Sally Phillips - always worth 'bearing with'....

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.

David Tennant: Trans barmaid to Time Lord

There haven’t been many bright spots in this Covid-crippled year but a resurgence of David Tennant on our small screens is one of them. He rocketed to national fame in a similar burst of screen time in the mid-Noughties. Suddenly all my female friends and work colleagues were drooling over this skinny Scot with his sharp jawline and purring Paisley accent. I may not have shared their crush but as an actor he certainly possessed the X factor. 

For me, it started with Peter Bowker’s BBC2 series Blackpool. On paper, it really shouldn’t have appealed to me. It was a crime mystery, but frequently interrupted by song and dance, a la Dennis Potter. Urrghh. Luckily the story was quite engaging and it boasted a cracking cast, including David Morrissey, Sarah Parish and John Thomson – and then there was a handsome, charming DI played by David Tennant determined to pin the murder on Morrissey’s distinctly unpleasant character. The eclectic mix of pop songs, ranging from Elvis and Engelbert to Sandie Shaw and Slade (‘Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me’!), were all mimed so we didn’t hear David’s ear for a tune, but he made an impression. 

I’d actually already seen him guesting in the opening episode of Charlie Higson’s tongue-in-cheek reboot of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) in 2000, out-acting the stars Reeves and Mortimer but in 2005 he was dazzling in another light drama series playing the title role of Casanova. I hadn’t expected to like it but it was brilliant: a sexy costume romp but with laugh-out-loud comedy. 

The production was written by Russell T Davies who was already working on an even more significant project, the return of Doctor Who. Once Christopher Eccleston had quit after a solitary series, the producers turned to another hot actor, Mr Tennant. As in Casanova, the Scottish accent was ditched in favour of Estuary English but, whether flirting with Billie Piper’s Rose or swapping comic banter with Catherine Tate’s Donna, David was a coolly charismatic Doctor, armed with seriously sharp sideburns and even sharper scripts. It wasn’t just about battling alien monsters and running around quarries in Dorset; there was real acting, too. Even Dad became a fan. There were mesmeric scenes with guest stars like Bernard Cribbins but one of his finest ‘timey-wimey’ speeches came during the thrilling story Blink, also featuring a pre-Hollywood Carey Mulligan. He stayed for four years before a further, time-busting, cameo appearance with successor Matt Smith in the 50^th anniversary special The Day of the Doctor in 2013. 

With Doctor Who, a Harry Potter film and a must-see RSC Hamlet on his CV, David Tennant’s future as a proper actor was secured. However, he has also shine in comedy roles. I probably first saw him as a transsexual barmaid confusing the pub regulars in Rab C Nesbitt way back in 1993 and in the Noughties teamed up again with Catherine Tate in Lauren mode (“Am I bovvered?”) for a Comic Relief sketch. That same year he channelled his inner Doctor to regenerate Tony Blair in the TV impressions show Dead Ringers and his wry narration was perfectly matched with the fly-on-the-wall BBC spoofs Twenty Twelve and W1A. 

More recently I have discovered the delights of Staged, a comedy for the Covid lockdown era. Broadcast in six 18-minute instalments, it primarily involves Tennant, Michael Sheen and their director meeting up on Zoom to rehearse a play from their respective homes - and failing miserably. The two stars poked fun at themselves and their professional relationship, assisted, or hampered, by their real-life partners and ‘remote’ guests including Adrian Lester and potty-mouthed Samuel L Jackson, but the best was left 'til last. The final episode had the duo’s frustrated producer (Nina Sosanya) calling upon Dame Judi Dench to bring the actors’ childish quarrelling to an end which she does by simultaneously pricking their pomposity  and reminding them that she can do what she likes ‘cos she’s Judi Dench! Sheen plays up to his Welsh luvvie stereotype with gusto, while Tennant is just as believable, exaggerating his vanity, over-sensitivity and childcare incompetence. 

