Old Mother Riley

Old Mother Riley was a music hall act which originally ran from about 1934 to 1954 played by Arthur Lucan, and from 1954 to the 1980s played by Roy Rolland.

Old Mother Riley was an Irish washerwoman and charwoman character, devised by Lucan (born Arthur Towle). His wife Kitty McShane played Old Mother Riley's daughter, Kitty. It was essentially a drag act but also a double act. The couple played music halls, theatres, and broadcast on radio and appeared in films. Lucan was voted sixth biggest British box-office star by the Motion Picture Herald in 1943. They also gave Jimmy Clitheroe his break in 1939 in an Old Mother Riley pantomime called The Old Woman who Lives in a Shoe, and then the following year a part in their film, Old Mother Riley in Society. The Film Fun comic included an “Old Mother Riley” strip cartoon in the 1940s.

Roy Rolland was Lucan's understudy and stand-in, and after Lucan's death in 1954 he continued to play the Old Mother Riley character in pantomime, on television and in cabaret until the 1980s.

Made on a minuscule budget, but extremely profitable, 15 of the 17 films made by Arthur Lucan featured him as Old Mother Riley:

At the time of Lucan's death he was scheduled to film Old Mother Riley's Trip to Mars.

Robert V Kenny, The Man Who Was Old Mother Riley - The Lives and Films of Arthur Lucan and Kitty McShane, BearManor Media, 2014, 428pp. http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Man-Who-Mother-Riley/dp/1593937717

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