Ade Edmondson: Mr Versatile

While at university, the most popular TV programme amongst fellow students must have been Not the Nine o’Clock News.  It seemed different from anything we’d seen before, with stars not much older than we were. Within six months of graduating, even that iconic show was made to look ancient by the arrival of The Young Ones.

The situation comedy rule book had been ripped up, incinerated and buried beneath a mile of concrete, and yet it was hilarious. Still is. The characters, whilst a tad cartoonish, were nonetheless recognisable amongst undergraduate acquaintances, which was down to the observation and brilliance of main writers Ben Elton, Lise Mayer and Rik Mayall and the cast of then-unknowns, Mayall, Ade Edmondson, Nigel Planer and, once Peter Richardson bailed out, Christopher Ryan.

The series was surreal and subversive yet remaining true to both its sitcom roots and the ‘alternative comedy’ circuit which spawned it. When BBC2 first screened it in November 1982, I recognised a few of the actors from another memorable slice of laugh-out-loud comedy shown on Channel 4’s launch night the previous week, The Comic Strip Presents…Five Go Mad in Dorset. In particular there was the psycho-punk Vyvyan from The Young Ones playing Dick. This was Ade Edmondson, and since then he has rarely been off our screens.

For much of the Eighties and Nineties, he was inextricably linked to Rik Mayall, a crazy double-act to complement their mates French and Saunders who had portrayed Anne and George in Five Go Mad…. To be honest, it’s Mayall who stands out the most. He’s the force of nature with the flaring nostrils, boggly eyes, most extravagant gestures and showy delivery, whether as The New Statesman’s Alan B’stard or Blackadder’s Flashheart. And yet it’s Edmondson who enters my personal lounge of legends. It doesn’t help that Mayall died tragically young in 2014, not by an exploding gas oven or head-on collision with a frying pan, but a heart attack. It’s just that Ade has slowly but surely evolved into one of England’s most lovable, quintessentially British character actors and all-round good eggs.

His stage persona has always been a bit bonkers. In The Young Ones, I tended to side with pompous poet Rik rather than the Hawkwind studded double-denim-wearing Ade but, along with Planer’s hippy Neil, they shared out the best lines, as in this classic routine. He always made the most dramatically violent entrances and of course Vyv was the character who literally lost his head after sticking his head out of a train window – as you do – before kicking it along the tracks.

Slapstick violence was very much his bag. Even when arriving for his interview with Wogan in 1985, Edmondson struck a blow for the new wave by crashing through the studio ‘wall’. Let’s face it, with Mayall, The Dangerous Brothers were constantly behaving – well – dangerously on that other showpiece of mid-Eighties alternative comedy, Saturday Live. And then there was Bottom. Yes, it was frequently crude, rude and showed a shameful disregard for the welfare of TV sets and household implements, but I loved it.

A few years earlier, much of the same Young Ones crew had been involved in Filthy, Rich and Catflap which has survived more as a footnote than a chapter heading in the history of British comedy. Personally I think that’s a shame. Written again by Ben Elton, Ade played the alcoholic minder to Rik’s talentless TV personality in a series which cleverly ripped the piss out of the old-school luvvies like Tarby and Spike Milligan who had so vehemently criticised the alternative comedians who were threatening their careers. Perhaps it lacked the loveable and identifiable characters, but the slapstick was ever-present and I preferred it to Elton’s more successful nineties comedy Thin Blue Line which starred Rowan Atkinson. It also gave us the Catflap catchphrase “Oo-er, sounds a bit rude” which I have been known to trot out on occasions. Thanks again, Ade.

Of course, this isn’t the kind of comedy one can sustain well into middle age. He could also do ‘proper’ acting, be it on screen or stage. Though I watched him star in a 1990 BBC Screen One film News Hounds, I can’t remember him as another lead. While contemporaries like Emma Thompson, Robbie Coltrane, Rowan Atkinson et al made it big, dear old Ade has enjoyed an enduring career as supporting actor and entertaining gameshow staple.

In the Noughties, Edmondson claimed a recurring role in Jonathan Creek and, though I didn’t watch it, Holby City and in recent years I have welcomed his appearance in thrillers like ITV’s 2014 thriller Prey and 2017’s Bancroft (in each case almost unrecognisable as a top cop), the Beeb’s One of Us and this year’s Cheat in which we all willed him not to become the villain’s next victim, not necessarily out of loyalty to his character but because he was Ade Edmondson, for heaven’s sake. He can’t die!

Unsurprisingly he has enthusiastically embraced the modern mania for celebrity challenges, demonstrating along the way what an admirable all-rounder he is. Back in the Eighties I watched Ade sing and play guitar in the guise of Vim Fuego in The Comic Strip’s Bad News, which Ade also wrote. I daresay he was no Eric Clapton but he wasn’t miming when they recorded albums (produced by Brian May, no less) and performed genuine gigs, including the 1986 Monsters of Rock festival. As a mockurockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap was funnier but Bad News got there first.

He didn’t only play guitar. I was in the Orchard Theatre audience when his ‘folk punk’ band The Bad Shepherds played Taunton in May 2009. At the gig, Ade introduced himself on ‘thrash mandolin’ which seemed to require tuning every five minutes. Never mind; the pauses were just as entertaining as the music itself. Unfortunately the ensemble has since been disbanded. According to its website, “We'd prefer to leave the whole project as a brilliant memory, rather than flog it to death, and end up being a bit shit”, a perfectly Edmondson-esque explanation.

Apparently he’d also founded a jazz instrumental band in the early Nineties and directed several pop videos, while his latest musical venture is The Idiot Bastard Band. I haven’t heard any of their material but given that it also features Phill Jupitus, Rowland Rivron and Neil Innes, it probably does what it says on the tin.

What I did experience – and I cannot believe it’s fourteen years ago – was Ade’s contribution to Comic Relief Does Fame Academy. His version of the Sixties standard ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ included a manically chaotic chorus which earned him third place in the final. Then-Radio 1 DJ Edith Bowman won, but I bet few remember her ‘Champagne Supernova’. I know I don’t! In 2011, Ade was back on the charity night, this time triumphant in a tutu, dancing the Dying Swan surprisingly well for a 54 year-old bloke.