Getting back to David Tennant the actor playing characters other than himself, there have been lots of other opportunities to see him on the box. I haven’t taken them all, for one reason or another, but he’s never less than exceptional. With his cache and demand, the one-time David McDonald can surely pick and choose his medium, be it TV, stage, film or podcast, and his parts. Consequently even his television crime vehicles have been distinctly superior fare. In 2006 he was an acclaimed Richard Hoggart in Andrew Davies’ The Chatterley Affair and in 2013 a troubled barrister on trial for murder in The Escape Artist. It seemed that he was innocent but had he actually committed the perfect crime?

One element of David Tennant’s choices I particularly like is his reluctance to settle for ‘national treasure’ roles playing the goodie every time. In Paula Milne’s The Politician’s Husband, he was an ambitious Cabinet minister resorting to duplicitous methods when the career of his wife (Emily Watson) begins to eclipse his own. This year he has also shown a willingness to go the whole hog and be not merely a bit of a shit but also a devious killer. 

In Channel 4’s otherwise unremarkable three-parter Deadwater Fell, Tennant portrayed a respected village doctor who loses his family in a house fire. Surely he wouldn’t have started the blaze deliberately….? After a recommendation we also dipped into Netflix’s Criminal, with its different case each episode. Like the cops we have to decide whether or not the accused is guilty. I think David was in the opener, his ‘No comment’ mantra ultimately failing to fool his interrogators. Then in the past few weeks he was even more chilling as Scottish serial killer Dennis Nilsen in ITV’s Des. The uncanny physical likeness made it even more compelling and more than 10 million tuned in, a huge audience these days. 

However, perhaps my favourite David Tennant performance belongs to Broadchurch. In 2013 Chris Chibnall’s terrific tortuously twisting Dorset-set whodunit redefined the TV crime serial for the modern age. The second series dipped in quality before perking up for the trilogy’s conclusion but throughout it was the professional relationship between the local cop Ellie (Olivia Colman) and incomer DI Alec Hardy (Tennant) on which the series’ foundation was constructed.  

Colman was fantastic, of course, but her co-star was mesmerising as the complex detective trying to solve a child’s murder in a hostile seaside community harbouring all manner of secrets, while harbouring personal troubles of his own. He could be abrupt, he could be socially awkward but his determination to solve the crime, no matter the impact on his health, was undeniable.  So important was Tennant to the production was that he also recruited for an American version in which the story, and Tennant’s accent, were transported to California. Sadly, the Yanks didn’t like the show, but at least that meant the UK could welcome him back to our shores. 

Since then, Olivia Colman has won an Oscar, Chris Chibnall is the new Doctor Who showrunner while David Tennant is simply one of greatest small-screen actors of my generation.

The Emperor of Edginess, Paul Kaye

Over the past two decades or so, Paul Kaye has carved a crafty niche playing somewhat offbeat characters. What for me elevates him to Treasure status is his ability to lift such – often supporting - roles into ones more memorable than the leads. 

At first he played on his real-life brattish punk art student persona and his initial foray onto national television came about by accident. Apparently a boozy home video of late-night prank interviews got him noticed and a few years later the character evolved into Dennis Pennis for BBC2’s The Sunday Show. Resembling a red-haired Rik from The Young Ones but possessing a kind of mid-Atlantic whiny drawl, Pennis would hang around UK celebrity gatherings like award shows, thrust his microphone in front of the red carpet brigade and turn the expected dull interview into something more irreverent. 

I forget how I came about watching the show but the Pennis sections were obviously the best things in it. Once he became recognised, the joke was killed stone dead so instead he was allowed to thrust that same mic into the unsuspecting faces of Hollywood A-listers like Schwarzenegger, Steve Martin, Hugh Grant and Demi Moore. The bigger the star, the more biting the ‘question’. What began as gentle ribbing turned into a lauded pricking of the celeb bubble and finally into rather tiresome smart-arsery. Kaye had to kill him off, his co-creator jumped ship to launch Ali G but Paul Kaye proved he was no one-trick pony. 

