The whizz stirrer-up

‘Professor’ Bruce Lacey (born 1927) is one of those figures who has existed effectively on the periphery of the art world for more than half a century. Part licensed jester, part society’s conscience, Lacey operates best on the fringes, stirring things up, provoking thought and challenging preconceptions, a lightning conductor for comment and criticism. Before this exhibition, I associated him principally with the Kitchen Sink painters (John Bratby used to describe him as ‘a whizz’) and the type of idiosyncratic humour best exemplified by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.

In fact, the ‘Prof’ appeared with The Alberts, a subversive neo-Edwardian jazz band and forerunners of the Bonzos, in a cabaret called An Evening of British Rubbish, much admired by the American comic Lenny Bruce, sending up what the performers saw as the pomposity of Empire, the Army and even the Union Jack itself. (A radical poster based on the flag, and designed by John Sewell for the show at the Comedy Theatre, forms part of a prologue of posters in Camden’s foyer.)