The Lilely Lads

[Mark Taylor]

Last Saturday I bought a DVD of ‘The Likely Lads’ television programme. In one of the episodes, from 1964, there is a scene where an actress is lying on a sofa listening to records and the record covers are strewn across the floor. Among the LPs is Virgil Fox’s ‘Silhouettes’, from 1960.

 

I may be reading too much into this, but it raised the question for me of just how big a star Virgil Fox was in the UK in the 1960s, and to what extent he might have had a wider public, outside the organ world. I don’t recall his name from the time (but I was only seven in 1964). Does anyone who was there, and can remember the sixties, have a view?

[Vox Humana]

I was there, watched an awful lot of television (including that series) and listened to a fair amount of The Third Programme, the predecessor of Radio 3. I remember being aware of Fox's name, but am not sure I ever heard him play (it is quite possible that I did and dismissed it as the sort of playing with which I did not want to be doing). I was not aware of him being any sort of star - though that could conceivably be due purely to disengagement on my part. Maybe he had a higher profile on The Light Programme?