The Dumbells Concert Party in the Great War

War is a Drag

Sports competitions and entertainment were the means of restoring morale among troops behind the front lines. Each division had their own comedy troupes, with many regiments having their own. There were close to 40 comedy troupes entertaining the Canadian Corps during the Great War. The Dumbells Concert Party is the first of these troupes to be covered by CEFRG.

Comedy Troupes

The Dumbells Concert Party’s popularity in the Second World War led many to believe they were the only comedy troupe of the Canadian Corps during the Great War.

There were other popular comedy troupes such as the See Toos of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Comedy Troupe, 3rd Canadian Division, and The Maple Leaf Concert Party of the 4th Canadian Division.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus found inspiration in the black humour of these comedy troupes. Generals turned a deaf ear to the humorous mocking of officers and army life, for they recognized these evenings were essential to bolstering morale among their troops.

Merton Wesley Plunkett

The Dumbells Concert Party troupe was founded by Captain Merton Wesley Plunkett, Secretary of the YMCA, attached to the 35th Battalion. He organized amateur concerts at Canadian encampments in France. In early 1917, an order from HQ authorized the use of fighting men for entertainment duty. The commander of the Third Division, Maj.-Gen. Louis James Lipsett had appointed him as the YMCA Representative on 7 July 1916. Captain Plunkett requested permission from Maj.-Gen. Louis James Lipsett to form the 3rd Division Concert Party. Because the unit’s insignia was a red dumbbell, they called themselves The Dumbells. But, with one “B” instead of two because of a spelling error, allegedly.

Mert Plunkett recruited some of his favorite soldier-performers, who were seconded from their own units for his troupe.

Albert William Plunkett

Corporal Albert William Plunkett 453697 was chosen as the inaugural member of the Dumbells ensemble. He was versatile, suave, sang in tails and cloaks, danced, and appeared in humorous sketches. He was associated with the songs “Those Wild, Wild Women Are Making a Wild Man of Me” and “I Know Where the Flies Go in Wintertime.”

Albert William Plunkett joined the Canadian Army’s 58th Infantry Battalion while still underage, 18 August 1915. Born 27 May 1897 in Orillia, Ontario. Al stood 5’11” tall, with dark complexion, grey eyes and black hair. Saw active duty in the trenches overseas from 1916. Admitted No. 1 Convalescent Camp, Boulogne, Shell Shock, 25 April 1916. Tuberculosis left lung also discovered. Discharged 6 June 1916. Rejoined unit 27 June 1916.

Albert William Plunket admitted, No. 6 Casualty Clearing Station, Influenza, 7 May 1917. Discharged 16 May 1917. After recovery, returned to duty with the YMCA as an entertainer for the troops, working for his older brother Captain Mert Plunkett.

The Dumbells Concert Party Debut

The Dumbells Concert Party debuted shortly after Al’s recovery in June 1917. Perhaps at the military theatre at Guoy-Servins, just outside of the town of Poperinghe, Belgium. Plunkett cannot recall. They may have had to preview their performance for Lt.-Gen. Arthur Currie. Either way, these were the first two concerts.

Except for the Dumbell Rag, written by John ‘Jack’ Alfred Ayre, they lifted their musical numbers whenever the lifting was good—mostly from English music-hall hits like Zig Zag and Yes, Uncle. Albert William Plunkett had scrounged a white cape, silk hat and suit of tails and was the envy of every khaki-clad man in the audience. His suave manner and smooth delivery made them think they were at the Ritz and the song he sang—a current U. S. hit, Those Wild Wild Women are Making a Wild Man of Me—hit every soldier where he lived.

Marjorie

Private Ross Douglas Hamilton 530643, No. 9 Canadian Field Ambulance, in a long, clinging gown with appropriate padding, was a knockout as Marjorie.

He represented every soldier’s girl friend back home when he sang over the telephone to the dreaming soldier in the trenches (William ‘Bill’ Law Tennent) in that Dumbell classic, Hello My Dearie.

Sermon

Right after that in true Plunkett tradition (“Make ’em cry one minute and laugh the next and you’ve got ’em”) came Edward ‘Ted’ George Charter dressed in a long Prince Albert coat, a plastered down wig with a centre part and a sanctimonious look. He folded his hands piously and announced in a sepulchral voice: “My sermon is Be Ye Prepared, For No Man Knoweth When Inspection Cometh.” It was full of references to stolen blankets and other soldier shenanigans and it had the boys rolling in the aisles.

