Clarence

Clarence, also known as 'Honky Tonks', had actually been in Dick Emery's act for many years in one guise or another although he admitted that it was the one character that had undergone the biggest change. When Clarence began life homosexuality was only hinted in terms of comedy rather than bought straight out into the open. In the main these characters were more familiar to cabaret than TV. Emery stated that adopting a camp attitude was a useful ploy when faced with an unresponsive audience staring across their plate of steak and chips blankly at a performer. "Why the suggestion of homosexuality should be funny is imponderable - perhaps our laughter is defence, a reaction against hidden fears about our innermost tendencies", he contemplated. By the 1970s gay characters appeared more openly although they were portrayed as farcical and camp and created purely for comic relief. At the same time as Clarence became a staple of Emery's repertoire, John Inman was starring on television as Grace Brothers decidedly effeminate (but undeclared homosexual) menswear salesman Mr Humphrey’s in 'Are You Being Served?', and Larry Grayson was making a name for himself camping it up as the comedian with a decidedly gay persona which actually formed the mainstay of his act. Prior to the 1970s Clarence had appeared with heavy make-up; he also wore a wig of short, blond, swept-back hair. However, in the early part of the decade men began to wear brighter and more adventurous clothes and Clarence soon found that he was being outdone. So out went the old props and in came a more fashion conscious character complete with outrageous outfits, accessories and a far more effeminate manner. Clarence was probably the template for ‘Little Britain’s’ Daffyd and one imagines that Matt Lucas has taken the character and shown us his modern day version. In the early 1970s, Clarence was the only gay in the village.

Interviewer: Excuse me, sir.
Clarence: Oh, hello Honky Tonks, how are you?
Interviewer: I'm asking questions about class distinction.
Clarence: Oh, yes?
Interviewer: Do you believe there's an 'us' and a 'them'?
Clarence: Well, it doesn't bother me really - I'm one of those!

The Sporting Gent

The Sporting Gent was anything but sporting. Here was a man who you would avoid at all costs because the only one he ever looked out for was number one. He would sell his own mother if the price was right and was described as Emery as a ‘genuine British cad.’ He was based on a character Emery had met on the beaches of Normandy, a few days after D-Day. "We had been posted [there] to entertain the troops and keep up morale. When we landed, shaky and glad to be on terra firma again, this chap-a real RAF type-came up and asked with concern where the girls were. To be asking about girls, when as we spoke we could hear Caen being bombed to pieces! When we told him that we played the girls roles as well, he gave that ‘Ha ha ha’ which has become the Sporting Gent’s familiar guffaw." Emery thought that while full of comedic possibilities, the Sporting Gent was a thoroughly reprehensible character: "He is identified by his loudly checked jacket, jaunty bow-tie, flat cap and thin, well trimmed moustache, and is usually found in bars, drinking shorts-which he never buys himself if he can help it. I like to think he is the outcast of a well-to-do family. The kind of tweeds his father wore have been replaced with a louder pattern in accordance with his flashy taste. To compensate for his loss of station, the Sporting Gent has to overstate everything. Keeping up appearances is important to us all; to this man they have to compensate for everything else. He is interested in your wallet, possibly your wife, but definitely not you-unless it’s your round that is."

Interviewer: Pardon me, sir.
The Sporting Gent: Yes, old boy?
Interviewer: Do you believe in being a good neighbour?
The Sporting Gent: I most certainly do, old chap. Take the other evening-my neighbour's little pussy got stuck up on the roof. I climbed up to get it down and fell through straight into the au pair's bed.
Interviewer: That's unbelievable!
The Sporting Gent: That's exactly what the wife's solicitor said.

