John Inman dies ...

[WhiteCrow]

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.

[SiHart]

Oh, that's really sad news. I always enjoyed his performance oin Are You Being Served? too.

Si xx

[Dirk Gently]

As a bird, as a free spirit. Sad news but what a legacy.

R.I.P John.

[SiHart]

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.

[Si Hunt]

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.

[WhiteCrow]

In honour of the man I'll be wearing my pink shirt today, and weather the "is he gay" comments!

[Rob McCow]

Very sad

[Si Hunt]

[Dave Tudor]

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.

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.

[Si Hunt]

God, yes, I remember that programme!

It was brilliant! There was this really sad "Eastenders" fan who had his garden shed mocked up like the Queen Vic, with all the little pumps at the "bar". Just as it looked like he might escape with a shred of dignity the presenter asked "and do they contain real beer and spirits?". "No," he replied. "Just Ribena."

Si.

[Wayne]

'Are You Being Served' was always on in our house when i was a lad, so i remember him well.
RIP John.

[Pip Madeley]

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.

[Antony Cox]

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.

My sentiments exactly.

and also that short-lived (and probably not-very-funny) ITV sitcom in which he played a secretary to Rula Lenska's boss.

Wasn't that called 'Take a letter, Mr Jones' or something like that?

[Stephen Morgan]

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.

[Captain Tancredi]

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...

[The Secretive Bus]

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...

[Carol Baynes]

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 x

[WhiteCrow]

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.

[Stephen Morgan]

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.

Too true mate, too true. A lot of my 70s idols have died recently, I feel like parts of me are just splintering away.

[Dirk Gently]

I know what you mean Steve, I felt the same when Ronnie Barker died. That was quite upsetting really.

[Si Hunt]

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.

[Stephen Morgan]

[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.

[Si Hunt]

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.

[Wayne]

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.

essentially the show WAS stereotypical, homophobic tittering.

Si's right, & unfortunately, what i've singled out there from that guy's article is pretty much true, i think. But you have to accept that the social climate relating to issues like this, & television itself, was totally different back then. It was 30 years ago! It's unfair to lay all that stuff at the door of AYBS, (especially just after John Inman's death, which is highly innapropriate & insensitive) You might as well attack the Carry On films, Porridge, & probably virtually every other piece of comedy that portrayed homosexuality. Times have changed, & it's very easy to look back & criticise, 30 years after the fact. That's just the way it was back then. It doesn't make it right neccesarily, but it doesn't mean that people can't enjoy it today, & nor does it make them homophobic. It just means that they have the ability to put it in perspective.
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.

[Ralph]

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.