The Dick Emery Show

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''The Dick Emery Show'' is a British sketch comedy show starring

Dick Emery Richard Gilbert Emery (19 February 19152 January 1983) was an English comedian and actor. His broadcasting career began on radio in the 1950s, and his self-titled television series ran from 1963 to 1981. Life and career Richard Gilbert Emery was ...

. It was broadcast on the

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...

from 1963 to 1981. It was directed and produced by Harold Snoad. The show was broadcast over 19 series with 166 episodes. The show experienced sustained popularity in the 1960s and 1970s. The BBC described the show as featuring 'a vivid cast of comic grotesques'. Frequent performers included

Pat Coombs Patricia Doreen Coombs (27 August 1926 – 25 May 2002) was an English actress. She specialised in the portrayal of the eternal downtrodden female, comically under the thumb of stronger personalities. She was known for many roles on radio, ...

Victor Maddern Victor Jack Maddern (16 March 1928 – 22 June 1993) was an English actor. He was described by ''The Telegraph'' as having "one of the most distinctive and eloquent faces in post-war British cinema." Life and career Born in Seven Kings, ...

Deryck Guyler Deryck Bower Guyler (29 April 1914 – 7 October 1999) was an English actor, best remembered for his portrayal of officious, short-tempered middle-aged men in sitcoms such as ''Please Sir!'' and '' Sykes''. Early life Guyler was born in Wallas ...

Roy Kinnear Roy Mitchell Kinnear (8 January 1934 – 20 September 1988) was a British character actor. He was known for his roles in films such as The Beatles' ''Help!'' (1965), Clapper in '' How I Won the War'' (1967) and Planchet in ''The Three Musketeer ...

Joan Sims Irene Joan Marion Sims (9 May 1930 – 27 June 2001) was an English actress, best remembered for her roles in the ''Carry On'' franchise, appearing in 24 of the films (the most for any actress). On television, she is known for playing Gran i ...

and

Josephine Tewson Josephine Ann Tewson (26 February 1931 – 18 August 2022) was an English actress, best known for her roles in British television sitcoms, such as Edna Hawkins ("Mrs H") in '' Shelley'', Elizabeth "Liz" Warden in ''Keeping Up Appearances'' (1 ...

. The principal writers of the programme were David Cummings, John Singer, and John Warren. Additional contributions were by

David Nobbs David Gordon Nobbs (13 March 1935 – 8 August 2015"C ...

and

Peter Tinniswood Peter Tinniswood (21 December 1936 – 9 January 2003) was an English radio and TV comedy scriptwriter, and author of a series of popular novels. He was born in Liverpool, but grew up above a dry cleaner's on Eastway in Sale, Cheshire. Early c ...

. Other writers included

Dick Clement Dick Clement (born 5 September 1937) is an English writer, director and producer. He became known for his writing partnership with Ian La Frenais for television series including '' The Likely Lads'', ''Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?' ...

Barry Cryer Barry Charles Cryer (23 March 1935 – 25 January 2022) was an English writer, comedian, and actor. As well as performing on stage, radio and television, Cryer wrote for many performers including Dave Allen, Stanley Baxter, Jack Benny, Rory ...

Selma Diamond Selma Diamond (August 5, 1920 – May 13, 1985) was a Canadian-born American comedian, actress, and radio and television writer, known for her high-range, raspy voice and her portrayal of Selma Hacker on the first two seasons of the NBC televisio ...

, John Esmonde,

Marty Feldman Martin Alan Feldman (8 July 1934 – 2 December 1982) was a British actor, comedian and comedy writer. He was known for his prominent, misaligned eyes. He initially gained prominence as a writer with Barry Took on the ITV sitcom ''Boot ...

, Lucille Kallen, Bob Larbey and Harold Pinter. The American comedy writers

Mel Brooks Mel Brooks (born Melvin James Kaminsky; June 28, 1926) is an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. With a career spanning over seven decades, he is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. He began ...

and

Mel Tolkin Mel Tolkin ( Shmuel Tolchinsky; August 3, 1913 – November 26, 2007) was a television comedy writer best known as head writer of the live sketch comedy series ''Your Show of Shows'' (NBC, 1950–1954) during the Golden Age of Television. Ther ...

contributed sketches in the early years of the show. The nature of the show with its rapid sketches was initially inspired by the American sketch show ''

Your Show of Shows ''Your Show of Shows'' is a live 90-minute variety show that was broadcast weekly in the United States on NBC from February 25, 1950, through June 5, 1954, featuring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. Other featured performers were Carl Reiner, Howa ...