College

Dick Emery on College: "His very name suggests that he has had some kind of education, and he seems to have enjoyed a rather different background from the usual down-and-out tramp. The humour of the situation comes from the difference between College's actual status in life, and his refusal to acknowledge his reduced circumstances. He remains a gentleman with cultural pretensions while slumming it with his friend, Droopy. He retains the vestiges of his former life. with his old school tie, battered bowler hat and crumpled buttonhole. And if he met a fellow 'old boy' from his school taking a stroll through the park where College sleeps every night, he would act as though their stations in life were equal, and his misfortunes would become even less real to him." There is no doubt that the tramp has always been a favourite character of viewers, but this character has always had a strong appeal for comedians as well due to the scope of comedic situations and characterization. Since the days of silent comedies when Charlie Chaplin donned a bowler hat and picked up a walking stick the tramp has always held a special place in the affections of viewers and critics alike. One critic, James Agee, wrote of Chaplin's character: '[He] is as centrally representative of humanity, as many-sided and as mysterious, as Hamlet, and it seems unlikely that any dancer or actor can ever have excelled him in eloquence, variety or poignancy of motion.' In the 1960s comedian Arthur Haynes enjoyed success with his own tramp character. Both had one common factor; the characters forever railing against society and the triumph (no matter how short lived) of the little man against officialdom.

The Vicar

Dick Emery's vicar reflected his own personal impression of the standard TV clergyman. And he found that character insincere. He was also quick to rule out any impression he might give of deriding the Christian faith in his characterization of The Vicar stating that it was only the TV version that he was suspicious of: "To me, they are a breed apart, totally divorced from reality. I have watched them intoning the same old pious platitudes in late-night discussion programmes, Sunday religious broadcasts and nightly epilogues, in voices which must surely be reserved for their TV appearances." It's true that many character actors, when imitating the clergy for comedic effect would adopt the most patronizing of voices. It wasn't until the 1990s and the arrival of Dawn French's joke-cracking, irreverent reverend Geraldine Granger that viewers got a chance to look at the clergy in a different and more positive light, bringing the character more into line with modern thinking. It was probably the best publicity the church had had in a long time. But Emery's character was steeped in the old attitudes and formed by his own impressions of what he'd seen: "The Vicar reflects my impression of the insincerity of the standard TV clergyman. He has the same pious voice and expression, which in his case mask a very disreputable character." For this characterization Emery wore a set of protruding front upper teeth. This immediately made The Vicar a comedic character. "I think to," he wrote "that they help him to achieve that sanctimonious, butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth look. For instance, having inadvertently disclosed his true nature while answering the interviewer's questions, he has to compose his features around these teeth in order to resume the usual expression of bland piety which he presents to the world."

Interviewer: Excuse me, Vicar.
Vicar: Yes, my son?
Interviewer: As a man of the Church, I am sure you have the interests of the community very much at heart.
Vicar: Oh, yes indeed. For instance, on behalf of my flock I have been keeping a critical eye on some of the scandalous strip clubs in the neighbourhood.
Interviewer: And what are your conclusions?
Vicar: Well. for my money you can't whack Miss Lulu and her trained python at the Girlies Galore.

Mandy

Probably Dick Emery's best known character and the one with the most familiar catchphrase, Mandy was a busty blond who was forever misunderstanding the interviewers questions so that she always assumed it had a suggestive, sexual connotation. Her reaction would be to deliver the obligatory punchline "Ooh, you are awful, but I like you" which was delivered with a slightly less than playful punch to the interviewer’s shoulder. She was a viewers’ favourite. Dick Emery hated her: "I have no great love for the female characters I portray. I never present a 'nice' woman, perhaps because deep inside I resent the suggestion that I am a female impersonator. And of all my characters, Mandy is the least real. However, it is seldom that she does not encroach upon my own life, for all her unreality-she is rather difficult to live with, because wherever I go, someone is always ready with her punchline." The character was actually invented on an improvised stage on the back of a lorry in Normandy during the war. At that time she didn't have a name, and in fact wouldn't have one for many years until she was finally named after a notorious prostitute who was the centre of one of Britain's biggest sex scandals in the early sixties: Mandy Rice-Davies. Emery was always amazed at the popularity of the character: "Despite my own feelings about the unreality of Mandy, she seems to have achieved an identity of her own." Emery expressed his wish to drop Mandy from his shows but he never did. "I once dislocated the poor interviewer’s arm with a rather too vigorous punch! It just goes to show how dangerous it is to tangle with blondes!"

Interviewer: Now here comes a charming young lady.
Mandy: Hello
Interviewer: Tell me, are you impressed by aristocratic titles?
Mandy: Oh, no. I speak my mind, no matter who I'm talking to.
Interviewer: I see, you mean you wouldn't let anyone take advantage of you?
Mandy: Pardon?
Interviewer: I mean, you wouldn't take things lying down, even from a duke?
Mandy: Ooh, you are awful...but I like you!