Lancaster University is holding a comedy-related event to mark Eric Morecambe's 100th birthday, coinciding with Mental Health Awareness Week (11 to 17 May).

The event, hosted by the Special Collections and Archives team in relation to the Jack Hylton Archive, features ‘An audience with Peter Jetson’, the resident organist at Morecambe’s Winter Gardens who worked with many of the great names in British comedy.

He will talk about his time in the entertainment business, perform on the banjolele and open the floor to questions from the audience.

Afterwards, keeper of the Archives and Special Collections at Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York, Gary Brannan, will give a talk about their own Eric Morecambe materials.

And later, Lancaster University’s Special Collections and Archives Manager Katie Waring will share more about the Jack Hylton archive.

Jack Hylton – band leader turned impresario – discovered the 12-year-old Eric Bartholomew (later renamed Morecambe after his hometown) during auditions for his touring youth revue ‘Youth Takes a Bow’. The show also featured Ernie Wise, who at the age of 13 had already worked on shows produced by Hylton.

During the tour, Hylton was persuaded to put the two young stars together, where the ‘Morecambe & Wise’ double act was born.

After Hylton’s death in 1965, his family wanted to organise a memorial concert to raise funds for a cause to help musicians in his home county of Lancashire (he was born in Greater Lever near Bolton).

They chose the newly founded Lancaster University, and the funds they raised were used to support the construction of the Jack Hylton Music Room in the Great Hall Complex.

Jack’s archives were stored in the Adelphi Theatre, one of several London theatres he managed in his career. When the theatre was sold in the late 1980s, materials relating to his music and theatrical production career were donated to Lancaster University, comprising of over 120 metres of musical arrangements, promotional materials, and photographs.

The event will host a small display of these materials from the Jack Hylton collection on Morecambe and Wise and will take place in the Events Space at Lancaster University Library on Wednesday 13 May at 2.30pm.

Register online: https://lancaster-uk.libcal.com/event/4519677