Julian Clary

Julian Clary born 25 May 1959

Julian Clary (born as Paul Ross McNamara) is an English comedian who is known for his camp style, with a heavy reliance on innuendo and double entendre.

Clary was born in Teddington, Middlesex and went to St Benedict's School, a Catholic school in Ealing, London. He studied English and Drama at Goldsmith's College, part of the University of London.

Clary's comedy career started on the alternative comedy scene in the early 1980s as The Joan Collins Fanclub. He wore heavy draggish make-up and dressed in outrageous fashions, usually involving leather and hinting at bondage. His pet dog 'Fanny the Wonder Dog' featured in performances.

After a number of appearances on Friday Night Live, he presented the gameshow Sticky Moments with Julian Clary. This was a light-hearted gameshow, with Clary often awarding points because he liked the contestants rather than for any particular skill or aptitude. He later featured in the sitcom Terry and Julian with June Whitfield, and in the studio-based All Rise for Julian Clary in which he played a judge in a mock courtroom setting.

Clary appeared in the film Carry on Columbus (1992), an unsuccessful attempt to revive the Carry On series of films. It was widely panned by critics.

Clary was cast into the show business wilderness after making a sexually explicit joke about politician Norman Lamont ("I've just been fisting Norman Lamont") during a live broadcast of the 1993 British Comedy Awards ceremony, before the 9 o'clock watershed. The audience reaction was sufficiently raucous that his intended punchline ("Talk about a red box!") was almost entirely drowned out. His career was adversely affected by this event as he was no longer trusted on live television, but he has been largely rehabilitated in recent years.

In 1999, he became a team captain on the quiz show It's Only TV... But I Like It along with Phil Jupitus and Jonathan Ross.

In 2004, Clary took part in the BBC series Strictly Come Dancing, finishing third with his partner Erin Boag.

In 2005, Clary hosted Come and Have A Go for the National Lottery.

On 1 February 2006, he appeared on the BBC 2 programme Who Do You Think You Are? a genealogy series which traced his ancestors to a World War I flight engineer and a German immigrant. In May 2006 Clary hosted the topical quiz show Have I Got News For You.

In November 2006, Clary joined the panel of QI, a panel game/comedy show hosted by Stephen Fry, and also appeared on an episode of The New Paul O'Grady Show.

In 2007, he made a cameo appearance in the Australian soap opera, Neighbours, in scenes filmed in London. In March and April 2007 Clary presented a brand new show for the BBC called Underdogs, which paired up celebrities with rescued mongrels and set them training and obedience challenges.

Since 2005, Clary has written a fortnightly column for New Statesman magazine - 'A look at the week through the eyes of a camp comic and renowned homosexual.'

Clary published an autobiography in 2005 A Young Man's Passage, which covers his life and career up until the Norman Lamont incident.

His first novel Murder Most Fab was published in 2007 and he has also narrated a selection of childrens books. His second novel Devil In Disguise was published in 2009

From October 2007 to April 2008, Clary played the much coveted role of 'Emcee', in Rufus Norris’s Olivier Award winning production of Cabaret, now in its second year in the West End of London.

In January 2008, Clary was drafted in as a relief presenter for This Morning, co-presenting alongside Fern Britton and Ruth Langsford during Phillip Schofield's absence. Both he and Michael Ball appeared throughout 2008 year when Schofield was on holiday.

His career continues to be a varied mix of presenting, guest appearances, acting, stand-up and writing.

Leslie Jordan

Leslie Jordan born 29 April 1955

Leslie Allen Jordan is an Emmy Award-winning American actor.

Hailing from Chattanooga, Tennessee and at a height of just 4 ft 11 in (1.50 m), Jordan has become an instantly recognisable face in film and television. He is most well known for his television work - including guest appearances on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Star Trek: Voyager and Boston Legal.

He is best known for his memorable appearances as Karen's pretentious rival, Beverley Leslie on the hit series Will & Grace. For that role he received an Emmy Award for Best Guest Actor in a Comedy Series (2006).

He is also an accomplished stage actor and playwright.

In 2007 Jordan toured the States performing his one-man stage comedy Like a Dog on Linoleum to rave reviews. In the show, Jordan tells stories of the high and low points of his life; from his father's death in a plane crash when he was just 11 years old, to his battles with substance abuse and weakness for street hustlers.

Leslie Jordan, who is openly gay, has recently starred in the pilot episode of Laugh Out. Laugh Out is the world's first interactive, gay-themed comedy show.

Graham Norton

Graham Norton born 4 April 1963

Graham Norton, born Graham William Walker in Bandon, County Cork, Ireland, is an Irish television presenter, comedian and occasional actor.

He achieved fame as a broadcaster on Britain's Channel 4 and also through his role as Father Noel Furlong in the critically acclaimed Irish television series Father Ted. Though he only appeared in three episodes, Norton's performance as Father Noel proved extremely popular with viewers. Norton is openly gay, and is one of the UK's most famous gay personalities. He has since moved from Channel 4 and done much work for the BBC, with various shows for BBC One and BBC Two, and work on BBC Radio 2. He is also the co-owner of SO Television: the company which produces his various shows.

In 2009 Graham Norton took over presenting the main BBC Eurovision Song Contest broadcast from long-term presenter Terry Wogan.

In January 2009 he made his stage debut in a West End revival of La Cage Aux Folles at the Playhouse Theatre.

Jimmy Edwards

Jimmy Edwards born 23 March 1920 (d. 1988)

Jimmy Edwards was an English radio and television comedy actor, best known as Pa Glum in Take It From Here and as the headmaster 'Professor' James Edwards in Whack-O!

Born James Keith O'Neill in Barnes, London, he went to King's College School in Wimbledon, London. He served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. His Dakota was shot down at Arnhem in 1944, resulting in injuries requiring plastic surgery — he disguised it with the huge handlebar moustache that later became his trademark. He was a member of the Guinea Pig Club.

Edwards was a feature of London theatre in the immediate post-War years, including a season with Tony Hancock, having previously performed in the Cambridge Footlights review. He gained wider exposure as a radio performer in Take It From Here, co-starring Dick Bentley, which first paired his writer Frank Muir with Bentley's: Denis Norden.

Graduating to television, he appeared in Whack-O!, also written by Muir and Norden, the panel game Does the Team Think?, The Seven Faces of Jim, as well as guest slots in Make Room for Daddy and Sykes. Edwards also worked with Eric Sykes when he acted in the Sykes-penned short films The Plank (1967) (alongside Tommy Cooper), and in the remake of the film (The Plank (1979 — alongside Arthur Lowe), as well as in Rhubarb (1969) (which also featured Harry Secombe). Edwards and Sykes also toured in their theatrical farce Big Bad Mouse, which while keeping more or less to a script, gave them rein to ad lib, address the audience and so forth.

