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.