Thread: John Inman dies ...
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8th Mar 2007, 8:19 AM #1WhiteCrow Guest
John Inman dies ...
I always liked John Inman in Are You Being Served, sad to hear he's died ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6429425.stm
Are You Being Served? actor dies
Actor John Inman, most famous for the comedy Are You Being Served?, has died aged 71, his spokesman said.
Inman made his name in the 1970s show as Mr Humphries, whose catchphrase "I'm Free" entered popular culture.
In recent years he was a pantomime regular, most often taking the role of the dame but also made appearances on the BBC comedy show Revolver.
He died in St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, after being ill for some time, his manager Phil Dale said.
Worldwide fame
Mr Dale added: "John, through his character Mr Humphries of Are You Being Served? was known and loved throughout the world.
"He was one of the best and finest pantomime dames working to capacity audiences throughout Britain.
"John was known for his comedy plays and farces which were enjoyed from London's West End throughout the country and as far as Australia, Canada and the USA."
Inman's long-term partner, Ron Lynch, is said to be "devastated" at his death.
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8th Mar 2007, 8:24 AM #2
Oh, that's really sad news. I always enjoyed his performance oin Are You Being Served? too.
Si xx
I've just got my handcuffs and my truncheon and that's enough.
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8th Mar 2007, 8:27 AM #3
Are You Free?
As a bird, as a free spirit. Sad news but what a legacy.
R.I.P John.
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8th Mar 2007, 8:28 AM #4
Hope you don't mind Tim, but I've merged your thread with the exisiting one.
Si xx
And I've removed the quoted text, as it's in the top post here.
Si.
I've just got my handcuffs and my truncheon and that's enough.
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8th Mar 2007, 8:40 AM #5
This is quite a shock. Poor old John, and poor Ron.
I always remember a show about "TV obsessives" some years ago, and one of the people on it was this old woman who was obsessed with John. She used to go to his pantos and take him cakes she'd made him on his birthday, and you saw her waltzing round her living room to his "Are you being Served?" single he made.
She'll be devasted. If she didn't beat him to it.
RIP.
Si.
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8th Mar 2007, 8:57 AM #6WhiteCrow Guest
In honour of the man I'll be wearing my pink shirt today, and weather the "is he gay" comments!
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8th Mar 2007, 9:30 AM #7
Very sad
Pity. I have no understanding of the word. It is not registered in my vocabulary bank. EXTERMINATE!
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8th Mar 2007, 10:10 AM #8
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8th Mar 2007, 10:35 AM #9
God, yes, I remember that programme!
Very sad news. Whether or not you'd be able to get away with a character like Inman's Mr Humphries these days, I don't know, but I think most of us of a certain age will remember watching him in 'Are You Being Served?' in our youths, and also that short-lived (and probably not-very-funny) ITV sitcom in which he played a secretary to Rula Lenska's boss.
Rest in peace, John.
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8th Mar 2007, 11:08 AM #10God, yes, I remember that programme!
Si.
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8th Mar 2007, 11:30 AM #11Wayne Guest
'Are You Being Served' was always on in our house when i was a lad, so i remember him well.
RIP John.
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8th Mar 2007, 12:27 PM #12Pip Madeley Guest
Very sad news to wake up to - he seemed such a sweet, kind man. I've never been a big fan of AYBS? but whenever I watched it, he was always the one who'd raise a smile on my face.
Thank you for the laughs John. RIP.
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8th Mar 2007, 12:42 PM #13
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8th Mar 2007, 3:48 PM #14
Another TV icon gone, but never to be forgotten.
AYBS was a regular fixture in our house, Mr. Humphries always made me laugh the most, the series was always a bit risque, but never over the top. A reminder of a simpler, but bygone era. R.I.P. John Inman
An old school friend of mine, who I haven't seen for a number of years, built his own character from Mr. Humphries, even down to his mannerisms.
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8th Mar 2007, 6:40 PM #15Captain Tancredi Guest
The clever thing with Mr Humphries was that although from an adult perspective you can read one thing into the character (and even that's debatable given the number of times he seemed to end up going off with a dolly bird), Inman played the role with such a sense of innocence and fun that the character was very popular with children as well. I saw him in Mother Goose at Wimbledon in the late 1970s, although all I can remember about it is trapping my foot in my uncle's car door after the show...
