Chuffer Dandridge
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Chuffer Dandridge was a fictional Shakespearean
actor-manager An actor-manager is a leading actor who sets up their own permanent theatrical company and manages the business, sometimes taking over a theatre to perform select plays in which they usually star. It is a method of theatrical production used co ...
, whose emails were frequently read out by
Terry Wogan Sir Michael Terence Wogan (; 3 August 1938 – 31 January 2016) was an Irish radio and television broadcaster who worked for the BBC in Britain for most of his career. Between 1993 and his semi-retirement in 2009, his BBC Radio 2 weekday brea ...
on his
BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the List of most-listened-to radio programs, most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 14 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the sta ...
breakfast show '' Wake Up to Wogan'', which aired from 1993 until 2009. Dandridge was created by fans of the show, Roger Byrne and Charles Slane, who described him as a "semi-retired Actor-Manager in search of a big break". Like several other contributors, they chose a humorous pseudonym after many listeners had used
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, one of which is typically obvious, and the other often conveys a message that would be too socially unacc ...
s in names to catch Wogan out. The pair emailed new material on a daily basis, which Wogan would then read out on his show, sometimes
corpsing In theatre (especially in the illusionistic Western tradition) and film, breaking character occurs when an actor fails to maintain the illusion that they are the character they are supposedly portraying. This is considered unprofessional while ...
with laughter along with colleagues Paul Walters,
Alan Dedicoat Alan Dedicoat is a British announcer from Hollywood, England, for programmes on BBC One. He is known as the "Voice of the Balls" on the National Lottery programmes, providing a voiceover for the draws since 1995. He was a BBC Radio 2 newsread ...
and John "Boggy" Marsh. The character was retired along with Wogan leaving the Radio 2 breakfast slot in 2009, although the character did return briefly the following year on Wogan's weekend show, Weekend Wogan. Dandridge misreported news and travel stories, interspersing them with a humorous monologue of his acting career. He frequently
name drop Name-dropping (or name-checking) is the practice of naming or alluding to important people or institutions in order to indicate one's association with them. The term often connotes an attempt to impress others; it is usually regarded negatively, ...
ped colleagues he claimed to meet in the theatre, and a regular
in-joke An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke with humour that is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are ''in'' a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest ...
was him complaining about being owed a white fiver (pre-1957 £5 note) he lent a colleague when both were in
repertory theatre A repertory theatre, also called repertory, rep, true rep or stock, which are also called producing theatres, is a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation. United Kingdom ...
. Wogan subsequently published some of the email transcripts in his autobiographies; in one, Dandridge compared the
Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), often known simply as Eurovision, is an international Music competition, song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) among its members since 1956. Each participating broadcaster ...
, which Wogan had presented for many years, to "a cabaret in pre-war Berlin, where I was naked, painted in zebra stripes and sitting bareback on a horse". David Sillito, Arts Correspondent for the BBC, suggested Dandridge was created to appeal to Wogan's love of author
P. G. Wodehouse Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse ( ; 15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) was an English writer and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Je ...
. Wogan thought Dandridge's monologues parodied
Donald Sinden Sir Donald Alfred Sinden (9 October 1923 – 12 September 2014) was an English actor. Sinden featured in the film ''Mogambo'' (1953), and achieved early fame as a Rank Organisation film star in the 1950s in films including '' The Cruel Sea'' ( ...
and his character, optimistically hoping to revive his showbusiness career, was based on
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...
'
Samuel Pickwick Samuel Pickwick is a fictional character and the main protagonist in ''The Pickwick Papers'' (1836-37), the first novel by author Charles Dickens. One of the author's most famous and loved creations, Pickwick is a retired successful businessman ...
. Byrne and Slane eventually met Wogan at a bookstore signing in
Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
, surprising the latter who expected the pair to be significantly older.


References

Citations Sources * {{refend


External links


Official website
British radio comedy BBC Radio 2 programmes