Being Served, the English Way

Television comedy from England has run the gamut from broad (the bust-chasing Benny Hill) to surreal (the brilliant Monty Python) to the somewhat satiric (the clever The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). We Canadians, being part of the Commonwealth, may have been exposed to more of it than Americans, who had to rely mainly on PBS importing the shows.

I could name quite a number of them I have enjoyed viewing over the years, but I will pick only one at random to bring up today—the multi-seasoned Are You Being Served?

The characters are archetypes of the English, whose class system and formality at work are foreign to us in North America. The actors couldn’t have been better cast. David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd (the latter spending a season as a writer/performer on Laugh-In) filled scripts with cleverness, silliness and, as you would expect on an English programme, “naughty” double-entendres. It debuted in 1972 and enjoyed life as a feature film and continued life as an inferior sequel.

The cast members were interviewed over the years, especially John Inman. You’ll have to indulge the length of the post as I transcribe three of them. First is from the Liverpool Echo of Oct. 20, 1979.

THE VERSATILE CAPTAIN
By SYD GILLINGHAM
IF there’s a more fascinating exercise for box-watchers than to accompany Frank Thornton when he pops into a department store to do some shopping, then I'd like to hear about it. Fascinating? That's probably putting it mildly. For “Are You Being Served?”, the continuing saga of the Grace Brothers emporium, returned to our screens last night and once again Captain Peacock—Frank Thornton, of course—was laying down the law from his lofty position as floorwalker. Not that Londoner Frank—he was born in Dulwich 58 years ago—makes a habit of popping into department stores. “It's a chore,” he says, he could well do without.
But just what does happen when he goes to buy, say, a pair of socks? “Well, assistants might come up and ask: ‘Are you being served?’ Then they say: ‘Oh dear, dear, dear,’ as they catch themselves coming out with the phrase for real.
"Because the odd thing is that, because of the series, hardly any shop assistant uses that phrase now.
“And they always recognise one of the characters from the series. They tell me, for example: ‘We've got a Mr. Humphries downstairs you know!’
Captain Peacock, Mr. Humphries, Mrs. Slocombe and the rest of the Grace Brothers stalwarts are the result of inspired casting by production (and co-writer) David Croft. He laid precisely the same magic on "Dad's Army," of which he was also producer comedy and co-writer.
"You can't imagine any other bunch of actors doing ‘Dad's Army’ as well as the bunch he got together," says Frank.
"I worked for him first about 1962—I did a couple of things in ‘Hugh and I’—and then again in 1965. And it was seven years before worked for him again in ‘Are You Being Served?’
"I’m not complaining. What I'm saying is that he had nothing which suited me. But when he had the idea of ‘Are You Being Served?’ and wanted to cast the toffee-nosed floorwalker, he thought of me.
"Obviously, from then on there's development of the characters as a result of mutual inspiration between the writers and the actors.
"He casts you because he knows the role will fit you—although I hope I'm not such a pompous twit production (and co-writer), as Captain Peacock!"
Does Frank Thornton, who has an impressive touch of theatrical track record behind him (notably Michael Bentine’s “It’s a Quare World" as far at TV comedy series are concerned), want to escape from the shadow of Captain Peacock and similar roles to take on more serious, dramatic parts?
"Well I love the old boy," he says, "but every actor likes to move around. And, in fact, we moved around more than some people notice, perhaps.
"We normally do six or seven or eight weeks work at BBC-TV for ‘Are You Being Served?’ and that doesn't keep you going, so you have to go off and do something else, whether it's in the theatre, or making television commercials, or whatever.
"We exercise our versatility in moving from job to job. Look at Donald Sinden. From ‘Two’s Company’ to ‘King Lear’ and now ‘Othello’ at Stratford.
About five years ago, for instance, I was at Stratford for a season and played Duncan in ‘Macbeth’—which is a very different cup of tea to Captain Peacock, isn't it?
"Now I am about to appear In Tom Stoppard's play, ‘Jumpers’—a serious play with a lot of comedy in it. And it's quite a challenge for me because it's a very long part.
"The thing is, people can see that most actors are a little more versatile than often they are given credit for."
Frank Thornton was all of five-years-old when he decided he wanted to be an actor. “I suppose I knew I was incompetent at anything else," he laughs. But the need to earn a living saw him working first of all as an insurance clerk.
"At the same time I took evening classes in drama at the London School of Dramatic Art," he says, "and got my first jab on the stage on April Fool's Day, 1940.
"I joined the R.A.F. in 1943, came out in 1947—and started my career in the theatre all over again.”
Home for Frank and his wife, Beryl—they have a married daughter, Jane, and two grandsons—is a house in south-west London.
Working harder
"My wife and I seem to be working harder now than ever before," he says. "We have absolutely no help at all, and there's the house and the garden to look after.
"My wife is a keen gardener, and I've decorated the whole house. I'm a very good paperhanger, you know, if anybody needs me! I've got all the tools, and I restore the odd bit of furniture too."
It seems that in the new series of "Are You Being Served?" Captain Peacock has more than his share of problems.
There's a vacancy in the menswear department and so the management advertise for a junior but the only suitable applicant is Mr. Goldberg (played by Alfie Bass), who until recently owned a small tailoring business.
The fly in Captain Peacock's particular ointment is that Mr. Goldberg happened to be in the Army with him—and his memory of events is a little different to that of the gallant captain!