Since then he has gone on to win Celebrity Masterchef, certainly not part of my TV repertoire, and predictably took on and beat ‘The Beast’ for £100,000 in a Celebrity Chase show last year, which is. It wouldn’t have mattered had he got every answer wrong but of course he’s no fool and also carried the audience with him through sheer fun and personality. Sadly, though, I don’t think the team won the huge prize.

But that sums up Ade Edmondson. Like his marriage to Jennifer Saunders, he is such a durable character, full of Olde English eccentricity. The Young One may now be a sixty-something grandad but the anarchic spirit of Vyvyan lives on. 

Liz Smith - the greatest granny of them all

On some channel somewhere this Christmas there will be at least one festive episode of The Vicar of Dibley and The Royle Family making us chuckle. Appearing in both you’ll probably find Liz Smith, delivering her lines as ever with perfect timing. 

In each of these classic BBC sitcoms she was at least in her seventies and yet she seems to have been playing grans, nannas and loveable landladies throughout my life.

As a youngster, I felt an affinity with a fellow Smith but I was tickled by her real name. I bet she’d have achieved just as much had she stuck with Betty Gleadle! Liz/Betty would already have been approaching fifty when she made her TV debut. I probably watched her in an early Last of the Summer Wine, No Honestly, David Copperfield and even The Sweeney before she really made her mark on me in 1976 as Mrs Brandon in I Didn’t Know You Cared.

Screened after the Nine o’Clock News this was very popular in our household. It was slightly darker than the typical comedy fare of the era (though nothing like as black as Peter Tinniswood’s excellent source books) but it was good enough to run for three or four series. Robin Bailey’s Uncle Mort was the principal character although a young Stephen Rea was delightfully credible and sympathetic as Carter. Catherine and I particularly loved the doddery Uncle Staveley (Bert Palmer) whose only contribution seemed to be the occasional interjection of “I ‘eard that, pardon?” However, the series turned Liz Smith into a comedy stalwart for nearly three decades and, thanks to endless repeats, probably ‘til the end of time.

She wasn’t only in half-hour comedy, sketch or children’s shows. Her distinctive pinched features and piercing cackle of a voice made a fair few costume dramas bearable for a corset-and-breeches-phobe like me. She was a regular character in the Beeb’s nostalgic country vet series One By One and also cropped up in The Duchess of Duke Street, Fay Weldon’s brooding ‘80s Life and Loves of a She-Devil adaptation and a 1993 Lovejoy episode.

However, her peerless credentials as an elderly eccentric made her in huge demand amongst comedy writers. She was not one but three top-rated BBC situation comedy staples of the Nineties. It’s easy to forget that one of the best was 2Point4 Children, in which she played both Aunt Belle and Bette. I actually attended one of the studio recordings but don’t recall whether Liz featured in that one but in her twelve episodes she proved an impeccable foil for Belinda Lang and Gary Olsen. The latter’s death in 2000 sadly prevented an extension of Andrew Marshall’s hit into the new millennium but not Liz Smith’s career.

By this time she was the typically dotty Letitia Cropley, creator of the most bizarre culinary concoctions in The Vicar of Dibley and Nana Norma in The Royle Family. Even amidst two splendid ensemble casts she would shine as bright as any star. In the latter she would occasionally join Barbara, Denise et al on the crumpled sofa to deliver deadpan observations and non sequiturs to make Jim’s beard crease in amazement and eyes turn somersaults.

The programme’s ‘Queen of Sheba’ was eventually granted a dignified exit, in one of the Royles’ most touching and tear-jerking specials. Like Ronnie Barker’s picture on the wall in Still Open All Hours, the ghost of Liz Smith’s Nana would always haunt the living room, a benign presence and spark of fond family memories.

I did see Liz Smith in real life just once, in February 2001. I can’t quite remember exactly where in London it was, probably Oxford Street or Regent Street near my BBC office, but I can visualise the light-coloured coat and hat to protect from the winter chill. I don’t know whether she was forever pestered by autograph-hunters (selfies were not yet part of everyday life) but I’m sure she would warm the hearts of any of us mere mortals who crossed her path on an otherwise ordinary lunch hour.

Of course, like all grannies and Queens of Sheba Liz Smith MBE inevitably passed away. It was three years ago today when the perennial eccentric old dear died at home in Worthing at the age of 95. Rarely the star but the most glorious of supporting cast members, the one-time Betty Gleadle from Scunthorpe is an unforgettable TV treasure. In a typical understatement, playwright Mike Leigh described her as “a complete breath of fresh air….not your bog standard middle-aged actress”. She may have played so many apparently bog standard characters, but they were usually larger than life, as any family’s nanna should be...

Leonard Nimoy - Fascinating.....

I’ve never been a true sci-fi geek. I’m not actually antipathetic; I’ve enjoyed many TV series set in the future, encounters with weird and wonderful Doctor Who monsters and went through a science fiction book phase in my teens, lapping up books by the likes of Asimov, Wyndham, Anderson and Dick. However, I’m not a fully-fledged student of the genre. It might sound sacrilegious but the Star Wars canon leaves me cold.  

But one TV favourite which undoubtedly gripped and entertained me was Star Trek.

I first watched it by accident. One Saturday teatime in July 1969, immediately following Grandstand, this American interloper appeared unbidden in the Doctor Who slot. At first I was horrified that Patrick Troughton’s archaic Tardis had been usurped by some swanky spaceship. However it quickly won me over.

Even in musty monochrome, Star Trek delivered a splash of colour to the genre, with more action in a single episode than an entire run of Doctor Who. It could also be genuinely frightening to a reserved eight year-old. I can still recall the fear I felt while watching the two-parter The Menagerie, which went way beyond sofa-hiding to avoid a few shiny Cybermen. The series also introduced me to teleportation, warp factor speeds, split infinitives, the intriguingly-shaped USS Enterprise and above all the even more intriguingly-shaped ears of the ship’s science officer Mr Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy.