He published his autobiography, Six of the Best, in 1984, as a follow up to the earlier Take it From Me. Amongst his outside interests were brass bands - he played the tuba and the euphonium - and the Handlebar Club, in which all the members had such moustaches.

Edwards was a lifelong Conservative and in the 1964 general election stood as a candidate for them in Paddington North, without success. He was also a devotee of fox hunting, a pursuit he followed at Rottingdean, near Brighton - a Brighton and Hove bus is named after him.

Having been previously married, during the 1970s he also came out as a homosexual, and consequently found TV work harder to come by in what were more homophobic times.

His spent much of his life in East Sussex and he died in London in 1988 at the age of 68 from pneumonia.

Frankie Howerd

Frankie Howerd born 6 March 1917 (d. 1992)

Frankie Howerd OBE (born Francis Alick Howard in York, England, in 1917 — not 1922 as he claimed) was a distinctive English comedian and comic actor whose career spanned six decades.

Howerd was 'lightly' educated at Shooters Hill Grammar School (later to become Eaglesfield School) in Eltham, London. His early hopes of becoming a serious actor were dashed when he failed an audition for RADA. He got into entertaining during his wartime stint in the army. Despite suffering from appalling stage fright he continued to work after the war, beginning his professional career in the summer of 1946 in a touring show called For the Fun of It.

He soon started working in radio, making his debut at the start of December 1946 on the BBC Variety Bandbox programme with a number of other ex-servicemen. His fame built steadily throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s (aided by material written by Eric Sykes, Galton and Simpson and Johnny Speight). In 1954, he made his screen debut opposite Petula Clark in The Runaway Bus, which had been written for his specific comic talents, but he never became a major film presence, although he appeared in a number of Carry Ons.

When he began experimenting with different formats and contexts, including stage farces, Shakespearean comedy roles, and television sitcoms, he began to fall out of fashion. After suffering a nervous breakdown at the start of the 1960s, he began to recover his old popularity, initially with a season at Peter Cook's satirical Establishment Club in Soho. He was boosted further by success on That Was The Week That Was in 1963 and on stage with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1963–65), which led into regular television work. He was awarded an OBE in 1977.

He was famous for his seemingly off-the-cuff remarks to the audience, especially in the show Up Pompeii!, which was a direct follow-up from Forum. His television work was characterised by addressing himself directly to the camera and littering his monologues with verbal tics: 'Oooh, no missus', 'Titter ye not', and so on. Another feature of his humour was to make obvious double entendres and then blame the audience for having dirty minds when they laughed.

Howerd's face was a gift to comedy but a testament to tragedy. When a reporter wrote that he had a face like 'a landslide of sadness', Howerd got in touch with him to say how right that was.

After five years without a regular television show (though he had hosted a one-off UK version of The Gong Show for Channel 4, which was critically panned and was not commissioned for a full series), Howerd returned to the TV screens in 1987 in the Channel 4 show Superfrank!. In the last years of his career, Howerd developed a cult following with student audiences and performed at universities. He was also a regular and popular guest on the late night BBC Radio 1 programme Into the Night, hosted by Nicky Campbell.

Howerd suffered respiratory problems at the beginning of April 1992 and died in hospital of heart failure on 19 April. He posed for his last photograph with friend Cilla Black when she went to visit him.

Throughout his career, Howerd hid his potentially career-destroying homosexuality (which had been illegal in Britain until 1967) from both his audience and his mother. However, back-stage, he was notoriously bold in his advances. In 1955, Frankie met Dennis Heymer, who later became his manager. Dennis was with Frankie for thirty years until he died. One of his exes was comic actor Lee Young who created the TV sitcom Whoops Baghdad.

Frankie Howerd lived for the latter part of his life in the village of Cross, Somerset. On 15 May 2009, his former partner Dennis Heymer died in the home that he and Howerd had shared. He was aged 80. Howerd's home, Wavering Down, is now a tourist attraction and, in the summer, hosts concerts and opens regularly as a museum of Howerd's collection of memorabilia to raise funds for charities.

Howerd's grave is at St Gregory's church in Weare, Somerset.

A BBC TV biography about Frankie Howerd Rather You Than Me was produced and broadcast by BBC 4 in 2008. The comedian David Walliams was cast as Howerd. This portrayal of Howerd as an alcoholic sexual predator who had been sexually abused by his father, largely driven by Heymer, has driven Howerd's sister, Betty, to break a long silence to refute the allegations, claiming that the drama 'robs' her brother 'of his dignity'.

Matt Lucas

Matt Lucas born 5 March 1974

Matthew Richard Lucas is a British comedy actor. He is perhaps best known for his acclaimed work with David Walliams in the television sketch show Little Britain and spoof interview series, Rock Profile, as well as for his portrayal of the surreal scorekeeping baby George Dawes in the Reeves and Mortimer comedy panel game Shooting Stars.

In July 2006 he was placed 9th in the list of the UK's 100 most influential gays and lesbians, in fields as diverse as entertainment, business, politics, and science, by the British newspaper The Independent.

Lucas was born in London and raised in a Jewish background in Stanmore, Middlesex. He has had alopecia since his childhood, which in interviews he has inconsistently attributed to various events, including a delayed reaction to a road accident when he was four. He lost all of his hair in 1980, at the age of six.

He was educated at the prestigious Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, alongside other well known personalities, including Sacha Baron Cohen and David Baddiel. He studied drama at the University of Bristol and is a former member of both the National Youth Music Theatre and the National Youth Theatre.

He began his career in comedy on the London stand-up comedy circuit at the age of eighteen as Sir Bernard Chumley, legendary actor and raconteur — a character who was to appear later in Little Britain.

Lucas' association with Reeves and Mortimer began in 1992, when he was spotted by Bob Mortimer on stage. In 1994, Lucas appeared in The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer. The second series of the show featured Lucas in several sketches. He went on to star with them in Shooting Stars. He quickly rose to fame as George Dawes, the giant baby, who would deliver a string of meaningless gags (often in character) and insults before delivering the score, while sitting at and playing a drum kit. Many of these parts were introduced not in the style of a baby, but of a grown man — indeed, often, he would come on dressed as a specific adult such as Elton John. He also appeared as Marjorie Dawes, George's mother, who also appears in Little Britain. He also appeared in the Reeves & Mortimer BBC series Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), and Catterick in a variety of roles.

Lucas has also written for Ali G and Borat actor Sacha Baron Cohen.

