Michael Robbins was an English actor and comedian best known for his on-going role as Arthur Rudge in the TV sitcom and film versions of On the Buses (1969–72).
Born in London, Robbins was a bank clerk who became an actor after appearing in amateur dramatic performances in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, where he and his family lived at the time.
Robbins made his television debut as the cockney soldier in Roll-on Bloomin' Death.
Primarily a comedy actor, he is best remembered for the role of Arthur Rudge, the persistently sarcastic husband of Olive (Anna Karen), in the popular sitcom On the Buses (1969–73). Robbins and Karen provided the secondary comic storyline to Reg Varney's comedy capers at the bus depot. Robbins also appeared in the series film spin-offs, On the Buses, Mutiny on the Buses, and Holiday on the Buses.
His other comedy credits include non-recurring roles in Man About the House, The Good Life, One Foot in the Grave, The New Statesman, George and Mildred, Hi-de-Hi! and You Rang, M'Lord?. He appeared as a rather humorously portrayed police sergeant in the TV adaptation of Brendon Chase.
As well as these comic roles, he assumed various straight roles in some of the major British television shows of the 1960s and 1970s: including Minder, The Sweeney, Z-Cars, Return of the Saint, Murder Most English, The Avengers, Dixon of Dock Green and the 1982 Doctor Who story The Visitation.
Robbins's film credits included The Whisperers, Up The Junction, The Looking Glass War, Zeppelin and Blake Edwards' films The Pink Panther Strikes Again and Victor/Victoria'.
In the mid-1970s he also directed a film: How Are You?
Robbins was an indefatigable worker for charity. He was active in the Grand Order of Water Rats (being elected 'Rat of the Year' in 1978) and the Catholic Stage Guild; and received a Papal Award for his services in 1987.
In one of his last television appearances, in A Little Bit of Heaven Robbins recalled his childhood visits to Norfolk and spoke of his faith and love of the Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham.
Robbins was married to actress Hal Dyer until he died from cancer in Caterham, Surrey, aged 62.
Hal Dyer died in 2011 from a brain haemorrhage.
Robbins is survived by his two children and four grandchildren.
Sir Bruce Joseph Forsyth-Johnson CBE was an English presenter, actor, comedian, singer, dancer, and screenwriter whose career spanned more than 75 years. Forsyth came to national attention from the mid-1950s through the ITV series Sunday Night at the London Palladium. He went on to host several game shows, including The Generation Game, Play Your Cards Right, The Price Is Right and You Bet!. He co-presented Strictly Come Dancing from 2004 to 2013.
During his spell of hosting Sunday Night at the London Palladium as part of the show he hosted the 15-minute game show Beat the Clock. Forsyth's next success was The Generation Game (BBC1, 1971–1977, 1990–1994), which proved popular and attracted huge Saturday evening audiences. It was on this show that Forsyth introduced his "The Thinker" pose, emulating Rodin's sculpture. He also wrote and sang the theme for the show "Life is the Name of the Game." He was replaced on The Generation Game by Larry Grayson.
He left the BBC in 1978 to present Bruce Forsyth's Big Night, which was also transmitted on Saturday evening, but on rival broadcaster ITV. However, the show was not a success and lasted for just one series. Forsyth remained with ITV, hosting the game show Play Your Cards Right, which was the UK version of the US original Card Sharks, from 1980 to 1987, 1994 to 1999, and a brief period from 2002 to 2003, before the show was cancelled mid-run due to low ratings. In 1986, he went to the United States to host a game show on ABC, Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak.
Forsyth starred in the Thames Television sitcom Slinger's Day in 1986 and 1987, a sequel to Tripper's Day which had starred Leonard Rossiter, whom Forsyth replaced in the new show. He was the original host of You Bet! (1988 to 1990).
Forsyth fronted the third version of The Price Is Right (1995 to 2001). During the 1970s Forsyth featured in the Stork margarine adverts on television, and then during the 1980s and 1990s he appeared in an advertising campaign for the furniture retailer Courts, in which he dressed as a judge.
In 2003, and again in 2010, Forsyth was a guest presenter on the news and satire quiz show Have I Got News for You. He co-presented Strictly Come Dancing from 2004 to 2013, formally stepping down from hosting the regular live show in April 2014. This decision was made to reduce his workload and for the preparation of pre-recorded specials.
On 7 April 2010, Forsyth became one of the first three celebrities to be subjected to the British version of the American institution of a comedy roast, on Channel 4's A Comedy Roast. Forsyth was the subject of the BBC genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?, broadcast on 19 July 2010. On 20 March 2010, Forsyth appeared on the autobiography-interview programme Piers Morgan's Life Stories, which was broadcast on ITV.In 2011, Forsyth released a collection of songs on CD called These Are My Favourites.
From 1953 until their divorce in 1973, Forsyth was married to Penny Calvert, with whom he had three daughters named Debbie, Julie, and Laura. In 1973, he married Anthea Redfern, the hostess on The Generation Game. They had two daughters, Charlotte and Louisa, before
divorcing in 1979.
Asked to judge the 1980 Miss World competition, Forsyth met Puerto Rican beauty queen Wilnelia Merced, who was a fellow judge. They were married from 1983 until his death in 2017. They had one son together, Jonathan Joseph, better known as "JJ". By his six children, Forsyth had nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Towards the end of his life, Forsyth suffered from ill health, which reduced his appearances in public. On 8 October 2015, he was hospitalized for cuts and a minor concussion after falling at his home, having tripped over a rug and hit his head. A month later, he made his last TV appearance, on Strictly Children in Need Special. Filming took place prior to Forsyth undergoing surgery for an abdominal aortic aneurysm on 12 November. As a result of his surgery, he was unable to host that year's Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special as planned, but a spokesman representing him later stated he would play a part in the production, recording a special video message for it.
After 2015, Forsyth made no further public appearances, as his health began to decline, with his wife commenting that he struggled to move easily following his surgery.