'' starring

Sid Caesar Isaac Sidney Caesar (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2014) was an American comic actor, comedian and writer. With a career spanning 60 years, he was best known for two pioneering 1950s live television series: ''Your Show of Shows'' (1950� ...

that was broadcast between 1950 and 1954 on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

. Emery later developed his own characters for sketches. The show became anachronistic with the advent of the 1980s, being perceived as homophobic, racist, and sexist. In an appraisal of ''The Dick Emery Show'' the BBC wrote that none of the show's sketches would 'seem out of place' on the 2000's BBC sketch show '' Little Britain''. Peri Bradley critiqued the show in the chapter "The Politics of Camp" in ''British Culture and Society in the 1970s: The Lost Decade''. Bradley examined how camp could "operate as a political and liberating force" in the 1970s; and felt that Emery's characters "comprised representations

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instigated" a "transformation of consciousness" as described by the gender theorist Judith Butler. Out-takes of

corpsing In theatre (especially in the illusionistic Western tradition), breaking character occurs when an actor ceases to maintain the illusion that they are identical with the character they are portraying. This is a more acceptable occurrence while in ...

from the series were subsequently included in the show in a section called 'The Comedy of Errors'.

Characters

Characters portrayed by Emery included: ''Bovver Boy'', a hapless

skinhead A skinhead is a member of a subculture which originated among working class youths in London, England, in the 1960s and soon spread to other parts of the United Kingdom, with a second working class skinhead movement emerging worldwide in th ...

whose father was played by

; the camp and cheerful ''Clarence'';

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

veteran ''Lampwick''; and ''Mandy'', a 'very friendly' middle-aged blonde bombshell. Some other characters were ''College'' (an intellectual

tramp A tramp is a long-term homeless person who travels from place to place as a vagrant, traditionally walking all year round. Etymology Tramp is derived from a Middle English verb meaning to "walk with heavy footsteps" (''cf.'' modern English ''t ...

); the 'menopausal would-be-maneater' ''Hetty''; and ''Ton-up Boy'', the biker. Hetty and Mandy were both played by Emery in drag.

Vox pops

Contrived

vox pop ( )Vox Populi
. Oxford Diction ...

s with the show's characters were a notable feature; this would later be featured in the shows of

Fry and Laurie Fry and Laurie are English comedy double act, mostly active in the 1980s and 1990s. The duo consisted of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, who met in 1980 through mutual friend Emma Thompson while all three attended the University of Cambridge. They ...

. The format was developed by David Cummings and the interviewer was played by

Gordon Clyde Gordon David McCallum Clyde (22 May 1933–26 January 2008) was a British television actor, writer and musician. He was educated at Highgate School from 1945 and Christ's College, Cambridge from 1951, where he studied English and music. He i ...

. Each character played by Emery would be asked the same question by the interviewer. The vox pops that featured Mandy, a 'very friendly blonde bombshell', would end with her perceiving a

double entendre A double entendre (plural double entendres) is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to have a double meaning, of which one is typically obvious, whereas the other often conveys a message that would be too socially ...

in the innocuous question of the reporter and then after giving them a 'friendly but over-forceful push' and saying her catchphrase, "Ooh, you are awful, but I like you". The popularity of Mandy's catchphrase would see it included in the '' Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations'', described as 'Mandy's habitual protest'.

Home Media

An 85 minute compilation titled ''Comedy Greats: Dick Emery'' containing the very best sketches from ''The Dick Emery Show'' was released on UK PAL VHS by BBC Video on 11 October 1999. This was re-released on Region 2 DVD on 11 July 2005 by 2 Entertain Video BBC Studios titled: ''The Best of Dick Emery''.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dick Emery Show, The 1960s British television sketch shows 1970s British television sketch shows 1980s British television sketch shows 1963 British television series debuts 1981 British television series endings BBC television sketch shows English-language television shows Cross-dressing in television Lost BBC episodes