His music video appearances include; the Damien Hirst-directed video for Blur's Country House (as a psychoanalyst), I'm with Stupid by the Pet Shop Boys and Vindaloo by Fat Les.

Lucas ventured into the world of stage musicals in 2002, when he took one of the main roles in Boy George's musical Taboo, at the The Venue, London. He played the part of infamous performance artist Leigh Bowery, which required him to wear some outrageous and spectacular outfits and make-up.

In 2005, he took his first role in a television drama, a supporting part as a Venetian Duke in the BBC historical serial Casanova, written by Russell T Davies.

On 26 November 2006 he appeared on the BBC Radio 4 show Desert Island Discs.

Little Britain is Lucas' most successful work. Originally a radio show on BBC Radio 4, it later became a TV series. Little Britain has won numerous TV awards, spawning large DVD sales and merchandising. It plays heavily on memorable catchphrases which have become ingrained in playgrounds and offices around the UK. Lucas plays four of the most popular characters in the series, which he writes and acts in along with David Walliams; apparently disabled Andy Pipkin, teenage chav Vicky Pollard, 'bottom enthusiast' Daffyd Thomas and fat fighter Marjorie Dawes. The pair subsequently recreated the series for the US market.

On 17 December 2006, Lucas and long-term partner TV producer Kevin McGee were joined in a Civil Partnership ceremony in London. Guests at the service included Walliams as well as Dale Winton and comic Rob Brydon. The ceremony was kept fairly formal, with male guests wearing suits but the evening reception had the guests dressed in pantomime costumes. Evening guests included a hugely broad cross-section of stars from the worlds of television, comedy, music, theatre and the arts. The partnership was dissolved in 2008, Lucas apparently unable to deal with McGee's persistent drug problems. In 2009 Kevin McGee was found hanged having committed suicide, his drug problems allegedly having spiralled out of control. He left a suicide note on Facebook.

Lucas was the first celebrity to make an appearance in 2008's Big Brother Celebrity Hijack on E4, working alongside Big Brother in a series containing housemates aged 18-21 with various talents.

Both actors have also been taking on various straight acting roles to much acclaim.

Matt Lucas appeared in 2010 as Tweedledum and Tweedledee in Tim Burton's 3D version of Alice in Wonderland.

On 3 October 2010, he played the role of Thénardier in a special one-off performance celebrating the 25th anniversary of Les Misérables, held at the O2 Arena in London, which he will reprise at The Queen's Theatre, London from June 23rd 2011 to September 10th 2011.  In 2011, Lucas will perform his vocal talents in the CGI film Gnomeo and Juliet. Lucas will work with James McAvoy, from Gnomeo and Juliet also, again in the upcoming Christmas film Arthur Christmas as Santa's #1 elf, Jemaine.

The BBC has just finished showing Matt Lucas and David Walliams new series, Come Fly With Me. In an interview shown on BBC 3 on 9th February, it was stated that they considered bringing Carol Beer from Little Britain to the new series, but decided against it, as they didn't want viewers to see it as a Little Britain spinoff. Instead, new characters were introduced to the series based in an airport. Matt's characters include Precious, Taaj, Tommy, Mickey, Fearghal, Simon and Peter, amongst others.

Matt has recently lost a large amount of weight on doctor's advice.

Kenneth Williams

Kenneth Williams born 22 February 1926 (d. 1988)

Kenneth Charles Williams was an English comic actor, star of twenty six Carry On... films and notable radio comedies with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Horne, as well as a witty raconteur on a wide range of subjects.

Kenneth Williams was born in Bingfield Street, King's Cross, London, the son of a hairdresser (Charles Williams). His relationship with his parents — he adored his vivacious mother, Louisa (Lou), but hated his morose and selfish father — was key to the development of his personality.

Williams became an apprentice draughtsman to a mapmaker and joined the army aged 18. He was part of the Royal Engineers survey section in Bombay when he had his first experience of going on stage with Combined Services Entertainment along with Stanley Baxter and Peter Nichols.

After the war, his career began with a number of roles in repertory theatre, but few serious parts were to lend themselves to his style of delivery. His failure to become established as a serious dramatic actor would disappoint him, but it was his potential as a comic performer that gave him his big break. He was spotted playing the Dauphin in George Bernard Shaw's St Joan in 1954 by the radio producer Dennis Main Wilson, who was casting Hancock's Half Hour. He would lend his distinctive voice and amazing vocal talent to the radio series to almost the end of its run, five years later. His nasal, whiny, camp-cockney inflections (epitomised in his famous 'Stop messing about....' catchphrase) would endure in popular lore for many years.

When Hancock tired (or grew jealous) of him, Williams joined Kenneth Horne in the series Beyond Our Ken (1958–1964), and its sequel Round the Horne (1965–1968). In the latter, his roles included Rambling Syd Rumpo, the eccentric folk singer; The Amazing Proudbasket, human cannonball; J. Peasemould Gruntfuttock, professional telephone heavy breather and dirty old man; and Sandy of the extremely camp couple, Julian and Sandy (Julian was played by Hugh Paddick), notable for their double entendres and use of the underground gay slang, Polari.

In 1959 Williams appeared in his own West End revue, One over the Eight, for which he commissioned sketch material from Peter Cook who was still a student at Cambridge. The revue included a number of Cook sketches such as 'One Leg Too Few' that would become classics. Williams later starred opposite Jennie Linden in the stage hit My Fat Friend in 1972. He also appeared with Ingrid Bergman in a highly successful stage production of George Bernard Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion in 1971.

Williams worked extensively in television and British films, most famously the legendary Carry On... series for which he along with the rest of the cast were very poorly paid. Williams' diaries claimed he earned more in a British Gas commercial he did during the 1970s than he made out of the entire Carry On series put together — although that might only be considered true if one adds in the considerable fee he earned from the highly successful spin-off cartoon series Willo the Wisp. Despite making a good living in his later years, he lived in a series of small flats in north London.

Particularly in the theatre, he was famous for breaking out of character and talking to the audience. He was a regular panelist on the BBC radio panel game Just a Minute from its second season in 1968 until his death and regularly presented the children's story-reading series Jackanory. He was also a 'professional' talk-show guest, able to regale an audience with amusing (and often risqué) anecdotes on every subject. He was extremely well read and occasionally used to stand in as host on the popular early evening Wogan (talk) show.

Williams publicly insisted that he was celibate, but in private found his homosexuality difficult to deal with. His diaries contain many references to unconsummated or barely consummated relationships, described in code as 'traditional matters' or 'tradiola', probably because homosexuality was still a criminal offence in the United Kingdom for much of the period covered by the diaries.

