Arthur Marshall,MBE (10 May 1910 – 27 January 1989) was a British writer,raconteur and broadcaster,[1] born inBarnes, London[2] in the UK. He was best known as a team captain on theBBC'sCall My Bluff.
Charles Arthur Bertram Marshall was the son of Charles Marshall, an electrical engineer fromColchester and Dorothy, née Lee, fromManchester.[3] He was enrolled at the kindergarten section of theFroebel Institute inHammersmith in 1916, for two years, and then went to Ranelagh House, a co-educational school overlookingBarnes Common. In the summer of 1920 his father moved the family toNewbury inBerkshire and Arthur was sent away to a preparatory boarding school, Stirling Court, on theHampshire coast where his brother was already a pupil. He described it later as a 'traumatic experience'. He was educated atOundle School from 1924 to 1928, andChrist's College, Cambridge from 1928 to 1931, where he studied modern languages, became President of the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club,[4] and wanted to be an actor. His obsession with the theatre had begun at the age of four when he had been taken to seePeter Pan, played byMadge Titheradge, at the Kings Theatre, Hammersmith.[5] At Cambridge Marshall appeared as Elizabeth inSomerset Maugham'sThe Circle in 1929 and his performance was praised byGeorge Rylands. The last play in which he appeared for the ADC was directed by Rylands, a production ofGeorge Bernard Shaw'sCaptain Brassbound's Conversion, starringMichael Redgrave in the title role and who was, according toNoel Annan, 'acted off the stage by Arthur Marshall as Lady Cicely'.[6]
As Marshall could not find enough acting work, or convince his parents that they should support his desire to pursue a career in the theatre, in 1931 he became a teacher of modern languages, again at Oundle School. His first work in entertainment was writing scripts for three-minute radio sketches. In 1934 a BBC producer asked him to appear onCharlot's Hour, a late-night radio revue. He signed a contract in 1935 with Columbia and made five gramophone records featuring sketches involving headmistresses and schoolgirls – he was an avid reader of books for girls from childhood and had been performing skits from the early thirties for his friends.[7] He began reviewing for theNew Statesman in 1935 too at the invitation of the literary editorRaymond Mortimer who admired his skits. He was asked to contribute an article each Christmas on the best books for girls published during the year –Angela Brazil was nearing the end of her career but Winifred Darch, May Wynne andDorita Fairlie Bruce were still very productive. World War II interrupted this reviewing of books for girls.
DuringWorld War II Marshall's knowledge ofFrench andGerman led to his being enrolled in theBritish Intelligence Corps, and he was soon sent as part of theBritish Expeditionary Force to northern France. Afterthe rapid German advance he became a part of theDunkirk evacuation. He wrote in his autobiography, "Absence of food, coupled with exhaustion, made the nights seem unusually cold and there is little of comfort, save protection of a sort, to be found in a sand dune. One's childhood love of sand and beaches disappeared in a trice." Back inEngland he spent three months with a security section on theCumbrian coast before being sent toLisburn inNorthern Ireland. In April 1942 he was transferred to theLondon headquarters of Combined Operations in Richmond Terrace, offWhitehall. He was appointed a security officer and by the end of 1943 was transferred to the headquarters ofSupreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in Bushy Park, Twickenham. In 1945 Marshall was inFlensburg and lodged onAdolf Hitler's yacht at the time thatAlfred Jodl andWilhelm Keitel were being interrogated. At the end of the war, with the rank oflieutenant-colonel, and anMBE, he returned to Oundle School as aHousemaster.
During and immediately after World War II, Marshall had some success on radio and the stage. His wartime radio programmeA Date with Nurse Dugdale was popular, and he wrote numerous revue sketches for performers such asHermione Gingold. He appeared on radio and TV occasionally and published books of humorous pieces among other writings. The most widely known of these were his skits on the life and antics of girls at private schools. From a relatively early age he had been an ardent admirer of the girls'school stories ofAngela Brazil. He found them hilarious, although he noted "Miss Brazil had, of course, no comic intention when she started, in 1906, to write her books."[8] His writing about girls' school stories has been criticised asmisogynist and lacking in substance.[9]
In 1954 he left Oundle and, after being private secretary toVictor, Lord Rothschild, worked for the London theatrical firmH. M. Tennent. In the 1950s, he began work in the theatre in London as a scriptwriter and also began having his humorous books published. He adapted the novelEvery Third Thought by American writer Dorothea Malm into the playSeason of Goodwill.[10] This starredSybil Thorndike andGwen Ffrangcon-Davies, but was not a success. He also wrote the British version of the French playFleur de Cactus which had been adapted for the American stage byAbe Burrows asCactus Flower. This starredMargaret Leighton andTony Britton and was a hit on theWest End stage, until Leighton left to go toBroadway.
As he became better known he appeared on radio and television (although his first radio broadcast had been in 1934), and then in 1979 began his time as a regular team captain onCall My Bluff, which continued until shortly before his death. Marshall took over fromPatrick Campbell. They had been friends for many years, since they both used to write, from around 1948 onwards, forLilliput.[11]
Marshall was also a newspaper and magazine columnist, writing forThe Sunday Telegraph in the 1970s and 1980s. His association with theNew Statesman ended in 1981 when he was sacked from its "First Person" column by editor Bruce Page, allegedly for being overtly sympathetic toMargaret Thatcher.[12] He had been writing the column since January 1976, when then-editorAnthony Howard asked him to replaceAuberon Waugh, who had gone toThe Spectator.[13] During that time Marshall also compiled several collections of the best entries from the weekly New Statesman literary competition, embracing parodies and pastiches.
Having retired toDevon in 1970, he lived inChristow for the last fifteen years of his life, where he shared a cottage with Peter Kelland, a former schoolmaster. Their home, Pound Cottage, was the 'Myrtlebank' from which he sent despatches to theNew Statesman andSunday Telegraph. He suffered a minor heart attack in 1988; he began writing the second part of his autobiography, but died shortly after a more serious illness.
In 1983, he made a cameo appearance inCrossroads. the British television serial, as himself. As a guest at the Crossroads Motel, he was recognised by one of the main characters, Jill Chance (played by Jane Rossington).[14]
In his autobiography,Life's Rich Pageant, Marshall was quoted as saying, "I cannot help being happy. I've struggled against it but to no good. Apart from an odd five minutes here and there, I have been happy all my life. There is, I am well aware, no virtue whatsoever in this. It results from a combination of heredity, health, good fortune and shallow intellect."[15]
Marshall is believed to have been homosexual[16][failed verification] but never publicly commented on the subject.[17]
He also editedSalome, Dear, not in the Fridge;Never Rub Bottoms with a Porcupine;Whimpering in the Rhododendrons; andGiggling in the Shrubbery.
Gosling was right to diagnose, and condemn, his clubbable misogyny, but my assumption was that there might be more to say. I never found it. There are no jokes, merely sarcasm that assumes that the joke has long since been made and all that is left to do is laugh. Marshall thought girls' school novels were banal, but his own discourse on them is far more so
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