William Shatner may have been the de facto star on account of his character Captain Kirk being the head honcho aboard the Enterprise but for me and most of my friends it was Nimoy’s Spock who was the most popular. He even made science nerds cool. Kirk was the action man who got the girls but, no matter how much Shatner resorted to sub-Shakespearean over-acting, making every speech resemble Olivier’s Henry V, Nimoy simply blew him off the screen with a single lift of an eyebrow.

Star Trek complemented the real-life space race mania rocking the world at the time. The Apollo missions to the moon may have been forged in the Cold War political furnace but, by 1969, the whole world seemed to be rooting for the US astronauts. Series creator Gene Roddenberry’s vision was an admirable one, featuring lead characters representing the whole planet in Sulu, Chekhov and engineer Scottie. He even defied the ingrained Republican racism of the era by making Lt. Uhura an African American, even if she spent most scenes with what looked like a plug in her ear. And yet Spock went one step further by being half-alien, explaining his resolute adherence to logic and emotionless expression – and of course those pointy ears.

Apparently it was Nimoy who came up with the split-finger greeting - which we youngsters always tried so hard to emulate (I was rubbish) - and also the Vulcan death grip. Both singled out Spock as a calm man of science in contrast to Kirk’s penchant for phaser and fists. Nevertheless his persona did occasionally undergo shocking changes. One or two episodes were more memorable because Spock was afflicted by some weird gas or brain imbalance which allowed Nimoy to release his inner Shatner. I even remember his actually smiling and shouting in a few scenes. Shock, horror!

But we weren’t really content unless Spock was in normal mode, injecting some welcome humour into proceedings. The best dialogue invariably involved Spock and Dr. ‘Bones’ McCoy. Both men of science, they offered great contrasts in emotional intelligence, setting up some brilliant exchanges. For all the memorable images of the boy Spock owning a teddy bear, nothing could really surpass Nimoy’s quizzical eyebrow and the singular word summing up his character’s opinion of human behaviour: “Fascinating”

I did get to see Star Trek in all its colourful glory when constantly repeated throughout the Seventies and beyond. Yet I never really bought into the movie franchise, nor the interminable TV prequels, sequels and assorted spin-offs. Unknown to me at the time the original series was first shown by the BBC, it had already been dropped in the States. Leonard Nimoy was already appearing in another Beeb import which I enjoyed watching in the early ‘70s, Mission: Impossible.

Along with Phelps, Barnie and self-destructing cassettes, I most vividly recall the actor Martin Landau, but he was replaced in the series by Leonard Nimoy as Paris. As with Star Trek, I think the BBC screened episodes, and probably whole series, out of chronological order but whenever I watched a programme featuring Paris, it seemed somehow wrong. Why is Spock laughing? Why the baffling attempts to speak with a Latin American or Japanese accent? And what’s happened to his ears?

For all his numerous TV and film credits, as actor, writer and director, Leonard Nimoy will forever be remembered as Spock. That voice was so rich it was gold dust to any advertising director seeking a voiceover. Sadly he resorted to recording several albums as singer, a few performing as Spock but three delivering excruciating covers of popular songs. At least they weren’t as unintentionally hilarious as Shatner’s efforts! No, we must remember Nimoy for creating the greatest sci-fi character of them all. Even after death, may he live long and prosper….

Benny Hill - more than just the fastest milkman in the west

Nearly three decades after his death, Benny Hill still arouses conflicting opinions. Was he just a dinosaur of sexist comedy or the last in the line of legendary music-hall entertainers? Actually I think he was a bit of both and a lot more besides. Throughout the Seventies he was a perennial ratings winner for ITV but in our household he held a special place in our affections thanks to some shared roots.

Like Dad, Benny – or Alfred, as he was christened - attended Taunton’s School, Southampton. Indeed, they must have overlapped by at least one academic year. Dad may have lost his childhood accent before I knew him but Hill must be the only TV personality who right to the end spoke with an unmistakably Southampton burr. Indeed it was very much part of his persona. I don’t know whether he supported the Saints or Hampshire’s cricket team like Dad but Benny and he seemed to share more than just an educational alma mater. Dad was quite a highbrow opera and book-loving soul but I never forget the sound of him chuckling to Hill’s humour, and it was contagious.

One of Hill’s most appealing traits was a reluctance to follow the celebrity trail, sticking resolutely to his Hampshire heritage and maintaining an air of mystery. Even his scheduling didn’t conform to the light entertainment stereotype. For starters, his shows weren’t broadcast as a series. Each one was An Event. I recall once reading that the reason for the intervals between programmes was the star ‘travelling around Europe in search of ideas’. Whether he nicked those ideas from foreign TV or dreamed them up while sunning himself on the Cote D’Azur, it didn’t seem to matter. Apparently he was a fluent French speaker so wouldn’t have needed subtitles.

Benny Hill also succeeded where many shows in the Seventies failed in that he enticed us to pressing the ‘3’ button. We didn’t watch much ITV but Hill, despite leaving the Beeb in 1969, played a major role in our television repertoire. He wasn’t a ‘Mr Saturday Night’ like a Forsyth, Barrymore, Davidson or Yarwood; The Benny Hill Show was, from memory, a fixture of Wednesday evenings.  So what, apart from the Southampton connection, was the attraction?

Firstly, like all the greatest clowns, he simply looked funny. His features seem lost in that shining moon-face, his cheeky expressions suggestive of a class clown testing his teacher’s patience to the limit, and getting away with it through sheer charisma. He was also quite unusual because his shows mixed visual gags with verbal jokes or musical setpieces, and without an army of gag-writers. Like much sketch comedy, it could be a bit hit-and-miss. After all, when you’ve seen one lot of slapping Jackie Wright’s bald head or saucy chambermaid chasing, you’ve seen ‘em all.