He befriended Joe Orton who wrote the role of Inspector Truscott in Loot (1966) for him and enjoyed holidays with Orton and Kenneth Halliwell in Morocco. Other close friends included fellow thespians Maggie Smith, Stanley Baxter, Gordon Jackson and his wife Rona Anderson, Beverly Cross and Sheila Hancock. By turns gregarious and reclusive, Williams was also fond of the company of fellow Carry On regulars Barbara Windsor, Kenneth Connor, Hattie Jacques and Bernard Bresslaw.

In later years Williams' health declined, along with that of his elderly mother, and his depression deepened. He died on 15 April 1988 from an overdose of barbiturates. An inquest recorded an open verdict into his death as it was not possible to establish whether his death was the result of suicide or an accident. Williams' father had died after drinking a bottle of disinfectant in 1962.

The main protagonist for the 'suicide' theory was Gyles Brandreth, a friend of Williams for many years (and who edited two editions of Acid Drops for him) mainly centring on his dread of hospitals (despite being a self-confessed hypochondriac) and on the last sentence Williams wrote in his diary:

'By 6.30 pain in the back was pulsating as it's never done before … so this, plus the stomach trouble combines to torture me — oh — what's the bloody point?'

Surviving friends continue to maintain that, because of Williams' devotion to Lou (for whom he bought the flat next to his), he would never — in her lifetime — have seriously contemplated suicide. The best-selling posthumous publication of his diaries and letters, both edited by Russell Davies, not only caused some controversy over their contents (particularly Williams' often caustic remarks about many of his fellow professionals), but also revealed the periodic bouts of despondency (often primed by feelings of isolation and underachievement) that marked Williams' life.

Williams' flat was later bought by Rob Brydon and Julia Davis for the writing of their dark comedy series, Human Remains. The building was due to be demolished in a controversial regeneration scheme agreed in 2006 and finally demolished in May 2007.

In April 2007, Williams' line 'Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me', was voted the greatest one-liner in movie history by a poll of a thousand comedy writers, actors, impresarios and members of the public for the launch of Sky Movies Comedy Channel

John Sessions

John Sessions born 11 January 1953

John Sessions is a Scottish actor and comedian. He is best known for comedy improvisation in television shows such as Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Sessions was born John Gibb Marshall and spent some of his earliest years in Kempston, Bedford. He changed his name when he became a performer as there was already a John Marshall on the Equity register.
He graduated with an MA from the University of Wales and later studied for a PhD from in Canada. From later interviews and references in his work it appears this latter period was an unhappy one.

He attended RADA and in the early 1980s held small roles in films including The Bounty (1984, with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins) and Castaway (1986). Not appearing particularly comfortable in these roles however, he played to his strengths in improvisation and comedy with his one-man stage show, which ran in London's West End for some time in the mid-1980s.

Sessions and Stephen Fry were the only two regular panellists on the original radio broadcast of Whose Line Is It Anyway? in the late 1980s. When the show, still hosted by Clive Anderson, made the transition to television, Fry departed from regular appearances, but Sessions remained the featured panellist for the first several seasons. A gifted impressionist (he also voiced characters for Spitting Image), he drew heavily on his extensive literary education and developed a reputation for being 'a bit of a swot', being able to quote extensive passages of text and make endless cultural and historical references. His ready ability to switch between accents and personae meanwhile allowed his career in improvisation to flourish.

By 1989 he was starring in own one-man TV shows, initially based on audience-suggested improvisation although these were increasingly pre-planned rather than improvisational and ultimately Sessions grew weary of this kind of performance (as did the viewing public). More successful was Stella Street, a surreal 'soap opera' about a suburban British street inhabited by celebrities like Michael Caine and Al Pacino.

Increasingly Sessions has returned to formal acting. In between appearing in regular film and TV roles Sessions has made appearances on Have I Got News For You and, more recently, as a semi-regular panellist on QI. He continues to appear regularly on BBC radio. In 2006 he presented some of the BBC's coverage of The Proms, and featured in one of the 2 Jackanory specials, voicing the characters and playing the storyteller in Muddle Earth.

Graham Chapman

Graham Chapman born 8 January 1941 (d. 1989)

Graham Chapman was an English comedian and writer. He was one of the six Monty Python members and lead actor in their two narrative films, playing King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Brian in Life of Brian.

Chapman was educated at Melton Mowbray Grammar School and studied medicine at Cambridge, where he began writing comedy with fellow University student John Cleese. He qualified as a medical doctor at the Barts Hospital Medical College, but rarely practised medicine.

While at Cambridge, Chapman joined Footlights. Fellow members were included John Cleese, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie. Their revue A Clump of Plinths was so successful at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that they renamed it Cambridge Circus, and took the revue to the West End in London and later New Zealand and Broadway. The revue appeared in October 1964 on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Chapman and Cleese wrote professionally for the BBC during the 1960s, primarily for David Frost, but also for Marty Feldman. Chapman also contributed sketches to the BBC radio series I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again and television programmes such as The Illustrated Weekly Hudd (starring Roy Hudd), Cilla Black, This is Petula Clark, and This is Tom Jones. Chapman, Cleese, and Tim Brooke-Taylor then joined Feldman in the television comedy series At Last the 1948 Show. Chapman (and Cleese on occasion) also wrote for the long-running television comedy series Doctor in the House.

In 1969 Chapman and Cleese joined Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and American artist Terry Gilliam for Monty Python's Flying Circus. After Cleese left the series in 1973, Chapman wrote alone, as well as a bit with Neil Innes and Douglas Adams for the final fourth series. He then developed a number of television and movie projects.


In the late 1970s, Chapman moved to Los Angeles, where he guest-starred on many US television shows and he began the first of a lengthy series of US college comedy lecture tours in the 1980s. His memoir, A Liar's Autobiography, was published in 1980.

Chapman was an alcoholic in the 1970s, which greatly affected his nerves during recordings of the television show, and also on the Holy Grail movie. At Christmas 1977, he eventually decided to stop drinking, and remarkably kept his word, which helped him with his performance in Life of Brian. Unfortunately, years of alcohol built up in his body would affect his liver and, along with his smoking habits, would tragically claim his life.

He also kept his homosexuality a secret until the middle of that decade (although his fellow Pythons were already aware of his sexual orientation, and in 1972 he lent his support to the new gay newspaper Gay News which publicly acknowledged his financial and editorial support by listing him as one of the paper's 'Special Friends') when he famously came out on a chat show hosted by British jazz musician George Melly, thus becoming one of the first celebrities to do so. Several days later, he came out to a group of friends at a party held at his home in Belsize Park where he officially introduced them to his partner, David Sherlock whom he met in Ibiza in 1966. Afterwards, he became a vocal spokesman on gay rights.