While his face doesn’t exactly suggest romantic lead, Kaye came pretty close in 2000 Acres of Sky, a post-EastEnders vehicle for Michelle Collins. He played her scruffy friend who pretends to be her partner in order that they be paid to run a B&B in a remote Scottish fishing village. Of course he holds a secret torch for Collins and by the third series in 2005 it didn’t end well. However, he really impressed me and ever since I’ve kept an eye out for him in dramatic roles. 

That doesn’t mean I’ve tuned in to every episode of Skins, Humans, Strutter or – heaven forbid – Game of Thrones, but it’s almost life-affirming to watch him turn up as unconventional doctors (e.g. in Waking the Dead) or prison chaplains (Cold Feet). 

Not surprisingly he has often portrayed dodgy-looking husbands (Candy Cabs) or a weaselly reporter ripe for the taking in the always entertaining Hustle.  In 2013 he toned down the theatricals to convince as a bushy-bearded cult leader in the watchable but frankly bizarre Ripper Street, part-dark Victorian crime thriller, part-Shakespearean tragedy. He was a crook in the modern-day action series The Interceptor and seedy strip club owner in ITV’s Dark Heart. In both he was far more credible than the respective main characters and he was also great in the Beeb’s multi-award-winning Three Girls, as the father of one victim of the Rochdale child sex ring. 

For all this serious stuff, I also love him in lighter material. When I moved to Cardiff permanently I discovered that Sky One’s new Ruth Jones drama Stella was considered essential viewing.  The actor-writer played the eponymous character struggling to hold her family together amidst an array of eccentrics populating her Valleys town. In the second series that eccentricity dial rose a few notches with the arrival of a Dutch New Age relationship counsellor. It was, of course, Paul Kaye. He probably appeared in only three or four episodes but his “Pass the feather” catchphrase still resonates in this household should any part of a bird’s coat flutter within range. 

A few years later he was a village yokel caught up in an Inside No.9 seventeenth-century witch trial and also an alien undertaker who comes to haunt Peter Capaldi’s Doctor Who. However, it was way back in the ‘90s that he was an obvious choice to lend his edgy ‘cool’ to Keith Allen’s oddball collective Fat Les. In particular, he spoofed Richard Ashcroft spoof in the ‘Vindaloo’ video and was in Pennis mode for the live Top of the Pops studio invasion. 

Yet for all his lauded roles on screen and stage it pains me to make a confession: possibly his most memorable performances came in a series of 2013 TV commercials for gambling website BetVictor. Now I normally abhor anything that promotes behaviour which leads to addiction and I’d no more use an online betting app than join Donald Trump’s fanclub. However, Kaye’s quickfire portrayals of the excitable Maurice were a stunning tour-de-force. He’s now well into his fifties but I reckon he could still make a healthy living as much from young quirky oddballs as dodgy cops or fantasy warriors, and more power to his elbow.

Angus Deayton - Allegedly....

My first recollection of Angus Deayton is not of his suave facial expressions but his droll, sardonic voice.  Someone - I forget who or when – recommended I listen to Radio 4’s Radio Active, and the local radio parody lured a lot of young people like me to the network’s 6.30 comedy slot. The programme also introduced us to the latest bunch of talented writer-performers off the Oxbridge production line. Besides Deayton, there was Geoffrey Perkins, musician Philip Pope, Helen Atkinson-Wood and Michael Fenton-Stevens, each of whom became familiar on TV. 

The troupe reunited in 1989 for KYTV, migrating many of the same ideas, and even the same scripts, from a fictional inept radio station to an equally fictional satellite TV network, obviously in no way related to the fledgling Sky TV! I remember encouraging some of my friends to attend a recording at TV Centre and this spot-on wartime celebration edition of KYTV is the one we saw in the studio. 

