parts." These shows played in the West End and on tour in the UK, and in 1925 the Hulberts made their Broadway debut in their current revue, By-the-Way. The New York Times found the show "beguiling". The fourth in the series, Clowns in Clover, contained one of Courtneidge's most celebrated sketches, "Double Damask", by Dion Titheradge, in which her character, Mrs. Spooner, and two shop assistants become entangled in tongue-twisters. When Courtneidge's 1932 recording of the sketch was reissued in 1972, The Gramophone said, "it is an enduring classic comedy sketch as funny now as it was then". In 1931 Courtneidge and Hulbert suffered a serious setback when they discovered that their financial manager had been speculating with their money, suffering heavy losses and putting their business into liquidation. Hulbert accepted responsibility for all the business's debts and undertook to repay every creditor. To achieve this, he and Courtneidge temporarily went their separate professional ways, reasoning that they could earn more as individual stars than as a double act. A boom in the film industry enabled both to earn large sums; Courtneidge appeared in 11 British films and one Hollywood film in the 1930s. She was amused to find that in eight weeks in a film studio she could earn more than she could in a year in the theatre. She and Hulbert managed to work together on several films, including The Ghost Train (1931) and Jack's the Boy (1932). During this period, Courtneidge and Hulbert made gramophone records for Columbia and HMV. Both made solo recordings, and Courtneidge recorded songs and sketches with other artists, including Leo Sheffield, and Ivor McLaren and Lawrence Green, with whom she recorded "Double Damask" in 1932. With Hulbert, she recorded such numbers as "Why has a cow got four legs". She also recorded Noel Gay's "There's Something About a Soldier", which she sang in Soldiers of the King (1933). Courtneidge's solo discs include another of her most celebrated sketches, "Laughing Gas" (1931). Courtneidge did not return to the theatre until October 1937, playing the dual roles of Mabel and her daughter Sally in the musical Hide and Seek, co-starring with Bobby Howes, produced by Hulbert. "We are very much amused," said The Times. Courtneidge and Hulbert were finally reunited as a stage act in Under Your Hat, a spy story co-written by Hulbert, with music and lyrics by Vivian Ellis. According to Pepys-Whiteley,