After Chapman made his homosexuality public, a member of the television audience wrote to the Pythons to complain that she had heard a member of the team was a homosexual, and reminded Python that the Bible recommends all homosexuals be stoned to death. Eric Idle sent a reply saying, 'Don't worry, we figured out who it was, dragged him outside, and stoned him."'

Chapman died at the age of 48 on 4 October 1989, of pneumonia brought about by throat cancer, which had spread to his spine. He had been diagnosed with this in November 1988 when he visited his dentist and the growth was found on his tonsils. Those at his side at the time of his passing were John Cleese, Michael Palin, David Sherlock, his brother John and John's wife. Terry Jones and Peter Cook had visited earlier in the day.

His last appearance was the part of the teacher in Iron Maiden's video for Can I Play With Madness?

Chapman's death occurred one day before the 20th anniversary of the first broadcast of Flying Circus — in Jones' words, 'the worst case of party-pooping in all history.'

The remaining Python members have acknowledged that, while brilliant, Chapman was exasperating to work with, and difficult to know. After his death, speculation of a Python revival inevitably faded. As Idle said, 'we would only do a reunion if Graham came back from the dead. So we're negotiating with his agent.'

Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry born 24 August 1957

Stephen Fry is an English comedian, author, actor and filmmaker, who initially came to prominence in collaboration with fellow comic and actor, Hugh Laurie.

He is also successful as a voiceover artist, narrator, TV quiz show presenter and contestant, and is the hilarious and erudite host of more upmarket awards shows such as the BAFTAs, where his blend of intelligent and old-fashioned witticism combined with modern rudeness consistently amuses - and bewilders - especially the American attendees.

In a 2005 poll to find the Comedian's Comedian he was voted amongst the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.

In recent years, Fry has more or less assumed the role of a national treasure in the UK.

Fry struggled to keep his homosexuality secret during his teenage years at public school, and practised a celibate lifestyle for 16 years. Fry currently lives in London with his long-time partner, Daniel Cohen. Fry met Cohen after piecing his life together following a rather public breakdown in 1995, when he had a crisis of confidence following bad reviews for his performance in the play Cell Mates, walking out and fleeing to France - almost ending his career.

Fry has since spoken publicly about his experiences living with bipolar disorder, and has made a documentary about other people's experiences of the condition. Fry has been involved in making further documentaries for the BBC.

Official website

Hugh Paddick

Hugh Paddick born 22 August 1915 (d. 2000)

Hertfordshire-born Hugh Paddick was a comedy actor with a successful career on radio, television, stage and in films - mostly from the late-1950s to the early-70s.

He holds a special place in gay culture because as a cast member of the hugely popular BBC radio show Round the Horne (1965-8) he was Julian to Kenneth Williams' Sandy. Togther, they were mainly responsible for bringing the secret gay language polari to a wider audience.

Hugh Paddick lived for over fifty years with his partner, Francis, who he met at a party in London. He was also apparently distantly related to gay former-police commander and London mayoral candidate Brian Paddick.

Anthony 'ANT' Kalloniatis

Anthony 'ANT' Kalloniatis born 22 August 1967

Anthony Steven Kalloniatis, known professionally as ANT, is an American stand-up comedian and actor.

A native of Londonderry, New Hampshire, ANT performed at comedy clubs across the US. For four years starting in 1995, he was a semi regular cast member on the WB series Unhappily Ever After.

With the end of that show and looking for ways to supplement his income, ANT recruited several men to become internet models. His involvement in the internet sex trade is documented in the 2001 film WebCam Boys, which he also co-produced.

Having gained nationwide attention in 2004 as a contestant on the second season of Last Comic Standing, ANT is the only comedian to appear in three of that show's four seasons. The same year, he released a comedy album, Follow My Ass.

He is the host of VH1 reality series Celebrity Fit Club and a regular judge of talent on Steve Harvey's Big Time. His television series, U.S. of ANT, premiered on MTV Network's gay-targeted Logo cable channel in the summer of 2006. ANT also frequently appears as a commentator on such shows as VH1's Best Week Ever and CNBC's Dennis Miller, and is a regular guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the Tyra Banks Show.

Ray Bourbon

Ray Bourbon born 11 August 1892 (d. 1971)

If a good deal of mystery surrounds the life and career of Ray Bourbon so many years after his death in 1971, it is probably due to the fact that Bourbon excelled at generating numerous conflicting stories about himself.

He claimed, at various times, to have been born Hal Wadell in Texarkana, TX in 1892, Ramon Icarez in or near Chihuahua, TX in 1898, and the son of Franz Joseph of Austria and Louisa Bourbon. Many 'facts' regarding Bourbon's early life­, his claim to birth of Bourbon royalty, his claim to an education at Tulane Medical School in New Orleans, his claim to have been Pancho Villa's notorious 'Señora Diablo'­ are all unsubstantiated and probably products of Bourbon's own active imagination.

He claimed to have begun in the theatre in England in 1913, and this may well be true. He returned to the US by 1917 and, as Rae Bourbon, supposedly won a Photoplay contest and was awarded a studio contract as first prize. He would say later that he worked in several silent films, and it is reported that he appeared under the name Ramon Icarez as a fire dancer at the opening of the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1923.

By the mid-20s, Bourbon was working with Bert Sherry as the vaudeville team of 'Bourbon and Sherry' and later toured with the Martin Sisters. In 1932, he was working full-time as a female impersonator at such clubs as Jimmy's Back Yard in Hollywood and Tait's in San Francisco. (At this last club, in May 1933, his Boys Will Be Girls review was raided by police during a live radio broadcast.)

In the later 30s and early 40s he headlined at the Rendezvous in Los Angeles and starred in his own revue, Don't Call Me Madam. His Insults of 1944, which began at the Playtime Theatre in Los Angeles in January of that year, caught the attention of Mae West during its New York production in May, 1944 at La Vie Parisienne. She cast him in her 1944 production of Catherine Was Great and in her 1948 production of Diamond Lil.

Throughout the 50s and 60s Bourbon entertained at hundreds of clubs throughout the US and released dozens of albums, certainly the most prolific female impersonator to have done the latter. His appearances are still fondly remembered by many who saw him when he toured in big and small towns all over the country, providing many isolated gay men with a glimpse of the loose-knit urban Gay community of the pre-Stonewall era.