On 18 August 2017, after struggling with further health problems, Forsyth passed away at his Wentworth Estate home, aged 89. Several celebrities paid tribute to Forsyth following his death, including his former Strictly Come Dancing co-host Tess Daly; his friends Michael Parkinson, Jimmy Tarbuck, and Des O'Connor; and the BBC director general Tony Hall. BBC One aired Sir Bruce Forsyth – Mr Entertainment, in place of the scheduled The One Show, in tribute.
RIP Sir Bruce Forsyth TV legend dies aged 89
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Diana Coupland was an English actress and singer best remembered for her role as Jean Abbott on Bless This House, which she played from 1971 to 1976
Betty Diana Coupland was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire in 1928, the only child of Elsie and Denis Coupland. She originally wanted to be a ballet dancer, but could not fulfill this ambition due to a horse-riding accident.
Her music career began at the age of 11. Barney Colehan, a BBC producer, heard Coupland sing and invited her onto one of his radio shows. By the time she reached 14, she was singing full-time at the Mecca Locarno in Leeds, and the following year, moved to London with her parents, where she became a resident singer at Mecca's Tottenham Court Road ballroom. During the 1940s and 1950s, she became a leading singer of the day, singing at the Dorchester Hotel and the Savoy Hotel. Coupland also dubbed the singing voices of actresses who could not sing, namely Lana Turner in Betrayed, and was most famously heard performing the song "Under the Mango Tree" in the first James Bond film Dr. No. She gave up professional singing in the 1960s.
Coupland serenades the opening scene of the film Flannelfoot (1953) where she starred as a nightclub singer. In 1959, she was unexpectedly cast by Joan Littlewood as Sally in the Theatre Workshop musical Make Me An Offer, and soon appeared in a number of West End shows including Gigi and Not Now, Darling.
She made her television debut in a 1961 episode of Emergency – Ward 10. Her other early roles were in Dixon of Dock Green, The Wednesday Play, Softly, Softly and Z-Cars. However, after playing a mother in Please Sir! and the Siberian wife in Mel Brooks's film The Twelve Chairs (1970), she gained her when she was cast as Jean Abbott, the long-suffering wife of Sid James's character, in Bless This House, which began its run in February 1971. She reprised the role in the 1972 feature film and continued in the role until James died in 1976. She appeared in a few other films including The Millionairess (1960), The Family Way (1966), Charlie Bubbles (1967), Spring and Port Wine (1969), The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970), The Best Pair of Legs in the Business (1973) and Operation Daybreak (1975).
During the late 1970s and 1980s, Coupland appeared in Wilde Alliance, Triangle, Dickens of London and Juliet Bravo. She was cast in soap opera Triangle after the original actor due to play the owner of the line died. She had been on the set with her husband, a director on the programme, and was offered the part. In 1992, she appeared in an episode of One Foot in the Grave, and in 2000 she had a six-week role as Maureen Carter in EastEnders. Following this, Coupland appeared in Doctors, Casualty and in 2005 Rose and Maloney, her final television appearance.
Diana Coupland married twice. She and her first husband, composer Monty Norman, divorced after 20 years of marriage, having had one daughter. In 2001, she gave evidence in a High Court case after her former husband sued The Sunday Times following a 1997 article suggesting that Norman had falsely taken credit and royalties for the James Bond theme music, which had actually been written by John Barry. Coupland described the article as "blatantly untrue" and her former husband was awarded £30,000.
She married Marc Miller, a producer, in 1980. Coupland, who was a patron of National Lupus UK, died aged 78 at the University Hospital, Coventry in 2006 after failing to recover following an operation to resolve long-term heart problems.
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Warren Mitchell was born on January 14, 1926 in Stoke Newington, London, England as Warren Misell. He was an actor, known for Till Death Us Do Part (1965), In Sickness and in Health (1985) and Jabberwocky (1977).
Mitchell was born in Stoke Newington, London. His father was a glass and china merchant. He was of Russian Jewish descent and described himself in an interview as an atheist, but also stated that he "enjoyed being Jewish". He was interested in acting from an early age and attended Gladys Gordon's Academy of Dramatic Arts in Walthamstow from the age of seven. He did well at Southgate County School (now Southgate School), a state grammar school at Palmers Green, Middlesex. He then studied physical chemistry at University College, Oxford, for six months. There he met his contemporary, Richard Burton, and together they joined the Royal Air Force in 1944. He completed his navigator training in Canada just as the Second World War ended.
Richard Burton's description of the acting profession had convinced him that it would be better than completing his chemistry degree and so Mitchell attended RADA for two years, performing in the evening with London's Unity Theatre. After a short stint as a DJ on Radio Luxembourg, in 1951, Mitchell became a versatile professional actor with straight and comedy roles on stage, radio, film and television.
His first broadcast was as a regular on the radio show Educating Archie, and this led to appearances in both the radio and television versions of Hancock's Half Hour. By the late '50s, he regularly appeared on television: as Sean Connery's trainer in boxing drama Requiem for a Heavyweight (1957), with Charlie Drake in the sitcom Drake's Progress (BBC, 1957) and a title role in Three 'Tough' Guys (ITV, 1957), in which he played a bungling criminal. He also appeared in several episodes of Armchair Theatre. During the first of these, Underground (1958), one of the lead actors died during the live performance. He also had roles in The Avengers in addition to many ITC drama series including: William Tell, The Four Just Men, Sir Francis Drake, Danger Man and as a recurrent guest in The Saint.
His cinema début was in Guy Hamilton's Manuela (1957), and he began a career of minor roles as sinister foreign agents, assisted by his premature baldness and facility with Eastern European accents. He appeared in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (José Quintero, 1961), Carry On Cleo (1964) and Help! (Richard Lester, 1965) and played leads in All the Way Up (James MacTaggart, 1970), The Chain (Jack Gold, 1984), The Dunera Boys (Ben Lewin, 1985) and Foreign Body (Ronald Neame, 1986).
In 1965, Mitchell was cast in the role for which he became best known, as the Conservative-voting, bigoted cockney West Ham United supporter Alf Garnett in a play for the BBC Comedy Playhouse series, broadcast on 22 July 1965. This was the pilot edition of the long-running series Till Death Us Do Part, with Gretchen Franklin, Una Stubbs and Antony Booth. The part of Mum, played by Franklin, was recast with Dandy Nichols in the role when the programme was commissioned as a series. Mitchell's real life persona was different from Alf Garnett, being Jewish, Labour-voting and a staunch supporter of Tottenham Hotspur. The show ran from 1966 to 1975, in seven series, making a total of 53 episodes.
