Harry Welchman

He made several appearances in non-musical plays, but was remembered as, in the words of The Times, "perhaps the most popular musical comedy hero on the London stage in the years between the wars.

[1] On leaving school at the age of eighteen he joined a touring musical comedy company led by Ada Reeve.

[2] When he was twenty he was spotted while playing in Christmas pantomime by the impresario Robert Courtneidge, under whose management he became a well known juvenile lead in such West End hit shows as Tom Jones (1907) The Arcadians (1909) and Princess Caprice (1912).

These included the Red Shadow in The Desert Song (1927), which ran at Drury Lane for more than 400 performances;[6] in The New Moon (1929) at the same theatre; in Victoria and Her Hussar (1931); and as François Villon in a revival of The Vagabond King (1937).

[1] He toured as Captain Hook in Peter Pan, in which The Manchester Guardian found him less villainous than his predecessors in the role, but "melodious" with "a certain dash and attractiveness".