Ray’s comedy was, at once, highbrow and lowbrow, overtly gay and covertly subversive. There is evidence that he had relationships with both men and women, was married twice, and fathered at least one son. In his memoirs, Ray discusses his sexual attractions and relationships to both genders with equal enthusiasm, but never called himself gay or bisexual. He worked on stage in and out of drag. Bourbon was probably cashing in on the news of Christine Jorgensen when he claimed to have had a sex change in 1956 (almost certainly not true).

After a once quite successful career, by the late 1960s Bourbon had fallen on hard times. In 1968, Bourbon was barely eking out a living, travelling through Texas and working at the Jewel Box Revue in Kansas City. During this time he was implicated in the murder of the owner of a Dog Kennel where Bourbon had lodged a collection of some 70 dogs. The circumstances alone beg many questions, but Bourbon was convicted as the mastermind of the killing along with two conspirators. The 78-year-old Bourbon was given a 99-year sentence. He died a short time later, on January 19, 1971 in the Howard County Texas prison, while penning his unfinished memoirs Daddy Was a Lady.

Don't Call Me Madam - The Life and Work of Ray Bourbon

Danny La Rue

Danny La Rue born 25 July 1927 (d. 2009)

Born Daniel Patrick Carroll in County Cork, Eire, young Danny followed in his father's footsteps and served in the Royal Navy, but his career was to take a quite different direction. As Danny La Rue, he became probably the most famous female impersonator in the UK - or 'comic in a frock' - of the 20th century. Danny's very successful career extended to theatre, film, TV and records. He owned his own club at one time, and appeared in the West End in 1982 as Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly!

At the height of his fame in the 1960s, he was one of Britain's highest paid entertainers, although his impersonations of stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Marlene Dietrich were little more than immaculate wig and costume changes. His tastefully bawdy camp humour was the epitome of British comedy. He was made an OBE in 2002.

For many years, Mr La Rue pretended to be a perfectly heterosexual bloke under the wigs, sequins and padding - he would often appear in masculine attire during his shows - but the drag went deeper than that, and as attitudes have changed in recent years, La Rue became more open about being gay. Danny lived for many years with his partner and manager, Jack Hanson, until his death in Australia following a major stroke.

Danny La Rue suffered a mild stroke in 2006 and cancelled all his work commitments, but he issued a statement in tribute to the late-John Inman in March 2007.

In late-2007 La Rue appeared in Spain in a tribute show called Hello Danny in which for the most part he was played by Jerry Lane with a full cast to recreate his early career, with La Rue appearing as himself to perform some songs and for an interview section.

Danny La Rue died on 1 June 2009 after a short illness.

Alan Carr

Alan Carr born 14 July 1976

Alan Carr is an English stand-up comedian and TV presenter, renowned for his camp demeanour and innuendo-based jokes, although he doesn't make 'being gay' a central part of his act.

Carr performs stand-up regularly, on tour and on television. He has been featured in three Edinburgh shows and in 2007 he toured throughout the UK, which was followed by a DVD entitled Tooth Fairy Live. Carr had his own monthly show in a Manchester comedy club and he has toured nationwide, supporting other acts. He has performed at the Apollo Theatre in London, which was televised for the BBC1 series Live At The Apollo, and has been featured in the Royal Variety Performance.

Carr has appeared and performed at many festivals, including the Reading and Leeds Festivals, Latitude Festival, the Kilkenny Comedy Festival and Live Earth, where he welcomed musical acts David Gray and Damien Rice on stage. He has performed stand-up internationally, including an appearance at the Montreal 'Just For Laughs' festival.

On 4 September 2009, Carr switched-on the Illuminations in Blackpool along with JLS.

In 2010, Carr took part in Channel 4's Comedy Gala, a benefit show held in aid of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, filmed live at the O2 Arena in London on 30 March.

He is best know for his C4 co-presenting stint with Justin Lee Collins on the Sunday Night Project (originally the Friday Night Project), his own Celebrity Ding Dong and his BBC chat show Alan Carr: Chatty Man.

He is the son of former professional footballer Graham Carr; his father however did not approve of his sexuallity and believed that he should become a footballer like himself. According to Carr in his stand-up comedy act, this started a family argument which lasted several years. It is only now that Alan's father has come to terms with his son being gay.

He recalled his days growing up in Northampton on the BBC 2 series The Comedy Map of Britain on April 19, 2008 in which his father was also interviewed.

He appeared in an episode of Top Gear on BBC 2, with Justin Lee Collins, in the Reasonably Priced Car.

John Inman

John Inman born 28 June 1935 (d. 2007)

Frederick John Inman was an English actor who was best known for his role as Mr Humphries in the British sitcom Are You Being Served? in the 1970s and 1980s. Inman was also well known in the United Kingdom as a pantomime dame.

Inman was born in 1935 in Preston, Lancashire, and was a cousin of actress Josephine Tewson. At the age of 12, Inman moved with his parents to Blackpool where his mother ran a boarding house, while his father owned a hairdressing business. As a child, he enjoyed dressmaking. Inman always wanted to be an actor, and his parents paid for him to have elocution lessons at the local church hall. At the age of 13 he made his stage debut in the Pavilion on Blackpool's South Pier, in a melodrama entitled Freda. Aged 15, he took a job at the pier, making tea, clearing up, and playing parts in plays.

After leaving school, Inman worked for two years at Fox's, a gentlemen's outfitters in Blackpool, specialising in window dressing. Aged 17, he moved to London to join Austin Reed in Regent Street. Four years later, he left Austin Reed to become a scenic artist with Kenneth Kendall's touring company at a theatre in Crewe, so that he could earn his Equity Card. Inman made his West End debut in the 1960s when he appeared in Ann Veronica at the Cambridge Theatre. He also played in Salad Days at the Windmill Theatre in 1975, and as Lord Fancourt Babberley in Charley's Aunt at the Adelphi Theatre in 1979. He also played in many summer shows, and established himself as a dame in pantomime, appearing regularly as one of the two ugly sisters alongside comedian and former partner Barry Howard.

Inman made his television debut in the sitcom Two In Clover in 1970. In 1972, he was asked by David Croft to play a part in a Comedy Playhouse pilot called Are You Being Served?. This was a sitcom set in a department store, written by scriptwriters David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd, and based on the latter's experiences working at Simpson's in Piccadilly Circus. Playing a minor role with only a few lines, he was soon asked to 'camp it up', despite initial reluctance from the BBC to include such a camp character. The pilot was broadcast in September 1972. The broadcast was followed by the five episodes of the first series in early 1973. The first series showing opposite Coronation Street on ITV attracted little attention, but repeats later that year were very successful.