Mitchell had a long and distinguished career on stage and television. Other small screen roles included a 13-episode series, Men of Affairs with Brian Rix (ITV, 1973–74), based on the West End hit farce Don't Just Lie There, Say Something! There were also performances in 1975 in Play for Today (showing that he could play a serious character role in the episode, Moss), The Sweeney (Thames Television for ITV, 1978), Lovejoy (BBC), Waking the Dead (BBC), Kavanagh QC (Carlton Television for ITV, he played a concentration camp survivor in the episode Ancient History), as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (BBC, 1980) and Gormenghast. In 2001, he appeared in a Christmas Special episode of Last of the Summer Wine, "Potts in Pole Position".
In the early 1970s, Mitchell appeared as a team captain on the television comedy panel game show Jokers Wild, opposite Les Dawson.
He was a subject of the television programme This Is Your Life in 1972 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews.
On stage he received extensive critical acclaim for his performances as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman at the National Theatre directed by Michael Rudman (1979, being originally cast in the role by Stephen Barry at the Playhouse in Perth, Australia);[ Harold Pinter's The Caretaker at the National Theatre; Pinter's The Homecoming at London's Comedy Theatre (1991) and Miller's The Price at the Apollo Theatre in 2003.
Mitchell reprised the role of Alf Garnett in the films Till Death Us Do Part (1969) and The Alf Garnett Saga (1972), in the ATV series Till Death... (1981), and in the BBC series In Sickness and in Health (1985–92). He also reprised his role as Alf Garnett in 1983 in the television series The Main Attraction where comedians recreated their famous acts from their past in front of a live and television audience (similar to An Audience with... that began in 1976).
In 1997 he played the role in An Audience with Alf Garnett. The same year, ITV aired a series of mini-episodes called A Word With Alf, featuring Alf and his friends. All the TV shows and both films were written by Johnny Speight. When Speight died in 1998, the series was cancelled at Mitchell's request.
In 2008, at the age of 82, Mitchell was performing, alongside Ross Gardiner at the Trafalgar Studios, in London's West End, as a retired dry-cleaner in Jeff Baron's portrait of Jewish-American life Visiting Mr. Green.
Mitchell was a patron of the British Humanist Association. In 1951 he married Constance M. Wake, an actress who appeared in early 1960s television dramas such as Maigret. They had three children.
For over twenty years, Mitchell suffered pain from nerve damage, caused by transverse myelitis, and was a supporter of the Neuropathy Trust. He suffered a mild stroke in August 2004. He was back onstage a week later, reprising his lauded role as a cantankerous old Jew in Arthur Miller's The Price.
Mitchell died in Highgate, London, on 14 November 2015 after a long illness, two months before his 90th birthday.
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Angela Douglas is without a doubt a very classy actress, who is remembered by million for her "Carry On..." career as well as other character roles.
Absolutely amazing in Carry on Cowboy (1965) as gorgeous, all-singing and trigger happy Annie Oakley, she eventually appeared in four "Carry On..." films and her best performance was probably as "The Princess Jelhi" in Carry On... Up the Khyber (1968).
Her entire "Carry On..." career is one of class not bawdiness, and she is a true heroine from the film's most successful period. She is often seen today in character roles in television and film.
She was happily married to actor Kenneth More for 14 years, after originally meeting him on the set of Some People (1962) in Bristol.
Miss Douglas made an appearance in north Wales in late September 2005 to unveil a plaque dedicated to the filming of Carry On... Up the Khyber (1968). Part of the movie had been shot in Llanberis, north Wales. She was quoted on BBC News saying that she loved appearing in Carry on Cowboy (1965) and Carry On... Up the Khyber (1968) and that they were her favourites.
Douglas started acting as a teenager, joining the Worthing, West Sussex repertory company, before making her West End theatre debut in 1958.
She made her film debut in 1959 with Donald Pleasence in The Shakedown, and then appeared with Tommy Steele in It's All Happening.
She is best remembered for her roles in several Carry On Films in the 1960s, including Carry On Cowboy (1965) as an all-singing and trigger-happy version of Annie Oakley. She then appeared in Carry On Screaming! (1966), Follow That Camel (1967) and Carry On... Up the Khyber (1968). She has, by virtue of this association, appeared on many retrospective and spin-off programmes. Douglas made an appearance in North Wales in September 2005 to unveil a plaque dedicated to the filming of Carry On... Up the Khyber, as part of the movie had been shot in Llanberis.
Her other films have included The Comedy Man, Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World and The Four Feathers.
Her television credits have included The Avengers, The Saint, Z-Cars, Dixon of Dock Green, Jason King and Coronation Street, and Doctor at Large.
After husband Kenneth More was diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease, she put her career on hold after 11 episodes of Oil Strike North. After More's death, she returned in various roles, including Doris Lethbridge-Stewart in Doctor Who (1989) and Peak Practice. In 1996 she played the part of Isobel Trimble in the third series of Cardiac Arrest.
She has since concentrated on a career in journalism and writing, having completed two books.
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Marty Feldman was a British comedy writer, comedian, and actor, known for his prominent, misaligned eyes. He starred in several British television comedy series, including At Last the 1948 Show and Marty, the latter of which won two BAFTA awards. He was the first Saturn Award winner for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Young Frankenstein.
Feldman was born on 8 July 1934 in the East End of London, the son of Jewish immigrants from Kiev, Ukraine. He recalled his childhood as "solitary".
Feldman suffered from thyroid disease and developed Graves' ophthalmopathy, causing his eyes to protrude and become misaligned. A childhood injury, a car crash, a boating accident, and reconstructive eye surgery may also have contributed to his appearance. Leaving school at 15, he worked at the Dreamland funfair in Margate, but had dreams of a career as a jazz trumpeter, and performed in the first group in which tenor saxophonist Tubby Hayes was a member. Feldman joked that he was "the world's worst trumpet player." By the age of 20, though, he had decided to pursue a career as a comedian.