Allan G. Murray and Albert William Plunkett danced, there was a chorus line and numerous broad skits on army life. The show was clean and fast and well filled with ingredients that never missed with soldiers or audiences anywhere—what Merton Plunkett calls sentiment and hokum. It was a smash. Gen. Lipsett was pleased. The Dumbells were in.

Original Members

Original members were Merton Plunkett, managing director and comedian; his brother Al (Albert), a baritone; Edward ‘Ted’ George Charter, No. 10 Canadian Field Ambulance, assistant manager and comedian; Ross Douglas Hamilton (‘Marjorie’) (b Pugwash, NS, 1889, d Halifax 29 Sep 1965) and Allan G. Murray 13779, 5th Battalion (‘Marie from Montreal’) (b Gibralter, 1894), female impersonators; John ‘Jack’ Alfred Ayre, 75th Battalion, pianist and music director (d 1977); William ‘Bill’ Law Tennent 529662 10th Canadian Field Ambulance, tenor; Bert Langley, bass baritone; and Frank Arnold Brayford 231062, 202nd Battalion, and Leonard Young, actors.

Additional Members

Shortly after the first show in August 1917 at Guoy-Servis (near Poperinge, Belgium, in the Passchendale combat sector) The Dumbells Concert Party increased to 16. Other soldiers associated in various capacities with the early Dumbells included Bill Redpath, Corporal Elmer Albert Belding 111029, George Thorne, Sergeant Andro Catrano 100431, J. McCormick, and Private David Love Michie 153813, 43rd Battalion.

Until the end of the war they traveled in trucks to wherever the troops needed them most. They picked up and made what scenery and props they could, used horses’ tails and rope for wigs, bits of cowhide for beards and mustaches. In an area where there were no buildings they’d set up seats on the side of a hill and give an outdoor show. Often their shows were interrupted by enemy action and, as Albert William Plunkett remarked recently, “Some of the men we entertained at five o’clock were dead at seven-thirty.” When the fighting was too close and tough the Dumbells doubled as stretcher-bearers.

Smitten Officer

But they had a lot of laughs, too. One evening a young English officer was so smitten by Marjorie’s rendition of Some Day I’ll Make You Love Me that he turned up at the stage door with a bunch of flowers and a certain look in his eye. To save his feelings Capt. Plunkett explained that Marjorie wasn’t feeling well and the next day the show had moved on.

Programme

Coliseum in London

With a collectively conceived program of songs of the day and skits about life in the trenches, the Dumbells entertained Canadian soldiers – often at the front lines – and played a four-week engagement in 1918 at the Coliseum in London. There was no doubt The Dumbells Concert Party were good under the rough-and-tumble conditions of the trenches, but how would they go over in a regular theatre?

Plunkett saw a chance to answer this in the fall of 1918 when the troupe was on a two-week leave in London. He went to see a Mr. Johns who was manager of one of the city’s biggest vaudeville houses, the Coliseum. But Johns told him through a secretary that he wanted no part of any soldiers’ revue. So Plunkett booked his whole show in at the lowly Victoria Palace at sixty pounds a week and obtained a two-week extension of leave. When Johns heard of the effect the Dumbells were having on London audiences he sent for Plunkett and offered him two hundred pounds a week for the show. CAll profits went to the YMCA entertainment fund.)

Leave Extension

They got a further leave extension and played the Coliseum for four triumphant weeks. Johns canceled all his vaudeville acts and put the Dumbells on ahead of the feature attraction, the famous Diaghilev Ballet. But the Londoners cheered The Dumbells Concert Party so long and so heartily that after a couple of nights the Diaghilev manager came to Johns and demanded that his ballet precede the soldiers’ show instead of following it.

Mons

Toward the end of the war, The Dumbells Concert Party were joined by some members of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Comedy Co, a similar concert party (formed in May 1916, disbanded in June 1917, and re-formed in November 1917) which had given a royal command performance in June 1918 at the Apollo Theatre in London. (Lt Gitz Rice is known to have played the piano occasionally for the Princess Pat’s group.) The two troupes first appeared together 12 Nov 1918 (the day after armistice) as the Dumbells in Mons, Belgium, in a production of HMS Pinafore that ran for more than a month. The musical was performed for King Albert of Belgium, who awarded Captain Plunkett with a medal to recognize the group’s support of the troops. The Dumbells also performed in other Belgian centres prior to demobilization in 1919.