The series didn’t get off to an auspicious start, as we learn in this interview with the Liverpool Daily Post, Dec. 28, 1976. There are references to the British custom of Panto, a comedy stage production that may consist of some kind of fairy tale, fable or legend, aimed at both children and adults.

SO NOW IT'S ARE YOU BEING RECOGNISED?
says PHILIP KEY
SHE RETURNS breathless from a shopping expedition around Liverpool, a stylish turban atop her head. Then comes a look of alarm as she notices you have beaten her to the stage door appointment.
“Oooh . . . . I am sorry I’ve kept you waiting,” she says (she’s just one minute late). “Come up into my sitting room.”
The sitting room is a 1950’s-style effort just off her dressing room in the city’s Empire Theatre, and home for the next five weeks or so for actress Mollie Sugden.
Mollie—whose Mrs. Slocombe in the telly series Are You Being Served is one of the great comic creations—is playing her first panto season for 30 years.
And that first episode, she points out, wasn’t exactly a classic. It was at Oldham Rep, and took a week to rehearse and a week to play, she remembers.
On that occasion, she was the principal boy. This time around she’s the dame.
Mollie admits frankly that she done big-time pantomime before the simple reason being that no one bothered to ask her. Mrs Slocombe put paid to that.
This year, Liverpool wasn’t the only place that wanted her.
It all began, she says, when she appeared some years ago in the television comedy series Hugh and I as the snooty next door neighbour.
Actress and mum
Then came the Liver Birds written by Carla Lane in which writer John Chapman was called in to help work on the scripts. Carla has just created this role of Sandra’s snooty but basically working class mum.
Chapman said he knew just the person . . . and Mollie got the role.
Then when David Croft came to write department store series Are You Being Served, he too remembered Mollie.
“It’s been a tremendous,” she smiles, “but not right from the start. At one time, the cast thought the show was finished.”
Its pilot in the Comedy Playhouse series was suddenly put on the screen without publicity or warning. It was an amazing five years ago during the Olympic coverage in Munich and the tragic massacre there left a blank evening on the screens. The show was put in at the last minute.
“We really thought that was it, then it was put out again, and that time against another popular comedy series on the other side.
“But when it went on a third time it was up against something like This Week, so people thought: ‘What’s on the other side? The viewing figures shot up and they’ve been there ever since.”
It’s been quite a heady success for Mollie after years in what many would call the theatrical wilderness. She was playing what she called “small but lucrative roles”—mainly North Country women.
Now she admits gleefully to enjoying the fruits of success which includes instant recognition in the street. “Perhaps in Liverpool more than elsewhere people aren’t reticent about talking to you.
“I love it. You know, people in stores will tell me ‘ooh—we’ve got a Mrs Slocombe here, or a Mr Humphries. The only trouble is when I get home. I find I got half the things I went out for!”
Mollie is married to Coronation Street actor William Moore and has 13-year-old twin sons, all of them up in the city for Christmas.
Another funny face
She reckons she manages to combine the role of actress and mum okay, especially when she’s doing television work. “I can see the twins off to school, go and rehearse, and then they see me ironing in the evening, so I must look like a mother to them,” she laughs.
But what about those naughty lines in Are You Being Served, I wonder?
Mollie laughs again and says the great thing about Mrs Slocombe is that she realise doesn’t saying she’s naughty things with double-meanings, and that’s the way she plays it.
“The writers know just how far to go, and I’ve had people coming up to me saying: ‘Oooh, I love your show—it’s so CLEAN’.”
Mollie born in Keighley, Yorkshire, but now settled in Surrey, has had a hectic work schedule since television success.
There’s been a long summer season of the stage version in Blackpool, more filming for the Liver Birds, now the panto, and then on to making more Are You Being Served shows in February.
And although she admits to some luck in her career (“something leads to something else, and that leads on to another thing”), she’s willing to come out behind a bushel and it’s says not ALL luck.
“After all, people aren't going to be laughing at you today because you had a bit of luck 20 years ago.”
Mollie pulls another funny face—she peppers her conversation with highly amusing mugging that has you giggling most of the time—and heads off for some more rehearsal.

Perhaps the most-liked character on the show was Mr. Humphries, played by John Inman. Humphries was a “Whoops, my dears!” stereotype that didn’t go down with some gay people in the 1970s, who thought they were being ridiculed. Inman, like almost anyone in that era, was coy about his own sexuality because of homophobia but, many years later, let it be known he had been in a relationship with a man since before Are You Being Served? appeared on British television.