A few years earlier another Billericay Rotaract social jaunt had taken us to London for Rowan Atkinson’s first one-man show. Except it wasn’t quite a one-man show. I was delighted to discover that the Blackadder star’s straight man was none other than Angus Deayton. I watched one of the better sketches being broadcast in that year’s inaugural Comic Relief fundraiser. Indeed Angus appeared with Atkinson in other TV shows around that time, including the first, not very funny, series of The Black Adder and, once more the unfortunate fall guy, in The Curse of Mr Bean. 

There he was again as a regular sketch performer on the hit-and-miss Alexei Sayle’s Stuff while in the mid-Nineties, the ‘godfather of alternative comedy’ was Angus’ guest on The End of the Year Show, a sort of chat show-cum-review for New Year’s Eve. By that time, Deayton had found a new legion of fans with regard to another satirical look at current affairs, as presenter of Have I Got News For You? 

He was the ideal choice of host, performing the scripted gags with eyebrows raised to precisely the perfect angle while feeding lines to Ian Hislop, Paul Merton and guest panellists. Then in 2002, it all went a bit Pete Tong. The News of the World splashed a sensationalist story about Angus, cocaine and a woman who turned out to be a prostitute. To the Beeb’s credit, they didn’t sack him straightaway and to Deayton’s credit, he didn’t shy away from presenting that week’s edition of HIGNFY. It was the programme everyone wanted to watch, knowing that Hislop and Merton would taunt him mercilessly, which of course they did[7]. 

My one criticism of Angus Deayton is that he was the inadvertent catalyst for the UK having to endure Boris Johnson as Prime Minister and Britain leaving the EU. When further tabloid revelations eventually led to the presenter’s dismissal, the producers’ stopgap policy of different guest hosts each week became permanent. In ’98, a bumbling, shaggy-haired upper-class twit of a Spectator columnist first took the role, and was an instant hit. He may have been recognised as an obvious reactionary idiot but when you are harbouring political ambitions, just being recognised is a huge advantage and so began the rise and rise of Bo-Jo. Thanks a bundle, Angus! 

Unlike Johnson the PM, Angus Deayton didn’t go off and hide in a freezer or a £15,000 a week Caribbean island. He returned to the podium to lead the 2008 British Comedy Awards, bringing his own humiliating experience to bear on that year’s Jonathan Ross scandal. I had also forgotten that he hosted the first series of Would I Lie To You back in 2007, before Rob Brydon made the job his own. The comparisons with his old HIGNFY role were immediately apparent. It wasn’t topical but most of the laughs were generated by the regular team captains, in this case David Mitchell and the utterly brilliant Lee Mack. Angus also provided the scripted links for 2008 Sport Relief’s amusing ‘fake’ interviews. 

In the Nineties and Noughties there were all manner of awards shows or nostalgic clip-fests for which the smug, laconic Angus Deayton was admirably suited. I also watched him present or narrate documentaries such as In Search of Happiness and Doing Rude Things but he has since cropped up regularly in TV and radio sitcoms and even reviving Radio Active at the Edinburgh Fringe, but few of his vehicles have joined my repertoire of viewing. An exception was One Foot in the Grave. 

As Victor Meldrew’s rather boring suburban neighbour, Patrick, Angus must have been well inside his comfort zone, exasperated by Victor’s attitudes and antics while looking down his nose in that way only Deayton can. Of course the series was a massive success but probably set in concrete his typecasting for life. He may never win an Oscar or Olivier Award, but as a droll straight man for the modern age, he’s not just the daddy; he's the grand-daddy.

The Fab-u-lous Craig Revel Horwood

When Mum used to rave about Strictly Come Dancing back in the Noughties, I ended up having to stick my fingers in my ears and chant “La la la, I can’t hear you…” It wasn’t the concept of a show about ballroom dancing that I objected to – each to their own – but the notion that she’d think I would enjoy it. I hated the ITV-style celebrity glitz, the audience voting and – well – the blooming dancing I just DON’T DO DANCING!

