When you hear someone say, “Shut that door!”, what is your immediate thought? If you are a certain age, your mind immediately flies to a rather effete man in a suit, shirt, and tie, with one hand on the back of a dining table chair, telling jokes that are just on the right side of unsuitable for your aged aunt. Now, he’s back (sort of) at the Jack Studio Theatre, where What A Gay Day! – The Larry Grayson Story has recently opened.
Written by Tim Connery and performed by Luke Adamson, the show is a loving tribute to Larry and combines sections of his stand-up act along with his life story, telling how William Sulley White, born 31 August 1923, became Larry Grayson and one of the country’s most loved entertainers, attracting an audience of 25 million when he was hosting the Generation Game. And it is simply excellent. Larry’s life story is really fascinating, and I honestly learnt so much about him as a person during the show. The fact that he had been a drag artist, the reception to his first appearance on television and the picketing of his shows by the Gay Liberation Front. Fascinating stuff.
Added to that, we get Larry’s stand-up, peppered with stories of his wonderful friends – Apricot Lil, Slack Alice, milkman Sterilised Stan, window cleaner Peek-a-boo Pete with his dirty chamois and the postman Pop-It-In Pete – and especially Everard, a character based on Larry’s first, and possibly only love, his best friend from school days, Tom Proctor.
And then we have Luke Adamson’s performance. Luke has Larry off perfectly. The look, the stance, the mannerisms, the little sidelong glances and, of course, the interaction with the audience. Little asides about their appearance, their morals and even where they are from, everything was there, and we revelled in it.
Director Alex Donald sets the stage beautifully using a very unusual theatrical device to get the action going. In fact, and no spoilers, when you first arrive, you can’t help but wonder what is going on. But it works and leads nicely into Larry’s first appearance and the start of a magical eighty minutes.
If you are old enough to remember Larry, then What A Gay Day! – The Larry Grayson Story will bring back many happy memories of Saturday nights in front of the box with the family. If you missed out on him the first time around, then this is a wonderful introduction to a marvellous entertainer who will make you laugh and cry and hopefully lead you to do some YouTube/TikTok searches for the man himself. Either way, this show is highly recommended.
Review by Terry Eastham
Larry Grayson, one of the country’s best-loved light entertainers, is back from The Other Side (no, not ITV) to tell the story of his extraordinary life. Larry was the camp stand-up who, with his innuendo-laden tales, told stories of friends like Everard and Slack Alice.
In this fusion of autobiographical reminiscing and stand-up, Larry reveals all. From his birth in 1923 to an unmarried mother at a time when such things brought nothing but shame, to his fostering by a hard-working miner and his family, Larry maintained an incredible drive to become a variety star at a time when variety was dying.
Drag artist, comedian, song-and-dance man, Larry did it all, but he was consigned to showbusiness oblivion by an early TV appearance. No one, least of all Larry, expected him to become a major light entertainment star later in life, with his shows watched by over 20 million people on Saturday nights in the 1970s and 1980s.
A gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal, he was marginalised by his own sexuality, but was also bizarrely targeted by the Gay Liberation Front for not being what they wanted to promote. The camp comic who paved the way for so many others, he is now in danger of being forgotten. So spend an evening with Larry, his hilarious friends, his anecdotes and catchphrases, and the humour of the decades he lived though, and find out what he did in the Rolls Royce that he could not drive.
Cast
Luke Adamson as Larry Grayson
Creative Team
Written by Tim Connery
Directed by Alex Donald
Operator: Tom Thornhill
Presented by The Bridge House Theatre
WHAT A GAY DAY! THE LARRY GRAYSON STORY
Jack Studio Theatre
26 to 30 August 2025
