Saturday, July 07, 2012

Eric Sykes (1923-2012)

Eric Sykes died on Wednesday following a short illness. He was 89. Sykes was one of the last surviving writers of the Associated London Scripts group who helped create the golden age of British radio comedy - The Goons, Hancock's Half Hour, etc. - and some of television's finest moments. A good outline of Sykes' career can be found on Wikipedia.

Sykes, unlike some of the people he wrote for, did not appear widely in British comics. The above article is from TV Express, which also ran a 4-part biography of the comedian in 1961 around the time that Sykes began appearing on the TV in Sykes and A..., the sitcom co-starring Hattie Jacques. The series ran for 59 episodes between 1960-65 and was revived as Sykes, which ran 68 episodes in 1972-79. Sadly, only one series of the latter has appeared on DVD.

The story of Eric's early life was drawn by Bill Mainwaring. For the full story, it is well worth tracking down a copy of Eric's autobiography If I Don't Write It Nobody Else Will – see the Amazon link below.

 
(* © TV Publications Ltd.)
 

1 comment:

  1. A legend! Brings to mind a T.V. interviewer a few years ago who had Norman Wisdom on his show. The encounter was decidely hurried and absolutely no respect was shown towards the comedian. An absolute disgrace in my opinion. Funny how that has always stayed in my mind. Which suggests that many of the true legends are sidestepped in preference for more immediate and current mundane talent. For Eric his " The Plank " and his time with Hattie are gems! He will be missed!

    The Cap.

    ReplyDelete

BEAR ALLEY BOOKS

BEAR ALLEY BOOKS
Click on the above pic to visit our sister site Bear Alley Books