) was an English actor, comedian, singer and monologist. He trained initially for opera and made early stage appearances before serving in the infantry during the First World War. After the war he joined the concert party The Co-Optimists and became known for his comic monologues, including those featuring the characters Sam Small and Albert Ramsbottom.
In the 1940s he appeared in a series of British films, including This Happy Breed (1944), Brief Encounter (1945) as Albert Godby, Hamlet (1948) as the Gravedigger, Passport to Pimlico (1949) and The Lavender Hill Mob (1951). He originated the role of Alfred P. Doolittle in the stage musical My Fair Lady (1956) and reprised it in the 1964 film adaptation. He received an OBE in 1960 for services to entertainment.