Admittedly my interest was piqued slightly when cricketers like Darren Gough and Mark Ramprakash proved surprisingly adept and when my new family in Bridgwater watched the show I reluctantly joined them, and pretty soon I became hooked. Bruce Forsyth was well past it but the live music element appealed and even I could tell whether someone had tripped up in a waltz or performed a rumba with the hip movement of a concrete cow. There was also the delight in witnessing familiar faces way out of their comfort zone. 

Then there were the judges. On the Simon Cowell talent shows, The Voice UK and that skating nonsense, the panel are obviously considered more important than the competitors. From Amanda Holden to Torvill and Dean, Sharon Osborne to whoever has a new album to plug, it’s all about them. It wasn’t – and still isn’t quite like that on Strictly. They all have their personalities, of course, and have become intrinsic parts of the whole programme, but I find most of them annoying. Len was an old curmudgeon who loved the applause when he awarded crowd-pleasing marks but couldn’t take it when he was booed. I couldn’t stand his ego. Bruno is wonderfully flamboyant but ultimately a bit irritating, Darcey Bussell annoyingly posh and Shirley a bit – meh. Then there’s Craig Revel Horwood. 

While not quite as camp as Bruno, the Australian brings a very different kind of entertainment to proceedings. Of course, he’s there to wind people up, be the pantomime villain, the antithesis of his fellow judges. But as I watched more regularly, I warmed to him. After all, instead of awarding a 5 to someone who could barely walk let along dance, he would tell it how it is, most infamously in the case of Tory politician Anne Widdecombe. Let’s be honest, he was only saying what we all thought, and that goes for most of his other Mr Nasty caustic comments. 

As for Craig’s notoriously low scoring, I find it far more in tune to my own verdict than those of his colleagues who seem so self-congratulatory at waving their ‘10’ wands when the dance leaves something to be desired. When Craig gives a maximum you know it’s as close to perfection as an amateur can get, and I really respect that. I also love the way he delivers his marks with the same straight face whether it’s an elusive 10 or a mediocre 2. That glum blank expression is part of the act because he must also possess the brightest smile in showbiz. 

Then there are his catchphrases. Len may have had his “Se-VEN!” but not even Bruno can claim anything as distinctive as Craig’s “Fab-u-LOUS!”, “Dis-AH-ster, dah-ling” or “A –ma-ZING!”. His enunciation of “Gor-geous” is another favourite of mine. He also has an endearing fondness when delivering his verdict on a performance for seemingly inviting the jeers before revealing fulsome praise. I remember watching his appraisal of Kimberly Walsh’s Latin dance in 2012 which began “indecent, improper, absolute filth…”, eliciting chuckles when he added: “…I loved it!” 

Revel Horwood bring so much more to the party than anyone else, not only in terms of personality and pithy comments but in his multifarious talents. Last year he brought to the musicals episode a version of his panto dame act and in an early edition of Strictly’s It Takes Two companion he demonstrated a rather beguiling singing voice in a duet with pro dancer Anton du Beke. Most entertaining of all was his outrageously accurate 2017 impersonation of Bruno, to compensate for the Italian’s absence. Could you imagine Len or Arlene Phillips doing that?! 

On top of all that, he’s an award-winning choreographer who has also directed West End musicals and even the opening ceremony for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, when Strictly was just a jotting on a BBC producer’s ideas list. Apparently he has also written songs and a debut novel is scheduled for publication later this year. What’s left for him to do? 

To be frank I don’t care. While I’m no longer an avid viewer of the Beeb’s autumn Saturday night staple, and the Covid pandemic will mean inevitable format changes this year, it is Craig Revel Horwood who is the key ingredient, the one most likely to reel me back into the weird world of fleckles and box turns. Just don’t expect me to join in: that would be a dis-ah-ster….

