Grump with Grace
I’m free! Mementos from a star of stage and screen who snoozed through much of Are You Being Served? are to go under the hammer, writes John Vincent.
Remember Mr Grainger from Are You Being Served?, one of the most-loved TV sitcoms of the 70s? He was the grumpy senior salesman in the menswear department – the one who vaguely resembled Winston Churchill and often fell asleep at work.
Well, that was Arthur Brough, a highly respected actor and impresario who dedicated his life to the theatre and worked with some of the greatest names of his generation.
Now a small archive of showbiz ephemera that he accumulated during half a century on the stage, kept by his family since his death in 1978, is to be sold at Tennants on a date to be fixed.
The archive includes letters and signed photographs from Laurence Olivier (“For Arthur from Larry, 1962”), Joan Plowright (“Darling Arthur with much love and many happy memories”), Michael Redgrave (“Arthur with admiration”), Joan Greenwood (“Dear, dear Brough
Very much love”) and Sybil Thorndike (“My kind Arthur”).
The collection, including wartime photos, programmes, personal documents and an invitation to appear at the Royal Variety Performance in 1963, has a guide price of £500-£700. Brough spent a lifetime in the theatre but is best remembered for his role in the popular 1970s BBC series, playing Mr Grainger, who had been at Grace Brothers for four decades and who failed to wake up when called unless Mr Humphries (John Inman) asked: “Mr Grainger, are you free?”
He appeared in five series but then, on Easter Sunday 1978, his wife of 50 years, actress and writer Elizabeth Addeyman, died and a devastated Arthur announced he was quitting acting. He died just six weeks later.
Arthur founded a repertory company in Folkestone before establishing new companies all over England, including
Bradford, Keighley and Leeds. Are You Being Served? co-star Mollie Sugden credits him with helping to train a generation of actors. But it was with the rise of television that he became nationally known, appearing also in Upstairs, Downstairs, Dad’s Army and Cars.
According to his daughter, Joanna Hutton, he found it hard adjusting from stage to screen at first. “He realised how hammy he was. He used to take the mickey out of himself; he’d always acted in a Shakespearean manner and suddenly realised he had to tone down his performance for film.”
Producer David Croft remembered that Arthur would often disappear off the set. “Whenever we were rehearsing he’d vanish at about three minutes to eleven. For a while we wondered where he went, but eventually discovered that he’d nip next door to the pub for a quick pink gin.
“We’d watch from the window as this little figure hurtled towards the pub. We never spoke to him about it. One day when he returned, John Inman asked where he’d been. He made some excuse but what he’d forgotten was that it was pouring with rain and his bald head was soaking wet!”
Z