Although his early performing career was undistinguished, he became part of a comedy act (Morris, Marty, and Mitch) that made its first television appearance on the BBC series Showcase in April 1955. Later in the decade, Feldman worked on the scripts for Educating Archie in both its radio and television incarnations with Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe.
In 1954, Feldman first met Barry Took while both were working as performers, and with Took he eventually formed an enduring writing partnership which lasted until 1974. They wrote a few episodes of The Army Game (1960) and the bulk of Bootsie and Snudge (1960–62), both situation comedies made by Granada Television for the ITV network. For BBC radio they wrote Round the Horne (1964–67), their best-remembered comedy series, which starred Kenneth Horne and Kenneth Williams. (The last season of Round the Horne in 1968 was written by others.) This work placed Feldman and Took "in the front rank of comedy writers," according to Denis Norden.
Feldman then became the chief writer and script editor on The Frost Report (1966–67). He co-wrote the much-shown "Class" sketch with John Law, in which John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbett faced the audience, with their descending order of height, suggesting their relative social status as upper class (Cleese), middle class (Barker), and working class (Corbett).
The television sketch comedy series At Last the 1948 Show raised Feldman's profile as a performer. The other three participants, (future Pythons, Graham Chapman and John Cleese, and future Goody, Tim Brooke-Taylor) needed a fourth cast member and had Feldman in mind. In a sketch on 1 March 1967, Feldman's character harassed a patient shop assistant (played by Cleese) regarding a series of fictitious books, achieving success with Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying. His character in At Last the 1948 Show was often called Mr Pest, according to John Cleese. Feldman was co-author, along with Cleese, Chapman, and Brooke-Taylor of the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch, which was written for At Last the 1948 Show.
Feldman was given his own series on the BBC called Marty in 1968; it featured Brooke-Taylor, John Junkin, and Roland MacLeod, with Cleese as one of the writers. Feldman won two BAFTA awards. The second series in 1969 was renamed It's Marty.
In 1971, Feldman gave evidence in favour of the defendants in the Oz trial. He would not swear on the Bible, choosing instead to affirm. Throughout his testimony, he mocked the judge after it was implied that he had no religion because he was not Christian. By this time, The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine (1971–72) was in preparation, a TV series co-produced by Associated Television (ATV) and the American Broadcasting Company which was produced at ATV's Elstree Studios, near London. This show lasted for one season.
In 1974, Dennis Main Wilson produced a short BBC sketch series for Feldman titled Marty Back Together Again, – a reference to reports about the star's health, but it never captured the impact of the earlier series. The Marty series proved popular enough with an international audience to launch a film career. His first feature role was in Every Home Should Have One (1970). Feldman spent time in Soho jazz clubs, as he found a parallel between "riffing" in a comedy partnership and the improvisation of jazz.
On film, in Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein (1974), he was Igor.
Many lines in Young Frankenstein were improvised. Gene Wilder says he had Feldman in mind when he wrote the part. At one point, Dr Frankenstein (Wilder) scolds Igor with the phrase, "Damn your eyes!" Feldman turns to the camera, points to his misaligned eyes with a grin and says, "Too late!"
In 1975, He appeared in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother and Brooks' Silent Movie, as well as directing and starring in The Last Remake of Beau Geste. He guest-starred in the "Arabian Nights" episode of The Muppet Show with several Sesame Street characters, especially Cookie Monster with whom he shared a playful cameo comparing their eyes side by side.
During the course of his career, Feldman recorded one LP, I Feel a Song Going Off (1969), re-released as The Crazy World of Marty Feldman. The songs were written by Denis King, John Junkin, and Bill Solly (a writer for Max Bygraves and The Two Ronnies).
It was re-released as a CD in 2007.
Feldman was married to Lauretta Sullivan from January 1959 until his death in 1982. She died, aged 74, in Studio City, Los Angeles. Feldman's peers have reported, in a number of biographies, that he was highly attractive to women in spite of his unconventional facial appearance.
Politically, Marty Feldman has been described as an "avowed socialist" telling one interviewer "I'm a socialist by conviction, if not by lifestyle" and another "I'm a socialist from way back but in order to pay my back taxes I have to live in America to earn enough money to pay the back tax I owe to the socialist government that I voted in." He joked later that when a Labour cabinet minister said to him "Of course you vote Labour," Feldman replied, "No I don't because I'm a socialist!" However, he generally did not seriously discuss politics in public. An exception was when during a promotional tour for The Last Remake of Beau Geste he denounced Anita Bryant's campaign against homosexuality. He was an atheist.
Feldman died from a heart attack in a hotel room in Mexico City on 2 December 1982 at age 48, during the making of the film Yellowbeard. On the DVD commentary of Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks cites factors that may have contributed to Feldman's death: "He smoked sometimes half-a-carton (5 packs) of cigarettes daily, drank copious amounts of black coffee, and ate a diet rich in eggs and dairy products."
He is buried in Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery near his idol, Buster Keaton, in the Garden of Heritage
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Ronnie Barker's remarkable versatility as a performer can be traced back
to his time in repertory theatre, where he was able to play a wide
range of roles and develop his talent for accents, voices and verbal
dexterity. It was during this time that he met Glenn Melvyn, who taught
him how to stammer (something he would later use to great effect in the
sitcom Open All Hours (1976)). Melvyn also gave Ronnie his break into television by offering him a role in I'm Not Bothered (1956).
During the
1960s, Ronnie became well-established in radio, providing multiple
voices for "The Navy Lark" and working with comedy great Jon Pertwee. He
also became a regular face on television, appearing in The Frost Report
(1966) (perhaps most memorably in a sketch about Britain's class
system, with John Cleese and Ronnie Corbett) and playing character roles
on The Saint (1962) and The Avengers (1961).
