Snooty BBC bosses scorned the show, but 50 years on the last surviving star of Are You Being Served? says it still has laughs in store
THE catchphrases might be half a century old but they still make Mike Berry smile whenever he hears them. “It does make me chuckle when someone says, ‘I’m free’ or jokes about Mrs Slocombe’s pussy,” admits Berry, 79, and the last surviving main cast member of legendary sitcom Are You Being Served?
“I don’t get shouted at in the street too much as I didn’t have a catchphrase,” he admits. “I think I might have dodged a bullet, to be honest.”
Lines from many of our beloved vintage sitcoms are so deeply woven into the fabric of the national consciousness that there are generations of Britons who were not even born when shows were broadcast who can repeat them verbatim.
In the 50 years since Are You Being Served? first went out on the BBC, the risque innuendo, sexist stereotypes and genial silliness of the staff at Grace Brothers may not have aged as well as other sitcoms of the era.
But for 13 years, it was one of the UK’s most watched programmes, attracting viewing figures of 22 million at its late70s peak and its most famous moments have stood the test of time alongside those from the likes of Only Fools And Horses and Porridge.
Mike, who starred as roguish junior menswear assistant Mr Spooner in the latter seasons, is the last surviving main cast member, the likes of Mollie Sugden (Mrs Slocombe), Wendy Richard (Miss Brahms) and John Inman (Mr Humphries), all having gone to the great department store in the sky.
FOR Mike, joining the show in 1981 marked something of a career renaissance and his second bite of the fame cherry. Almost 20 years earlier, he had been a moderately successful pop singer in the mould of Adam Faith.
Working with innovative music producer Joe Meek (the man behind smash hit Telstar by The Tornados) Mike embarked on a promising career which included a Top Ten chart placing with Don’t You Think It’s Time, in 1962.
But when the hits dried up and obscurity as a bit-part actor beckoned, he was spotted appearing alongside Jon Pertwee in Worzel Gummidge in the late 1970s and offered the role in Are You Being Served? He knew it was make or break time.
“It was a real ‘brown trousers’ moment when we first started rehearsing for the show at this big old hanger that we called the ‘Acton Hilton’,” Mike recalls.
“Wendy [Richard] was the most supportive to me but new cast members knew the main man they had to impress was John [Inman]. I remember that word got back to me during the first recording that he had muttered, ‘He’s got it’, meaning my acting. And then I was away. It was like getting royal approval.”
The Northampton-born singer and actor had replaced Trevor Bannister, who played the junior menswear assistant Mr Lucas in the first seven series but left to appear in a touring stage show.
His character Mr Spooner was sarcastic and lazy, often making rude remarks at the expense of the other staff.
He didn’t get on with Captain Peacock – the pompous floorwalker with military pretensions played by Frank Thornton – and hinted at an affair with Miss Brahms.
“Mr Spooner was pretty close to what I was like at the time. A bit of a ne’er do well and dressed sharply,” admits Mike, who lives in southwest London and credits a cold shower each morning for his trim physique and youthful appearance.
The show’s creator Jeremy Lloyd, then married to Joanna Lumley, had been advised by his wife to “write about something you know”. Having worked for a time in the famous Simpsons department store in Piccadilly, central London, Lloyd teamed up with Dad’s Army producer David Croft to create the world of Grace Brothers. Lloyd’s experiences on the shop floor were, in many cases, transferred directly to scenes in the show.
The late writer claimed one famous scene where John Inman puts his knee into the shoulder of a jacket to break the stitches, therefore enlarging it to fit a stocky customer, was based on real events in the West End store.
But the show only made its first appearance thanks to a tragic twist of fate. BBC bosses were left with a huge hole in their schedules when the 1972 Munich Olympics was postponed after the murder of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists.
Having initially rejected the pilot episode of Are You Being Served? (intended to be broadcast as part of the Comedy Playhouse series) the BBC reluctantly dusted off the tape, pressed play and a hit was born. Immediately, a full series was commissioned.
Despite that, Mike, who has two children and five grandchildren, feels the Beeb never really warmed to the show, despite its huge success over the next decade.
“There was always the sense that the BBC thought the show was far too lowbrow for them,” he says. “Every year David Croft would go into battle with management to get the show recommissioned for another series. But it was always obvious that the top brass never really liked it. There was too much innuendo and pratfall gags for their tastes.”
Mike says his favourite Grace Brothers moment is tricky to pin down, though he enjoyed the episode The Pop Star. “It was all about my character and I was obviously very much on home territory playing the part of a budding pop singer,” he says.
“I loved the costume I wore for my supposed Top Of The Pops-style appearance which consisted of skintight red suede trousers and, I think, a gold lame shirt plus a blonde ‘flash’ in the front of my hair.
“But there were others not about me that I really enjoyed more as an observer. I think The Burglary episode was a hoot with Mollie
‘There was always the sense that the BBC thought the show was far too lowbrow for them’