Gregor Fisher - one of Scotland's greatest exports

 It may seem bizarre that a TV character should become such a national treasure when most of what he utters is completely incomprehensible to anyone outside Glasgow, but that’s down to the brilliance of Gregor Fisher. However, as with other Scottish comedy legends such as Billy Connelly, Rikki Fulton and Stanley Baxter, Fisher is no one-trick pony.

He first came to my attention in BBC Scotland’s sketch show Naked Video back in 1986. We used to tune in every week, welcoming its company of characters into our Essex living room. It was hardly ground-breaking material but nonetheless made us laugh more often than not. Gregor was one of the DIY scientists and also hosted the Outer Hebrides Broadcasting Corporation’s regular news bulletin. However, I distinctly recall the debut of a grubby-vested alcoholic street philosopher who later became Rab C Nesbitt. 

Naked Video was still ongoing when Rab was granted his own series, and the Rab C Nesbitt spin-off soon became one of the most popular series on BBC2. Mum didn’t really ‘get’ it but Dad and I would lap it up. It took a lot to make Dad chuckle out loud but the misadventures of the dysfunctional Nesbitts, Cotters et al often succeeded. Rab’s addresses to the audience – usually prefaced by an indignant “I’ll tell you this!” - about anything from devolution and City of Culture to Christmas marketing were especially entertaining and, for all their fights, he always held a smidgeon of love and respect for his ‘Mary Doll’ (Elaine C Smith), notably when she inflicted a wee ‘Glasgow Kiss’ on a troublesome jobsworth! 

Such was our love of the show that Dad and I attended its live tour in 1991. A cavernous Brentwood sports centre wasn’t ideal but it was both confusing and reassuring that there were no concessions to geography in the language used. The Govan accents were just as impenetrable as they sounded on screen. It really shouldn’t have worked. The series could easily have slipped into parody of Scottish stereotypes but the energetic way Gregor Fisher brought Ian Pattison’s scripts and Rab’s character so vividly to life helped make Rab C Nesbitt a Caledonian classic. Not sure about the twenty-first century revival, though….

Rab wasn’t the only Gregor Fisher creation from Naked Video to spread his comedy wings. ITV turned his ‘Baldy Man’, complete with single-strand combover, into an alternative Mr Bean but it really wasn’t very funny. Far better were the short, sharp Hamlet cigar ads. They didn’t turn me into a smoker but Fisher’s performances were hilarious. 

With Fisher’s star status secured, in the mid-Nineties the Beeb revived The Tales of Para Handy. I’d vaguely recalled The Vital Spark from the early Seventies, featuring John Grieve and Roddy McMillan as the original ‘Para Handy’, but the humour proved rather too gentle for my thirty-something self. I think I watched only one episode, which may or may not have featured this appearance by a young David Tennant. 

I don’t recall giving Gregor’s 2008 series Empty even a single viewing, and I always allow his most famous film, Love Actually, a very wide berth whenever it is broadcast. In 2000 I’m pretty certain I witnessed ITV’s new version of The Railway Children (must have been at Mum and Dad’s!) featuring Fisher in the role of lovable stationmaster Perks. In the trailer I gave a silent cheer when he seemed to share star billing with Jenny Agutter, Richard Attenborough and Michael Kitchen.

At least it demonstrated that Gregor was no longer shackled by the ghost of Rab, nor even a Scottish accent.  I presume he didn’t give Oliver Twist’s Mr Bumble the full Fulton Mackay either, but even his contribution wouldn’t have lured me into the dark world of Dickens for love nor money. 

Indeed I have seen very little of Gregor Fisher in his more mature years. An exception came just after Christmas 2018. Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders was a lovingly-crafted, atmospheric feature-length period piece which had me enthralled. John Malkovich’s turn as an off-kilter Poirot was predictably eye-catching but my attention was diverted by the unheralded appearance halfway through of Gregor as the rather sad, ageing ventriloquist Dexter Dooley, who met a tricky sticky end. 