In 1971, Ronnie teamed
up with Ronnie Corbett again, this time for a BBC sketch series called
The Two Ronnies (1971). This series proved enormously popular,
continuing until the late 1980s. In addition to "The Two Ronnies",
Barker starred on the popular BBC sitcoms Porridge (1974) (as a cockney
prisoner) and Open All Hours (1976) (as a stammering Northern
shopkeeper). In fact, only Leonard Rossiter could be said to have
rivaled him during this time for the crown of British television's most
popular comedy star.
In 1982, he revived silent comedy in By the Sea
(1982). Despite his extrovert performances on television, Barker
remained a quiet, retiring individual in his personal life, much
preferring to spend time with his family rather than mix with the
celebrity crowd. This humility, combined with memories of his
extraordinary abilities, meant that he continued to be greatly respected
by his fellow professionals.
In a BAFTA special shown by the BBC in
2004, stars as diverse as Gene Wilder, Peter Kay and Peter Hall paid
tribute to his contribution to comedy and British television in general.
Ronnie Barker died on 3 October 2005 after suffering from heart
problems.
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The Young Ones is a British sitcom, broadcast in the United Kingdom from 1982 to 1984 in two six-part series. Shown on BBC2, it featured anarchic, offbeat humour which helped bring alternative comedy to television in the 1980s and made household names of its writers and performers. In 1985, it was shown on MTV, one of the first non-music television shows on the fledgling channel. In a 2004 poll, it ranked at number 31 in the BBC's list of Britain's Best Sitcoms. The title relates to the song, written by Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett, and sung by Cliff Richard and The Shadows, which was a No. 1 UK hit single.
The Young Ones originated on London's comedy club circuit in the early 1980s, where most of the show's cast had gained popularity at The Comedy Store. Alexei Sayle was the prominent act, drawing attention as the manic, aggressive compere. Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall worked as the double act 20th Century Coyote, which later became The Dangerous Brothers. Nigel Planer was also in a double act with Peter Richardson called "The Outer Limits".
As The Comedy Store became popular, Sayle, 20th Century Coyote, and The Outer Limits, with French and Saunders and Arnold Brown, set up their own club called The Comic Strip in the Raymond Revuebar club in Soho. The Comic Strip became one of the most popular comedy venues in London, and came to the attention of Jeremy Isaacs of Channel 4. Peter Richardson then negotiated a deal for six self-contained half-hour films, using the group as comedy actors rather than stand-up performers. In response, the BBC began negotiations with Edmondson, Mayall, Richardson, Planer and Sayle to star in a sitcom in a similar style. Paul Jackson was installed as a producer. Richardson's project, The Comic Strip Presents..., aired on Channel 4's opening night on 2 November 1982, with The Young Ones following a week later on BBC2.
The series was written by Mayall, his then-girlfriend Lise Mayer, and Ben Elton (who had attended the University of Manchester with Mayall and Edmondson). Richardson was originally set to play Mike, but clashed with Jackson. He was replaced by Christopher Ryan, the only member of the group who was not a stand-up comedian.
The main characters were four undergraduate students who were sharing a house: aggressive punk medical student, Vyvyan Basterd (Adrian Edmondson); conceited wannabe anarchist sociology student, Rick (Rik Mayall), oppressed paranoid hippie peace studies student, Neil Wheedon Watkins Pye (Nigel Planer); and the suave, charming would-be underground mob boss, Mike The-Cool-Person (Christopher Ryan). It also featured Alexei Sayle, who played various members of the Balowski family—most often Jerzei Balowski, the quartet's landlord—and occasional independent characters.
The show combined traditional sitcom style with violent slapstick, non-sequitur plot turns, and
surrealism. These older styles were mixed with the working and lower-middle class attitudes of the growing 1980s alternative comedy boom, in which all the principal performers except Ryan had been involved. Every episode except one featured a live performance by a band, including Madness, Motörhead, and The Damned. This was a device used to qualify the series for a larger budget, as "variety" shows attracted higher fees than "comedy".
Stories were set in a squalid house where the students lived during their time at Scumbag College. It can be classified as a comedy of manners.
When it was first broadcast, the show gained attention for its violent slapstick, which Mayall and Edmondson had been using in 20th Century Coyote for some time. The show also featured surreal elements, such as puppets playing talking animals or objects. Confusion was added with lengthy cutaways with no relation to the main plot.
Throughout the series, the fourth wall was frequently broken for comedic effect by all characters at various parts of the show. The wall was usually broken as either a punchline to a joke or to make a plot point more obvious. On several occasions, Alexei Sayle broke both the fourth wall and character to address the audience in his real-life Liverpudlian accent.
The series featured a wide variety of guest appearances by comedians, actors, and singers, including co-creator Ben Elton, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Hale and Pace, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Mark Arden, Stephen Frost, Jools Holland, Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones, Terry Jones, Chris Barrie, Norman Lovett, Lenny Henry, David Rappaport, Robbie Coltrane, Tony Robinson, Andy De La Tour and Emma Thompson.
The series' theme song featured the cast singing Cliff Richard and The Shadows' UK No. 1 song "The Young Ones" (1961), the title song from the film of the same name. Throughout the series there are many references to Richard, as Mayall's character is a fan.
In 1984, after the second series, Planer (in character as Neil) reached No. 2 in the UK charts with a version of Traffic's "Hole in My Shoe". The accompanying Neil's Heavy Concept Album, a loose collection of songs and spoken comedy, included appearances by The Young Ones alumni Dawn French and Stephen Fry.
Eleven of the twelve episodes had a musical guest performing in the house or street. By including the groups, the show qualified as variety rather than light entertainment by the BBC and was allocated a bigger budget than a sitcom. Groups that appeared included Dexys Midnight Runners, Motörhead, The Damned and Madness, who appeared in two episodes. The one episode that featured no musical act still fulfilled the variety criteria by including a lion tamer, whose presence also directly contributed to the plot.
Mike "The-Cool-Person" portrayed by Christopher Ryan
Mike is the assumed leader of the group (within which Vyvyan is his enforcer) who frequently makes puns, which are either deliberately cheap or humorous. These confusing, profound-sounding phrases baffle the others (for example, when asked by Rick if he stole his half an apple, Mike replies; "Well, if you're gonna sin you might as well be original.") Mike is supposedly the 'ladies' man' and often brags of his prowess with women, although he is shown to share his bed with an inflatable sex doll and practically admitted his virginity to the others in "Nasty". He makes every attempt at wooing the opposite sex, being both forward and unsuccessful. During "Boring", however, he has an encounter with (and also instigated by) Vyvyan's mother, where (until after a comment made by Rick), he makes progress, although her direct approach initially worries Mike.