And yet we persevered, because they were the silent equivalent of contemporary catchphrases like ‘Stupid boy’, ‘I’m free!’ or ‘And now for something completely different….’  The extended filmed sequences must have taken a lot of work, setting up the camera angles to conceal the inevitable dribbling hosepipe or the signpost behind the semi-naked woman, etc, etc. There was always something to make you smile. And if it was approaching the end of the hour, you knew it would be rounded off with a sped-up chase to the chirpy staccato tune of ‘Yakety Sax’. They weren’t exactly the epitome of sophistication but appealed to all ages, just as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton had done fifty years earlier.

For anyone of a certain age, that piece of music evokes not only Benny Hill but my whole childhood, and it is still parodied today. Perhaps the funniest instance was broadcast in 1994, not long after the star died, his career end having been hastened by ‘alternative’ comedians such as Ben Elton, who had publicly condemned the casual sexism of Hill and his ilk.  This made the Harry Enfield’s show’s filmed skit of the politically-correct comic as ‘Benny Elton’ even wittier. Some accused the sequence as being disrespectful of Benny Hill, but I disagree.  It not only paid homage to Hill’s memory but also demonstrated that Elton could indulge in self-mockery as much as the next Guardian-reading, right-on leftie.

Unlike Harry Enfield, Benny Hill totally dominated his shows. While he surrounded himself with a supporting cast of comely wenches, Jackie Wright, Bob Todd and the perfectly polished straight man, Henry McGee, Hill filled the screen virtually throughout. He’d play a range of characters but his most recognisable recurring creation was Fred Scuttle.  Anyone aged fifty or above must at some point in their lives have flicked a cap off-centre, placed their tongue behind their lower lip, blinked furiously and given a clumsy-open-palmed salute. Haven’t they? Come on, admit it!

Personally, my Benny Hill highlight has to be his chart-topping single ‘Ernie’ which cheered up our cold December nights in 1971. Accompanied by a tongue-in-cheek promo film, it was a near-faultless novelty song. It related a story, a lively tune building to a crescendo for the dramatic Ernie vs Two-Ton Ted fight to the death and a delightful pay-off at the end. The song contained genuinely amusing lyrics with only a modicum of harmless innuendo so that Catherine and I could gleefully repeat without embarrassment - for either ourselves or Mum and Dad. That Christmas I harboured hopes of seeing Benny Hill perform ‘Ernie’ on his show but in fact he had already done so the previous year. However, it’s not the same without seeing Hill holding Trigger’s reins or exchanging strawberry-flavoured yogurts and rock cakes with moustache-twirling McGee in their bid to win the heart of the widowed Sue.

So was Benny Hill’s humour really sexist? In part, yes. But so was most comedy of the era, from Python to The Two Ronnies, the Carry Ons to the ‘Confessions…’, Jim Davidson to On The Buses. Yet even in these more enlightened times, there is a mitigating factor for Hill. Almost invariably he failed to ‘get the girl’. For all the lascivious grins and bawdy stereotypes, the joke tended to be on him. Even in ‘Ernie’, whilst the stereotypical milkman undoubtedly supplied Sue with more than just a pinta-milka-day, it was he who ultimately bit the dust.

In reality, Benny Hill wasn’t, as far as I’m aware, victim of a stale pork pie catching him in the eye. Apparently he fell victim to a coronary thrombosis at the age of 68. Curiously, whilst the recorded version of ‘Ernie’ had the eponymous dairyman dying at only 52, the original TV song stated his age as ….68. Spooky, or what? Cue Twilight Zone music…..  

As a millionaire TV superstar, Benny Hill spent much of his professional life living in swish Kensington or close to the Teddington Studios where his TV show was filmed. However, with no wife or children to consider, he was buried back in Southampton just a mile or so from Taunton’s School. So is that the end of Benny Hill? I do wonder if late-night visitors to Hollybrook cemetery experience a frisson of fear. Was that the trees a-rustling or the hinges on the gate? Nah. I reckon it’s the late milkman’s ghostly gold-tops a-rattling in their crate.

Renu Setna - The Ageless Asian Everyman

Over the years, I have become accustomed to many actors seemingly being typecast on British television, especially in minor roles. I’ve already mentioned Andre Maranne but if a director wants an elderly Jewish man, he would have to cast Cyril Shaps. Chinese Scouser? Ozzie Yue. Working-class Yorkshireman? Paul Copley. Northern ‘tart with a heart’? Deidre Costello. Soft-voiced Irish professional? TP McKenna. Scottish ‘heavy’? James Cosmo. Generic Eastern European crook? Vladek Sheybal. The list goes on and on.

In the Seventies and Eighties, when the membership of Equity had a considerably less multi-ethnic look about it, reflecting the social and demographic profile of the UK, Asian actors must have been thin on the ground. For casting directors everywhere, prayers would be answered by Renu Setna.

Saeed Jaffrey and Art Malik may have bagged the roles of middle-class Asian businessmen but Setna was the quintessential ‘little man’. During the Seventies and Eighties he would turn up in anything from The Basil Brush Show and Doctor Who to Minder.  

He played Hindu everyman Mr Patel in Are You Being Served, The Bill and The Chinese Detective and predictably umpteen roles in ‘70s sitcom It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, the ones for which Michael Bates didn’t black up. His beard became almost as familiar as Windsor Davies’ twirling ‘tache, Be it a clerk, tailor or maharajah, didn’t the British army concert party ever twig that it was the same man every time?!

There weren’t many programmes I can remember in which he had a recurring role. In Sickness and In Health was one example. In 1986 and ’87 he was local shop owner Mr Kittel opposite Warren Mitchell’s ageing racist Alf Garnett. There were some amusing scenes in which he challenged Alf’s pompous prejudices with an easy humility, a common theme in this often hilarious series. Slightly against type, Setna also portrayed a leather coat-wearing gangster Mr Ram in Only Fools and Horses, but of course ultimately he failed to get the better of Del Boy!

Nevertheless Renu Setna is about more than comedy. I was amused to discover that he appeared in the two nurse-based dramas, Angels and No Angels 30 years apart, both of which I used to watch regularly. To extend the coincidence, in each case he played the part of ‘Mr Khan’.  Since then I would have spotted his familiar features in programmes such as Hustle and Silent Witness and his TV credits continue right up to the present day.

