The obituarist for "The Manchester Guardian" wrote that Formby was one of the "great " of the music hall whose humour "always seemed to take its rise in a sympathetic perception of human vanities and weaknesses". "The Dundee Courier" considered him a great comedian, made all the greater by his continuing to perform through his illness, while the drama critic J. T. Grein, writing in "The Illustrated London News", thought that Formby, "along with , Robey and , formed the leading quartette of the profession".