Ann Way Season: The Dick Emery Show - Series 12 Episode 1 ('The Daily Grind')

The Dick Emery Show is another of those shows, like Monty Python and The Goodies, which I love dearly but for some reason find it almost impossible to blog about. In this case I think it's because the format of the show is essentially repetitive and the cast of recurring characters relatively small so once you've talked about the format it's a bit difficult to find anything else to say. This essentially repetitious nature makes it more remarkable that the show broadcast from 1963 to 1981 to a total of 166 episodes!

It has never had a commercial release beyond a compilation of selections released on VHS and then released on DVD, so we are genuinely in wild territory here. The source for this episode which I have found down the back of the internet includes the bumper card at the beginning which has the title of 'The Daily Grind' although it doesn't appear on the show and not even IMDb includes any titles for the episodes, so I'm in a position to preen myself and pretend that this is original research.

Of course Dick Emery is often mentioned in the same breath with Benny Hill, in that they both had long-running TV series (The Benny Hill Show ran from 1955 to 1989 although it was always more variety-oriented than Dick Emery) and both featuring humour and routines which were very much of their time and included racist or sexist attitudes which have thankfully passed among the enlightened these days. I looked through both of these men's biographies online to try to find some differentiation between them which would explain why Benny Hill's work is much more commercially available and I see that Benny Hill was originally released in a region 1 DVD box set which makes me suspect that he is more known or popular in the US and that would explain the differing commercial availability. Essentially the only difference between their work is that Dick Emery always included an element of drag, which I suspect wouldn't have gone down so well in the USA, and Benny Hill is of course known for the chases at the end to yakety sax. Both also acted in non-comedy roles in films. The two men, however, were of quite different personality; Hill being an introvert and Emery can only be described as a prolific lover with endless marriages and affairs under his belt. Benny Hill is such a legendary figure that I see he has had to be buried under a concrete slab to stop grave robbers who targeted his grave under the belief that he was buried with a large amount of dosh.

It is perhaps a tribute to the sheer breadth of Emery's acting ability that this is what the always-highbrow British Film Institute has to say about the galaxy of characters he managed to intrude into the national consciousness:

'Emery's memorable characters and their catchphrases quickly made the show a ratings winner. He demonstrated his flair for dialects and rhythms of speech with a galaxy of characters: a buck-toothed vicar; a hen-pecked husband thwarted in his attempts to dispose of his nagging wife; College, a gentleman tramp; biker Ton-up Boy; and the outrageously camp Clarence, with his catchphrase, "Hello Honky Tonks". In true music-hall tradition, Emery was never afraid to don drag; two popular characters were sex-starved spinster Hettie (loosely based on a producer's secretary), who would go to great lengths to achieve her ends - even breaking into a prison, only to be thrown out by the inmates - and buxom blonde Mandy, who mistook innocent questions for innuendo, eventually hitting the interviewer with the pay-off line, "Ooh, you are awful. But I like you."' (http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/1192094/index.html)

Also of note is that he used a vox pop technique where the interviewer's question would be answered by the various characters played by Emery. I have only just realised, when reading round for this post, that this same technique was also used by the very different A Bit of Fry and Laurie, often with Fry or Laurie playing in drag, which seems like a wonderful tribute to Emery.

In fact this episode begins with the vox pop, the questions about work, as always being asked by actor Gordon Clyde. He first asks the outrageously camp character Clarence, who greets him with, 'Oh hello, honky tonks, how are you?' When asked whether all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, Clarence replies that if he's talking about jolly Jack the sailor, there's nothing dull about him, before rushing off to catch his train to Portsmouth. Then he asks a farmer up from the country who says he's brought the old bitch up with him, before adding that they celebrated their silver wedding anniversary the year before (we really are in a different world, here, considering the BBC broadcast this). 'Hetty the menopausal man-eater', who is always insistent that she's a miss, talks about how she's looking forward to starting work as a prison visitor because the prisoners won't have seen a woman in months. Bovver boy then talks about his work extorting protection money off shop keepers to stop him kicking their windows in He calls this the 'otherwise I'll' business. He then interviews a psychiatrist in a suit and bowler hat about his work, before the psychiatrist starts talking to an invisible 14 stone budgerigar called Herbert. A couple more vox pops, ending with Mandy the blonde bombshell's catchline 'Ooh you are awful, but I like you', and we're on to the sketch featuring Ann Way.

This is about two 'Slap-On' make up representatives, played by Emery in drag and regular Sheila Coombs, who are competing with each other because the area has made them both the rep for that area. They call on Ann Way's character and both try to sell her make-up. Since they're both convinced they're right, they divide Ann Way's face in half and both appallingly make-up their half as they think fit, so that Ann looks terrible. Unfortunately they have been so argumentative with each other that she hasn't been able to get a word in edgeways and it's only after they're done this that she gets to tell them that she has also been appointed a Slap-On representative. As a role for Ann it's a bit slim, but she puts up with being aggressively made up like a trooper.

The episode continues with more sketches for the full half hour. What I really like about this show is that there isn't an element of variety at all, no singing and no interacting with celebs, just pure sketches.

I suppose the show is open to the criticism that it is very much of its time indeed, although as I said I notice that there is much material published on the social commentary of The Dick Emery Show, which isn't the case for Benny Hill's chasing of nurses in mini skirts!

Finally, it must be said that something Benny Hill did do for our country was unwittingly provide the sound track to our last Conservative government thanks to national treasure Steve Bray (it was Hugh Grant who requested that he play the tune and it ended up accompanying all the falls and crises of the last government). The video below is the scene outside Downing Street on 6th September 2022 as Boris Johnson resigned. I love the way you can tell the moment he comes out of the house because the booing starts.

Speaking of sound tracks, don't you have a presidential inauguration coming up in the USA? (Hint)

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