These days British Asian actors portray characters which don’t have to be Asians. They are no longer restricted to the niche characters inhabiting corner shops and sitcom slaves. Lawyers, cops, teachers, estate agents, pathologists: apparently they aren’t all posh, white blokes in the twenty-first century, y‘ know. And in the realm of television, they are no longer the preserve of Mr Setna.

Britain boasts such a range of younger class acts with South Asian heritage. Dev Patel, Riz Ahmed, Raza Jaffrey and Parminder Nagra are in demand worldwide so these days are relatively rare on the UK small screen. The Goodness Gracious Me quartet are no longer youthful sketch comedy ground-breakers but Adil Ray (Citizen Khan) could be on the sitcom scene for decades to come. In drama on both sides of the Atlantic, Ace Bhatti (always the smart lawyer the viewer doesn’t know whether to trust), Archie Panjabi, Arsher Ali, Indira Varma, Amita Dhiri (once of This Life), Nabhaan Rizwan and many others are always worth watching, potential TV treasures of the future.

And yet, as long as he’s well enough to work, there’ll always be room for Renu Setna. Now in his silver-bearded dotage, the veteran actor’s appearance at a front door, shop counter or even maharajah’s palace will always elicit a knowing smile by this viewer.

Haway, pet. It's James Bolam

Howay, pet! For all his more recent TV ventures away from the North East, I find it impossible to think of James Bolam without hearing a boisterous burst of Geordie or his native Wearside dialect.

It was part and parcel of my soundtrack, especially in the Seventies, beginning with Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? I was too young to have seen the original Sixties comedy series which made stars of Bolam and Rodney Bewes but there was something about the revival which chimed with this young Southerner. 

The stagey production and camerawork might appear dated but I still enjoy watching the series more than forty years later. The marvellous dialogue written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais still sounds fresh but when spoken by the stars it assumes a whole new life of its own, and it’s Bolam’s character Terry who’s the heart and soul of the show. Even the themes of nostalgia, melancholy and childlike mistrust of foreigners are as pertinent today as they ever were, with Terry portraying Nigel Farage’s working-class muse in the early days of our liaison with Europe.

To be honest, I was more drawn to his upwardly-mobile mate Bob; Terry was a bit too rude, crude and politically incorrect. In today’s landscape, Bob would probably vote Green or Lib Dem while Terry would surely be a flag-waving Brexiteer. Yet James Bolam made him a sympathetic character; I felt sorry for his plight, returning from the army to find his world turned upside-down.

If there’s one thing I don’t like about Bolam’s acting style it’s his tendency to shout all his lines, as if always aiming for the rear seats in the Upper Circle. This was particularly palpable in his role of Roy Figgis in ITV’s Only When I Laugh which ran for four series in my university years. I watched only a couple of episodes. Eric ‘Rising Damp’ Chappell’s scripts were quite amusing but Bolam’s delivery gave me a headache! When Thames adapted the Daily Mirror cartoon Andy Capp for the small screen in 1988 I didn’t even give it a try despite Bolam surely being a perfect fit.

What I did watch was the late-Seventies BBC drama series When the Boat Comes In. Whilst firmly grounded in the North East, this was no comedy. It lived or died on the credibility of the hero Jack and, thanks to James Bolam’s star quality and acting ability, it racked up 51 episodes of often enthralling television which hooked the whole family. The jaunty Geordie folk song, performed by Alex Glasgow, drew you in but it wasn’t a jolly romp. Instead it followed Jack‘s journey from World War 1 demob through the social and political turmoil on poverty-stricken ‘20s Tyneside. I don’t normally do costume drama but, despite losing its way a little towards the end, When The Boat… left me with fonder memories than any Catherine Cookson serialisation.

No longer a likely lad, in the Eighties Bolam showed a real talent for comedy-drama. In ’85, he starred in Yorkshire TV’s The Beiderbecke Affair as a jazz-loving woodwork teacher who, along with his colleague and girlfriend played by Barbara Flynn, becomes involved in unlikely mysteries and adventures. Apparently Alan Plater adapted the characters from an earlier series starring Alun Armstrong, another North Easterner who has graced TV and theatre for many years and whose career path has often crossed that of Bolam’s. I think watching the series would originally have been Dad’s choice, given the provenance of writer, star and music, but my diary records that all three serials of what became known as The Beiderbecke Trilogy were among my favourites of the period.

James seemed to disappear off my personal radar for several years before resurfacing as a reluctant hero in The Missing Postman, one of those uplifting, heartwarming two-parters so beloved of the Beeb on Easter weekends during the Nineties. By now in his sixties he later joined an ensemble cast in Born and Bred. Prompted by Mum I reckon I watched a few episodes but the rose-tinted view of rosy-cheeked Northern folk in the Fifties made me see red and, despite the presence of Mr B, I found alternative things to do with my life on Sunday evenings.

Amongst other things I almost certainly caught him guesting as a priest on Dalziel and Pascoe (can’t remember whether or not he ‘dun it’), before he landed possibly a role in possibly his most popular series for decades, New Tricks. Harnessing the talents of former coppers played by a trio of much-loved actors, it built a huge following on BBC1 and I, too, became a fan. A crime show with a light touch, it proved a winning formula. However, if anything, James Bolam was outshone by Dennis Waterman (well, he did sing the theme tune, of course) and the dogged but dour Alun Armstrong whose wife in the series was Susan Jameson, in reality married to Bolam, with whom she had played Jessie in When the Boat Comes In. Aye, bonnie lad, it’s an incestuous business

As I write this, James Bolam is still going aged 84. Fellow Likely Lad Rodney Bewes is no longer with us but, even with extra wrinkles and rheumier eyes, I’m sure the venerable son of Sunderland can still hold the screen with a canny twinkle and a perfectly timed comic line.

Aw-uh, it's Pat Coombs!

I can’t identify the first time I saw Pat Coombs on the box. Like The Beatles, Smarties and Mum’s knitting needles, she just seemed to be a constant and comforting presence throughout my early childhood, not so much an actress as a benevolent sorceress dispensing spells of happiness towards a child like myself being treated to grown-ups’ television.

