First viewed : September 1977
I knew who Dick Emery was from Mike Yarwood impressions and trailers but I don't think I saw his show until 1977.
Dick's show was sketch-based with him playing a number of grotesque characters both male and female. I liked the buck-toothed vicar and remember one particularly funny sketch where he was having a pre-marital interview with a young couple and the guy kept using rude words in an innocent context - "Oh dear I keep making these dreadful boobs ! " causing much tea-spluttering outrage.
Much of the humour revolved around sexual innuendo though there was also the great double act with Roy Kinnear which was more slapstick-based. They were a father -son pairing whose attempts at petty villainy were always scuppered by the imbecility of young Gaylord , played convincingly by Emery although he was nearly twenty years older than Kinnear.
For all the cross-dressing Emery was actually as straight as they come and had four children from five marriages. He got tired of the show in 1981 and started a couple of new ventures the following year which were scuppered by his death at 67 at the beginning of 1983.
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