Bio[]
Chez When is an open-air entertainment venue located somewhere in England, possibly in Little Dimpton. It features singers like Louise English and dancers like the Hill's Angels.
The venue is discovered by an unnamed female pedestrian (Anna Dawson) passing by two inebriates (Bob Todd and Henry McGee) stumbling out of it. (One gets swung back in; the other gets swung out from entering.) She also passes two Aussies (Len Keyes and Jon Jon Keefe).When she stops to get some change, she gets transformed into a man (Benny Hill) with a puff of magical smoke. He/She gets distracted by the sounds and music from Chez When and heads inside, finding a seat up front where he/she can enjoy the acts and get lost in fantasies with the female performers. Snatching his/her cap from a seat b another patron (Len Keyes), he/she looks up to the Angels singing Girls, Girls, Girls with the Angels in sailor and streetwalker costumes. He/she fantasizes about meeting one of the dancers (Tracy Smith) at a yard party while trying to protect her plate of food from getting crushed, but he/she ends up crushing it himself. Coming out of the fantasy, he/she ends up crushing his/her hat in a seat.
A beautiful French singer (Louise English) next comes out singing La Vie En Rose, and he/she dreams of being married to her and seeing her in lingerie, but the fantasy turns dark when he/she learns she's poisoning him to run off with her lover (Jon Jon Keefe). Coming out of it, he finds himself/herself being jostled awake by the guy from the dream. He/She also finds him being served the poisonous mushrooms from the dream.
In the last act, the singer joins the Angels in red dresses to perform Last Tango while a patron (Bob Todd) puts the moves on another female patron (Anna Dawson). The fantasies go on as the dreamer imagines himself doing the Tango with one of the dancers (Katie Randall) with several sight gags and visual illusions along with bouncing her off the tables. Once the act is over, he/she races around to the back entrance of the club waiting for all the Angels to depart, but out of make-up (and the nice clothes) they're all old and ugly hags. Returning to the change machine, he/she puts another coin in and turns back to herself.
Trivia[]
- The opening and closing uses "Itchy Feet" by Sam Fonteyn, from the KPM library.
- This sketch seems to be a remake/reboot of the Girls Girls Girls Nightclub in A Packed Program.
- As Speedy Zapper , Benny also does a "sex change" when he turns himself into Jenny Lee Wright in Undercover Sanitary Inspector.
- Len Keyes, Bob Todd, Jon Jon Keefe, Henry McGee and Anna Dawson (?) play patrons in the picnic segment.
- Louise singing "La Vie En Rose" has to be one of her top moments in the series.
- Louise's rendition of "Last Tango" was based on Sylvie Vartan's cover as performed on "The Monte Carlo Show," which Benny parodied on January 6, 1982 as "The Monte Carbolic Show."
- Benny does the famous bit "drink from the bottle, not-the-spoon" bit Spanky McFarland did in the Our Gang short "Hook and Ladder." He also did it in Grand Wheelchair Rally.
