Eli Woods, who has died aged 91, was one of the last links to the great era of twice-nightly British variety theatre. A stooped and gangling figure with a long, lugubrious face and permanently gaping mouth, clad in flapping trousers, too-tight jacket and deerstalker hat, he had a stammer which he exaggerated to tremendous comic effect. Woods spent his early career as a stooge for his uncle, Jimmy James, the innovative music-hall comedian who eschewed traditional jokes in favour of elaborate and surreal flights of fancy and was revered in the business as "the comedian's comedian".
James, too unusual and often unpredictable to reach the highest pinnacle of stardom, but cherished by discerning audiences as well as fellow pros, mostly improvised around two or three basic sketches, supported by a pair of grotesque individuals the belligerent Hutton Conyers, who always arrived on stage shouting "Are you putting it around that I'm barmy?" and the gormless Bretton Woods, who got the biggest laughs with his wonderfully timed, stuttering interpolations. The role of Bretton Woods was taken by Eli Woods; Conyers was often played by James's son (and Woods's cousin), Jim Casey, and later by Roy Castle.
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