Hearts will sink at the loss of this underrated comedy heroine
Oh, June. With the sad passing of June Whitfield, we have lost a quintessentially British star who spanned three generations of small screen comedy.
A fixture of post-war television and radio, Whitfield made her name in such pop cultural landmarks as Hancock’s Half Hour and the Carry On film series. She worked with a who’s who of home-grown mirth: not just Tony Hancock, but Frankie Howerd, Ronnie Barker, Benny Hill, Bob Monkhouse and Tommy Cooper.
Yet this self-effacing starlet always insisted that she never wanted the lead role, knowingly titling her autobiography ...and June Whitfield. She was destined to be the comedy cog around which the laughter turned, rather than the top-billed ego.
Whitfeld’s partnership with Carry On co-star Terry Scott ran throughout the Seventies, peaking with suburban farce Terry & June, which saw the duo’s hapless husband and long-suffering wife make endless social faux pas and pull in audiences of 15million in the process.
Whitfield’s unshowy skill was to conjure up characters, retain a glint in her eye and deliver dialogue with laser-guided timing. This rare cocktail made her our most reliable comedy actress for half a century.
She won over a new wave of fans in cult Nineties sitcom Absolutely Fabulous as the mother of monstrous Edina Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders). When Edina claimed, “Inside me, there’s a thin person screaming to get out”, Whitfield deadpanned: “Just the one, dear?” Originally intended to appear in a single episode, Whitfield became one of the sitcom’s most beloved characters.
Even in her dotage, Whitfield appeared in Doctor Who, stole scenes as a mercurial nun in EastEnders and headlined a dozen Radio 4 Agatha Christie adaptations as Miss Marple.
Anyone above the age of 40 will find their hearts sinking at the loss of this reassuringly familiar face who became TV auntie to the nation. She was wonderfully gifted and an underrated comedy heroine. She put the wit into Whitfield and the ab into fab. Oh, June.