with Evelyn Dall
Sam Browne
Vera Lynn
Max Bacon
The Manhattan Three and A Section of the BBC Men's Chorus
Ambrose was taken by his aunt to America when he was only fourteen. Within six months he got a job as a fiddler in a straight orchestra. He turned to dance music and was engaged as second violin in the fashionable New York Palais Royal. The leader fell ill and Ambrose led the band.
He was invited to take his own orchestra to the De Vingt Club. After two years there he returned to England, played for two years at the Embassy Club, went back to America to open a new restaurant, came back to the Embassy, and went on to the May Fair.
For today's special Christmas broadcast his band will consist of twenty-five instrumentalists, and the programme will include an arrangement lasting 61 minutes of his signature tune ' When Day is Done ' ; a medley introducing numbers made famous by Ambrose ; a sketch with music entitled ' A Visit to a Cinema ' ; and a selection of Christmas carols, including 'Jingle Bells ' and ' Good King Wenceslas ', sung by the BBC Men's Chorus.