STUART SHERWIN, the actor, who has died aged 87, was an unselfish feed for comedy stars, most visibly as part of Jimmy Perry and David Croft’s unofficial repertory company. He made four episodes of
Dad’s Army between 1969 and 1972, playing a junior ARP warden of more amiable temper than his combustible colleague Hodges, played by Bill Pertwee. One episode featured Hodges taking umbrage after Sherwin’s character, Adamson, casually mentions having obtained tea from the spiv Walker (James Beck). He checked out of Fawlty
Towers (1979) while declining to buy one of Connie Booth’s paintings, was a colleague of Nigel Hawthorne in Yes
Minister (1982) and, again for Croft, was twice a customer at Grace Brothers in Are You
Being Served? (1974 and 1976). But his was a life devoted to the stage, on which he appeared as a supporting player in farces, character actor, variety performer and pantomime regular.
In 1982 Sherwin had a stage reunion with Arthur Lowe. It was, however, an unfortunate credit as during the run of Home At Seven (1982), Lowe died at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham. Doubly unfortunately, Sherwin played a doctor.
Stuart James Sherwin was born on May 16 1927 at Weston Coyney, Staffordshire. His father had been the sales manager of a pottery firm, before running a pub in Hanley. After National Service in the Army, Shelton became involved in amateur dramatics, making his professional debut when a touring troupe, the Denville Players, had a mid-1950s residency in South Shields. The manager, Charles Denville, was the son of Alfred Denville, founder of the theatrical retirement home Denville Hall, where Sherwin would eventually end his days. By 1959 he was in repertory at Tynemouth, where colleagues included Dennis Kirkland, the future producer and confidant of Benny Hill.
Sherwin’s career as a foil in farce began with One for the
Pot in 1961, co-written by Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton and presented by Brian Rix, who also took the lead, at the Whitehall Theatre. Simultaneously, he made his (BBC) television debut on Boxing Day that year, supporting Rix in Will Any
Gentleman?. He played a flummoxed detective-inspector, and would do so again with Rix in a national tour of A Bit Between the
Teeth in 1975. The future Lord Rix then made a series of farces for television, Dial Rix (BBC, 1962), in which the cast included Sherwin and Terry Scott, an off-screen friend. Once Scott had ascended to star billing, he called on Sherwin for support duty in
Hugh And I and irregular BBC2 specials titled Scott
On… From the late 1970s he featured in Happy Ever After with June Whitfield and its successor Terry and June.
For five years from 1966, Sherwin based himself in Scotland, appearing annually in the summer show Gaiety
Whirl, at the Gaiety Theatre, Ayr.
On children’s television Sherwin, with Derek Fowlds as Mr Derek, regularly helped in urging viewers to exclaim: “Boom, Boom!” on The Basil
Brush Show (1971-73). He also briefly stood in for Peter Glaze in a series of the BBC television children’s perennial called Crackerjack
’72.
Returning to Perry and Croft, Sherwin was in the radio remake of Dad’s Army (1975-76) and its short-lived successor, It Sticks Out Half a
Mile (1983), and played a Spanish revolutionary in a stage version of Are You Being
Served? in Blackpool (1976). Prior to retirement, Sherwin concentrated on regional productions of musicals and pantomimes. He played Mr Brownlow in Cameron Mackintosh’s revival of Oliver! (London Palladium, 1994), and enjoyed himself as a veteran actor in a rare British staging of the Off-Broadway musical success The Fantasticks (Harrogate Theatre, 2005)
Stuart Sherwin never married. Stuart Sherwin, born May 16 1927, died April 23 2015