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Obit: Wendy Richard at 65: Britcom actress Miss Brahms in " Are You Be Served"

CrankyYankee said:
Richard starred in the sitcoms Are You Being Served?, Dad's Army and Grace and Favour, and in 2000 was awarded an MBE for services to television.
Read more here ----> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7912668.stm
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Follows her good friend and castmate John Inman's (Mr. Humphries) death last year. Arthur English (Mr. Grace) is also gone, but the rest of the original principal cast of AYBS is still with us. From all I've read, that cast had a hell of a fun time working together.
 
Re: Obit: Wendy Richard at 65: Britcom actress Miss Brahms in " Are You Be Served"

What a shame - she was such a class act. And, very, very talented. From the story, it also appears that she was very brave.
 
Re: Obit: Wendy Richard at 65: Britcom actress Miss Brahms in " Are You Be Served"

Arthur English played Mr. Harman, the maintenance man.
 
LynnW said:
Arthur English played Mr. Harman, the maintenance man.
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My bad...it was Harold Bennett who played Young Mr. Grace, and he is also deceased. In fact, his death back in '81 is why they brought in another actor, Kenneth Waller (wearing horribly obvious "old man" makeup) to play Old Mr. Grace in the final season.
 
Re: Obit: Wendy Richard at 65: Britcom actress Miss Brahms in " Are You Be Served"

It would be nice if PBS would air episodes of "Are you being served" again.
 
Mark_Giardina said:
It would be nice if PBS would air episodes of "Are you being served" again.
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Many PBS stations still do...I don't think the network itself programs the various classic "Britcoms," but individual member stations do run them. Locally, both WMFE and WDSC (ex-WCEU) run a competing slate of UK shows every Saturday night, including AYBS.
 
Stanislav said:
Mark_Giardina said:
It would be nice if PBS would air episodes of "Are you being served" again.
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Many PBS stations still do...I don't think the network itself programs the various classic "Britcoms," but individual member stations do run them. Locally, both WMFE and WDSC (ex-WCEU) run a competing slate of UK shows every Saturday night, including AYBS.
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Maryland Public Broadcasting runs them every afternoon and every Saturday night.
 
Re: Obit: Wendy Richard at 65: Britcom actress Miss Brahms in " Are You Be Served"

WKNO 10 in Memphis still shows it at 10 PM on weeknights.
 
Re: Obit: Wendy Richard at 65: Britcom actress Miss Brahms in " Are You Be Served"

WXXI in Rochester ran Are you being Served and Are You Being Served Again over & over & over & over & over & over & over -you get the picture, every night at 11. I guess they stopped a year or so ago. Maybe they are just resting it. I wish they would strip Red Green like that.

They must have taped the seasons over a long span of years. You can definitely watch her age more than any of the other characters.
I did enjoy her work. We have lost another artist.
 
therealjm12 said:
They must have taped the seasons over a long span of years. You can definitely watch her age more than any of the other characters.
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10 series totaling 69 episodes over a 13-year period. Started with a pilot in 1972, with the first series starting in 1973, and the 10th ending in 1985. Then some of the cast did the spin-off Grace & Favour (known as Are You Being Served? Again! in the U.S.) for 2 6-episode series in 1992 and 1993. So, some of the cast members were still playing the same characters 21 years after the pilot. Ms. Richard was definitely showing her age by the end -- she was 29 when they did the pilot, and 50 by the time Grace & Favour ended!
 
Re: Obit: Wendy Richard at 65: Britcom actress Miss Brahms in " Are You Be Served"

Viewers in Rochester still ask for it to return, it was a perennial favorite, so it'll probably return again assuming the rights are still in force or available.

Until John Inman's passing, the surviving cast members (especially Inman and Mollie Sugden) made occasional visits to the US to help host multi-city pledge drive campaigns for public TV stations carrying the show. They often expressed surprise at how popular they, and the show, had become with American TV viewers.
 
