Skegness Magazine

Source: Skegness News 1942

Famous Ventiloquist Recalls Early Skegness Days

“I began my professional career on the sands at Skegness ” declared Johnson Clark, the now famous ventriloquist in a B.B.C. broadcast in the Forces programme last Wednesday.
The former Skegness ratepayer was broadcasting in the series “King Pins of Comedy” and was interviewed at the microphone by Wilfred Pickles.
His story was most interesting to old Skegnessians. He said that he was first inspired by the idea of being a ventriloquist when he was a Church choir-boy. It so happened that the Choir, in which he was was a boy soprano for five years, was taken for an outing to a seaside resort, and Johnson was attracted to a professional ventriloquist’s performance, and stayed throughout every show for the rest of the day.
He noticed that the members of the audience appeared to give freely when the bag came round, and there and then decided that that should be his career.

When he reached young manhood he bought a set of dolls, and had his first professional engagement with a Concert Party on the Skegness beach (Will Marsh’s Merrie Men). A very high tide one day swept all his dolls out to sea, but friends amongst the Concert Party patrons subscribed to buy a boy doll, with which he found he could get more laughs to the minute than with his previous set of five.

When the winter came he accepted a 15-weeks touring engagement at £2 per week, but the run ended abruptly after ‘a fortnight, and he then accepted another engagement at 25s per week
He returned to Skegness the next summer, and that engagement was renewed for ten seasons (Fred Clements’ Concert Party).
He soon developed a desire to reach the West End stage in London, and as the result of appearing at a Masonic dinner an agent booked him to fill a turn which had dropped out suddenly at the Tivoli. From that night he never looked back, and fulfilled engagements at the Pavilion and other well-known Music Halls of the day, including a 10-weeks season in Leicester Square.
He was also booked for a New York engagement with William S. Hart, which was followed by a tour of the U.S.A.
His biggest thrill of all came when he was booked for a Royal Command Performance, at which he gave his “Poaching” sketch.