Peter Cavanagh (born Peter Cedric Coates; 31 October 1914 – 18 February 1981) was an English comic

impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passag ...

, popular on

BBC radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...

in the 1940s and 1950s when he was known as "The Voice of Them All".

Biography

Born in

Croydon Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extens ...

, Cavanagh started work in the motor trade and then for an electrical manufacturer, before training at the

Guildhall School of Music The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a conservatoire and drama school located in the City of London, United Kingdom. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and j ...

with the aim of becoming a concert singer. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, he was attached to the

Royal Army Medical Corps The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. The RAMC, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps ...

, and sometimes acted as compere at shows. He started mimicking radio personalities, such as the imaginary children impersonated by

Harry Hemsley Harry May Hemsley (14 December 1877 – 5 April 1951) was an English music hall and radio comedian. He is best known as the host of the popular radio show '' Ovaltiney's Concert Party'' on Radio Luxembourg. He was also active as a cartoonist. Yout ...

, and developed a special talent for impersonating

Field Marshal Montgomery Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, (; 17 November 1887 – 24 March 1976), nicknamed "Monty", was a senior British Army officer who served in the First World War, the Irish War of Independence and th ...

- whom he resembled physically - and Winston Churchill.Richard Anthony Baker, ''Old Time Variety: an illustrated history'', Pen & Sword, 2011, , pp.164-165 He started making regular radio appearances on ''

Variety Bandbox ''Variety Bandbox'' is a BBC Radio variety show transmitted initially in the General Forces Programme and then the Light Programme. Featuring a mixture of comic performances and music, the show helped to launch the careers of a number of leading ...

'' in 1945, and became widely known for his ability to make rapid changes between the voices of those he was impersonating, such as the entire cast of ''

ITMA ''It's That Man Again'' (commonly contracted to ''ITMA'') was a BBC radio comedy programme which ran for twelve series from 1939 to 1949. The shows featured Tommy Handley in the central role, a fast-talking figure, around whom the other cha ...

''. Particularly impressive was his impersonation of

Tommy Handley Thomas Reginald Handley (17 January 1892 – 9 January 1949) was an English comedian, best known for the BBC radio programme ''It's That Man Again'' ("''ITMA''") which ran between 1939 and 1949. Born in Liverpool, Lancashire, Handley went ...

, and Cavanagh later performed as Handley in the radio biography ''The Tommy Handley Story''. In 1948 he starred with

ventriloquist Ventriloquism, or ventriloquy, is a performance act of stagecraft in which a person (a ventriloquist) creates the illusion that their voice is coming from elsewhere, usually a puppeteered prop known as a "dummy". The act of ventriloquism is v ...

Peter Brough Peter Brough (26 February 1916 – 3 June 1999) was an English radio ventriloquist who became a well-known name to audiences in the 1950s. He is associated with his puppet Archie Andrews. Early career Peter Brough’s father, Arthur Broug ...

in ''Two's a Crowd'', a radio show set on board an imaginary cruise ship in which he and Brough would impersonate film and theatre stars. Search: Peter Cavanagh, ''Radio Times'', BBC Genome
Retrieved 9 March 2021
Retrieved 10 March 2021 He appeared in the 1949

Royal Variety Performance The ''Royal Variety Performance'' is a televised variety show held annually in the United Kingdom to raise money for the Royal Variety Charity (of which King Charles III is life-patron). It is attended by senior members of the British royal ...

. He continued to make regular radio appearances through the 1950s, and performed impressions of many personalities of the period, including

Gilbert Harding Gilbert Charles Harding (5 June 1907 – 16 November 1960) was a British journalist and radio and television personality. His many careers included schoolmaster, journalist, policeman, disc jockey, actor, interviewer and television presenter. He ...

Robb Wilton Robert Wilton Smith (28 August 1881 – 1 May 1957), better known as Robb Wilton, was an English comedian and actor. He was best known for his filmed monologues during the 1930s and 1940s, in which he played incompetent authority figures. His tr ...

, the Duke of Edinburgh, and

Eamonn Andrews Eamonn Andrews, (19 December 1922 – 5 November 1987) was an Irish radio and television presenter, employed primarily in the United Kingdom from the 1950s to the 1980s. From 1960 to 1964 he chaired the Radio Éireann Authority (now the RTÉ A ...

. One of his specialities was to perform alternate lines of a sketch with the person he was imitating – such as

Arthur Askey Arthur Bowden Askey, (6 June 1900 – 16 November 1982) was an English comedian and actor. Askey was known for his short stature (5' 2", 1.58 m) and distinctive horn-rimmed glasses, and his playful humour incorporating improvisation ...

– and challenge the audience to guess which was the impersonator and which was the person being mimicked. He would end his shows by quickly reprising, one after another, impressions of all those he had impersonated, ending with "...and this is the voice of them all, Peter Cavanagh..".Roy Hudd and Philip Hindin, ''Roy Hudd's Cavalcade of Variety Acts'', Robson Books, 1998, , pp.26-27 Cavanagh also made theatre appearances, accompanied by his wife on piano.Michael Kilgarriff, ''Grace, Beauty and Banjos: Peculiar Lives and Strange Times of Music Hall and Variety Artistes'', Oberon Books, 1998, , pp.66-67 He made few television appearances, but had a short BBC series in 1955 in which he demonstrated the art of mimicry. By the 1960s, he had effectively been superseded as a performer by younger impressionists such as

Mike Yarwood Michael Edward Yarwood, (born 14 June 1941) is an English impressionist, comedian and actor. He was one of Britain's top-rated entertainers, regularly appearing on television from the 1960s to the 1980s. Early life Michael Edward Yarwood was ...

and

Peter Goodwright Peter Goodwright (12 May 1936 – 2 November 2020) was an English comedic impressionist. He appeared on the ITV impressions show '' Who Do You Do?'' in the 1970s. Goodwright was born in Haslington, Cheshire. Career Goodwright has been referred ...

, but occasionally appeared on

children's television Children's television series (or children's television shows) are television programs designed for children, normally scheduled for broadcast during the morning and afternoon when children are awake. They can sometimes run during the early eveni ...

programmes. In the 1970s he was a panellist on the radio show ''The Impressionists'', and appeared in nostalgic programmes such as ''Sounds Familiar''. He died in

Chipping Norton Chipping Norton is a market town and civil parish in the Cotswold Hills in the West Oxfordshire district of Oxfordshire, England, about south-west of Banbury and north-west of Oxford. The 2011 Census recorded the civil parish population ...

, Oxfordshire, in 1981, aged 66.

References

External links

Peter Cavanagh
at the National Portrait Gallery {{DEFAULTSORT:Cavanagh, Peter 1914 births 1981 deaths English impressionists (entertainers) British Army personnel of World War II Royal Army Medical Corps soldiers