A Unique Comic Talent
Born in Brixton, South London, into a music hall family on March 12 1908, Max (real name Maxwell George Lorimer) became one of the most original and versatile entertainers of the twentieth century. His father, Jack Lorimer, 'The Hielan Laddie’, was a popular Scots comedian who appeared at many major theatres and wrote and recorded his own songs, and his mother, Stella Stahl, was a singer who often appeared on the same bill as her husband.
The young Max, as a “child in the wings”, as he put it, became steeped in the atmosphere of music hall and encountered many of the early stars of the medium.
However Max’s future career was very nearly cut short by an incident that occurred in 1916 when Max was eight years old. A German zepplin flying over Brixton dropped a gas bomb on the Lorimer household in Baytree Road. The resulting devastating explosion demolished the house and caused the death of his younger brother William and their nanny Betty Hobbs. Max and his elder brother Alec survived the incident when the iron framed bed that they shared was flipped over by the blast and protected the two siblings from any further injury.
By the early 20s, his father had died and Stella was remarried to another music hall artiste, Harry Wallace, who became Max’s professional mentor. Aged 14, Max joined a touring pantomime company and gave himself the stage name Max Wall, taken from Harry’s surname.
Eccentric Dancer
Max soon discovered that he had a special gift for eccentric dancing and learned his craft by watching visiting American masters such as Hal Sherman, Barry Oliver and Sliding Billy Watson. After an apprenticeship in clubs, music hall and cabaret he started working on the Continent as a speciality act and shared bills with such stars as Maurice Chevalier at the Casino de Paris and the great Swiss clown Grock - to become a major comic influence - at the Paris Empire.
Max’s first West End appearance was in the London Revue in 1925 starring the legendary silent movie queen of cliff-hanging serials, Pearl White, at the Lyceum. As an acrobatic and tap dancer Max still worked on the halls and began to be billed as: `The Boy With The Obedient Feet.’ In between his strenuous dance routines, Max began to tell gags and eventually made the transition from ‘silent act’ to bill-topping comedian, with the encouragement of such celebrated performers as Layton and Johnstone.
Clubland
By the 60s, when variety had died – but not before Max had met with success touring his own shows on the circuits and encouraging such emerging talents as Julie Andrews and Beryl Reid -
Max’s comic creation Professor Wallofski became a popular figure in the northern clubs, and Max’s down-to-earth approach endeared him to many of the working people who had previously only known him via radio and TV.
His throwaway gags and cod trumpet playing adapted well to the rough and ready ambience of such venues as Batley Variety Club and Wakefield Theatre Club, and his resilient philosophy and ability to improvise enabled him to survive when many other ex-variety acts didn’t. In 1966 under the direction of Iain Cuthbertson Max had attracted favourable reviews in his role as Pére Ubu in Alfred Jarry’s surrealistic comedy Ubu Roi.
In 1974 at the Greenwich Theatre John Osborne reprised his play The Entertainer, casting Max as the fading music hall star Archie Rice. Max brought a lifetime of experience in the music halls to the role and made the part his own. Critics and contemporaries alike praised his performance comparing him very favourably to Laurence Olivier who had appeared n the same role some seventeen years previously. As a result of Max’s tour de force as Archie Rice, his own one-man show, Aspects of Max Wall transferred to the West End where it was favourably received.
Max had also found an affinity with the works of Samuel Beckett resulting in dramatically acclaimed performances in Waiting for Godot in 1979 and Krapp’s Last Tape in 1984. Max and Beckett went on to became good friends.
Max, being the theatrical polymath that he was, had begun to explore other fields in entertainment. He had assumed character roles in a number of well known soap operas on television. Terry Gilliam had cast him in an inspired tandem with John Le Mesurier as King Bruno the Questionable in Jabberwocky.
Max had even embraced the world of rock music. In 1972 he had toured with the cult band Mott the Hoople in their successful Rock and Roll Circus tour.
In 1977 Max recorded a version of Ian Dury’s Englands Glory which was then released on Stiff Records. Ian had always regarded Max as one of his boyhood heroes and had on a number of occasions invited him to introduce the Blockheads prior to a performance. This met with mixed success as the young audiences had only ever experienced Max’s talent on television in his eccentrically manic Professor Wallofski character, and, as he once remarked ruefully to Ian off stage at the Hammersmith Odeon, “they only want The Walk”.
One of Max’s last appearances was in the short film A Fear of Silence in 1989, the film went on to win a gold award at the New York Film and TV Festival.
On the 21 May 1990 on leaving Simpsons-in-the-Strand Max fell badly fracturing his skull. He never regained consciousness and died early the next morning in Westminster hospital. Max was 82.
The epitaph upon the headstone of the man whose experience of the English Variety Theatre reached back to almost Edwardian times reads:
“I believe that since my life began, the most I’ve had is just a talent to amuse”. (from Noel Coward’s If Love Were All)
Ever, and typically self effacing, the World had lost one of its greatest clowns and a much loved entertainer.