HMS Pinafore

When the Canadian Army moved into Mons on Nov. 11, 1918, Plunkett was ready for them with, of all things, a full dress production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore. To give the show more zip he had picked up some entertainers from the Princess Pats’ Concert Party (Jack McLaren, Fred Fenwick and others) and fitted them into the show as a comic guard for Sir Joseph Porter and an American reporter (McLaren) who was aboard the good ship strictly for laughs. This was the troupe’s first chance in a legitimate vehicle in rented costumes and they gave it all they had. With the RCA fifty-piece band in the pit and young Albert William Plunkett in the Capt. Corcoran role the show ran for thirtytwo days, two shows a day, with a hattalion crowding in for each show.

Highlights of their shows included the songs ‘These Wild, Wild Women Are Making a Wild Man of Me’ and ‘I Know Where the Flies Go’ (sung by Albert William Plunkett), ‘Hello My Dearie’ (a duet by ‘Marjorie’ and William ‘Bill’ Law Tennent) and ‘Someday I’ll Make You Love Me’ (‘Marjorie’).

Many of their patriotic songs were published and the sheet music to their theme song, Ayre’s The Dumbell Rag, sold more than 10,000 copies. During the Great War the Dumbells and approximately 40 other comedy-musical troupes entertained the troops in France. Wherever Canadian troops were located, even the front lines, the troupe would carry their curtains, costumes and an upright piano.

Return to Canada

Upon their return to Canada in 1919, Merton Plunkett re-formed The Dumbells Concert Party as a vaudeville troupe and they performed as civilians completing 12 cross-Canada tours over the next 13 years. Members included Al Plunkett, Ross Douglas Hamilton, Frank Arnold Brayford, William ‘Bill’ Law Tennent, Langley, Allan G. Murray, and John ‘Jack’ Alfred Ayre from the original Dumbells, Jack McLaren and Fred Fenwick from the Princess Pat’s troupe and several performers from other Canadian army concert parties – Albert Edward ‘Red’ Newman; famed for his jocular rendition of ‘Oh, It’s a Lovely War’) and Charlie McLean from the Y Emmas, the blackface comedian Ben Allan from the 16th Battalion Party, the female impersonator Jock Holland from the Bow Belles (a Scottish army troupe), the blackface comedian Jimmy Goode, and the baritone Tommy Young.

Broadway

After the war, he was in the play Biff, Bing, Bang on Broadway. Plunkett turned down a job offer from Al Jolson. Albert William Plunkett‘s recordings for HMV included humorous songs such as “And Her Mother Came Too” and “Shall I Have It Bobbed or Shingled?” Following the break-up of the Dumbells in 1932, Al appeared on radio and nightclubs in Canada and the US.

After rehearsals in Orillia and a ‘tryout’ in Owen Sound, Ont, the Dumbells opened 1 Oct 1919 at the Grand Opera House in London, Ont, with the revue Biff, Bing, Bang. They then performed at the Grand Theatre in Toronto for 16 weeks.

Later Additions

Later additions and replacements included former army entertainers Morley Plunkett and Pat Rafferty and such professional performers as the tenor Harry Binns, the bass Cameron Geddes, the singer Stan Bennett, the pianist N. Fraser Allan, and the comedy team Charlie Jeeves and Fred Emney. The Dumbells Orchestra, led by Harold Rich 1924-5 and Howard Fogg 1925-30, included well-known dance band musicians of the day – eg, the saxophonist Nat Cassels and the trumpeter Morris London. Although audiences continued to enjoy the female impersonators in the cast, in 1928 the Dumbells added women to their troupe and in the production Why Worry?, actresses were included for the first time.

In May 1921 a revised Biff, Bing, Bang opened at the Ambassador Theater in New York, the first Canadian musical revue to appear on Broadway. It ran for about 12 weeks and John ‘Jack’ Alfred Ayre became the first Canadian to conduct an orchestra on Broadway. Prior to the mounting of a new show in 1922, Newman, Holland and others left to form a troupe known both as the Old Dumbells and the Originals, which toured for three seasons in Full O’ Pep, Rapid Fire and Thumbs Up.

1920s

The Dumbells, meanwhile, continued with such shows as Revue of 1922, Carry On (1922), Cheerio (1923), Ace High (1924, which saw the return of Newman and Holland), Oh, Yes (1925), Lucky 7 (1925), Joy Bombs (1926), Oo-La-La (1927), and Why Worry? (1928), gradually replacing the wartime references with more topical material. When Fogg (d Montreal 17 May 1953) joined the Dumbells in 1925, he became their conductor and also wrote and arranged songs such as “Winter Will Come” and songs for the revue for Lucky Seven.

