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The OMRALAS is dedicated to Arthur Lucan and Old Mother Riley, and is endorsed by Arthur's family.

For information and membership details contact:

 These are as follows:

The Old Mother Riley, Arthur Lucan Appreciation Society is determined to establish an authentic reference database to promote, educate and inform admirers present and future.>

Events and Newsletters :

 OMRALAS envisages two gatherings a year - May and September - at locations associated with Arthur and Kitty McShane with newsletters to keep members informed.

There was a service on Sunday 16 September 2001, on what would have been Arthur's 116th birthday, at the church in Sibsey, Lincolnshire to launch the society. 

The following is an article which appeared on the Boston Today website prior to the church service :

COMEDY FANS PAY TRIBUTE

At Sibsey Church on Sunday up to 100 people will gather to pay homage to one of the finest comedians of the 20th century.

They will be there to launch the Old Mother Riley/Arthur Lucan Appreciation Society, the brainchild of Mary Todd, a life-long fan of the late actor and comedian.

Lucan fans from all over the country are expected to converge on the quaint village church, where the mercurial stage performer was baptised in a private service in the autumn of 1885.

The launch which will feature a number of readings and hymns, and coincide with Lucan´s birthday on September 16 will usher in a series of Old Mother Riley appreciation days all over the British Isles.

Said Mary: "We´ll be meeting in venues which are connected with the life and career of Arthur in some way.

"The Tivoli Theatre in Hull, for example, will be our next port of call it was in the wings of the Tivoli stage that Arthur died suddenly aged 69.

"We´ll also be going to Dublin, where many of Arthur´s descendants live. The idea is to give Lucan fans from all over the country the chance to come to our meetings."

Mary says Lucan born Arthur Towle was loved by all his contemporaries ´because he was such an incredible actor and left everyone with such fond memories´.

He had first toured with his wife Kitty McShane, who played the perfect foil to Lucan´s madcap Irish washerwoman Mrs Flynn, whose name Lucan later changed to the now-legendary Old Mother Riley.

The famous stage duo will form the basis of an interpretive history programme Mary is working on aside from her appreciation society. The project will be taken to schools in the region and give children a chance to dress up as Old Mother Riley and Kitty McShane.

Her new society, meanwhile, will have a rather unusual thread running throughout it: the number three.

Explained Mary: "Everything we do will be based around the number three, because one of the things that sticks in the minds of Old Mother Riley fans is when Arthur, waiting for Kitty to come on stage, said, "Oh, it´s one o´clock three times."

"It was a different way of saying three o´clock, and is very significant to Lucan fans, hence the unveiling of the Blue Plaque at Shodfriars Hall at 3pm, and my telephone number ending 003."

Mary, who has set up a database for the society from information sent to her by Old Mother Riley fans, says Lucan was first and foremost an actor and scriptwriter.

He wrote all his own scripts and as such became an unprecedented stage act and the doyen of music halls, theatres and cinemas the world over.

"Lucan was on a par with, and in many ways very similar to, the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Norman Wisdom," said Mary.

"He created a completely original character in Old Mother Riley, and was able to give a great deal of laughter and pleasure to countless people, especially during the dark days of the Second World War."

The appreciation society, added Mary, would be holding two gatherings a year one in May, the month in which Lucan died, and another in September, the month of his birth.

"It's going to be very challenging to find locations around the UK," said Mary. "We´ll be looking for venues such as theatres Arthur and Kitty appeared in, and film locations Arthur worked on."

The first gathering will be in Boston next spring, and in May 2004 the society will commemorate the 50th anniversary of Arthur´s death. In between times the society will spend a weekend in Dublin, the birthplace of Kitty McShane.

Added Mary: "The first gathering on Sunday will be the most important, and we´ve got some nice little touches in store for the guests such as a celebration cake donated by Shephard´s of Wide Bargate.

"I´m hoping the usual Sibsey congregation also turn up, because they´re just as much a part of this as anyone else. They´re a lovely lot down there and deserve the chance to pay homage to Arthur. He was, after all, a dyed-in-the-wool Sibsey lad."

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Arthur Lucan in his familiar Old Mother Riley garb.

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