Charles Penrose (entertainer) a character actor in a number of films in the 1930s and 1940s. Charles Penrose died of heart disease on 17 November 1952 at the Princess Beatrice Hospital, Kensington, aged 79. Charles Penrose (entertainer) Charles Penrose (born Charles Penrose Dunbar Cawse; 11 November 1873 – 17 November 1952) was an English music hall and theatre performer, and later radio comedian, who is best known for his unusual comic song "The Laughing Policeman". He was born in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, the son of a master watchmaker and jeweller. He initially followed his father into the jewellery trade, but enjoyed such success with
Music hall with them the idiom and appurtenances of the minstrel song. Other influences on the rapidly developing music hall idiom were Irish and European music, particularly the jig, polka, and waltz. Typically, a music hall song consists of a series of verses sung by the performer alone, and a repeated chorus which carries the principal melody, and in which the audience is encouraged to join. In Britain, the first music hall songs often promoted the alcoholic wares of the owners of the halls in which they were performed. Songs like "Glorious Beer", and the first major music hall success, "Champagne Charlie"