This Mancunian Film Studio's Official site is dedicated to John E Blakeley, Frank Randle and all the performers and people associated with the output of the Mancunian Film Company. The site is researched and collated by Dr CP Lee ... Contact ... Chris Lee is the Cuthbert of The Cuthbert Club - See Events.

				Please help keep HOTUN sizzling! If you can assist with the costs of running this website, please use this Donate button which is a Paypal link. Thanks ++ Cuthbert and Mrs Cuthbert. JOIN THE CLUB! Cuthbert Club Membership Email.
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2013 - Cuthbertonian Colin Daffern did us proud and gave his all at the Mastermind semi-finals on Friday 29th March - You was robbed Colin but boy was you a contender!

Cuthbert hit the Radio 2 waves on Tues 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th March in the excellent 'HISTORY OF BRITISH COMEDY' hosted by David Mitchell. This followed Cuthbert's Radio 4 appearance in '30 Years of the Bradshaws' on 25th February where he backed up John Henshaw in exploring the unrelenting success of The Bradshaws Radio Show.

2012 - RIP Eric Hobsbawm (9/6/1917 to 1/10/2012) who in 1959 wrote the following in his book "The Jazz Scene" (by Francis Newton ie Eric Hobsbawm) p6: "I daresay a number of, say, university lecturers have at one time or another seen Lucan and MacShane, or Frank Randle, but almost certainly without pleasure; nor would they normally think of putting them into a history of the twentieth-century arts, assuming they were to write one."

Help yourself to a free article - SILENT MANCUNIANS by CP Lee: (PDF download) - plus BRITISH COMEDY CINEMA - CP in a NEW BOOK - Amazon link here.
PLUS over the summer Pam Middlemass kindly sent us scans from a 1950 Blackpool programme - click here for pdf to view. Many thanks Pam!

ARCHIVAL TREATS! - We made the HOTUN Summer complete by offering up the Randle's Scandals programme from Summer 1952! Click on THIS LINK to see the entire programme on pdf - thanks to Susan Craig. Hotun fans will know that Susan's husband Mike left a wealth of wonderful archive sound materials, most of which now resides at the University of Salford for public access. Sue has been busy cataloguing the vast collection of photographs and various documents ... and we found Betty Driver (RIP) who appeared in Mancunian Film's Boots! Boots! in one such archival treasure - click HERE for the pdf.

7 July 2012 - Cuthbert Club's Sixth FRANK RANDLE DAY in Blackpool - see the 'RANDLESTOCK' photos here - Previous Frank Randle Days HERE

31 May 2012 - MIKE CRAIG ARCHIVE at the UNIVERSITY OF SALFORD - see the LAUNCH HERE - ARCHIVE LINK HERE - Background: Cuthbert/Dr CP Lee proudly announced on BBC Radio 4's Al Read documentary programme that the Comedy Archive digitisation of Mike Craig's recordings would be available for public perusal soon and hey presto! The Mike Craig Comedy Archive is now active.

2 April 2012 - Cuthbert Club showed 'School for Randle' - see photos here - Archive photo of the Dickenson Road Studio 'boiler room' set HERE - Cuthbert and Mike Blakeley with Frank 'Hamlet' Randle on BBC 4's Comedy Map of Britain HERE.

RELOCATION! Frank Randle's songsheet 'Somebody's Kisses' has moved to The Frank Randle Gallery.
The tale of the disappearing Chapel on Dickenson Road and the photographs with it have moved to the History Photos page here. And Val Doonican and his BBC crew have gone with it!

SATURDAY 29 January 2012 - Cuthbert received a generous donation towards the upkeep of this website from The Rusholme and Fallowfield Civic Society, in return for a talk on the History of the Mancunian Film Studios ...

Cuthbert showed a restored 'Home Sweet Home' at the Castle on Oldham Street on Monday 5th December 2011. See this link and Cuthbert Club.

