Skip to content
Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy
Promotional art for The Story Of Walter And Herbert
Cover image credit: Promotional image via Comedy Dynamics

The Story Of Walter And Herbert

Joe Bor

Comedy Dynamics · 2021 · 55 min

A personal family history built around an escape from wartime Prague.

Watch on Comedy Dynamics(opens in a new tab)

Joe Bor's first special since A Room With A Jew (2020). Released , on Comedy Dynamics.

Most comedians mining family history for stage material settle for affectionate caricature, but this hour works from a cache of actual wartime correspondence. The core story centers on two young men escaping Nazi-occupied Prague: Walter Bor, who went on to design Milton Keynes as a celebrated town planner, and Herbert Lom, best remembered as Inspector Dreyfus in the Pink Panther movies.

Bor builds the show around a vintage typewriter, archival photographs, and letters, framing the escape not as cinematic heroism but as a string of absurd bureaucratic headaches and desperate luck. Lom made it to Britain first and secured the paperwork that pulled Walter out. Between reading fragments of their correspondence, in which Lom complains about the British habit of inserting profanity into every sentence, Bor cuts away to recorded video clips of his own father casually deflating his attempts to turn the family genealogy into art.

Filmed at artsdepot in North London and released in 2021 through NextUp and Comedy Dynamics, the 55-minute performance originated at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it was picked up as a Guardian Recommended show. At the time, Bor was primarily known around the UK circuit for club compere duties, warm-up work on television panel shows, and character comedy.

The contrast between the historical gravity and the pedestrian realities of domestic life gives the show its texture. A bit about a toddler defining grandfathers as bald men who enjoy a sit-down sits directly alongside accounts of fascist troop movements.

Notable bits & set list

5 bits

  1. Bor's toddler son gives his candid perspective on what grandfathers are like.

    Introduces the show via video footage of his son in the back of the car describing grandads as being bald, liking gardening, and enjoying a good sit down.

  2. Herbert Lom's real birth name versus his adopted stage name.

    Contrasts Lom's birth name—Herbert Charles Angelo Kuchačevič ze Schluderpacheru—with the snappy three-letter surnames both Lom and Walter Bor adopted to start anew in Britain.

  3. Herbert Lom's earliest impressions upon arriving in the United Kingdom.

    Quotes letters from Lom observing that in the UK, every other spoken word appeared to be either 'bloody' or 'f---ing'.

  4. Protesting anti-Semitism within the UK Labour Party.

    Jokes that Labour Party members cutting up their membership cards in protest ought to do so by cutting a bit off the end.

  5. Vox pop reactions from Bor's father regarding Joe's comedy efforts.

    Uses projected video interludes of his father delivering tongue-in-cheek put-downs and critiques of his son's historical show.

How it plays

Tone
Heart-warming, gentle, moving, personal, and uplifting.
On stage
Warm, amiable, and charming storyteller presenting an open, emotionally vulnerable stage presence.
Pace
Reasonably fast-paced narrative delivery with precise timing, contrasting a measured, gentle delivery against typical high-energy Fringe standup.
About
The lifelong friendship of Walter Bor and Herbert Lom, Escape from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, Holocaust remembrance and family heritage, Town planning and Hollywood acting careers, Male friendship, banter, and estrangement

What the critics said

Reviewed as a touching, engaging, and delightfully gentle narrative comedy show that gracefully navigated difficult historical tragedy and family affection, though some reviewers felt it relied slightly too heavily on projected visual aids.

In the room: Warm and emotionally invested room dynamic, with Edinburgh audiences reacting affectionately to family recordings.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: comedy.co.uk, tv.apple.com, allmovie.com, comedydynamics.com, londontheatre1.com, list.co.uk, threeweeksedinburgh.com, darkchat.co.uk, lumierevod.obs.coe.int.

Backstory

Recounts the perilous World War II escape of Bor's paternal grandfather, town planner Walter Bor, and comedy actor Herbert Lom from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia to the UK. Developed after Bor discovered family letters and his grandfather's unpublished autobiography, and framed as an emotional apology for taking his grandfather for granted in his youth as well as a commemoration of Holocaust victims.

Details

Released
Taped
Finchley Arts Depot, London
Runtime
55 min
Where
Comedy Dynamics
Director
Joe Bor
Topics
Before
A Room With A Jew (2020)

More from Joe Bor

Similar specials