Peter Skellern presents a series looking at the great piano entertainers.

Born in London in 1902, Mayerl studied classical music before converting to the variety stage, where he joined the Co-Optimists alongside Leslie Henson and Stanley Holloway. A fixture on the radio, he wrote Marigold, which sold more than 150,000 sheet music copies in 1927. During the war he was resident band leader at London's Grosvenor House hotel.