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Twice Brightly

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Twice Brightly
First edition
AuthorHarry Secombe
LanguageEnglish
GenreComic novel
PublisherRobson Books
Publication date
1974
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages224 pp
ISBN0-903895-23-4
OCLC3074314
823/.9/14
LC ClassPZ4.S4448 Tw PR6069.E25

Twice Brightly is a comic novel by Harry Secombe, fictionalising his experiences as a recently demobbed Welsh serviceman and army comic returning from the battlefields of North Africa and Italy and struggling to make a living in the British Variety Theatres after the Second World War. The lead character is a Welsh comic called Larry Gower, Secombe's alter ego. The title is a pun on the phrase "twice nightly". Upon release in 1974 the book was the first novel of his to be published.[1]

Plot summary

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For young servicemen who had spent six years fighting fascism, postwar Britain was a drab, oppressive place. For a young and untried army comic keen on the Marx brothers and Jimmy Cagney, a Yorkshire Variety theatre in February was a vision of Hell itself.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

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It was dramatised as a 60-minute Radio 4 radio play by Harry's son David Secombe in 2006, first broadcast that year and repeated on Saturday 19 May 2007. This ended with Gower as a success, leaving for London to take part in "Crazy People", a play by his fellow ex-soldier and comic Jim Moriarty - this is a fictionalisation of the initial stages of the Goon Show, and Moriarty (deriving his name from the Goon character Count Jim Moriarty) is a fictionalised Spike Milligan.

Cast

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  • Larry Gower (Secombe's alter ego)...... Christian Patterson
  • Wally ...... Dominic Frisby
  • Tom ...... Philip Jackson
  • Julie ...... Becky Hindley
  • April ...... Katy Secombe (Harry's daughter)
  • June ...... Ella Smith
  • Joe ...... Gerard McDermott
  • Jim ...... John Cummins
  • Mrs Ma Rogers, landlady ...... Carolyn Pickles
  • Hubert ...... Geoffrey Beevers
  • Director Steven Canny

Reviews

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The novel became the first ever known book be reviewed in print by a member of the British royal family, with the then Prince Charles giving the work a positive review in the weekly comic magazine Punch in 1974.[2]

References

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  1. ^ Kepert, L.V. (2 March 1975). "Scandals and scoundrels. NOVELS OF THE WEEK: reviews by L. V. KEPERT". The Sun-Herald. Sydney, Australia: The Sydney Morning Herald. p. 78. OCLC 67710301. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
  2. ^ "Prince Charles Turns Reviewer". Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Sarasota, Florida. 7 November 1974. pp. 10–A. ISSN 2641-4503. OCLC 51645638. Retrieved 16 February 2024.