The Nitwits, alias myself and Michael "Gabby" Habgood,
first made their appearance on a stage in the Wimborne Grammar School
Christmas concert held in Big School in 1944.
The act was a basic straight man and comic, viz myself (Nit), Gabby
(Wit).
An example:
NIT (reciting): To be or not to be, that is the question
WIT:
What's the answer?
And at the end of the sketch, when Nit had been telling a dramatic
story with Wit doing the effects and generally being a nuisance ;
NIT: Then that awful terrible voice came again!
WIT: This is the BBC
Home Service, we are now closing down for the night
There was an afternoon performance for the whole school and an evening
one for parents etc. Every comic line went well in the afternoon but
in the evening only that last line got a minor laugh. (Such is show
business!
)
(UPDATE 2005 - Willie writes - And if you want to see what an amazing
memory Alan has, CLICK
HERE here to compare the original 1944
handwritten script which was
in the Gabby
Archive. Remember to close the separate window once finished with. I will
be sending these original school exercise-book sheets to Alan who
is not aware of their existence and is in for a surprise)
The next remembered appearance of the Nitwits was in a concert
organised by the Wimborne St John Ambulance which is shown as "Variety
Cavalcade" on
WYG programmes but was simply known as a Variety Concert at the
time. (How's that for trade puffing?) The date of this concert is unknown
but
ran to two evening performances. (Jan 1948 - Willy)
The Nitwits made several appearances, also Gabby appeared as"The
mad parson" and I did a solo act in which I depicted how various
singers would sing "I'm forever blowing bubbles" ending with
my version of how "Spike Jones & his city slickers" may
have tackled it!
Another St John Ambulance concert started planning but came to nothing,
and I started to write a pantomime "Robinson Crusoe" for
them but, for reasons unknown, St John Ambulance dropped out at an
early stage
and so I contacted Gabby,, The rest, as they say, is history.
The pantomime raised something in the region of £80 for The Minster
Heating Fund and no doubt it was because of this that we had far more
access to Church House that would have been normal. Scenery was constructed
there
and it was used a a Box Office and a base for fancy dressed people
to walk in the town giving out advertising leaflets.
(The success of Robinson Crusoe of course led to the formation of Wimborne
Youth Group)
The Nitwits appeared in every WYG show until 1952 when I joined
the RAF. Although Gabby was doing his National Service in the army,
he somehow
managed to get leave at the time of the shows, although he was not
always shown on the programmes which were printed well in advance.
The Nitwits also appeared in other shows as Guest Artists (But I can't
remember the details)
How did the names Nit and Wit come about? When I wrote that first
sketch I remembered that in my youth I read the "Knockout" comic
and one of the features was "Stone Age Kit, the ancient Brit" who
had two companions who never spoke and had labels around their waists "Nit" and "Wit",
so I "borrowed" those names.