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8th Mar 2007, 7:36 PM #16
Inman was one of my comic idols as a kid, I used to love AYBS. The show lost its appeal for me once I grew older but I always loved Inman. Perhaps it's because I've recently suffered a few setbacks show-wise (putting stuff on and that sort of thing) but this news has really rather left me gutted...
"I remember because cherries send me into a wild fury!"
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8th Mar 2007, 10:35 PM #17
This is really sad news. Only earlier today a colleague did an "I'm free!" impression and made me laugh...what a beautiful legacy that is, to be loved and remembered for making people happy.
RIP John xI must admit, just when I think I'm king, I just begin!
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8th Mar 2007, 10:35 PM #18WhiteCrow Guest
Only right to add the webpage for the BBC's obit for him.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6430147.stm
Occasionally when a celeb dies there's someone who feels so much like part of your childhood, and someone you so wanted to meet in real life, you feel a little bit of you wither a bit when you hear the news.
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8th Mar 2007, 11:24 PM #19
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9th Mar 2007, 11:00 AM #20
I know what you mean Steve, I felt the same when Ronnie Barker died. That was quite upsetting really.
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9th Mar 2007, 12:04 PM #21
I've never really been that fond of him or even AYBS, but for some reason this has really struck a chord with me. As Simon said yesterday, he's just someone "who you always thought would be there". I bet they had such fun making AYBS, and to hear John leaves behind a (now obviously devastated) partner makes it all the more poignant. There are certain people who represent something about the BBC, and perhaps the bygone age of seventies comedy itself, and now Mr "I'm freeee!" Humphries has gone, a little bit more of that seems to have dissapeared too.
Si.
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9th Mar 2007, 12:13 PM #22
[URL="http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2029765,00.html"]
Some sad miserable git has had this article printed in the Guardian. He seems to have some sad agenda of his own.
The comedy of cruelty
At its peak, Are You Being Served? pulled in 22 million viewers. Following the death of John Inman, fans have praised the show as belonging to a more innocent age of TV. But in fact it was a cowardly, fear-filled sitcom, says Stuart Jeffries
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
It pains me to contradict Rula Lenska. However, yesterday she was among the eulogists to the late John Inman, with whom she starred in panto and sitcom. She described his comic style thus: "It had an innocent quality that you rarely find today." Innocent? I think not. I spent much of yesterday remembering an all-too-typical episode of Are You Being Served? called No Sale, in which Mr Humphries, played by Inman, told the menswear department how he'd spent a naughty-sounding weekend with a stringvestite, a trendy bishop, a roving reporter and a dustman. What is a stringvestite? Trust me, there's no such thing: it's a parody of perversion. It's the mockery by straight men of homosexuality which, in their minds, is intrinsically linked to fetishism. To make that presumed fetishism ridiculous and deprive it of its subversive power, they clothe it in daftness - in string vests or kiss-me-quick hats (Humphries was wearing the latter during the weekend, too).
Are You Being Served? never had the courage of its own homophobia, but preferred to express it through double entendres, nods and winks. Why was Mr Humphries consorting with such a crew? The suggestion was that limp-wristed men like Mr H were always hanging out with such dodgy characters, doing things that right-thinking people would only read about in the News of the Screws.
It is an ingenious kind of humour, to be sure, but was one filled with fear. The same applies to Mrs Slocombe's pussy, the double entendre that worked by sanctioning the hate-filled, fearful stereotype of a no-win woman who wasn't getting any sex but desperately, abjectly sought it and was laughed at for doing so. The poor love.
Neither Inman nor Mollie Sugden, who played Mr Humphries and Mrs Slocombe respectively, had much perspective on how their characters mobilised homophobia and misogyny. Inman, who died yesterday just over a year after his civil partnership ceremony with Ron Lynch, his partner of 33 years, denied Mr Humphries was homosexual. He was the ultimate in-man, sending Mr Humphries back into the closet after everybody assumed the character, who was forever waving his proverbial tape measure at men's metaphorical inside legs, was gay.
