The Nesbit Brothers, music hall entertainers

The Nesbit Brothers earned a modest living on the British music hall circuit at the beginning of the twentieth century. As this picture suggests their act involved pulling faces in a broken mirror and laughing at the results.

Their act ended in 1914 amid widespread audience indifference after the mirror they had used in their act was broken backstage. Shortly afterwards, the First World War began. To this day, music hall historians remain convinced that the two events were completely unrelated.

The execution of John Haigh

The last execution in the United Kingdom took place in 1964.

Up until that time, public executions were a popular form of live entertainment, second only to association football and ballroom dancing.

This snap, from 1949, at the hanging of the 'acid bath murderer', John Haigh, shows regular spectators, Elsie and Bert Nesbit enjoying the spectacle.

Elsie and Bert rarely missed an execution, until Elsie's death in 1957.

Bert was hung for Elsie's murder in 1960.

Lord Arbuthnot Nesbit

Lord Arbuthnot Nesbit was a leading Conservative party thinker in the 1970's whose policies did much to inform the work of Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

Lord Nesbit is perhaps best remembered for his policy of burying the children of working class parents

Five Bad Apples

The talentless and unattractive Theakston brothers, from Newcastle, launched a short-lived attempt at pop superstardom in the wake of the success of early 1970's family singing groups like the Osmonds and the Jacksons.

Taking enormous pride in their almost complete lack of musical ability, dress sense or sex appeal the Theakstons boasted that while the Osmonds had the teeth and the Jacksons had the dance moves, they had the previous convictions for burglary and affray.

Their short-lived and largely unmourned showbusiness career ended amid acrimony following an underwhelming performance on the TV talent show 'New Faces' where the one of the judges, the band leader, Jack Parnell, was particularly scathing about their act.

Rupert St John Nesbit, radio producer

Rupert St John Nesbit (1919 - 1976) was an under-achieving radio producer responsible for some of the BBC's most baffling programming in the immediate post-war period.

Rupert, who pioneered the coverage of backgammon on the radio was perhaps best known for the series, 'An uncomfortable silence with...'. This long-running Radio Four series brought together two prominent personalities of the time with absolutely nothing in common to sit in silence in front of an invited audience.

This photograph from the 1971 Christmas edition of the programme features Jimmy Saville, a prominent Radio One disc jockey and Enoch Powell, the maverick anti-immigration right-wing politician.

Cromwell Nesbit

Overcrowding in London's flats has long been a problem for flat dwellers.


One of the worst landlords in Britain was Cromwell Nesbit (1890 - 1980) came to prominence as a slum landlord in the 1950's. Jacob graduated from renting a small condemned propoerty to an immigant family to owning huge swatches of cnetral London and contributing to the housing crisis.



Nesbit was also proud of running a prostitute ring and a number of illegal gamblings dens. Nesbit finally outstayed his welcome as a junior minister in Mrs Thatcher's goverment

Colin Nesbit, Michael Jackson impersonator

The passing resemblance of a London policeman, Colin Nesbit, to the self-proclaimed 'King of Pop', Michael Jackson, ensured a healthy living on the British celebrity lookalike circuit for a number of years.

Colin (seen in the foreground of this 1987 picture wearing a sash and with a gloved hand aloft) was mobbed by fans on his way to collecting some dry cleaning.

Sadly, 33 people were hospitalised when fans broke through the police cordon. To add to Colin's disappointment, the dry cleaners were unable to remove the troublesome stain in the pair of slacks which he had taken in.

Clifford 'Bobo' Nesbit, film director

Clifford 'Bobo' Nesbit (1901 - 1950) was a film director whose career was cut short by a lack of any discernable talent.

Clifford cut his his teeth on a series of documentary newsreels for British Movietone News before graduating to directing a series of cheaply-made and unmemorable movie farces in the early 1940's. These films, including 'Monkeying Around', 'Yes, We Have No Bananas' and 'More Monkeying Around' did nothing to raise the morale of the British public in the early days of World War Two.

Clifford's movie career, whose movie career was convinced that his fall from grace was due t0 prejudice, faded from the public eye following his affair with Cynthia Berryman, a gorilla married star of one of his films

Arthur Nesbit, film publicist

Film publicist Arthur Nesbit (1931 - 1999) proudly displayed his mediocrity during a long and utterly nondescript career in the British film industry.


Here is one of the few surviving shots of Arthur's largely forgotten work - Woody Allen seen here looking underwhelmed as he advertises his new film, 'Take The Money and Run'.