Inman played the camp Mr Wilberforce Claybourne Humphries and his earlier career in the clothes retail business was good preparation for this role in a menswear department. Inman developed a characteristic limp-wristed mincing walk, and a high-pitched catch phrase, 'I'm free!', which soon entered popular culture. Although the catch phrase and the character were popular, Inman came under attack by some gay rights groups for what they perceived to be his stereotypical portrayal of a homosexual. However, both Inman and David Croft stated that the character was 'just a mother's boy' and his sexual orientation was never explicitly stated. Yeah, right.

Are You Being Served? ran for ten series until it finished in 1985. At its height, in the late 1970s, it regularly attracted British audiences of up to 20 million viewers. Inman's portrayal of Mr Humphries won him the BBC TV Personality of the Year in 1976 and he was voted the funniest man on television by TV Times readers. From 1980 to 1981, Inman also played Mr Humphries in the Australian version of Are You Being Served?, set in a store named Bone Brothers to avoid problems with a real business named Grace Brothers. The series also became popular in the United States, where Inman became a gay cultural icon.

During the 69-episode, 13-year run of Are You Being Served?, Inman also appeared in the 1977 film of the series, in which the characters visited the fictional Spanish holiday resort of 'Costa Plonka'; in Odd Man Out, his own sitcom in 1977, playing the owner of a fish-and-chip shop who inherits half of a rock factory; and Take a Letter, Mr Jones, a 1981 sitcom where Inman played a male secretary. Inman also toured with his own shows, and he released several records, including Are You Being Served, Sir?, which reached number 39 in the UK singles charts. This came from an LP of the same name, and was followed by two further albums: I'm Free in 1977 and With a Bit of Brass in 1978.

He made a cameo appearance in the film The Tall Guy in 1989, and was one of five of the Are You Being Served? cast to be reunited in character for the sitcom Grace & Favour, which ran for twelve episodes from 1992 and 1993. In 1999, he appeared in a French & Saunders Christmas special.

After the end of Are You Being Served?, Inman became one of the nation's best known pantomime dames and appeared in over 40 pantomime productions across the country. In 2004, Inman made additional television appearances in Doctors and Revolver.

He lived in a mews house in Little Venice for 30 years. On 23 December 2005, Inman entered in a civil partnership at Westminster Register Office with his partner of 35 years, Ron Lynch.

Inman suffered from poor health in his later years. He was hospitalised with bronchitis in 1993, and collapsed on the stage in 1995. He was admitted to Paddington's St Mary's Hospital in 2001 after suffering breathing difficulties and spent three days in intensive care.

In December 2004, Inman was forced to cancel an appearance in a pantomime as he was suffering from a hepatitis A infection, which he had contracted from contaminated food. Following this, he never worked again and he suffered complications from the infection for the rest of his life. Inman died early in the morning of 8 March 2007, aged 71, in St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, London. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium after a funeral on the 23 March 2007.

Sean Hayes

Sean Hayes born 26 June 1970

Sean Patrick Hayes is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his role as Jack McFarland in the NBC sitcom Will & Grace, for which he won an Emmy Award, four SAG Awards, one American Comedy Award, and six Golden Globes nominations.

Hayes was born in Chicago, Illinois. He is of Irish descent and was raised as a Roman Catholic. After graduating from high school, Hayes attended Illinois State University. There he studied piano performance and conducting, with a special focus on the music of Mozart, but he left before graduating.

He worked as a classical pianist, and served as a music director at the Pheasant Run Theater in St Charles, Illinois. He also composed original music for a production of Antigone at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago.

Hayes moved to Los Angeles in 1995, where he found work as a stand-up comedian, stage actor and as an actor in television commercials.

As a teenager, Hayes was an extra in Winona Ryder's first movie, Lucas (1986), which was filmed at his high school. He made his professional film debut in the independent film Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss (1998), which brought him wide attention and caught the attention of executives who cast him in the NBC comedy television series Will & Grace, as Jack McFarland, a flamboyantly gay, frequently unemployed actor. The show became a long-running hit and Hayes’s performance as Jack earned him seven consecutive Emmy Award nominations (2000–06) as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. He won the Emmy for his first nomination. He has been nominated for six Golden Globe Award for his performance.

Hayes’s success led to film appearances in Cats & Dogs (2001), as Jerry Lewis in the made-for-TV movie Martin and Lewis (2002), Pieces of April (2003), The Cat in the Hat (2003) and Win a Date With Tad Hamilton! (2004). He has also guest starred in several television programmes, including Scrubs and 30 Rock.

In 2007, Hayes was featured in a major role as Matthew, also called Thomas, in Rob Reiner's film The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. On July 5, 2008, Hayes made his New York stage debut as Mr Applegate/Devil in New York City Center's Encores! production of Damn Yankees opposite Jane Krakowski and Cheyenne Jackson.

In a 2008 New York Times interview, Hayes revealed that he is working on a television project called BiCoastal about 'a guy with a wife and kids in California and a boyfriend in New York'.

Hayes was cast and will make his Broadway debut alongside Kristin Chenoweth in a spring 2010 Broadway revival of the musical Promises, Promises.

Hayes has played gay and straight characters during his time as an actor, and will be playing a bisexual character in the upcoming BiCoastal, but he had long refused to discuss his sexual orientation in public until he finally revealed he was gay in an interview for The Advocate magazine in March 2010. Answering the charge he had skirted the issue of his sexuality for too long, Hayes was reported as saying, 'I feel like I’ve contributed monumentally to the success of the gay movement in America, and if anyone wants to argue that, I’m open to it.'

Whilst no one thought that Sean Hayes wasn't gay, his refusal to discuss the issue whilst playing a mainstream TV role that to many seemed to perpetuate negative gay sterotypes as much as it brought gay characters into the mainstream was often seen as annoying and disappointing.

Paul Lynde

Paul Lynde born 13 June 1926 (d. 1982)

American comedian and character actor Paul Lynde is probably best known in the UK for his role as Samantha's Uncle Arthur in the popular TV series Bewitched. He was also the centre square in the American game show Hollywood Squares from 1968-1981.

Lynde was also a successful voice artist and lent his distinctive voice to many Hanna-Barbera cartoons, notably as 'the Hooded Claw' in The Perils of Penelope Pitstop.

Known to be gay in Hollywood circles, despite his campness and flamboyant humor and gay double-entendres, the general American public were blissfully unaware of the truth behind "America's Most-Eligible Bachelor" and he never publicly acknowledged his homosexuality.

Just two of his classic Hollywood Squares quips...

Q: Who are more likely to be romantically responsive. Women under thirty or women over thirty?
Lynde: I don't have a third choice?