Mike is a con artist: he always has some kind of plan to make quick money such as renting out Rick's bedroom as a roller disco and taking bids for the unexploded atomic bomb that fell into the house. He also fancies himself to be a rising underground mob boss. Mike attends Scumbag College only nominally as he has blackmailed his tutor and the Dean of the school for grants and successful grades. This is shown in the title sequence of series 1 in which he is seen to pay a bribe in exchange for a qualification. In "Summer Holiday" he muses, "I think I'll ask for one of those PhDs next year." While it wasn't mentioned what he was studying at the college, when it once came up, in "Sick", by Mrs. Wheedon Watkins Pye when Neil was introducing him, he answers her, "I'm in, what you'd call, a school of life, Mrs. Pye" (before groping her).
While Mike often does things at the expense or detriment of his housemates, he rarely expresses the sort of open hostility that Rick and Vyvyan do, and seems to cause his housemates trouble only when it benefits him, rather than out of sadistic joy. While it is rare for him to be victim to violence, he has been on a few occasions; such as when he was flirting with a Christian, this resulted in her repeatedly kneeing Mike in the crotch. At the end of the "Living Doll" song with Cliff Richard, Vyvyan hit Mike and everyone else over the head with a hammer, knocking them out. Also when Mike was trying to nail plates to the dining table, he managed to nail his own legs to the table in the process. On another occasion, Mike accidentally knocked Neil out during a game of cricket.
Mike has been shown to be helpful to the others on occasion; if any situation becomes problematic he does what he can to try and restore calm. He also tried to teach Vyvyan how to tell time in "Bambi" and in the final episode "Summer Holiday" he comforts Vyvyan when he bursts into tears after wrecking his car when he crashed it and SPG dies.
Although generally aloof and laid back mike loses his cool his authority is questioned however small. For example In "summer holiday" when Vyvyan tells everyone to shut up he was very indignant that this included him. Mike is the shortest member of the four, and the best-dressed and groomed out of the lot of them. In the final episode, Summer Holiday, Mike admits that he came from very poor beginnings out on the streets, and had sworn that he would never again go back to that life, thus his leap into a con artist's life in the first place.
Mike's surname is ambiguous, The Bachelor Boys book refers to him as "The Cool Person" several times, but in different styles including quotes.
Rick played by Rik Mayall
Rick is a self-proclaimed anarchist who is studying sociology and/or domestic sciences. Rick writes bad poetry, and styles himself "The People's Poet", believing himself to be the "spokesperson for a generation". He is in fact a hypocritical, tantrum-throwing, attention-seeking Cliff Richard fan, or, as Vyvyan describes him, "The classic example of an only child!" Rick tries to impress the others using wit and humour, despite not having any discernible talent. He insults Neil at every opportunity, using Neil as a target and an outlet, picks fights and bickers with Vyvyan and attempts to impress Mike. He is portrayed as being so self-absorbed that he believes he is the "most popular member of the flat" despite being disliked by virtually everyone he knows; even though his housemates hate him, he says that they "really are terrific friends". This is further emphasised in the episode "Bambi" when Neil reads graffiti aloud from Rick's History 'O' Level text book; "Prick is a wonker- signed, The Rest of the Class" which Rick dismisses as banter until Neil further reads "I agree with the rest of the class – signed, Teacher."
He can't say the "R" sound correctly and instead enunciates a mixture of a "W" and a "R" sound. In the episode "Bomb", he dictates his name to a woman who looks up in confusion and repeats it back as "Wick?". Vyvyan, for his own amusement, describes Rick's name as being spelled "with a silent P", as he wrote it on Rick's name card during the University Challenge against Footlights College in the episode "Bambi".
Rick's political beliefs vary, depending on how they benefit his particular situation, but can usually be categorised as radical. While Rick sees himself as both a revolutionary and follower of Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, in reality he has little understanding of the political ideals he purports to follow, and aspirations that far exceeds his reach. During "Cash" he is shown with a copy of Marx's Das Kapital, seemingly having fallen asleep while trying to read it.
He greatly dislikes Margaret Thatcher, as is noted by his threatening to blow up England with an atomic bomb in the episode "Bomb" if she "doesn't do something to help the kids, by this afternoon", and from negative references to Thatcher and the Conservative Party mentioned in The Young Ones book Bachelor Boys. However, Rick sometimes displays a markedly conservative mindset, contrary to the image he has adopted, as again in "Bomb" while talking to an old man at the DHSS office (which he has mistaken for a post office), and in Summer Holiday comments "That's one thing I'll say for Thatcher, she definitely has put this country back on its feet".
Rick is vegetarian, agnostic, and wishes all men to love each other like brothers, except for Neil, whom he hates. This hatred is ironic as technically he and Neil in theory share many values such as a longing for a peaceful world and a hatred for meat and alcohol. However unlike Neil Rick has been known to both drink (see time sbd interesting) and is occasionally physically violent therefore his hatred of Neil merely shows his hypocrisy. Despite this he claims to care for the people but nearly everything he does is hypocritical and self-serving.
Rick exaggerates or lies about his political activism and class background, which is exposed in the final episode, "Summer Holiday", when it is suggested he comes from a well off family with Conservative beliefs. He is a closet-transvestite, as during "Nasty" Neil finds a dress in Rick's wardrobe with his name stitched in it. In the episode "Cash", Rick admits to Mike that he is unable to tell the time, a trait that he shares with Vyvyan.
