Before we start, a reminder that the My 70s TV Childhood Theme Tune Game is launching very soon. It is a nostalgic family game based on the classic British TV theme tunes we all remember, designed to be played around the table with family and friends. The perfect gift for anyone who grew up with 1970s British television. Our launch date is drawing closer and there will be more details to follow very shortly. If you would like to hear more, visit www.my70stvchildhood.com and pop your name on the waitlist.
If you are of a certain age, there is a very good chance that Saturday night in your house followed a fairly familiar routine. Tea had been eaten. The washing up was done or left waiting in the sink. Your father was settling into his favourite chair, and your mother put the kettle on, and somewhere in the living room sat one television set that the entire family shared. There were no streaming services, no hundreds of channels, no mobile phones stealing everyone’s attention. When BBC One put on a big entertainment show, millions of us watched together. And for much of the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, one of the biggest stars on British television was Dick Emery.
Unlike some comedians who seem to play themselves, Dick Emery built his reputation by becoming other people, to the extent that most of us didn’t really have a view as to what the real man was like behind the characters. He wasn’t just telling jokes. He was creating miniature comic worlds populated by a series of unforgettable characters, and every week we all tuned in to see who would appear.
Dick Emery was born in London in 1915, and like many entertainers of his generation, his route into show business wasn’t straightforward. His parents were a comedy act in the music halls, but they split up when he was eight, and the young Dick Emery had all sorts of jobs before being called up to join the RAF during the war. He went AWOL at one point to deal with some family issues, and whilst in London got a job in the chorus of an opera company, where he was unfortunately spotted on stage by an RAF officer he knew and escorted rapidly back to barracks. Rather than being jailed, he was put into the RAF Gang Show, where he found his real skill in making people laugh and invented a popular character called Vera Thin, the forces sweetheart. He was later quoted as saying, “I was far better in drag than in combat gear.”
His big break came in 1963 when the BBC commissioned The Dick Emery Show. It perfectly suited Saturday evenings. The format was simple: sketches, recurring characters, guest stars, a few musical interludes, and short comic encounters. Most memorable were the vox pop sections featuring Gordon Clyde as a hapless interviewer. We got to know the characters so well that we were simply waiting for the catchphrases to arrive, and they never disappointed.
Mandy is probably the best remembered. The glamorous blonde, flirtatious, confident, and always completely oblivious to Gordon’s interviewing, who delivered the immortal line, “Ooh, you are awful, but I like you,” before pushing him to the floor. One of the most popular characters in our house was the Toothy Vicar. As my father was a vicar, this one went down very well with all of us. Possibly not my father.
We cannot look back at Dick Emery without acknowledging that comedy changes. Some portrayals reflected attitudes that modern audiences rightly question. His character Clarence, with his cheerful greeting of “Hello, honky tonks,” was hugely popular at the time, and many viewers regarded him as one of the warmest members of the cast. Emery’s family later recalled the character was inspired by the chorus boys he had known backstage, and that Dick always played Clarence with affection rather than malice. Modern audiences are more aware of the way gay men have been historically reduced to stereotypes, but comedy historians have suggested that Clarence was notable for not being the butt of every joke. He was confident, quick-witted, and often got the better of the characters around him.
Dick Emery’s show ended in 1981 when he grew tired of the format. He died on the 2nd of January 1983, aged only 67, before the second series of his detective drama was broadcast. He influenced generations of character comedians, and many later sketch shows owe something to his approach. Like so many of the shows we feature on this podcast, The Dick Emery Show was very much of its time, and watching it is like opening a time capsule from British Saturday nights half a century ago. I fondly remember sitting with my family, all together, watching television for sometimes the only time during the week, and feeling happy as we all laughed together.
Do you remember watching Dick Emery with your family on a Saturday night? Perhaps you can still hear that famous catchphrase echoing around the living room. If so, I would love to hear from you, so leave a comment below or join the conversation in our Facebook group.
If you haven’t already, pop your name on the waitlist above and you will be the first to hear when our theme tune game launches.
Take care,
Oliver
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