The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog is a three-part British television series that aired on Channel 4 in July 1983[1]. It featured monologues, songs and sketches that had been popularised during the era of music hall, which were performed by a large cast, including Leonard Rossiter, Cilla Black and Julie Walters. The programme is notable for featuring the last professional engagement of veteran performer Arthur Askey, and being the first occasion where Maureen Lipman performed in character as Joyce Grenfell[2].
Hosted by British comedian Barry Cryer, the show was recorded on location in the summer of 1982 at the Foundling Museum in London and made and devised by The Bright Thoughts Company[3] The program's title was taken from the 1920s monologue The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog, by Scottish comedian Billy Bennett. Pianist Kenny Clayton accompanied the performers, who also served as their own audience around a large dining table.
Performances in the programme included:
Arthur Askey: The Bee Song; The Villain Still Pursued Her
Julie Walters: The Charge of the Tight Brigade; Old Sam; Neil
Ned Sherrin, writing in The Listener, singled out the performances of Alec McCowen and Julie Walters, who he said managed to "bring freshness to Stanley Holloway's saga of Sam and his musket". Sherrin offered the most praise for Arthur Askey, and commented that "his final sentence was addressed in a confidential aside to the camera, buttonholing the audience confidently to remind us that he was the first comedian ever to do that".[4]Benny Green reviewed the series for Punch, and described Diane Langton's rendition of Brahn Boots as "affectingly faultless". He also showered praise on Cilla Black's version of Walter, Walter, commenting that it was performed with "faultless judgment, masterly execution, suggesting to at least one viewer that so far in pursuing her career Miss Black has been drawing on no more than one tenth of her considerable talent."[5] In an overview article published in British Comedy Guide in 2022, Rob Brown expressed the view that "with all the cast dressed in formal attire appropriate for a sophisticated dinner party of the 1920s, the results were simply wondrous, and, in hindsight, mark a moment of transition in British comedy: a symbolic handing of the baton to a new generation of comic talent"[2].
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