Saturday, July 23rd, 2011
I wish I could see my little Willy is an exhibition of seaside postcards by Donald McGill. McGill was prosecuted for obscenity a number of times in his career and his postcards were seized and burned. This is an opportunity to see why Margate magistrates, among others, decided that the postcards were too offensive for the public.
It’s also, more than that, a chance to see the work of a comedy genius. The imagination required to come up with this level of high quality innuendo for so long is staggering. It’s one of the most entertaining exhibitions you’ll see all year, with postcards that will make you laugh out loud.
Find out more about the exhibition on the Pie Factory’s website or on the event’s Facebook page, where you’re invited to look out for lifesize cutouts of figures from the postcards situated around Margate. If you find one, take a photo and upload it with a caption. The winner with the funniest caption has guaranteed immunity from prosecution for obscenity.
The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of talks at The Margate Museum on Sat 23rd July 2pm and Sat 30th July 2pm. The Dreamland website has more details.
I wish I could see my little Willy is at the Pie Factory, Margate, and runs until 3rd August.
There. We got through that without a single innuendo of our own. Which was quite hard, given its length.
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Haven’t seen this yet as I was on holiday when it opened (though I did go to the McGill gallery in Ryde!) Is it all McGill, or just banned seaside postcards generally? I ask because that one above, which they’re using to promote the show, is actually by Bob Wilkin (signature’s a bit fuzzy, but it’s not McGill). McGill did do a version of this though, don’t know who was first but I expect he was.
Here’s a preview I wrote at the Professional Cartoonists Organisation blog:
http://thebloghorn.org/2011/07/18/obscene-postcards-you-be-the-judge/
Hmmm. Good point. Didn’t McGill do a version of this postcard as well? I think there was more than one at the exhibition.
I hate it when people who know what they’re talking about come on the site. It makes the rest of us look shabby.
Ha, sorry about that. Yes he did do this joke too. There were two at the gallery in Ryde, but in those the joke was quite innocently about not being able to see the child — i.e. the names were not Willy and in one the fat character was a woman!
Maybe the added double-entendre was only in versions by McGill’s imitators (I’m speculating here as I haven’t seen the Margate show yet!) Or McGill may have done it himself later as he often “recycled” ideas.
I believe there’s a version at the Pie Factory where he can’t see his little Johnny. Unfortunately, my mind was so corrupted by the rest of the show that I saw a double-entendre there too. I think they should ban them.
ha ha hoist by your own petard Isleone. Had to look it up for correct spelling & learnt all about petards in the process, isn’t the internet wonderful
& before anybody clever points it out I know the original from Shakespeare was was ‘with your’ not ‘by your’.
I think the original was ‘up yours’.
I wrote a piece on the Margate show, plus the Donald McGill Museum in Ryde, Isle of Wightm for September issue of The Jester, newsletter of the Cartoonists’ Club.
It’s also on my blog, you can see it here:
http://bit.ly/rjSJ9Q
Isle of Wight. Not Wightm. I’ve no idea where Wightm is.
And an excellent article it is too.