Re: Obit: Wendy Richard at 65: Britcom actress Miss Brahms in " Are You Be Served"

AYBS is one of those rare shows that stands the test of time. No matter how many times you see the various episodes, they are still funny. It was a truly inspired program that featured great talent that clearly had the right chemistry. And, they did it all on a very tight budget - from what I understand.

Personally, we were very disappointed to find that - upon moving to the Chicago area - not one of the three PBS stations available to us here have AYBS on their program schedules. In fact, they are all pitifully light on all Britcoms with a schedule limited to WTTW's weekly screening of a one hour Britcom block that includes As Time Goes By and the wonderful Keeping Up Appearances on Saturday evenings. WYIN and the pitiful "Wise TV" show none at all. I really hope that will change and soon! Many PBS affiliates around the country set aside most of their Saturday night schedules for Britcoms.
 
BRNout said:
AYBS is one of those rare shows that stands the test of time. No matter how many times you see the various episodes, they are still funny. It was a truly inspired program that featured great talent that clearly had the right chemistry. And, they did it all on a very tight budget - from what I understand.
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I remember reading that the studio facilities were not exactly commodious, and backstage was rather claustrophobic. They usually had one episode in each series that had the cast ending up in outrageous costumes (Mr. Humphries', of course, usually was the most over the top). They had a devil of a time keeping the cast out of view as each successively entered the scene in their garb so as to insure a good boisterous reaction from the studio audience (which wouldn't have worked nearly as well if they could get an advance glimpse of the performers waiting in the wings).
 
Re: Obit: Wendy Richard at 65: Britcom actress Miss Brahms in " Are You Be Served"

I would like to point out that she died two days before this thread was made
 
Stanislav said:
LynnW said:
Arthur English played Mr. Harman, the maintenance man.
Click to expand...

My bad...it was Harold Bennett who played Young Mr. Grace, and he is also deceased. In fact, his death back in '81 is why they brought in another actor, Kenneth Waller (wearing horribly obvious "old man" makeup) to play Old Mr. Grace in the final season.
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Actually, Waller and his bad makeup joined the show before Bennett passed away; Bennett was getting on in years, and was given a farewell episode in which 'Old' Mr. Grace was introduced(Bennett waved 'goodbye' when he was shown in the closing credits.)
Bennett actually made one more appearance, in the 1981 Christmas special titled 'Roots'-an episode not commonly shown in the US, and then only in edited form, as there was some sort of musical number involving the cast singing an American Civil-war plantation song(the episode involved the cast tryingto pay musical tribute to Mr. Grace's 'roots', only to keep discovering that there were several different branches of his family in the UK, Ireland and elsewhere).
 
Stanislav said:
10 series totaling 69 episodes over a 13-year period.
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6 or 7 episodes per "series" with a year or two between series... Is that normal for British television (compared to our 20 or 22 episode seasons)?
 
Otto Maddock said:
Stanislav said:
10 series totaling 69 episodes over a 13-year period.
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6 or 7 episodes per "series" with a year or two between series... Is that normal for British television (compared to our 20 or 22 episode seasons)?
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Exactly...the Brits use the term "series" where we would use "season," and most of the time there are only 6-12 episodes per series. This is one reason for the generally excellent quality of their shows -- they don't find themselves stretched thin trying to come up with enough material to fill 20+ episodes, and usually there is a single writer or writing staff throughout (which would be almost an impossible workload for a U.S. series), which means excellent continuity of characters, plot, history, etc.

There is actually a good example of the difference in the history of 'Allo! 'Allo! Most of the series/seasons were short by our standards, but in one series they actually did 20-some episodes because they supposedly had a deal to syndicate the show in the U.S. (That never came to pass back then....this was well before it started airing on PBS outlets.) They had to call in outside writers to help with the workload, and that plus the unusually long (by Brit standards) shooting schedule made several of those episodes among the weakest of the entire run.
 
Re: Obit: Wendy Richard at 65: Britcom actress Miss Brahms in " Are You Be Served"

When a British series runs, do they run all the episodes once a week like in the US until the 6 or so episodes are finished, or do they run it pehaps once a month with different shows each week in a particular time slot, or are they run like cable shows with multiple chances to see them during the week?
 
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