Edwards was educated at St Paul's Cathedral School, where he became head boy, and attended the Silver Jubilee of George V in that capacity.

[3] His Dakota was shot down at Arnhem in 1944, resulting in facial injuries requiring plastic surgery, that he disguised with a large handlebar moustache that became his trademark.

His early variety act, where he first used the name Professor Jimmy Edwards, was described by Roy Hudd as being "a mixture of university lecture, RAF slang, the playing of various loud wind instruments and old-fashioned attack".

He appeared in Whack-O on television, also written by Muir and Norden, and the radio panel game Does the Team Think?, a series which Edwards created.

In December 1958, Jimmy Edwards played the King in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella at the London Coliseum with Kenneth Williams, Tommy Steele, Yana and Betty Marsden; Bobby Howell was the Musical Director.

Edwards and Sykes toured British theatres with their farce Big Bad Mouse which, while scripted, let them ad lib, involve the audience and break the "fourth wall".

The show initially had a six-week run at the Palace Theatre, Manchester during which Edwards and Sykes had followed the script, with these performances greeted with universally poor reviews.

Sensing that cancellation was imminent Edwards told Sykes that he intended to "have a bit of fun" with the show and for what was expected to be the last week of the run the two stars began to deviate heavily from the script.

[8] Sykes was replaced by Roy Castle in later runs in its three-year residency at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London's West End and in tours of the Middle East and Australia.

Edwards and Sykes also performed the show for Rhodesian troops at the request of the country's prime minister, Ian Smith, a controversial event at the time.

His candidature drew wide media attention, much of it derisive, although the local party insisted they had chosen "Jimmy Edwards the man" rather than the comedian.

[14] During the 2015 Gold documentary Frankie Howerd: The Lost Tapes Edwards was mentioned by Barry Cryer as one of several performers of the postwar era forced to conceal their homosexuality as a result of prevailing norms.