Ronald Hugh Wyndham Frankau (22 February 1894 – 11 September 1951) was an English comedian who started in cabaret, before appearing on radio and in films.

[3] His mother's siblings included Henry Irving's mistress Eliza Aria[4][5][6] and theatre critic and librettist Owen Hall,[7] whilst their sister Florette was married to architect Marcus Collins, a brother of Drury Lane Theatre manager Arthur Collins.

Joan married the historian Henry Stanley Bennett[12] and, as a Cambridge don in her own right, she was one of the defence witnesses in the Lady Chatterley trial of 1960.

[13] Frankau worked as a chorus boy at Daly's Theatre in London in 1911 and joined the army in 1914 to fight in the Great War.

[citation needed] After the war he worked in night clubs and hotel lounges as an entertainer in both comical song and dance.

Frankau recorded a number of songs and skits on Parlophone, some of which, like "Winnie the Worm" and "Everyone's Got Sex Appeal For Someone" (October 1933), were banned outright.

Despite his risqué tone off air, he was able to keep his jokes clean enough for some of the toughest British broadcasting censors of the day, including Baron Reith.

[citation needed] In 1994, Jeremy Nicholas presented a programme on BBC Radio 2 to commemorate the centenary of Ronald Frankau's birth, which included an original July 1940 gramophone record of "Uncle Bill Has Much Improved", still bearing its BBC label: "NOT TO BE BROADCAST UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES".

Oh dear, dear!His other publications include Crazy Omnibus (Grayson & Grayson, 1933), and two wartime books of morale-boosting humorous verse, both illustrated by Laurie Tayler and published in the early 1940s by Raphael Tuck & Sons: Diversion and He's a Perfect Little Gentleman, the Swine.

[26] Rosemary's son, Sam Bain, became a comedy writer, and co-created the Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show.