Old Mother Riley was a music hall

Music hall

Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...

 act which originally ran from about 1934 to 1954 played by Arthur Lucan

Arthur Lucan

Arthur Lucan was an English actor who gained fame as Old Mother Riley on stage, radio and also screen, with a series of comedy films between the late 1930s and early 1950s.-Biography:...

, then from 1954 to 1977 by Roy Rolland.

Old Mother Riley was an Irish washerwoman character, devised by Lucan (born Arthur Towle). His wife Kitty McShane

Kitty McShane

Kathleen "Kitty" McShane is best known as the wife and acting partner of Arthur Lucan, with whom she appeared in a series of Old Mother Riley stage shows and films from the 1930s to the 1950s.-Early life:Catherine McShane was the fourth of seventeen children born to Daniel and Kate McShane, of...

 played Old Mother Riley's daughter, Kitty. It was essentially a drag act but also a double act. They were hugely successful at the time, playing music halls, theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

s, radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

 and film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

s. They also gave Jimmy Clitheroe

Jimmy Clitheroe

James Robinson Clitheroe was a British comic entertainer. He never grew any taller than 4 feet 3 inches, and could easily pass for an 11-year-old boy, the character he played in The Clitheroe Kid....

 his big break in 1939 in an Old Mother Riley pantomime called The Old Woman who Lives in a Shoe, and then the following year a part in their film, Old Mother Riley in Society.

After Lucan's death, the Old Mother Riley character was played by Roy Rolland (1921–1977), although occasionally called Old Mother Kelly and, for pantomime

Pantomime

Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...

, Old Mother Goose. Rolland's Old Mother Riley was a regular on the 1970's children's variety show Junior Showtime

Junior Showtime

Junior Showtime was a British variety show for children made by Yorkshire Television and shown on ITV between 1969 and 1974.Presented by Bobby Bennett from the Leeds City Varieties theatre, the show consisted of song and dance routines and was produced by Jess Yates...

, and at the end of his life he performed with Danny La Rue

Danny La Rue

Danny La Rue, OBE was an Irish-born British entertainer known for his singing and drag impersonations.-Early life:...

, who played daughter Kitty.

Old Mother Riley is referenced in the Kinks song "The Village Green Preservation Society" from their 1968 album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society

The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society

The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society is the sixth studio album by the English rock group The Kinks, released in November 1968. It was the last album by the original quartet, as bassist Pete Quaife left the group in early 1969...

.

The Old Mother Riley films

Made on a minuscule budget, but extremely profitable, 16 of the 17 films made by Arthur Lucan featured Old Mother Riley:

• Old Mother Riley
  Old Mother Riley (film)
  Old Mother Riley is a 1937 British comedy film directed by Oswald Mitchell and starring Arthur Lucan, Kitty McShane, Barbara Everest, Patrick Ludlow and Hubert Leslie...
  
  (1937)
• Kathleen Mavourneen
  Kathleen Mavourneen (film)
  Kathleen Mavourneen is a 1937 British-Irish musical drama film directed by Norman Lee and starring Sally O'Neil, Tom Burke and Jack Daly. It features the character of Old Mother Riley who appeared in her own series.-Cast:* Sally O'Neil – Kathleen O'Moore...
  
  (1937)
• Old Mother Riley MP (1938)
• Old Mother Riley in Paris
  Old Mother Riley in Paris
  Old Mother Riley in Paris is a 1938 British comedy film directed by Oswald Mitchell and starring Arthur Lucan, Kitty McShane, Magda Kun and C. Denier Warren...
  
  (1938)
• Old Mother Riley Joins Up
  Old Mother Riley Joins Up
  Old Mother Riley Joins Up is a 1940 British comedy film directed by Maclean Rogers and starring Arthur Lucan, Kitty McShane, Garry Marsh and Bruce Seton. It was part of the long-running Old Mother Riley series.-Cast:* Arthur Lucan ... Mrs. Riley...
  
  (1939)
• Old Mother Riley in Society (1940)
• Old Mother Riley in Business
  Old Mother Riley in Business
  Old Mother Riley in Business is a 1941 British comedy film directed by John Baxter and starring Arthur Lucan, Kitty McShane and Cyril Chamberlain. It was part of the long-running Old Mother Riley series of films. Old Mother Riley's pub faces competition from a large chain store nearby, causing her...
  
  (1940)
• Old Mother Riley's Circus
  Old Mother Riley's Circus
  Old Mother Riley's Circus is a 1941 British comedy film directed by Thomas Bentley and starring Arthur Lucan, Kitty McShane and John Longden. Old Mother Riley takes over a struggling circus and makes a huge success of it.-Cast:* Arthur Lucan – Mrs...
  
  (1941)
• Old Mother Riley's Ghosts
  Old Mother Riley's Ghosts
  Old Mother Riley's Ghosts is a 1941 British comedy film directed by John Baxter and starring Arthur Lucan, Kitty McShane and John Stuart. It was part of the long-running Old Mother Riley series. Old Mother Riley inherits a castle in Scotland, but it appears to be haunted.-Cast:* Arthur Lucan ... ...
  
  (1941)
• Old Mother Riley Overseas
  Old Mother Riley Overseas
  Old Mother Riley Overseas is a 1943 British comedy film directed by Oswald Mitchell and starring Arthur Lucan, Kitty McShane and Anthony Holles. Old Mother Riley relocates to Portugal.-Cast:* Arthur Lucan ... Mrs. Riley* Kitty McShane ... Kitty Riley...
  
  (1943)
• Old Mother Riley Detective
  Old Mother Riley Detective
  Old Mother Riley Detective is a 1943 British comedy film directed by Lance Comfort and starring Arthur Lucan, Kitty McShane and Hal Gordon. It was part of the long running Old Mother Riley series. Old Mother Riley investigates the disappearance of food during the war, a serious crime because of...
  
  (1943)
• Old Mother Riley at Home
  Old Mother Riley at Home
  Old Mother Riley at Home is a 1945 British comedy film directed by Oswald Mitchell and starring Arthur Lucan, Kitty McShane and Freddie Forbes.-Cast:* Arthur Lucan - Mrs Riley* Kitty McShane - Kitty Riley* Freddie Forbes - Mr Bumpton...
  
  (1945)
• Old Mother Riley's New Venture (1949)
• Old Mother Riley Headmistress (1950)
• Old Mother Riley's Jungle Treasure (1951)
• Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (1952) – stars Bela Lugosi
  Béla Lugosi
  Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...
  
  .

At the time of Lucan's death he was scheduled to film Old Mother Riley's Trip to Mars.