back in in April, blog of UK number 1's Popular on the Lonnie Donegan/George Formby paradigm--

"The music-hall was dying if not dead by 1960, having hit a steep decline with the rise of the cinema. Shorn of the audience's boozing and flirting, the ribald style of music hall was kept alive by light entertainment - the winking not-quite-naughtiness you hear on this record was still a going concern when I was a child, showing up every time some interminable, deferential Royal Variety Performance reached a musical number. When I first heard 'Dustman', that was the context I immediately fitted it to - its roaring audience for me will perpetually include a gin-pickled Queen Mum.

In 1960 it would hopefully have seemed fresher - surely the million owners of the record will have given the thing more plays than I can stand to (An unbridgeable cultural gap is summoned up in the delighted squeal from one audience member when Donegan says 'flippin'' at 0'31'). Unlike, say, George Formby's big hits, 'Dustman' in 2004 is a remorselessly unfunny record. Donegan was a natural showman but his sledgehammer timing here is pretty excruciating - the pause before every punchline which is further telegraphed by i) being sung in a 'dirty' voice that sounds a bit like Roland Rat, ii) gouts of audience hysterics. Formby, to continue the slightly unfair comparison, delivers his punchlines straight, moves smoothly into the next verse and leaves the audience a split-second to work out by themselves just how filthy he's being."