For some reason I was allowed to stay up for Up Pompeii in the early Seventies. The Carry On-style sexual innuendo may have passed harmlessly over my young ginger bonce but Frankie Howerd was such a visual comic and so appealed to adults and kids alike. I would titter along with the best of them. I almost certainly would have seen this great scene with Pat as an actual sorceress called Tarta (oh, the puns!) in which she very nearly stole the show from under the star’s nose.

Born in the Twenties, Pat Coombs inevitably made her name as a stooge to the leading radio comedians of the Fifties, like Arthur Askey, Bob Monkhouse and Charlie Chester. She may have trained at LAMDA but her natural Camberwell twang served her well on the Home Service. I guess she had what you’d call a great face for radio. With that nose she was never going to compete with Liz Taylor, Julie Andrews or Audrey Hepburn. Cinema’s loss was domestic broadcasting’s gain and as a character comedy actress she found her true niche.

Obviously her radio career was way before my time but as a child I grew to recognise her smiley eyes and distinctive voice, especially her trademark “Oh-ah” expression of shocked surprise. Funnily enough, Typhoo Tea cottoned on to her catchphrase in the Eighties, hiring her for her “Oo”s in a TV ad campaign. Years earlier, she reminded me ever so slightly of my Nanna Grimble. Not in her looks but perhaps it was something about the voice, hairstyle, handbag and ‘screw-on’ hats that triggered the association.

Coombs tended to play the archetypal downtrodden London housewife, under the thumb not necessarily of her hubby but of the womenfolk. Irene Handl, Thora Hird or Peggy Mount may have been the outspoken battleaxes but it was with Coombs’ character that we would often have the greatest affinity.

I think I may have seen her in the 1969 sitcom Wild Wild Women (I certainly remember the theme tune) and definitely on ITV’s hit comedy On The Buses at around the same time, although I don’t think it was a ‘must-see’ in our household. The spin-off Don’t Drink the Water certainly wasn’t, nor were Pat’s other ITV vehicles in the Seventies and Eighties.

Instead, it was her cameo appearances in shows such as Sykes, the Dick Emery Show, Noel’s House Party and Johnny Speight’s In Sickness and In Health which were always welcome. I’m not sure whether or not I watched this particular edition of Les Dawson’s Blankety Blank but there’s Pat on the back row in what must have been 1985, given the fab prize of ZX Spectrum computer games, some splendid period-piece hair-dos and the reference to a new BBC series called “The Eastenders”.

I did become a devotee of the aforementioned soap for a number of years, including the nine months in which Coombs played the part of downtrodden spinster Marge (typecast?). Amidst the welter of storylines concerned with racism, AIDS and domestic violence, Marge was introduced specifically to provide much-needed comic relief in light-hearted exchanges with Mo Butcher, Ethel Skinner and Dot Cotton, queen of the laundrette. Unfortunately the experiment was deemed a failure, Marge jarring too much with the heavy stuff and she was packed off into the sunset. At least she wasn’t bumped off by the Mitchell brothers.

In 2002 Pat Coombs left us for real. Suddenly, when seeking elderly London women smiling through adversity and blessed with comic timing, casting directors for TV and radio had to widen their net. Their number one choice was no longer available. She is much missed.

The divine David Vine

If James Burke wore the most distinctive specs in TV science, then the sports equivalent surely belonged to David Vine. The likes of David Coleman, Des Lynam and Frank Bough may have beaten him to the biggest gigs but for thirty years his open features, rhythmic voice and capacious frames graced our screens.

He became synonymous with sport-based entertainment shows and I first remember him as the host of the BBC’s Quiz Ball. I doubt I was allowed to stay up late enough for this 1966 edition but I have fond memories of some of the top contemporary footballers and managers testing their knowledge (or lack of it) on primetime TV. Five decades on, I still remember Arsenal’s Ian Ure and West Brom ‘keeper John Osborne as being particularly adept. However, if David Vine needed more than two minutes merely to explain the rules, something was wrong with the format.

In 1970, the Beeb widened the scope of questions and guests in A Question of Sport and guess who sat in the questionmaster’s chair? The programme was right up my street, even at the age of nine, Dad and I testing ourselves against Cliff Morgan, Henry Cooper and their team-mates every Monday evening. For many, the programme’s golden era featured Emlyn Hughes, Bill Beaumont and David Coleman’s V-necked sweaters. However, Vine presented 75 editions, creating the foundations which have sustained Q of S for fifty years and more than 1,200 programmes. It’s no longer required viewing for me, the cosy triumvirate of Barker, Dawson and Tufnell breeding contempt through over-familiarity. Yet for all his TV appearances in the Seventies especially, I never felt the same about David Vine.

I’d forgotten that he preceded the overpowering personality of Stuart Hall as host of It’s a Knockout then, from 1973 to 1985 he presented with Ron Pickering the multi-sport competition Superstars. It wasn’t quite as light-hearted as Knockout but it was essential viewing in our household. There were many amusing moments, usually triggered by the over-competitive nature of sportsmen (boxer Alan Minter’s canoe careering off course, Kevin Keegan’s bike crash, etc) but I religiously recorded the final scores and joined in the one event possible to do in the living room: the dreaded squat-thrusts. I was especially delighted if I actually achieved more than some cyclist or golfer, but such successes were rare. It wasn’t only about Brits like David Hemery, Brian Hooper and Brian Jacks; otherwise little-known Swedish pole vaulters, German motor racing drivers and Dutch hockey stars became household names, their performances dutifully covered by Messrs Vine and Pickering. In the Eighties, the format was tweaked for Superteams which was also very popular.

I always hankered after a revival of the concept but the twenty-first century reboots proved unexpected disappointments. What worked fine as a one-off Comic Relief extravaganza just lacked atmosphere and excitement as a sporting series, It had simply become outdated, long past past its sell-by date and, of course, lacked the Devonian tones of David Vine.

