Memorial Service:

There was an all-star cast at June Whitfield’s memorial service at St Paul’s, Covent Garden.

Roy Hudd, Edward Thomas, Barry Cryer, Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, John Kane, her daughter Suzy Aitchison and Gyles Brandreth queued up to pay their respects.

First the Rev Simon Gregg announced that a plaque to Dame June had just been unveiled near the altar and everyone was invited to admire it after the service.

The vicar recounted a Christmas joke told by Dame June. Joseph is told there is no room at the inn. ‘It’s not my fault,’ he is told by the management. ‘It’s not mine either,’ says Joseph.

Roy Hudd said Dame June was the best Christmas fairy he had ever worked with in pantomime. ‘And we’ve seen a few,’ he said.

Hudd said she could do every British accent except Geordie. He once caught her out on air, saying, ‘I believe you are very fond of Newcastle.’

‘You swine,’ she replied. ‘We moved years ago.’

Her friend Edward Thomas said she interrupted herself in Titus Andronicus, saying, ‘I don’t understand a bloody word of that.’ Cue the biggest laugh ever for the play.

Barry Cryer apologised for his looks: ‘I bet you’re thinking that Brad Pitt has let himself go.’ And of her, Barry said, ‘She was arrogant in her humility. In most ways, she was nothing like a Dame.’

Jennifer Saunders congratulated herself on choosing June as her mother in Absolutely Fabulous. ‘She would slice away at our best lines, saying, “I don’t think mother needs to say this,” she would say. But she was always right.’

‘You thought she was very difficult,’ Joanna Lumley interrupted helpfully.

John Kane, her scriptwriter for many years, recalled her years working with Terry Scott on Terry and June and with Jimmy Edwards. He told of her embarrassment at greeting the Duke of Kent by mistake as an old friend when she had never met him before.

Daughter Suzy Aitchison recalled moving her mother from a five-bedroom Victorian house to a one-bedroom apartment: ‘She never threw anything away.’

Gyles Brandreth spoke of her admiration for Noël Coward, who spotted her talent in 1950.

Brandreth then sang a duet of I Remember It Well, to the backing of a recording by Dame June.

In his final prayer, the vicar explained that Brandreth was once a Tory MP, perhaps suggesting he should be busy during the election campaign. And he awarded Roy Hudd a yellow card for making jokes about fairies. JAMES HUGHES-ONSLOW