The difference in attitude back then can be seen by the word gay being in quotation marks (even during the mass AIDS deaths in the 1980s, a Canadian wire service insisted on using the word “homosexual” in its copy, except in direct quotes).

This story comes from the Evening Star, published in Burnley on Jan. 12, 1979.

Talking to Mr Humphries of TV fame . . .
A gentle hint from John . . .
By ALBERT WATSON
“WHETHER I’m gay or whether I’m what they call straight is nobody’s business but mine,” said John Inman. “I just get on my work, and I expect other people to do the same.”
It was a gentler rebuke than it looks in print, gentler than the dishonesty of my question—“Does it bother you that many people assume you are gay”—deserved.
But John Inman is a gentleman, and a very gentle man. Years of having the “mickey” taken have left him cautious, jealous of his privacy, but not bitter.
In voice and mannerism he is very like Mr Humphries, the dapper department store assistant he plays in the successful BBC TV comedy series “Are You Being Served?” which has been described by bisexual Elton John as “an insult to homosexuals.”
“That kind of comment really upsets me,” John Inman told me during a break in rehearsals of the show. “I don’t think I’ve done a bad turn to ‘gays’; in fact, I think I have helped to make them more acceptable.
“There is now a gay character, Mr Humphries, on a mass-appeal television show and people don’t seem to be offended by him.”
Indeed, such is the skill with which John Inman has made the character sympathetic that he frequently gets away with “gay” lines which from the mouth of many other actors would cause outrage.
“Yes,” he agrees. “but we always leave a ‘way out,’ an alternative of understanding the line. If it is too much for you, you can tell yourself that it really meant something else.”
Like Larry Grayson, with whom he can in some ways be compared, John Inman claims a high percentage of female fans. “In fact, I think I’m the only performer to have brought largely female audiences to the Windmill Theatre in London,” he says.
Inman starred for 14 months at the theatre, famous for its nude revues and sex plays, in “Let’s Get Laid” during which time “Are You Being Served?” became popular.
“When we opened, the audience was 99 per cent men; by the time I left, the men were outnumbered,” he told me.
John Inman was born in Blackpool, where he visits his mother as often as he can, and made his stage debut at the South Pier Pavilion at the age of 13.
Later in repertory theatres he tried singing and straight acting, but soon discovered that comedy was his forte.
He moved to London to appear in the stage musical “Ann Veronica,” but the inevitable “resting” periods came and, during one of them, John worked as a window dresser in a men’s store.
He says that Mr Humphries is based on people he met there, but immediately adds: “You know, people who work in stores always say how real the characters in the show are—but its never actually them.
“I have met middle-aged, well-corsetted ladies with purple hair who reckon they know a Mrs Slocombe on the next counter.”
“Are You Being Served?”—along with the spin-off movie, stage shows, and the offers John has had as a result of his success in the series—has served John Inman well.
One of the things he would like to do with his new financial security is to move from his London home into the country—but that plan is hampered by the fact that he can’t drive.
“I’ve tried,” he told me. “but I’m so nervous. I’m wet through before I get in the car—so I've given up and decided to keep death off the road. I’m a good passenger, though—I’m so ignorant of how it all works that I put complete trust in anybody clever enough to make the car go and get it around corners.”
Theatre
Occasionally this lack of mobility can be a real disadvantage, as John discovered when he turned up at an hotel in Norwich late one night and realised next morning that he didn’t know the way to the theatre in which he was to appear.
“I asked for directions and started walking,” he said, “then this Corporation dustcart stopped next to me and the driver asked for my autograph. I said ‘Swop you—my autograph for a lift to the Theatre Royal’ and that’s why I turned up at the theatre in a Corporation dustcart.
“The manager was disappointed; he said if had known he would have got the Press in.”
For the third year in succession, John Inman will be playing Mother Goose in pantomime this winter. “I don’t play her anything like Mr Humphries,” he insists, “though I do get the kids shout ‘I’m free. .’.” Next year he hopes fulfil an old ambition playing “Charley’s Aunt” on tour, and possibly in London. The part, of course, could have been written for him.
And if the BBC asks him to do yet another series of “Are You Being Served,” he will be willing, and none of this nonsense about being restricted by playing the same part for years.
Besides, he seems genuinely to like, and be liked, by the rest of the cast of the show. As our interview came to an end, Trevor Bannister, alias Mr Lucas, came into the room pointing out that the gang was going down to the pub and would John like a lift?
Assured that I had all I wanted, he replied: “I’ll be right down, Trev. Thanks a lot, love.”
And with one bound he was, dare I say it, free.

Most comedies suffer as the years go on. The dynamic wasn’t the same, nor as good in my opinion, when cast members began leaving. It may not be the best British sitcom of all time, but it still entertains audiences, and that’s the goal of any TV show.