I can’t with any honesty proclaim Wendy Craig to be one of my favourite TV actors but for longevity she is hard to beat. She also has a special place in my own history of live entertainment. At the age of seven I was taken up to London for a post-Christmas treat: Peter Pan, the first pantomime I can actually remember. I still recall the awe I felt sitting in the Circle watching ‘Peter’ flying above the Scala Theatre stage. Yes, flying! And who was in that green pixie costume? Yes, Wendy Craig.
A little research reveals that her co-star – presumably as Captain Hook - was the great Alastair Sim, but it’s only the title character’s aerial exploits I remember from that matinee performance. Even at such a tender age I knew Craig very well from the telly. While most of the situation comedies on British TV at the time seemed to be awful American imports, one exception was the BBC’s Not In Front of the Children. Watching this clip more than five decades later, the memories all come flooding back: Wendy’s Sixties hairdo, Ronald Hines as her hubby and the two young daughters. Suddenly I’m transported back to 54 The Meadows on a Friday evening, ‘Cinderella Rockafella’ at number one and facing bedtime before The Troubleshooters comes on.
Not… ran for four series before Wendy Craig switched to ITV in 1971 for another Richard Waring suburban family sitcom And Mother Makes Three. She was once more in harassed mum mode, which she subsequently reprised, now remarried, for the sequel And Mother Makes Five, although I don’t think that series was in the Smith household’s repertoire. Not only could she probably play that role in her sleep but she wrote a number of episodes, too.
Wendy’s pseudonymous scripts were also in evidence later in her career but I’m pretty sure writing responsibilities for her next major role, possibly the one for which she is best remembered, was Carla Lane. As with much of her work I have mixed memories of Butterflies. There were some lovely lines but nothing much ever happened and there was a tad too much rambling philosophising for my liking. However, it got off to a good start.
Craig portrayed Ria, yet another slightly ditsy but devoted housewife, this time in leafy Cheltenham. Husband Ben was a likeable but conservative dentist played in inimitable style by Geoffrey Palmer, happy with his lot. Ria, however, was not, and strayed into the arms of suave, wealthy Leonard. I know that the adultery was a crucial part of the set-up but this old-fashioned eighteen year-old felt sorry for Ben and hated Ria’s businessman bit on the side. Ben was not entirely happy with everything; his wife’s consistently disastrous cooking was a constant bone of contention and hilarity, not only with Ben but also their adolescent sons. It was notable that the male family members were rarely moved to use the oven themselves, but of course the microwave had yet to be invented! I also quite liked the scenes where Wendy’s Ria lost the plot, taking revenge on the kitchen and her tedious existence, much to the amusement of Nicholas Lyndhurst and Andrew Hall.
She co-wrote and starred in another sitcom, Laura and Disorder, in the late Eighties. Her name was enough to attract my attention but based on the series opener, for all Wendy’s efforts, I considered it dreadful. I wasn’t alone. Her following dramatic roles were in series more suited to Mum’s tastes than mine. I think I saw the occasional episode of Nanny when at home from uni but never watched her in the Noughties Heartbeat spin-off The Royal. The closest I came was on a September break to Scarborough when I almost had an altercation with a giant cherrypicker used to film the panoramic North Bay opening sequence.
In 2010 I was willing to give the BBC revival of Reggie Perrin a go. It wasn’t a patch on the David Nobbs original but Martin Clunes made a fair fist of playing the grumpy Reggie, careful not to try and emulate the wonderful Leonard Rossiter. One new character was Reggie’s mother, who it transpired was none other than Wendy Craig whose comedy timing was as ever impeccable.
In the last decade, it’s been a pleasure just finding her cropping up in unlikely places. I’m no aficionado of Emmerdale but even I pricked up my ears when in 2018, aged 82, she made an entrance in the soap as love interest for the even older Freddie Jones. Sadly it wasn’t destined for an extended run. In any case, Freddie himself died the following year. Wendy also popped up in the second series of ITV’s superior cold case crime drama Unforgotten.
I don’t remember whether or not she, or even her daughter Holly Aird, was a murderer but hers was a welcome addition to the cast, even if the days of playing stressed-out mums in domestic sitcoms are well behind her.
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