Cardew Robinson

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Douglas John Cardew Robinson was a British comic, whose craft was rooted in the music hall and Gang Shows. He was born in Goodmayes in Essex on August 14, 1917, and educated at Harrow County School for Boys. He achieved fame in the 1940s as “Cardew the Cad”, a schoolboy character he created. He played the character on radio and stage and later in a film, Fun at St Fanny’s. Cardew the Cad became a cartoon strip in Film Fun, a children’s comic of the period.

Cardew Robinson successfully made the transition from Variety and radio into TV and films. In the latter, he nearly always played small but memorable cameo parts, thus an early theatrical review mentioned “…Mr Cardew Robinson, who seems to specialise in grotesques…”. One of his last appearances on television, in an episode of Last of the Summer Wine, in which he played a hen-pecked husband, led astray by Compo and Clegg, showed him to be a fine exponent of physical comedy into his seventies. In the production of Camelot in London in 1964, Cardew Robinson played King Pellenore. The show apparently ran for 650 performances, although it was not well received by the critics. Cardew Robinson was best known in Britain for appearances on TV and in radio shows like You’ve Got to be Joking which he created, as well as Does The Team Think. He only acted in one Carry On film, Carry On Up the Khyber; he played a fakir drawing the memorable line from Bernard Bresslaw, whose character, Bungdit Din, tells him to “Fakir…off!”.

Among his other activities, Cardew Robinson wrote material for other comedians, penned a book called How to be a Failure, and even composed songs with Roger Whittaker. He was also a golfer and enjoyed listening to classical music, to the extent that an early fiancée left him because she was bored by it.

Cardew Robinson died on December 7, 1992 at the age of 75. His obituary in The Times, describes him as “a quiet studious man, whose private face belied his public appearance”. A letter to the paper from a later headmaster of his old school, talks about his “generous spirit”.