Arts and Culture

One of the UK's best known pantomime dames Jack Tripp has been recognised with an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Each January the publication adds 200 biographies of people who died in a given year and this time it focuses on 2005.

And Plymouth-born Tripp's entry appears alongside Sir Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Robin Cook and Mo Mowlam.

Jack Tripp and Roy Hudd in Mother Goose

Tripp started his theatrical career doing imitations of Felix the Cat at the age of three and rose to become one of the country's foremost pantomime dames.

Born in February 1922, he was the only son of baker William Tripp and his wife, Lilian.

And although the family had no theatrical connections they loved Music Hall and went to Plymouth's Palace Theatre on Union Street every Monday night, where the dancing acts always caught the young Jack's eye.

His own dancing talent became apparent when he attended tap-dancing classes with his sisters and began appearing in local clubs billed as Plymouth's Fred Astaire.

He attended Plymouth public secondary school then during World War II, while serving with the Royal Electrical Engineers, he directed his first forces revue, That's the Spirit, which gave vent to his many talents.

He joined the Stars in Battledress unit and went on to perform in Europe and the Middle East where he established himself as a talented performer.

He first played a dame - the part for which he became best known - in 1959, at the Alhambra in Glasgow, and went on to play the role 35 time.

And at least three of those appearances were in his home city of Plymouth.

Jack Tripp appeared in Plymouth several times

Theatre dresser Sylvia Blackler - who dressed Tripp on his visits to the city's Theatre Royal - remembers him as "a real gentleman".

"He was the first person I ever dressed at the theatre and was just lovely from the start," says Sylvia.

"He used to tell me about growing up in Plymouth and delivering bread for his father around Plymouth on his bike.

"He was often in the pantomime with Roy Hudd and they were just magnificent together, their famous mirror routine was just so funny."

And Hudd, who wrote and directed all Tripp's later Christmas shows, has said he regarded him as "the best Dame there is".

In 1996 he was made an MBE for services to pantomime.

"The criteria for inclusion in the dictionary are broad," explained Dr Lawrence Goldman, who edited the dictionary.

"We are interested in people who are now remembered for shaping all aspects of national life, be this in politics, the arts, or science, or in more popular areas such as sport, film, television, and theatre.

"Jack Tripp exemplifies this interest in the diversity of national life.

"He gains his place as one of the 20th Century's greatest actors in pantomime, a much-loved, and very British, form of entertainment."