He first appeared as a pantomime dame aged 19, and featured as Mother Goose in a show in Leeds in 1929.
[4] As well as performing in pantomimes for over 60 years, Lacy also starred in other travelling musical theatre shows around the country, and in variety programmes in which he would sometimes interpose his increasingly well-known Dame persona.
[4][5] Part of his success was due to his ability to deliver "working class gags with a posh accent".
What a Duchess),[6] in which he "was able to remain convincingly feminine with just the right degree of eccentricity to be funny, but not grotesque.
"[7] Widely regarded as "the finest Dame of his generation",[1] he continued to perform each year in pantomimes until his final shows, aged 80, at Southsea in 1984.