The Uni of York, Borthwich Archives are delighted to be the new home of the Frankie Howerd archive.
The Frankie Howerd archive is a previously unknown collection of scripts, agency correspondence and contracts, as well as correspondence documenting the management of his estate following his untimely death in 1992.
The scripts and typescripts span his whole career, from his first appearance on BBC Variety Bandbox in 1946, to his sixties revival and his later period as one the elder statesmen of British standup comedy. Many are annotated and marked by him to indicate edits, revisions and performance style. There are scripts for his early radio performances, as well as film and television roles including in the Carry On franchise and for Up Pompeii. In some cases, the scripts are believed to relate to roles Howerd was offered but did not accept. Some of the scripts were stored in Howerd’s original travelling suitcase bearing his name.
The agency correspondence, contracts and agreements cover the period from 1959 to 2010, and are from his management by Beryl Vertue and later, Tessa le Bars, through to the posthumous management of Frankie Howerd’s estate. Contracts include those for roles which were never seen on screen – such as his appearance in the Beatles’ movie Help (1965), which was cut from the final edit – and for roles where unfortunately no scripts exist in the archive – such as The Great St Trinian’s Train Robbery (1966).
The archive is a brilliant addition to the 20th century British comedy and performance collections and Borthwick already hold the archives of writers Sir Alan Ayckbourn, Marks and Gran and Barry Took, with each of those archives containing material relating to Frankie Howerd in the form of scripts or correspondence