Perhaps - here's a hopeful thought - Inman didn't recognise himself or his sexuality in his sitcom persona. If so, fair enough. Either that or he was complicit in the show's hidden agendas. Are You Being Served? wasn't innocent, nor did Inman's comic style, such as it was, work with much beyond homophobic suggestion. His writers shrouded fears of middle-aged women's desires and gay men's sexuality in fogs of implication - a cunning, if degraded, thing to do.
At its peak in 1979, 22 million viewers watched an episode of Are You Being Served? It was on for 13 years (1972 to 1985) and we were supposed to love its character-driven, stereotype-laden comedy of cruelty. I'm not sure we ever did.
In those days TV was rationed across three channels and, like spam fritters and powdered eggs, Are You Being Served? was as good as it got in those straitened times. We all watched questionable sitcoms and they brought us together as a catchphrase-quoting, difference-denying, hate-sublimating Britain. Even as many of us despised much of what we saw. Even as we watched in numbers scarcely imaginable in today's fractured TV milieu.
But viewing figures never meant audience endorsement; they meant there was nothing else on and we couldn't get out of our seats to turn the bloody thing off (we didn't have remote controls, you see). Such was 70s Britain.
This may seem funless musing on the death of a beloved icon, but there were a lot of us who weren't served by Mr Humphries and the rest of Grace Brothers' staff. When he minced into view, he served us, like the fetid Grace Brothers department store, with things that nobody really wanted. And when he shouted: "I'm free!" (a catchphrase linking homosexuality with sexual licence), some of us hoped that what he was offering would soon be past its sell-by date."
Sad that someone would have to think like this.Last edited by Stephen Morgan; 9th Mar 2007 at 12:20 PM. Reason: link didn't/doesn't work.
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9th Mar 2007, 12:19 PM #23
Hmmm, well that's freedom of expression for you.
I can actually empathose with a lot of that article. I've felt uncomfortable with a lot of "AYBS" for a long time, especially when I was (wrongly) told that Inman was straight - because essentially the show WAS stereotypical, homophobic tittering. When I found out Inman was gay, it seemed to make it a bit better - like someone mocking themselves, rather than other people doing it. But I'm still not sure that makes it any better
Still, quite the wrong time to write such an article, or have that debate.
Si.
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9th Mar 2007, 1:19 PM #24Wayne GuestIt's the mockery by straight men of homosexuality which, in their minds, is intrinsically linked to fetishism. To make that presumed fetishism ridiculous and deprive it of its subversive power, they clothe it in daftness - in string vests or kiss-me-quick hats (Humphries was wearing the latter during the weekend, too).
Are You Being Served? never had the courage of its own homophobia, but preferred to express it through double entendres, nods and winks. Why was Mr Humphries consorting with such a crew? The suggestion was that limp-wristed men like Mr H were always hanging out with such dodgy characters, doing things that right-thinking people would only read about in the News of the Screws.
It is an ingenious kind of humour, to be sure, but was one filled with fear. The same applies to Mrs Slocombe's pussy, the double entendre that worked by sanctioning the hate-filled, fearful stereotype of a no-win woman who wasn't getting any sex but desperately, abjectly sought it and was laughed at for doing so.
Sorry Si, i agree it's probably not the time or thread for a debate like this, But it annoys me. This guy is obviously out to jump on the PC bandwagon agenda.Last edited by Wayne; 9th Mar 2007 at 1:26 PM.
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9th Mar 2007, 1:21 PM #25
AYBS was one of the shows you couldn't fail to see in the 1970s - The characters were all so memorable - Captain Peacock, Old Mr Grace and his blonde bit of totty, Mr Rumbold (jug ears), Miss Brahms, Mrs Slocombe and her pussy, Mr Lucas and of course Mr Humphries. I've forgotten the name of the warehouse guy and the old grumpy guy though. Anyway it's rare for me to remember all the character names in a show I had just a passing interest in. I guess it was just one of those classics of it's time with well defined characters.
Sorry to hear about the death of John Inman.
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