A TOAST TO MR HI-DE-HI!
Nearly a quarter of a century after his premature death at the age of 45, Simon Cadell’s voice can still be heard echoing along some platforms of the london Underground.
His is the one warning us, in rich and authoritative tones, to: ‘Mind the gap!’
Cadell is fondly remembered, too, for his masterly portrayal of Jeffrey Fairbrother, the entertainments manager at Maplins Holiday Camp, in Hi-de-Hi!, the Jimmy Perry and David Croft sitcom which was first broadcast in January 1980 and ran for 58 episodes.
The actor’s comic deadpan was in a class of its own. Surrounded by music hall turns, such as ruth Madoc’s smouldering Welshness, Paul Shane’s desperate slapstick and Su Pollard as Peggy the chalet maid being Su Pollard, Cadell is hysterical because he does very little — yet it is his watchful and faintly bemused reserve that draws the laughter.
He came from a comfortably- off and raffish dynasty of actor-managers, BBC announcers and theatrical agents. His mother, indeed, was the head of the Guildhall drama school.
Cadell grew up in Highgate, surrounded by people swapping stories about Donald Wolfit, ralph richardson, laurence Olivier and Michael redgrave.
Cadell’s birth in July 1950 had been difficult. His skull and jaw were twisted out of shape by forceps, which gave him his trademark face, with the lopsided expression of a startled terrapin.
Because he was dyslexic, Cadell was held back at school and flourished only when sent to the progressive Bedales, ‘a brilliant place for just letting children be themselves’.
He arrived in 1963 and befriended fellow pupil Gyles Brandreth. The pair of them were ‘a rather quaint and odd little couple’, avoiding games and listening to Noel Coward recordings, rather than The Beatles or The rolling Stones. Cadell proceeded to the National youth Theatre and then to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
‘He was a little out of the times,’ says Brian Slade in this respectful and necessary biography. In an epoch of jeans and long hair, Cadell insisted on wearing a Savile row suit at rehearsals.
He clearly loved to evoke a vanished world of clear and posh enunciation, dinner jackets and a Thirties swank of cocktails and laughter.
Cadell was never fooled by method acting rubbish, mumbling and looking for ‘motivation’. He was more interested in the techniques of giving a polished, poised performance, the craft involved in knowing when to pause, glance, rock back on your heels, sigh, look askance and flick open a cigarette case.
Comedy, Cadell was convinced, was funnier if underplayed. you should carry it off ‘as though you don’t know it’s funny’, as his wonderful sister, Selina, who has been interviewed at length by Slade, does in Doc Martin, where she plays the chemist Mrs Tishell. It’s my favourite performance on television.
Cadell served time at the Nottingham Playhouse and adored appearing in the West end with Peggy ashcroft and ralph richardson, who drank a bottle of gin in his dressing-room the moment the curtain fell.
There was a lot of radio work and Cadell was a voice- over artist for salted peanuts, cars, chocolates and, of course, the london Underground.
His first major television work was as a Nazi in enemy at The Door. ‘When you put on that Nazi uniform,’ he said, ‘ which is a breathtaking piece of design, you understand why they felt invincible. I wasn’t particularly jolly to know at that time.’ In October 1979, Cadell auditioned for Hi- de- Hi! and was engaged at once. The series, set in 1959 and based on Jimmy Perry’s experience as a redcoat at Butlins in Pwllheli, gloried in a nostalgia for the British seaside traditions of knobbly knees and glamorous granny competitions, rain and compulsory fun. Viewing figures reached 14 million.
The role of Jeffrey Fairbrother changed Cadell’s life. He became a household name. Strangers would shout ‘Hi-di-Hi!’ at him a thousand times a day, even overseas — Dutch children, gondoliers in Venice.
at last, he was successful and prosperous. He was married to David Croft’s daughter, Beckie.
‘These last few years have been extremely happy,’ Cadell said in 1985 — but was he already on borrowed time? He was a nervous, tense person who had sucked his thumb well into adulthood. He smoked 80 Gitanes a day, interspersed with cigars.
He also drank. ‘I know that I’d rather have three glasses of wine or none,’ he reasoned — aware of his addictive tendencies.
Cadell became an expert on vintage wine and champagne, about which he published a book, and stuck only to expensive Burgundies when socialising.
But, despite what his sister Selina says about Cadell’s being ‘a measured, expert drinker’ whom nobody ever saw collapsing in a heap, anyone who consumes, as he did, ‘two or three bottles over dinner’ was at best a functioning alcoholic.
THere was also a gambling problem — blackjack was a danger — and clearly an eye needed to be kept on Cadell.
Though all this lay behind the intensity and suppressed panic of his performances — his ‘slightly disconnected air’ was ideal for the Noel Coward plays he starred in with Joanna lumley — he was not a well person.
There were mysterious infections and high temperatures, flu he couldn’t shake off, sinus trouble that required an anaesthetic to treat, aching legs, shaking, sweating, shivering.
Cadell required a triple heart bypass, which was followed almost immediately, in 1993, by the diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, an immunodeficiency cancer. When he was in hospital, a gigantic card arrived, signed by 600 taxi- drivers — they’d loved ferrying him from restaurant to restaurant, club to club.
He died in March 1996. at his final public appearance, an awards ceremony, he told the audience in his inimitable way that, when it came to casting the new James Bond, if Keith Chegwin turned it down, ‘there’s always a chance for me’.