The Nitwits

The zany British musical troupe The Nitwits (the predecessor to Nuts & Bolts, who worked Circus Roncalli as well as Barnum's Kaleidoscape), regular performers at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas as well as venues around the world. Here they are on Hollywood Palace being introduced by Bing Crosby.


The ensemble made its debut in 1937 at the Paramount cinema in Tottenham Court Road. As the war approached, they took up residency at one of London's most prestigious venues, the Café Anglais in Leicester Square. Then, like many in showbusiness, they did their bit to boost troops' morale as part of Ensa, (the Entertainments National Service Association).

Their career continued to flourish in postwar Britain. They performed at the Albert Hall, played with Ronnie Scott and Kenny Baker, and were introduced to an even wider audience by the radio show Ignorance is Bliss.

By the late Forties, they were, by all accounts, major stars in the UK but the writing was on the wall by 1960, when they worked the summer season in Blackpool, playing second fiddle to bill-toppers Alma Cogan and Tommy Steele. Times were becoming tough for acts like the Nitwits, according to Max Tyler, a historian for the British Music Hall Society.

"During the Sixties, variety finally died," he says. "Television meant that people no longer had to go out on a wet night for their entertainment. There wasn't regular employment for performers such as the Nitwits at home, so they looked around to see if there was work abroad."

They found lucrative employment at the Paris Lido, which was, in musicians' parlance, a good gig. The big breakthrough came when the show – undoubtedly better known for the dancing girls than the Nitwits's act – was shipped to the Stardust in Las Vegas in February 1962.

The Stardust, built in 1958, was, even by American standards, pretty outrageous. It boasted the largest electric sign in the world. With 7,100 ft of neon tubing and 11,000 lamps, it could be seen 60 miles away on a clear night.

The stage facilities were regarded as the best in Vegas as no expense was spared on the theatre or the acts they brought in to fill it.

The Nitwits performed at the Stardust for several seasons, and the act went over big as they brought the show to a close each night. Reviews neatly stored at the University of Nevada show that critics enjoyed the work of the "10 wonderful, nonsensical, motley musical entertainers", as one reviewer described them in 1962.

"We were just a bunch of old farts, a typical raggedy arsed band," recalls Brian Firth, now 72, in a Lancastrian accent undimmed by more than three decades living on the edge of the Nevada desert.

He joined the band in 1967, succeeding Harry Cole as trumpeter and spent six weeks at the London Palladium, supporting Tom Jones. But the Nitwits' return to a home stage was a short one. "There just wasn't the work in Britain," says Firth. "So we spent three months in Teheran, working in the biggest brothel in the world – a square mile of solid brothel. It was a very long three months."

The Six Day War cut that engagement short, so the Nitwits went back on the road in Europe, before returning to Vegas once more. A projectionist at the Stardust filmed the act on a hand-held movie camera. The jerky footage, which Firth has kept on videotape, is possibly the last surviving recording of the Nitwits.

By then, Sid Millward, who had suffered several heart attacks, had been told to give up the clarinet. He became, instead, the conductor of his unruly act. He wandered around the stage in tails and spats, waving a baton around rather pointlessly. This gave him a chance to witness some of the stunts the band had been pulling for years, behind his back. "It really creased him up," Firth says.

The Nitwits settled in Vegas and lived; the act was generously rewarded by the casino bosses. But the punishing schedule took its toll and new recruits were found as needed.


~ Information culled from a Daily Telegraph article by David Millward