This caricature shows Claude Dampier (1885-1955) at the Oxford New Theatre in August 1937. It was drawn by Gilbert Sommerlad (1904-1976), a rehearsal pianist and orchestral violinist at the Brighton Theatre Royal from 1932 until 1936, and at the Oxford New Theatre from 1936 for over forty years. Sommerlad sketched the stars on stage when he wasn't needed in the orchestra pit, compiling the sketches in a series of albums.

Billed as 'The Professional Idiot', Claude Dampier, originally Claude Cowan, was a popular stage and radio comedian whose comedy persona was that of a slow-witted, provincial type. His gimmick, said to have been developed by accident, was to address a fictitious member of the audience whom he called Mrs Gibson. In 1936, 1937 and 1939 he appeared in some early television comedy sketches with his wife Billie Carlyle, who performed as his 'straight-woman'. He made numerous films in the 1930s, and was seen as Joe Tutt in his last film, Meet Mr Malcolm, released in 1954.