Cuthbert featured on two Timeshift documentaries - All The Fun of the Fair and When The Circus Comes To Town on BBC FOUR on 2nd and 9th August 2011.

Lee Mannering hosted the Fifth Frank Randle Day in Blackpool - see Photos here (link includes a film Lee made of the 2010 Frank Randle Day).

Cuthbert hosted the GEORGE FORMBY seminar, part of Ken Barret's 'Formby Project' in Wigan all week. Link: Programme for Seminar held on 01 April 2011.

SOMEWHERE IN CAMP was shown on 29 March 2011 at a special Cuthbert Club screening of this classic film, shown to commemorate the life and contribution to the Mancunian Studio story of ARTHUR GOULDING at the CASTLE PUB on OLDHAM ST, M4 1LE- see Special

On 6th and 14th March 2011, Cuthbert helped Stuart Maconie give a bit of an airing to GEORGE FORMBY in 'Turned Out Nice Again' on BBC Radio 2.

The Hotun Arthur Goulding page was opened in February 2011 in honour of Arthur Goulding who died 17 January 2011.

Thank you to Bruce Anderson for this link - visit Rusholme and Victoria Park Archive and for a cutting from the Manchester Guardian of 13 May 1947 (available here to view)

Randle on TV - youtube link - see Frank's appearance with Cuthbert on BBC Four's Rude Britannia (14 June 2010 )

Gail Cloake photographic gems: In 2010 Gail discovered several photographic gems whilst researching her grandfather William F Cloake, a scenic manager who ran his own company in Manchester providing sets and backdrops for the theatre. We are gratefully thankful to Gail for the pleasure and usefulness for film and comedy research that these pictures provide and are proud to have opened her Gallery page today (8 October 2010).

FRIDAY 19th FEBRUARY 2010 SHOWZAM SUCCESS!- Three Mancunian films were shown to an enthusiastic audience at the Olympia Winter Gardens PLUS a Mancunian talk by Cuthbert and Mike Blakeley. The films shown were: Somewhere in Camp, Home Sweet Home (FULL version - first ever showing!!!), Holidays With Pay. Here is a Showzam link

December 2009 - the Dan Young photos have left the front page and appear now in The Performers Gallery

11 July 2009 - the Cuthbert Club Funtime Memorial Day was a fantastic success - as usual!

The Didsbury Festival 2009 screening of Over The Garden Wall was a great success - visit the Events page to view

Fantastic stills from SOMEWHERE IN POLITICS (1948) from Mike Blakeley's family collection have been moved to the Frank Randle Gallery. As always, at every film fair, in every corner please look for this missing film - wherever you are in the world, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, if you have any information about the whereabouts of this film please email Cuthbert now!

Arthur Mertz Snr and Hewitt Universal Lighting - you will also find Laurel and Hardy with James Blakeley photograph from 2nd August 1932 on this page.

77 2008 - Saturday 6th July 2008 - BLUE PLAQUE full story

Frank Randle's Blackpool and the North Pier - the Organ is back! 27th May 2009 and the Bamforth Blackpool postcard appears at the end of this link

Frank's beginnings - including the Bouncing Randles 1931

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

With grateful thanks to Mike Blakeley, North West Film Archive (NWFA) at MMU, PM & DL Williams (authors of Hooray For Jollywood and Wired To The Moon), Bruce Anderson and Aidan O'Rourke photographer of Manchester backdrop in "Jollywood".

PLEASE NOTE: Every attempt has been made to trace the copyright holders of images used on this website. We apologise if your credit does not appear. Please advise and we will be pleased to correct any omission and insert an appropriate acknowledgement.

Please email CP Lee with any information relating to Mancunian Films, Golden Films Ltd, Mancunian actors and film people! - Please Help the Hotun Research!

ITSAHOTUN - established 2005 - Last update 28-May-2013

- Don't forget to keep in touch with the Hotun sistership Manchester Film History