The dark underbelly of classic British sitcoms

Many of our most-loved comedies conceal a secret history of alcoholism, animosity, abuse, depression or death. As the BBC continues its Landmark Sitcom Season, here’s eight tales of tragedy behind the scenes of iconic British sitcoms…

1 Mind Your Language star murdered?: The late Seventies ITV farce about a motley crew of foreign students learning English at an evening class is now widely condemned for offensive stereotyping. But behind the scenes, an even darker tale unfolded.

Acting roles dried up for the sitcom’s star Barry Evans, who played long-suffering teacher Mr Brown, and he ended up working as a minicab driver. In 1997, police visited Evans at his Leicestershire bungalow to tell him they had recovered his stolen cab and discovered him dead in his living room, aged 53. The Coroner found a blow to Evans’ head and high levels of alcohol in his blood. There were reports of phone lines being cut and valuables stolen. An 18-year-old man was arrested but later released without charge. The mystery was never solved.

2 Dad’s Army’s alcoholic spouses: The escapades of the Walmington-On-Sea Home Guard remains one of our best-loved, most enduring sitcoms. But its star Arthur Lowe, who played pompous plato on commander Captain Main waring, hid a secret sadness. He and actress wife Joan Cooper were both alcoholics, particularly partial to gin cocktails and Black Velvets.

As Lowe’s career blossomed, he refused to leave Joan behind and pulled strings together minor roles alongside him in half-a-dozen TV projects - often declining work if a part wasn’t found for her. She duly played Private Godfrey’s sister Dolly in three episodes of Dad’s Army, plus cameos as Miss Fortescue and Miss Baker. The devoted couple continued to come as a package in their later careers and ended up touring the provinces, appearing in plays and pantos together. Their lives, however, became increasingly dominated by drink and illness. Both died aged 66.

3 Till Death Us Do Part tensions: The conflict between ranting East End reactionary Alf Garnett and his “socialist layabout” Scouse son-in-law Mike was echoed in the famously fractious off-screen relationship between actors Warren Mitchell and Anthony Booth, father of Ch erie Blair. The cast’ s two alpha males constantly bickered on-set and had running arguments throughout rehearsals, often inflamed by Booth’s allegedly prodigious drinking.

Tired of continual conflict with Mitchell, Booth eventually announced he was leaving the hit series to concentrate on other roles. He also declined to return for Eighties comeback In Sickness & In Health. Writer Johnny Speight’s final script, which was never filmed, saw right-wing Alf Garnett discover that his long-lost grandson was the Labour PM. Any resemblance to Booth and his own son-in-law was entirely deliberate.

4 Are You Being Served? secretary’s sad end: Debbie Linden was a blonde Glaswegian glamour model who popped up in films and TV, her most regular role being Old Mr Grace’s saucy secretary in department store sitcom Are You Being Served? She also dated metal band Motörhead’s hedonistic (and recently deceased) frontman Lemmy.

Since taking slimming pills at 13, Linden was plagued by longterm problems with alcohol, drugs and anorexia. Her weight eventually fell to 6st and she died at home of a heroin overdose aged 36. Her boyfriend at the time was acquitted of manslaughter charges but sentenced to two and a half years for supplying the drug.

5 The rise and fall of Leonard Rossiter: Having starred in two bona fide classics - Rising Damp and The Fall & Rise of Reginald Perrin - the late Leonard Rossiter is one of our best-loved sitcom stars. Off-screen, he was a serial adulterer who had a five-year affair with Radio 4’s Sue MacGregor and a rumoured relationship with Judi Dench. However, recent reports of Rossiter’s private life have taken a far darker turn.

In 2012, Operation Yewtree investigated claims that Rossiter was involved in historic abuse, instigating (but not participating) in a sexual assault at BBC Television Centre. An 18-year-old male extra on Nigel Kneale’s prescient 1968 TV play The Year of the Sex Olympics claimed that he and a female both endured rape attempts by three BBC staff in a rehearsal room. He shouted for help and claims that Rossiter did nothing and instead “watched with glee” while “performing a sex act”.

6 War in Steptoe and Son: Galton and Simpson’s rag-and-bone classic ran for eight series, spawned two film spin-offs, was exported worldwide and regularly features highly in polls of the alltime best. At its peak, the show pulled in an audience of 28million. However, its inter-generational conflict wasn’t confined to the screen. Stars Harry H Corbett (a frustrated Shakespearean actor) and Wilfrid Brambell (an alcoholic, self-loathing homosexual) are widely said to have loathed each other.

Forced to tour Australia together in 1977, their already strained relationship broke down for good. Brambell was drunk, swore at fans and forgot his lines, which didn’t go down well with perfectionist Corbett. The pair travelled for five months in separate cars, refused to share a dressing room and ended up flying home on separate planes.

7 The tribulations of Tony Hancock: Showbiz cliché “the tears of a clown” might have been invented for glumly lugubrious Tony Hancock, who achieved stratospheric success during the Fifties and Sixties, thanks to his radio and TV hit Hancock’s Half Hour. However, this chronic alcoholic was highly-strung and selfdestructive, forever involved in contractual wrangles and criticising his own work.

When he feared that he and sidekick Sid James were turning into a double act, he ditched him. He then split with long-time agent Beryl Vertue and, most damagingly of all, scriptwriters Galton and Simpson. As his friend Spike Milligan sadly observed: “He’s got rid of everybody else. He’s going to get rid of himself. And he did.”

Hancock’s career took a downward turn, due to his increasing dependence on vodka and pills, which immobilised his rubbery face and left him unable to learn lines. His publicist-turned-second wife Freddie Ross divorced him and a few days after the papers came through, Hancock took an overdose aged 44. His stark suicide note said: “Things seemed to go wrong too many times.”

8 The Likely Lads’ 40-year feud: They were wholly convincing as lifelong best mates Bob and Terry in the Geordie sitcom. Off-camera, though, actors Rodney Bewes and James Bolam had a bitter fallout that was to last decades. The flash point was a press interview given by Bewes, in which he mentioned that when Bolam’s wife revealed she was pregnant, Bolam was so startled that the car he was driving mounted a pavement and almost crashed into a lamp post. Fiercely private Bolam resented this indiscretion. When Bewes phoned the next day to apologise, Bolam hung up on him and vowed never to talk to Bewes again.

The pair haven’t spoken for 40 years. As a result, the more successful Bolam vetoed repeats of The Likely Lads on terrestrial TV, preventing Bewes earning anything from repeat fees. “He must be very wealthy,” said Bewes. “Me, I’ve just got an overdraft and a mortgage.”