Walford Bodie, from Macduff in the north of Scotland, toured British theatres with a 20-strong company and a novel act "of electricity and magnetism." GORDON IRVING looks at the career of this offbeat theatrical performer, much in demand in the early years of last century.

One of the most remarkable as well as least modest performers ever to tour the theatres of the British Isles was surely Dr. Walford Bodie, a showman all the way.

He offered a lengthy act of "full electrical, hypnotic and variety entertainment," billing himself as the proud holder of a variety of top academic and scientific honours and degrees. Few in his audiences realised that most of them were bogus!

The blurb for his act when he played the Olympia Theatre in Bridgeton, Glasgow, is typical of how he rated himself.

"Doctor Bodie's success," it claimed, " depends on his masterly medical knowledge of electricity, magnetism and hypnotism; and on his showmanship, legerdemain and bluff. His greatest art is that hardly a man can tell where each or any of these powers begins, combine or end."

(Such humility ! )

"It is not generally known that the good doctor is a Freeman of the City of London, Doctor of Science, Art,. Letters and Literature of London (diploma), Doctor of Medicine and Master of Surgery (diplomas), and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, London."

Talk about bluff in bill-matter! Doctor Walford was a past-master in concocting his many supposed attributes and was seldom economical with the truth. But his audiences, in the 1920's and '30's, loved the man for his showmanship. Accompanied by a "powerful" company of vaudeville artistes, numbering over 20, he featured in his act "several of my latest inventions offered to the Government."

One of his helpers was Helen Norman, his own niece, also from Macduff, who later became a singer, Principal Boy and soubrette in her own right, and was well-known as the foil to the Scottish character comedian, Jack Radcliffe.

PS: Bodie even claimed recognition from America. His bill-matter announced that, in addition to his many other honours, he was a "Certified Medical Graduate and Therapeutist from the Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery." Such modesty, indeed. A showman who really went Over The Top in his bill-matter.

Click here to meet Author Gordon Irving

Special thanks to the Scottish Theatre Archives for permission to use images from their wonderful and amazing website.

Links:

Scottish Theatre Archives

Harry Lauder