Q: You're the world's most popular fruit. What are you?
Lynde: Humble.

He died of a heart attack at his home in Beverley Hills. As they say, he never married.

Scott Thompson

Scott Thompson born 12 June 1959

Scott Thompson is a Canadian television and film comedian, best known for his time as a member of the comedy troupe Kids in the Hall.

Thompson was born in North Bay, Ontario, Canada, and grew up in Brampton, Ontario. He is the second oldest of four brothers. He attended Brampton Centennial Secondary School and was a student there at the time of a 1975 shooting massacre. He enrolled in York University but in his third year was asked to leave for being 'disruptive'. He joined the comedy troupe The Love Cats and while performing with them met Mark McKinney. In 1984 he became a member of The Kids in the Hall, who went on to have several successful TV series shown in Canada, the US and the UK.

Openly gay, he became best-known on the show for his monologues as the effeminate, Truman Capote-esque Buddy Cole, as well as his appearances as Queen Elizabeth II. He also acted regularly on The Larry Sanders Show and made numerous guest appearances on other television series including Politically Incorrect, The Late Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and Train 48. Scott Thompson was also the host of a reality television program in Canada called My Fabulous Gay Wedding.

Kenny Everett

Kenny Everett born 25 December 1944 (d. 1995)

Kenny Everett - born Maurice Cole in Crosby, Merseyside, Liverpool - was a popular British radio DJ and television entertainer.

After a a successful career on radio In 1978, London's Thames Television offered him a new venture, which became the very successful and ground-breaking Kenny Everett Video Show. This was a vehicle for Everett's characters and sketches interspersed with the latest pop hits, either performed by the artists themselves, or as backing tracks to dance routines by the supposedly risqué (for the time) dance troupe Hot Gossip.

In the pre-MTV era, this mixture of pop bands and comic sketches was a new format for television. It was so successful that pop and TV stars queued up to make cameo appearances, including Rod Stewart; Billy Connolly; Kate Bush; Cliff Richard; Freddie Mercury; Terry Wogan; and Suzi Quatro, to name just a few.

These shows were also unusual in that there was no studio audience or laughter track. The only reaction sounds were those of the writers, staff and crew at Thames' Teddington Studios in South West London. Everett would often ad lib and deviate from the script; his bloopers were sometimes left in the final cut and on several occasions he would pull the camera around the studio revealing the crew not quite sure what was going to happen next. There were also the stories of Captain Kremmen, a science fiction hero voiced by Everett and originally developed for his Capital Radio shows, who travelled the galaxy battling fictional alien menaces, along with his assistant Dr Gitfinger and his voluptuous sidekick Carla. In the first three series these segments were animations created by the Cosgrove-Hall partnership (responsible for the successful children's cartoon series Dangermouse, among many others). In the fourth series ('Video Cassette') Kremmen was featured as live action, with Anna Dawson playing Carla, the segments were comedy shorts, rather than the erstwhile stories.

Other characters included ageing biker Sid Snot (remembered by fans for unsuccessfully attempting to flip cigarettes into his mouth - at one point Everett managed to catch one in his mouth, to the amusement of the studio crew); Marcel Wave, a lecherous Frenchman played by Everett wearing an absurdly false latex chin; and Angry of Mayfair, a middle-class City gent complaining of the risqué content of the show, banging the camera with his umbrella, only to then be revealed as actually wearing women's underwear.

Everett's interest in (then primitive) video processing technology and electronic effects showed itself in such features as the appearances of a bobbing 'alien' entirely composed of a distorted video image of his own head ('Hello. I'm Spod, from Planet Thfnnnn. And this is all I do... Pathetic, isn't it?').

The series ran for four seasons on ITV, and was a big ratings hit, being required viewing for any teenager of the time. The last episode ended on a rather sour note (after Everett had locked horns with Thames management over his show and its scheduling) with Everett giving a rather restrained farewell speech as the set and scenery was being stripped down by the crew. The final shot before the closing credits was Everett himself being picked up and placed inside an oversized garbage can.

In 1981, Everett fell out with Thames regarding the management of his show, including the scheduling of the programme against the BBC's Top of the Pops on Thursday evenings. TOTP was a ratings powerhouse at the time, and was effectively unbeatable in the days of three channel television in the UK. The BBC offered Everett a contract for a live audience sketch format comedy programme, and this partnership came to fruition at Christmas 1981, with a one-off special, followed by five series.

There were legal concerns when Thames attempted to block the transfer of Everett's characters to the BBC, claiming them as their copyright. This led to the creation of new characters such as the spooneristically named Cupid Stunt an American B-movie actress with pneumatic breasts (Everett made no attempt to cover his beard) who told (usually to a rapt cardboard cut-out of Michael Parkinson) lurid and incredible tales of life on set with Burt Reynolds and other male stars of the era.

It has been alledged that Cupid was originally to have been named Mary Hing but this was vetoed by the BBC as too obvious. It remains unconfirmed as to how Cupid Stunt was then approved. Announcers were often encouraged to simply refer to her as Cupid, to prevent the possibility of mispronunciation. A new punk character known as Gizzard Puke was developed, as Thames were trying to prevent Sid Snot from moving to the BBC. In the event, Thames' action failed, and all the characters from the Video Show were released for use. Inept TV handyman Reg Prescott became another firm viewers' favourite, as each week he managed graphically and bloodily to injure himself with tools whilst attempting to demonstrate DIY tips.

Brazilian-born Cleo Rocos, a glamorously curvaceous co-star, featured heavily in all of the BBC series and became one of Everett's closest friends. She was often portrayed wearing little more than frilly underwear and high heels, and her figure was used to great comic effect.

Some fans feel that the move to the more traditional BBC watered down the anarchic spirit of his previous work. The corporation assumed much tighter control over both content and production, and it is felt that this removed some of the spontaneity which had become a hallmark of the Thames series. However, the series performed equally well in the ratings, and the characters and their catchphrases endure 20 years later.

By the late 1980s, although still successful on the radio, the TV show format had run its course, and Everett's personal life was becoming increasingly complicated. He had married the singer Lee 'Lady Lee' Middleton (Billy Fury's former girlfriend) in 1966; but by 1979 they had separated, and Everett came out as gay. He launched himself into the London gay club scene, and could often be seen in London club Heaven (then a very popular clubbing destination) on Saturday nights. He was an active campaigner for gay rights. He seemed never to fully come to terms with his sexuality however, and he suffered bouts of severe depression.

By the 1990s Everett's health was declining. He died of an AIDS-related illness on April 4, 1995, at the age of 50.