Post by muggsie on Nov 18, 2008 5:01:04 GMT -5
To a generation of long-suffering comedy lovers, Reg Varney represents an all too familiar bane, as Mum-loving lothario Stan Butler in ITV's long running On the Buses, a byword for 70s sitcom mediocrity, all too accurately parodied in a recent Harry and Paul sketch. However, his long life does throw up some eyebrow-raising factual gems. He was, for example, the first person ever to use a cashpoint, for a Barclay's Bank publicity shot in 1967. He started his working life immediately after the second world war in a revue innocently called Gaytime, in which his straight man was, of all people, Benny Hill. Even more astonishing is the fact that Hill got the part over, of all people, Peter Sellers.
Born in 1916, Varney was already approaching his mid-50s when On the Buses first began in 1969. He was 20 years older than Stephen Lewis who played the overbearing and supposedly senior Inspector Blake and only nine years younger than Doris Hare, who played his Mum from the second series onwards. She had taken over from Cicely Courtneidge, who only lasted for the first series, which was quite different in feel from its successors: more subtle and subdued, and focusing on the overbearing mother/son relationship. Thereafter, On the Buses attained its success as it followed the lecherous adventures of two conspicuously middle-aged men (Varney and Bob "Jacko" Grant, the conductor) in pursuit of an endless array of improbably available "dolly birds".
The films the series spawned, including Holiday on the Buses and Mutiny on the Buses, are quite fascinating in their randomly plotted, seedy awfulness. Anyone who complains that good, old-fashioned British comedy was ruined by political correctness should be compelled to view these films in full, back-to-back. And yet, the On the Buses cast somehow maintained a corner of affection in the British viewing public's heart – in 1990, following an appearance on Wogan, there was even talk of reassembling the elderly, and in one or two cases apparently gravely ill, cast for one last ride in a new series. It never materialised.
Varney was no comic great - he dulls alongside a top-drawer talent like Frankie Howerd in The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery. But he was a capable and versatile pro, a stalwart of 60s sitcoms like The Rag Trade, who probably deserved better material than that for which he is best remembered.
www.guardian.co.uk/culture/tvandradioblog/2008/nov/17/reg-varney-on-the-buses
Born in 1916, Varney was already approaching his mid-50s when On the Buses first began in 1969. He was 20 years older than Stephen Lewis who played the overbearing and supposedly senior Inspector Blake and only nine years younger than Doris Hare, who played his Mum from the second series onwards. She had taken over from Cicely Courtneidge, who only lasted for the first series, which was quite different in feel from its successors: more subtle and subdued, and focusing on the overbearing mother/son relationship. Thereafter, On the Buses attained its success as it followed the lecherous adventures of two conspicuously middle-aged men (Varney and Bob "Jacko" Grant, the conductor) in pursuit of an endless array of improbably available "dolly birds".
The films the series spawned, including Holiday on the Buses and Mutiny on the Buses, are quite fascinating in their randomly plotted, seedy awfulness. Anyone who complains that good, old-fashioned British comedy was ruined by political correctness should be compelled to view these films in full, back-to-back. And yet, the On the Buses cast somehow maintained a corner of affection in the British viewing public's heart – in 1990, following an appearance on Wogan, there was even talk of reassembling the elderly, and in one or two cases apparently gravely ill, cast for one last ride in a new series. It never materialised.
Varney was no comic great - he dulls alongside a top-drawer talent like Frankie Howerd in The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery. But he was a capable and versatile pro, a stalwart of 60s sitcoms like The Rag Trade, who probably deserved better material than that for which he is best remembered.
www.guardian.co.uk/culture/tvandradioblog/2008/nov/17/reg-varney-on-the-buses
