Oh No! John Inman has left us! (off-off topic)

[launderess]

Speaking For Myself, & I Am Unaimous

Will greatly miss Jon Inman. Such a great talent and all around wonderful person. Still hard to believe he was 71.

AYBS is one of my all time Britcom favourites, though seems so dated by today's standards. Just Jon Iman's walk alone would set me laughing. Found his character much more developed in the sequel to AYBS "Grace and Favour", but he still had that wonderful way about him.

Am a fan of "Last of The Summer Wine" from way back! Foggy chasing Nora Batty (Heyup Lass!). Howard always trying to snogg with the village bike Marina (and Pearl hot on his trail), not to mention the ladies having coffee discussing their favourite methods for keeping the men in line (Yorkshire men can be a difficult lot *LOL*). And of course Edie Pegdin's famous line to her daughter when the later is too nosy about "grown up things" "Drink your coffee"!

L.

 

[ecoclean]

The memories, the memories..

What a hoot! For those of you interested in a little bit of 'did you know'...

AYBS was THE best comedy show of the mid seventies. As far as I can recall, it was on a Sat night at 6pm on BBC1 in the days of 3 channel tv. Thats right America, 3 TV channels! There was BBC 1, BBC 2 and ITV. The BBC was, and still is, state run. (In Ireland, we also had our own national TV station called RTE 1, thus giving us a whopping choice of 4 to choose from!).

As the BBC was, and still is commercial free, it derived its funding from the proceeds of the TV licence that is still compulsory purchase by anybody who happens to own a tv set today. Not having to please paying advertisers gave the BBC a certain freedom to try and spread its appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Sure there were a lot of documentaries and current affairs programs and other stuff that kids like me considered boring at the time, but in hindsight, you actually learned something during the hour or two that you were allowed watch the box before going to bed. There was a regular routine to it all..thurs was 'Tomorrows World' followed by 'Top of the Pops'...Sat was 'Doctor Who' and 'AYBS'. This was quality TV, bourne out of the fact that, despite our maturing tastes, we still find shows such as this just as hilarious today.

John Inmans character was the first (and only) example of a 'supposedly' gay man on popular peak time tv for many years. Just like Mrs Slocombe and her famous pet, the humour was very much nudge nudge, wink wink. There were some boundries that were never broken, and we certainly never heard mention of Mr Humphries would be boyfriends, or anything that pointed to him being nothing more than an effeminate straight man. Every Saturday night, my brothers and I were dragged upstairs for a bath, and afterwards were allowed downstairs in our pygamas to watch the show. We would sit by the fire and laugh our heads off at the very mention of Mr Humphries being 'big in the trouser dept' or 'handy with a measuring tape', and we loved to see him camping it up with his 'I'm free' catchphrase. If truth be known, we were only joining in with the laughter of our parents and the audience, and still half expecting to see a funny looking feeline making a surprise tv appearance!! Innocence days indeed....

Thanks for the laughs John, you live on in the memories of youth for so many of us.

 

[jeb]

BBC comedy

AYBS was/is one of my favorites too. Does anyone remember a comedy called "Good Neighbors"(or something like that)? It as about a young couple trying to be self sufficent and run a farm in thier very upscale neiborhood and the trouble with neighbor Margo. It was very funny also.

 

[bongobro]

Britcoms, or "The Boo-KAY Residence, the lady of the ho

Sorry to hear about John Inman's passing...I ran into "AYBS?", "Keeping Up Appearances," "As Time Goes By," and "The Vicar of Bailey" on the St. Louis PBS affiliate...

I loved Mrs. Slocombe...it was fun to see her hair change color every week...and Wendy Richard was fun to watch no matter what hair color she wore...but the way Mr. Humphries reacted under any situation was what made "Are You Being Served" terrific fun...

We still get "Keeping Up Appearances" and "As Time Goes By" on Thursday nights...and Patricia Routledge is probably my favorite Britcom actress...I relate to Richard's predicaments, too!

Judi Dench had star power even in those early days of "As Time Goes By." (By the way, Geoffrey Palmer played opposite Dame Judi in one of the Pierce Brosnan James Bond films--what a bonus!)

 

[scott55405]

For stateside folks, Grace and Favour=Are You Being Served Again. I know that only because I saw some of the actors interviewed one time. Grace Bros. had closed, and the gang buys a hotel, bed and breakfast or some such thing and the show revolves around their adventures there.

 

[launderess]

Grace & Favour -

Story line went that "Old Mr. Grace" had pretty much spent the pension fund of his workers on women and good living (the young snooty woman who moved into the estate with the "AYBS" gang,"Miss.Lovelock", with the manor being all that was left. The gang come up with the idea of running the manor as a hotel so they can all live off the profits. Turns out there isn't much money in the kitty to even hire staff, so the gang is pressed back into working, even though they are retired.

Much of the laughs come from Mr. Humphries (Jon Inman), sleeping in the same bed with the young and very pretty cook/estate farmer's daughter, who as it turns out develops quite a crush on our Mr. Humphries. Apparently she is oblivous to his not being the marrying sort of man. It turns out that the young girl also slept in the same bed with one of the previous workers. Now before anyone gets any ideas about this sort of arrangement, it was VERY common for servants, and indeed everyone else but the very wealthy to sleep more than one to a bed, especially in the country. Simple reason was a lack of central heating, and the cost of coal for fires. Anyone who has been to the English/Scottish/Wales countryside can attest to the fact it is COLD there, sometimes even during summer months. Mind you the sexes would not have mixed, girls would be with girls and boys with boys. This is where the phrase ".... to warm my bed" comes from. The wealthy could afford central heating/coal and or lots of eiderdowns to keep warm at night.

L.

 

[launderess]

"Good Neighboors"

Was called "The Good Life" on the UK side of the pond and is one of my all time favourite Britcoms. Before there was Hyacinth Bucket there was Margo Ledbeder; a woman one simply did not cross except at one's own peril.

L.

 

[JerseyMike]

The Good Neighbors ...

I bought the DVD a couple of years ago at the Virgin Mega-Store on Times Square and I watch it every so often.

Amazon sells it: http://www.amazon.com/Good-Neighbors-Complete-1-3/dp/B000784WKO

I laugh out loud every time that I watch it. It's another well cast, well acted, well written Britcom!

http://valdefierro.com/neighbors.html

 

[sudsmaster]

Inman was present at a KQED pledge week in SF a few years back. As I recall, it was revealed that Mrs. Slocombe's hair was initially her real hair, but dyed. She said it was a real problem, because the dye was difficult to apply and wash out. I think perhaps she had a bad So eventually she went to wearing different colored wigs, instead, which worked out much better for her.

 

[brettsomers]

this user (link) has quite a selection of AYBS. Episode titled "The Think Tank" is esp good. See Mr Rumbold use the work "bisexual" and Mr Humphries make several suggestive comments. Also, Inman appears in a Grace Bros fashion show!

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[scott55405]

Launderess, thanks for refreshing my recollection re Grace and Favour. I have seen it, but far less so than the original show. Guess I was kind of on the right track though!