Vyvyan Basterd played by Adrian Edmondson
Vyvyan, often referred to as "Vyv", is a psychopathic punk medical student. He has spiked red hair and four metal stars seemingly embedded into his forehead. He wears a denim waistcoat over a black T-shirt, a black studded belt across his denim jeans and bovver boots. In the episode "Interesting", he drinks a pint of blue liquid which makes his hair fall out and the number 666 is visible on the side of his head. He is extremely violent and regularly attacks Neil and Rick with pieces of wood, cricket bats, other large objects or simply his fists. For some reason he looks up to Mike, whom he never attacks and often addresses as "Michael". He despises Rick more than he does Neil; for example when Rick, Mike and Neil meet his mother at a bar in the episode "Boring", he calls both Neil and Mike his friends, but refers to Rick as "a complete bastard." Ironically, this antagonistic relationship between Rick and Vyvyan makes them virtually inseparable, as the two spend by far more time together than with the other housemates, albeit this time is spent fighting.
Vyvyan owns a talking Glaswegian hamster named Special Patrol Group ("SPG" for short) of whom he is very fond, although SPG is also frequently subjected to Vyvyan's extreme violence. This is usually provoked, such as when SPG bit Vyvyan and made him destroy his cardboard submarine in "Flood" or plugging in the TV after Vyvyan swallowed it in "Bomb". Vyvyan's mother is a barmaid and former shoplifter, who before "Boring" had not seen Vyvyan in ten years and has no idea who his father is. Neil revealed that Vyvyan has more friends than the other housemates but "... apparently he doesn't like any of them."
Vyvyan occasionally displays feats of superhuman strength and resilience, such as surviving a pickaxe through his head, moving entire walls with his bare hands, lifting Neil above his head in a fight with Rick, biting through a brick (making the comment that some of the house's bricks explode) and even being decapitated and re-attaching his own head. He eats just about anything from televisions and dead rats to caviar and cornflakes with ketchup.
Regardless of his violent and mostly simple-minded nature, Vyvyan seems to be the smartest of the group and he has on a couple of occasions demonstrated his talent as a medical student. In the episode "Flood", he develops a potion to transform a person into an "axe-wielding homicidal maniac", claiming that "it's basically a cure... for not being an axe-wielding homicidal maniac... the potential market's enormous!". He also managed to create a bomb using only his pyjama sleeve and a bottle of vodka. On occasion, he has made several eloquent statements regarding subjects ranging from Rick's manifest personality problems to the inherent dulleness of "The Good Life", and the end of "Oil" implies he manipulated the rest of the household, possibly for amusement. Vyvyan also appears to have good knowledge of electrics and technology; on one occasion he wired the doorbell to a bomb "to pep it up a bit" so the housemates would be able to hear it, and he also added a small car engine to the vacuum cleaner as previously it "looked a bit on the tentative side" which then proceeds to suck up the carpet, the floorboards and a friend of Neil's. The vacuum also prompted one of the few clashes between Vyvyan and Mike; when Mike admonished Vyvyan and told him not to use it any more, Vyvyan replied by calling him a "poof". In the episode "Nasty", the boys trap a vampire in their bathroom, and when he denies being a vampire, Vyvyan successfully tricks him into admitting that he is. In "Bambi" Vyvyan displays impressive mathematical talent as he worked out instantly that he has worn his three pairs of knickers 269 times each since their last wash. However, like Rick, he cannot tell the time from a watch.
Although Vyvyan is constantly unruly, he does possess a compassionate side; primarily in the episode "Cash", when he thought he was pregnant he was considering names to call his baby and he also patted his "bump" saying "that's my boy!" when it hit Rick in the face and knocked him into the fireplace. Also when Vyvyan began having "contractions" he appealed to the other housemates for help, this led to Neil getting a job in the police force (it was later revealed that he just had a really bad case of built-up gas). On another occasion, in the last episode "Summer Holiday" Vyvyan dissolved into tears because he crashed his car and also because it caused SPG's death while he was asleep on the car's radiator.
Vyvyan is the only member of the group who owns a car, a yellow Ford Anglia with red flames painted along the sides and has "Vyv" written across the back window. He also appears to have exceptional knowledge of driving and road awareness. This was in fact how he managed to trick the vampire in "Nasty" to admitting he was really a vampire rather than a driving instructor as he had initially said. Vyvyan is not the only house member who can drive, however, during the last episode Rick is briefly seen driving the stolen double-decker bus.
Neil Wheedon Watkins Pye played by Nigel Planer
A morose, pacifist, vegetarian environmentalist working toward a Peace Studies degree. He is frequently victimised by the other housemates and forced to do the housework, shopping, cleaning and cooking. He is never acknowledged for it unless it goes wrong. He normally provides tea to drink and cornflakes or lentils for his housemates to eat.
Neil is a pessimist and believes everyone and everything hates him, although he does have three hippie friends; one also named Neil, one named Warlock and a female hippie named Stonehenge.
This makes him the second most sociable character behind Vyvyan and also the only character to have a female friend. He dislikes most forms of technology except for televisions and video recorders. He is also an insomniac, believing that sleep causes cancer. Neil frequently demonstrates a very literal interpretation of terms and phrases. For example, when Vivyan says that his mother used to be a shoplifter, Neil responds "She doesn't look strong enough... to lift shops".
Neil wants the others to feel sorry for him, or just acknowledge his presence. He claims "the most interesting thing that ever happens to me is sneezing", the force of which is sufficient to blow a door off its hinges.
In the pilot episode "Demolition", Neil is shown to have suicidal tendencies, attempting to killhimself at least three times. However, this was not carried through for the rest of the series, with the exception of the episode "Boring", in which he attempts to kill himself in a desperate attempt at relieving boredom. On only two occasions has Neil shown any form of aggression; this was when Rick insulted Neil's flares in the episode 'Nasty'. He also seemed to enjoy hitting people with his bludgeon when he became a police officer in "Cash" and did the same to his housemates when he thought they had committed a robbery.
In the episode "Sick" in the second series, Neil's parents are introduced as upper middle class Tories who look down on Neil for starring in such a disreputable comedy series. His father wonders why his son cannot be in a nice comedy, such as the ones Neil's mother likes e.g. The Good Life. This provokes an angry tirade from Vyvyan, on his hatred of that show, followed by a parody episode of The Good Life where Neil is killed by Rick and covered with garden fertiliser only for several of him to emerge from the ground later on.
