General Chat

Oh, yes, I do,
but it was not ?Saveen and Daisy Mae.
Yes, I can see the chap now. and will ask all the other old codgers I know if they can remember this foreign chap's name.

Ann

When I read it ,it all came back to me i can see him to in my minds eye and remember my mum hooting with laughter and then having to make a run for the outside lavvy cos she was nearly peeing herself ,& dad saying to her when she came back "Are you better now,I hope you made it, " and then thinking he was so funny that he laughed till tears ran down his face & mum saying "OH FRED!!"

Shirley

thank you shirley, didn't think to google him. he was so funny and I can still hear the dogs voice. brings back lovely memories of my Dad laughing. and my Mum laughing at my dad laughing, if you see what I mean.

I remembered the dog but forgot Daisy May.
Ann
Glos

Yes I remember Saveen and Daisy May and the dog. I remember being fascinated by the way they kept talking after they were shut in the suitcase!

Well, I was only young :o))))

Sue
xx

Ah well, memory's not what it was then LOL

Think his name was Svengali, i do know who you mean

name rings a bell.have you tried googling for it

Thought it sounded familiar


Daisy May assisted by Saveen



Albert Saveen (or just "Saveen" as he was known) was a ventriloquist who had fourteen puppet characters including Daisy May - a tiny schoolgirl dummy, Andy the Spiv - a cockney boy, a sad little boy adopted by Daisy May called Sonny and a dog who used to say "Drop Dead!" in a very droll posh voice whenever Mr. Saveen or Daisy spoke to him.

The dolls were always packed away in a suitcase when Saveen had finished with them and they could be heard arguing together inside the suitcase and making rude remarks about Saveen.


During part of the show, the dummy dog (on the right in the picture above) would bark incessantly. Saveen would tell it to be quiet, whereupon it would reply in a posh voice "No I won't ! ". A little later in the act, Saveen would point out the dog on the left, sat rock still on a chair. The dummy dog would sniff him, ask if he could talk and suggest that he was stupid. At the end of the act, the dog on the chair (called Mickey) would open a false lower jaw (operated by Saveen) and say "Why don't you shut that ruddy dog up!" and then jump down and walk away, being a very well trained real dog.

Saveen was a trained carpenter and made and repaired most of his characters himself. He had been injured by an exploding bomb during the War and suffered damage to his lungs. His recuperation exercises involved breathing with just one lung at a time and it was through this that he was able to develop the tiny Daisy May voice. He was unable to return to his job in the printing trade afterwards and decided to take up his hobby, ventriloquism, full time. He started with ENSA entertaining the troops and was discovered by Val Parnell. Although he had developed the voice, he still had no doll to go with it and so he decided to create the Daisy May character. He always appeared immaculately dressed in Top Hat and Tails.

Saveen appeared first on BBC Radio where he was the first ventriloquist to have his own radio show, beating Peter Brough and Archie Andrews to it by just a matter of weeks, and later on Television.

The act would usually finish with this song:
"Daisy May,
People say you'll marry me one day,
And by the way you sigh,
And look me in the eye,
I somehow think that Daisy may"

had this on a thread on chat but nobody has responded. In the 50s/60s there was a French ventriloquist who had a dog in a box that he would open and shut while talking etc. was his name Sauveen or similar. My dad used to laugh until the tears rolled down his face.

does anyone else remember him?

Ann
Glos