I would love to have seen the two men swap roles. Rab would have spotted the murderer straight off, and given him a Glasgow Kiss for good measure. That’s the sign of a memorable character and an actor with such a natural gift for comedy.

TV Treasure: The late, lamented Jill Dando

 It was around lunchtime on Monday, 26^th April when news filtered through my BBC office close to Broadcasting House that Jill Dando had been shot dead. We were all stunned. It wasn’t just that she had been the Corporation’s new ‘poster girl’; she was possibly the most popular TV presenter in the country. Her face was on that week’s edition of Radio Times, a new series starting just the day before. 

With a cool elegance, a trendy but not showy hair style and commonly photographed in long-legged pose, Jill had often been likened to Princess Diana. Like me, she was born the same year (1961) but that fateful day the list of similarities grew by one: senselessly killed in her prime, less than two years apart.  But, just as Diana’s death in Paris should never define her life, so Jill Dando should not be remembered merely as ‘that news presenter who was murdered’. 

Jill wasn’t really like Diana. She was the daughter of a local journalist not an earl, and attended an ordinary comprehensive school near her Weston-Super-Mare birthplace before herself studying journalism at a Cardiff college, not flunking all her exams at a swanky all-girl prep school. She trod a well-worn path from print to local radio to regional TV news before being invited up to West London to present news bulletins in the mid-Eighties. 

I may well have seen Dando occasionally on afternoon duty, possibly even on the One o’Clock News if I had the day off. As a young, single staffer she also got the holiday shifts and I may well have watched this Christmas week news bulletin in 1990. Her celebrity strengthened that decade and she branched out into light entertainment, guesting on big-ratings shows like Noel’s House Party and This Is Your Life but for me she became closely associated with the Beeb’s Holiday show. Moving away from the old desk-bound format, she was perfect for introducing or actually making film reports from some gorgeous location or other, and presented a New Year special from Australia in 1999. 

She also possessed the ideal poise and voice, authoritative yet warm, for introducing royal-related broadcasts such as the 1996 Royal Variety Performance and upmarket awards shows like the BAFTAs, scheduled two weeks after her death. She was also the obvious choice as the BBC face of major charity appeals, such as the one for Kosovo, again in ’99. 

By this time she was ubiquitous on the BBC. When not presenting the News or strolling along a sun-drenched foreign shore, she had become, with Nick Ross, the co-host of the live monthly reconstruction and witness appeal show, Crimewatch UK. Indeed just nine days before her murder, she had been on the programme, doing her thing. A month later, she wasn’t the host; she was the main story. That edition was especially harrowing to watch, particularly as the police had precious few witnesses despite Jill being shot on her doorstep in broad daylight. Was it family, was it a professional hit as revenge for her Crimewatch association or just the product of a warped nutter with a gun. The Met plumped for the latter but their conviction was eventually quashed on appeal. 

In September 1999, five months after her murder, I returned from lunch to find metal barriers outside Broadcasting House. Inside the entrance hall was a hushed, heavy atmosphere. Unaware of the reason I asked a fellow staff member who informed me the memorial service to Jill Dando was taking place at next-door All Souls Church, and the main participants would soon be heading out of the building. I waited a few minutes to observe the sombre procession: Jill’s fiancé, elderly dad, various BBC execs and her friend and fellow tennis partner Cliff Richard in a very showy ‘look at me!’ blazer. 

It was all a sharp reminder of the esteem in which she was held, not only by the broadcasting elite but also by a nation. A Google search for her name inevitably throws up a host of hits relating to ‘shooting’, ‘murder’ and ‘mystery’ and I was unable to resist watching a few twentieth anniversary documentaries last year. Jill was undoubtedly heading towards national treasure status but she had already achieved enough to make this viewer’s list of TV Treasures two decades later.