Back in the Seventies, he also became the face of three hitherto minority pastimes which became hugely popular televised sports. I’m not saying that’s all down to David but he seemed to be the right man for the job at the right time. The first was showjumping. Presumably boosted by British Olympic successes, the Beeb often broadcast live from major events like The Horse of the Year Show. Genuine equestrian experts Dorian Williams and Raymond Brooks-Ward provided the plummy commentaries, but the reliable Vine linked the proceedings, part and parcel of autumn/winter evenings after the News.

In 1978, the stars were aligned one more. Freed from his Question of Sport commitments, Vine was the man with mic and fur-lined anorak seen across the Alps in BBC2’s new Ski Sunday series. Aided again by Ron Pickering, it became part of our winter Sunday teatimes for two decades. Snooker was also on the verge of its golden era. Earlier that year, the World championships were first transmitted daily and David was the obvious choice as anchorman. Helped by characters like Higgins, White and Taylor, BBC2’s audiences soared to heights Pot Black could never dream of attaining. His vocal tone and timbre seemed perfectly in tune not only with the theme music but also the hushed ambience in the Crucible Theatre and Ted Lowe’s commentary. He remained at the helm of BBC snooker transmissions well into the Nineties but, twenty-odd years later, I still register mild surprise at seeing Hazel Irvine and not her illustrious predecessor welcoming us to the programme.

As the ultimate safe pair of hands, David Vine could also be entrusted with presenting mega-audience non-sporting showpieces such as Miss World and the UK commentary on Eurovision in ‘74. However, he lacked the twinkle of Terry Wogan, and the excitability needed to succeed as a football commentator. He was not necessarily bland and boring, though. As a journalist and reporter he wasn’t afraid to ask awkward questions, such as when he challenged John McEnroe after his “You’re the pits” outburst at Wimbledon in ‘81. Nevertheless it was as an unassuming sporting anchorman or quizmaster for which I most fondly remember the divine Mr. Vine.

Stephen Moore - more than just a paranoid android

Favourite TV stars come in all shapes and sizes. In Stephen Moore’s case, it was in the form of loosely connected metallic boxes belonging to a rudimentary robot. A very depressed robot. Like many teenage boys I first encountered Marvin the Paranoid Android in the original Radio 4 production of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Its success bred a book, LP and stage show before reaching the small screen.

It was only when the ‘unfilmable’ series appeared on BBC2 in January 1981 that the credits identified Stephen Moore as the voice behind Marvin that the actor registered with me. The idea of an electronic machine with a personality wasn’t new but one with such a morose, moody demeanour was sheer genius, and Marvin became a cult hero. Catchphrases like “Life. Don’t talk to me about life” and “Brain the size of a planet” entered mainstream vocabulary and his reflections of his early existence:

"The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline"

remain amongst my most cherished lines in comedy history.

But Moore was not to be typecast. After all, there can’t be many alternative roles as manic depressive robots on stage or screen. That said, he’d already been in ITV’s Rock Follies as someone with Marvin-esque tendencies, but I never watched it. 1985’s The Last Place on Earth also passed me by. I think I did take the temperature of the 1981 Felicity Kendal vehicle Solo, in which Moore played the star’s on-off boyfriend, but I found Carla Lane’s scripts too lacking in laughs. Not for the first time, nor for the last.

Stephen was quite prolific in theatre, too. Round about the same time as his Hitchhiker heyday, I remember Catherine seeing him in the National Theatre production of Brecht’s play The Life of Galileo. Amidst all the big names (Gambon, Callow, Dignam et al), Moore was not top of the bill but it was his name in the programme which sparked my jealousy!

There were other Eighties shows in which I did witness Moore’s soft voice, kindly face and ever reliable support. He seemed to corner the market in long-suffering fathers of teenage boys. If Hitchhiker was the student book/series of the early Eighties, it was supplanted by Sue Townsend’s hilarious Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾, another bestseller borne out of Radio 4. When it came to the inevitable TV adaptation, who else but Moore could play Adrian’s dad?

When it comes to problematic teens, few could challenge Kevin, one of the most memorable members of Harry Enfield’s collection of comic characters. In Harry Enfield and Chums, Stephen was frequently to be found on the settee trying to remonstrate with his son and exchange pleasantries with his mate Perry. While he was usually just feeding the lines to the star, just occasionally he would deliver the sketch’s punchline.

While there were other TV appearances, including the Chief Constable in the first two series of BBC1’s Merseybeat, for me he will always be associated with Marvin. Should I ever give up the ghost and follow the hordes down the SatNav or Alexa route, it would undoubtedly be Stephen Moore’s aforementioned android I’d choose as the voice. Just imagine: “Brain the size of a planet and you ask me to tell the time…”

Alison Steadman - from Bev to Pam

When it comes to longevity and versatility, few actors can possibly compete with Alison Steadman. She must be the only person I’ve seen at the cinema, on TV and the West End stage and also on the radio. On the radio? Yes, I was in the live audience for a 2004 recording of Radio 4’s Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation when the comedian introduced his special guest. The sight of the great Ms Steadman just strolling from the wings generated the loudest applause of the evening.

She elicited a similar reaction inside the Aldwych Theatre when, for Mum’s birthday in 1993, we were in the stalls for The Rise and Fall of Little Voice matinee. Accustomed to her TV performances, I think we all gasped as she uttered her opening lines. Instead of in her normal sing-song voice, they emerged as if, in my words at the time, she “had swallowed a box of sandpaper”. She was brilliant. Incredibly, while the remarkable Jane Horrocks claimed the initial plaudits in the title role, it was Steadman as her awful mother Mari who won the prestigious Olivier Award.

By that time, she was a familiar face on screens small and large, largely through her association with her then hubby, playwright Mike Leigh. I first met her televisual acquaintance in 1976. I rarely watched BBC’s Play for Today strand, as it had a reputation for serious drama. Come 9.25pm I would prefer to grapple with a history essay or French grammar exercise than sit through an hour and a half of gritty social realism or middle-class porn (my contemporary diary entries suggested I was a terrible prude!). However, when Dad suggested I watch Nuts in May, I was blown away.