As established in Neil's Heavy Concept Album, Neil comes from Twickenham (his name punning on Eel Pie Island). His middle names are revealed in Neil's Book of the Dead.
He is a fan of Hawkwind, Marillion and Steve Hillage. More information about his musical tastes was revealed when the character 'guest v-jayed' on the still young MTV network in ca. 1985, playing several videos (e.g. T. Rex, "Get It On"), including his own hit "Hole in My Shoe", a cover version of the Traffic song which Nigel Planer, as his character "neil", took to number 2 in the UK singles chart in July 1984.
Balowski Family
Throughout the two series, Alexei Sayle routinely appeared as many different characters, interjecting his own material into the programme in ways that emulated his comedy routines. His main role was that of the flat's landlord Jerzei (Jeremy) Balowski, which was the only character he reprised, appearing in "Demolition", "Flood" and "Summer Holiday". The rest of the time, he was billed as playing various male members of "The Balowski Family", including nephew "Alexei Yuri Gagarin Siege of Stalingrad Glorious Five Year Plan Sputnik Tractor Moscow Dynamo Back Four Balowski", son Reggie Balowski (an international arms dealer), brother Billy Balowski (a lunatic who believed he was a taxi driver), cousin Tommy Balowski (a drunk), escaped convict Brian Damage Balowski, and a medieval jester "Jester Balowski" (with Helen Lederer as his sidekick).
Jerzei was apparently Russian; however, several times during the series he would break character, or in one case the fourth wall and declare directly to the camera "I'm not really foreign, you know – I just do it to appear more sophisticated!" Also during a discussion between the guys about his nationality Vyv comments "He certainly knows a lot about the Mersey Sound."— implying he is in fact from Liverpool, although he is so worried when Mike lies about a visit from Moscow Dynamo ice hockey squad that he allows the gang to renege on their monthly rent.
In the second series, Sayle's characters also included a train driver, a Benito Mussolini look-alike (by day the head of the local police force, by night an entrant in the Eurovision Song Contest), "Harry the Bastard" (manager of the local Rumbelows electrical goods store, disguised as a South African vampire) and, very briefly in an aside sketch that deliberately bore no relevance to the plot, a man in a bowler hat asking if he was in a cheese shop (a reference to the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch).
Mike is the natural "leader" of the house. Always trying to make himself appear more important and exciting than he really is, he does appear to have done some of the things he claims to have done (such as getting Bambi the "Babycham" Advert in "Bambi"). He experiences little hostility from the other members of the house. If there is any "fruitful" or amicable relationship in the house it is between Mike and Vyvyan. Vyvyan accepts Mike's role as the house leader whereas Mike needs Vyvyan's physique and willingness to act forcibly to enforce his own authority (as was literally shown in "Oil" when Vyvyan became 'Col. Vyvyan', the right-hand-man to Mike's 'El Presidente').
Neil is unpopular, although he is the only one who performs any kind of household chores and is therefore needed by the other three.
Rick is the most disliked although he thinks very highly of himself. He tells poor jokes and stories (but finds them hilarious himself), is a would-be anarchist (although deep-down he is quite conservative), and frequently acts like a child when he does not get his way. He generally vents his frustration (when trying to impress the others) on Neil, since Neil never sticks up for himself and is ignored by the others. The majority of his anger is generated in endless battles with Vyvyan, which he invariably loses.
Rik Mayall once said that the characters in The Young Ones form the basis of a classic nuclear family, comprising Neil as the mother figure, Mike as the father figure and Vyvyan and Rick as the children, Vyvyan the boy and Rick the girl.
In the final episode, the four students steal a red AEC Routemaster after robbing a bank (Special Patrol Group dies during their escape), only to drive it through a billboard with a picture of Cliff Richard on it and then over a cliff, which the bus tumbles down until it comes to rest at the bottom, at which point they proclaim—in unison—"Phew! That was close!", after which the bus explodes. Although Vyvyan and some of the others have had (what should have been) fatal accidents before without suffering any real effects, this time it really signified the end of the series. Even so, it did not stop The Young Ones from occasionally appearing on TV afterwards for charity, such as in Comic Relief in 1986 with a video clip and live performance of Living Doll.
The end of the series was not the last appearance of The Young Ones. For the British charity television appeal Comic Relief, the four recorded a song and video for Cliff Richard's "Living Doll", accompanied by Richard and Shadows guitarist Hank B. Marvin. Alexei Sayle was not involved, as he felt collaborating with Richard was against the alternative ethos of the show, but had already achieved chart success in 1984 with "'Ullo John! Gotta New Motor?".
In 1984, Planer released an album of music and skits in character as Neil, entitled Neil's Heavy Concept Album. Musical direction was by Canterbury scene keyboardist Dave Stewart. It featured Stewart's alums Barbara Gaskin, Jakko Jakszyk, Pip Pyle, Gavin Harrison, Jimmy Hastings and Rick Biddulph. "Hole in My Shoe", a single taken from the LP, reached number 2. Soulwax used "Hello Vegetables" to kick off their Radio Soulwax mix "Introversy."
At the 1986 Comic Relief stage shows, The Young Ones performed "Living Doll" live (following a short skit which involved Rick doing a comic song about showing his underwear and bodily parts, before being ejected from the group by Mike, and Vyvyan supposedly having backstage sex with Kate Bush with Neil as his contraceptive). The skit climaxed with Neil claiming Cliff Richard could not perform with them as he was "doing time" (the musical Time was premiering the following week) and John Craven had been booked as a replacement, only for Cliff to then appear. However he was only available to appear on the second night of the run, with Bob Geldof replacing him on the other two nights.
On one occasion, Edmondson, Mayall and Planer as their "Young Ones" characters did a parody of the song "My Generation" by The Who.
Mayall, Planer, and Edmondson reunited in 1986 for the Elton-written Filthy Rich & Catflap. The series had many of the same characteristics as The Young Ones as did Mayall and Edmondson's next sitcom Bottom. Ryan, for his part, was regularly recruited to play roles on associated series (such as Happy Families, Bottom and Absolutely Fabulous). Mayall, Edmondson and Planer have also appeared in episodes of Blackadder.
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