Underneath the Arches was written for the Chichester Festival in 1981 by Patrick Garland, Brian Glanville and the show’s star Roy Hudd. Original songs were not written for the show, instead authors used the melodies which the Crazy Gang themselves had sung – music by Harold Rome, Vivien Ellis, Noel Gay, Hubert Gregg, Ralph Reader and Bud Flanagan himself.
The show tells the story of the Crazy Game from their first appearance in 1931 to their last show in May 1962, but more particularly it recounts the partnership of Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allan. The show is nostalgic and sentimental incorporating many of the original sketches performed by the Crazy Gang at theatres the length and breadth of England, but especially at their London ‘homes’ the Victoria Palace and the Palladium. The Gang’s humour was not subtle or witty, it was a mixture of slapstick, low-comedy and farce punctuated by their school boy antics and jokes.