The success of their tours and the popularity of their music in Canada resulted in 27 recordings and the distribution of sheet music songs such as “Come Back, Old Pal” that sold very well. Hit songs from these shows (most published by Leo Feist) included ‘Canada for Canadians,’ ‘Come Back, Old Pal’, ‘Give Me a Little Cosy Corner,’ ‘Hahaski Hohoski Wow Wow,’ ‘It’s Canada, the Land for Me,’ ‘K-K-K-Kiss Me Again,’ ‘Li’l Old Granny Mine,’ ‘Most Powerful Love,’ ‘She Must Be a Wonderful Girl,’ ‘Shufflin’ Along,’ ‘Winter Will Come,’ and ‘Yum-Yum-Yum-Yum’. Some were originals, others, hits of the day and several were included in new shows.

1930s

In 1931, without any money, he tried a comeback with “the biggest dollar’s worth in show business,’’ a variety show with a cast of two hundred, in the Victoria Theatre, Toronto. It played to good houses for a week but had to close when the creditors moved in too soon.

In 1932 he tried one last, disastrous tour. With many of the smaller expense-paying stops eliminated the show just couldn’t pay its way. It got as far as Edmonton and on the way back was stopped at Winnipeg by union officials who slapped a fine on musicians and stage hands for accepting half-filled pay envelopes and put Plunkett on the black list. Mert Plunkett tried the insurance business for a while, but in 1939 became the overseas entertainment supervisor for the Canadian Legion’s Auxiliary Services. His composition “We’re On Our Way”, was sung by soldiers en route to Europe and became popular in England. Mert Plunkett managed an entertainment club and retired to Collingwood, Ontario, with his wife, Lila Taylor.

Reunions

In the Second World War Albert William Plunkett served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in Canada, and honorably discharged. Later was a road inspector in the Ontario district. Al managed a nursing home with his wife Marie until his death in April 1957.

The Dumbells were reunited for concerts on a few occasions, including a performance at Lansdowne Park, Ottawa, in 1939 and Massey Hall, Toronto, in 1955. They have been the subject of several CBC radio and TV documentaries, including The Dumbells (telecast 5 Mar 1978), which combined a dramatization of the troupe’s war years with scenes from a 1975 reunion at Lambert Lodge in Toronto of the last surviving members – John ‘Jack’ Alfred Ayre, Frank Arnold Brayford, McLaren, and Redpath. A musical, The Legend of the Dumbells, conceived by Alan Lund and written by George Salverson (b St Catharines, Ont, 30 Apr 1916, d Toronto 9 Apr 2005), was staged at the Charlottetown Festival in 1977 (with performances also at the NAC) and 1978. A production by Toronto’s Tapestry Music Theatre toured Ontario in 1990.

Epilogue

Red Newman, who made three hundred dollars a week with The Dumbells Concert Party and saved his money, owned a hotel at Wasaga Beach on Georgian Bay.

Ross Douglas Hamilton, the female impersonator, had been entertaining off and on ever since he left the Dumbells in 1930. When he joined the Army Medical Corps in Toronto in 1940 he dumfounded the clerk by giving his occupation as actress. He retired to Brookfield, N.S., and died 9 September 1965.

The impresario Merton Wesley Plunkett passed away at age 78, on 23 December 1966 at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto.

Jack McLaren had a display advertising business in Toronto.

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Further Reading

• McLaren, J.W. ‘Mirth and mud,’ MacLean’s, 1 Jan, 1 Mar, 15 May 1929
• Braithwaite, Max. ‘The rise and fall of The Dumbells,’ Maclean’s, 1 Jan 1952
• Earle, Patrise. Al Plunkett, The Famous Dumbell (New York 1956)
• Murray, Alan. ‘The Dumbells,’ The Legionary, Jan 1965
• McLaren, Jack, and Franklin, Stephen. ‘A funny thing happened on the way to the trenches,’ Weekend, 25 Nov 1967
• Rasky, Frank. ‘When shells fell in World War I, he played on,’ Toronto Star, 9 Nov 1974
• Anglin, Gerald. ‘Direct hit,’ The Canadian, 25 Feb 1978
• https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/the-dumbells-emc

More

• Home of CEFRG
• Blog
• CEFRG on FaceBook
• CEFRG on YouTube
• Soldiers and Nursing Sisters
• Units (Brigades, Battalions, Companies)
• War Diary of the 18th Battalion (Blog)
• 116th Battalion CEF – The Great War
• Les Soldats du Québec Morts en Service
• Webmatters Carte de Route First World War
• Montreal Aviation Museum
• Battles of the Great War
• Cases
• Cemeteries
• Memorials
• On This Day
• About CEFRG

Please subscribe to CEFRG to be notified by email when there are new posts. Subscription is free, and your email kept confidential.