I never realised a Play For Today could be so hilarious, or for that matter, filmed on location. Depicting a mismatched couple’s attempts to enjoy a camping weekend in Dorset, it was a revelation to me. I became a lifelong fan of both Alison Steadman and Roger Sloman and snippets from their dialogue cropped up in family conversation for years to come. This won’t be my last reference to Nuts in May in this memoir…

Alison’s timid character Candice-Marie didn’t get the best lines but her monstrously pretentious Beverly (below) dominated the following year’s Abigail’s Party. An abridged version of Leigh’s stage work, this became surely one of the greatest of all TV plays, with its subtle shift from comedy to tragedy. Even today I cannot hear Demis Roussos or Donna Summer’s sensual ‘Love to Love You Baby’ without visualising Steadman’s attempts to sashay, glass in hand, across her living room. 

By no means have I watched her every television role. For example, I never saw Pride and Prejudice or Fat Friends. I’ve also yet to dip into her 2019 sitcom with John Cleese, Hold the Sunset. However, I was surprised when she cropped up in Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective, which I found tough to watch. It was also harrowing to see her in Care, playing Sheridan Smith’s widowed mother who suffers a stroke leading to dementia. It made you think, made you cry but could never make you laugh.

Yet comedy is her forte. I recall her in ITV’s Gone to the Dogs (with Jim Broadbent) and as the wife of James Bolam’s Missing Postman in a gentle two-part comedy-drama in the Nineties. All the while, I’d catch her in some of the funniest British films when they were screened on telly. She was never the star but lent quality support in Clockwise, A Private Function, Shirley Valentine and, of course, Mike Leigh’s brilliant Life is Sweet, portraying the long-suffering mum of difficult daughters Jane Horrocks and Claire Skinner.

I suppose her twenty-first century highlight has to be as the role of Pamela in Gavin & Stacey. Writers James Cordern and Ruth Jones understandably made their characters Smithy and Nessa the most dominant but it’s the top-class supporting team which made the comedy so successful. Indeed I saw an interview with Alison Steadman in which she singles out her time with her G&S ‘family’ as her favourite.

It took me a while to fully immerse myself in the lives of the Shipman and West families and their friends, but once word of the BBC3 series spread like wildfire, I was drawn in. For starters, like me, the Smiths hail from Billericay. How could I not engage? When Angie and I became an item, the Essex/Wales connection took on a new meaning and, on meeting new people, Angie always likens us to Gavin and Stacey. The likes of Julia Davis and Rob Brydon are also TV royalty but for me it’s Alison Steadman’s involvement which is the icing on the cake. She may be 73 but I honestly can’t remember seeing her in anything less than excellent. That’s rare.

Andre Maranne - the UK's favourite Frenchman

If James Burke was one of the most familiar names and faces on TV, Andre Maranne will barely register in most peoples’ consciousness at all. You may recognise him as Francois, the sergeant sidekick to Peter Sellers’ Clouseau in six Pink Panther films but, by the time I first saw any of these classic comedies, Andre was already a regular on the telly and a hit in our household. But he wasn’t always easy to find.

In the early Seventies, a regular feature of our Sunday mornings was the Beeb’s foreign language series for beginners. In readiness for our first overseas holiday as a family in 1972, Mum and Dad tuned in to the Zarabanda programme to help us get by in Spanish. Catherine and I also took an interest so the following autumn we began watching re-runs of Repondez s’il vous plait. We weren’t planning a hop across the Channel but I guess there as a feeling it might complement my lessons in school.

In thirty-odd weeks, viewers could learn conversational French with the help of studio sketches acted out by real, live Frenchmen and women. The one who stood out for all of us was Andre Maranne. In my head he always seemed to in a police uniform but at least he escaped being blown up by Clouseau.

Ah, that face, that voice, that accent. He couldn’t have been more French had he donned hooped shirt and beret, slung a string of onions around his neck, a couple of baguettes in his pannier and pedalled beneath the Eiffel Tower singing, “Nooooon, je ne regretted rien”. By 1976, personalities like Charles Aznavour and Sacha Distel were well-known in the UK but amongst the Smiths, we had established an unofficial fanclub of four in celebration of Monsieur Maranne.

Imagine our delight when the Beeb’s new, updated French education strand, Ensemble, included Andre in every episode. And this time in colour! That year his distinctive Gallic features were visible not only in the post-breakfast Sunday slot but also in primetime. I don’t remember some of these but my contemporary diary entries proved revealing. In those days, my diaries were tediously factual, often boring prose listing activities and TV programmes without anything remotely resembling illuminating opinion. Detailed results of Superstars or It’s a Knockout were recorded meticulously but if there were no numbers involved, forget it. In that, and subsequent few years, I evidently made an exception for mentions of Andre’s random appearances on shows which demanded a generic Frenchman, especially one in a flic’s uniform, for a sketch or drama scene.

There he was in BBC2’s Kenneth Williams Show and When The Boat Comes In, besides being a stooge for Dick Emery. I also noted his role in the Beeb’s all-star drama Suez ’56 in 1979 and 1984’s thriller The Secret Servant but was less diligent regarding his later parts in Bergerac and A Very Peculiar Practice. And yet Andre featured in two of Britain’s most famous sitcom episodes of all time.

In 1984 he played the EU Commissioner advocating the Eurosausage in the 1984 Christmas special of Yes Minister, at the end of which Jim Hacker becomes PM. But perhaps his most famous cameo appearance came in the unforgettable 'Gourmet Night' episode of Fawlty Towers. As the local restaurateur Andre (yes, really) it wasn’t a beefy part although it was his duck dish which so nearly saved Basil’s bacon. Nearly. Anyone for trifle?

But that’s enough meat puns. So how come he was so prolific, so available on UK television? Well, apparently this son of Toulouse became a naturalised Brit in the Sixties. Presumably as no obituary has been unearthed, Andre Maranne’s Wikipedia page suggests he is still alive albeit not working. While his Gallic eyebrows may have turned grey, after fifty-plus years living on this side of la Manche I do hope he never lost that wicked accent.