Until the 1980s the words ‘woman’ and ‘comedy’ rarely seemed to appear in the same sentence. I recall as a child British TV being awash with American female sitcom stars like Lucille Ball and Mary Tyler Moore, none of whom I ever found remotely amusing. Of course Britain boasted some wonderful actresses, such as Hattie Jacques, Beryl Reid and Thora Hird, who excelled at comedy but I’d hesitate to call them ‘comediennes’. Sketch comedy was also the preserve of men who dressed as women.
In the 1980s French and Saunders, Victoria Wood and others led the assault on the age-old credo maintained by (mostly) male entertainment executives that women simply weren’t funny enough to stand up with a microphone or lead a television cast and make audiences laugh. Perish the thought, dear boy. Now I’m not saying that even in the 2020s TV comedy is a level playing field, gender-wise, but that sexist nonsense is thankfully less prevalent than it was.
I remember two decades ago when Channel 4 introduced Smack the Pony. It was seized upon as a ‘female’ sketch comedy series, and was seen as quite daring in its day. At the time I felt that Doon McKichan and Fiona Allen received most of the plaudits and Sally Alexander the tabloid ‘Phwoar!’ headlines. But for me it was Sally Phillips who was – hands down – the funniest of them all, and when it comes to stealing scenes still nobody does it better.
While her name would not have meant very much to me in the mid-Nineties, I would have caught Sally’s performances in Smith and Jones and the Richard Herring/Stewart Lee vehicle, Fist Of Fun. Like The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Fist of Fun graduated from Radio 1 to BBC2 and enjoyed a small but enthusiastic audience, of which I was a part. Even then, Sally Phillips possessed the gift for comedy, whether by smiling sweetly in embarrassment or laughing like a drain.
A few years later, Sally Phillips had a small but regular role in I’m Alan Partridge as a young receptionist at the motel where the now ex-TV host and current local radio presenter Partridge found himself as semi-permanent resident. Now I’m a huge fan of Steve Coogan’s comedy creation but, armed only with a few cutting comments, Phillips’ Sophie deftly pricked the Partridge pomposity, leaving her ‘guest’ powerless and in the acting stakes her pixie-like features and faux-innocent smile giving Coogan a run for his money.
Around this time Phillips joined a formidable cast of comedy actors, from the established John Bird, Rik Mayall and Richard Wilson to the up-and-coming Reece Shearsmith and Rebecca Front, in an enjoyable BBC comedy-thriller In The Red. However, her promotion to the lead in 2002’s series Rescue Me was less successful. I gave it a chance but even Sally couldn’t rescue this romantic comedy about a women’s magazine editor.
In the mid-Noughties she was back in fine supporting form in French and Saunders then Jennifer Saunders’ WI-themed sitcom Jam and Jerusalem but it took the surprise hit Miranda to propel Ms Phillips back into the prime-time big time. It was all rather jolly, a tad old-fashioned, but I confess Miranda Hart’s misadventures in love and retail often made me smile. Sally’s wasn’t a major role but her irritating upper-class Tilly even scooped her own enduring catchphrase, “Bear with….” Only last year I was delighted, albeit surprised, to see her slumming it on BBC Wales’ semi-improvised mockumentary series Tourist Trap. It’s not exactly high-ratings stuff, but the (English) director of Wales’ fictional tourist office was surely made for Sally Phillips.
Inevitably she has featured in all the best comedy quiz/panel games such as QI, Room 101 and Would I Lie to You, in which she thoroughly convinced while relating a brilliant fib about Trevor MacDonald. The latest decade has also offered opportunities for her voice to be heard narrating various TV-related documentaries and series such as Channel 4’s Undateables, and she played the eponymous Clare in the Community on Radio 4 for fifteen years.
I suspect that when her death is announced on future media, Sally Philips will doubtless be described as ‘Bridget Jones actress’ but that would do her an almighty injustice. She has contributed to so many popular BBC and Channel 4 comedies over the years and as a middle-class scatterbrain or ditsy youngster, she has few equals.
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