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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on May 18, 2021 13:50:52 GMT
Man about the house starring the legendary Yootha Joyce. I bought one disc of early episodes just to see Yootha. H. She was in George and Mildred, which has a man out of Last of the Summer Wine in it as her co-star. The film version sounds mad.
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Post by helrunar on May 18, 2021 14:13:38 GMT
Well Princess, I'm a big fan of Yootha and I only managed to get through one or two episodes of Man in the House. The concept became the basis of a rather dreary series that ran forever over here, called Three's Company. This type of humor does nothing for me, but as the saying goes, your mileage may vary. Yootha is fab always nonetheless.
Yootha had some good moments in a 1965 film with Dave Clark and band, Catch us if you can.
cheers, Hel.
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Post by samdawson on May 18, 2021 14:34:06 GMT
Like many of these things, it's bittersweet. Yootha Joyce and Brian Roper met at the leftwing and progressive Theatre Royal in Stratford, run by the communist theatrical firebrand Joan Littlewood, where they made a lifelong friendship and showed their considerable acting abilities (a friend has mentioned how delighted Roper was to be remembered for O What a Lovely War! rather than George and Mildred). Later they found fame and assured work in a popular, not exactly highbrow, TV sitcom called Man About the House (remade in the US as Three's Company). Their supporting characters were floated off in one of two spin-offs from the programme, George and Mildred. If MatH had been populist and just a little racy in its theme, G&M was a bit vulgar, though popular. It made both of them national figures. Sadly Yootha Joyce died at the height of its success, reportedly from drinking that had been exacerbated by her fear that she would forever be seen/cast as Mildred.
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Post by helrunar on May 18, 2021 14:47:33 GMT
Thanks for those memories, Sam. There's a lovely memoir special about Yootha on you tube. So many fine actors and actresses were embedded in the public mind in these roles that allowed them only a very narrow range of what their true abilities could fathom (sorry about fractured metaphors there--no time to fix).
H.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on May 18, 2021 14:54:32 GMT
That's very interesting, thank you. We forget how important theatre was back then don't we. It was probably more important in earning a living for many than TV or film work. It's very sad how she died. It says she was drinking half a bottle of brandy a day for ten years.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on May 18, 2021 15:00:22 GMT
If that theatre was run by a communist I wonder what plays they took part in? Would that have been the 1960s, or earlier?
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Post by Dr Strange on May 18, 2021 15:17:35 GMT
Joan Littlewood was at one time married to British folksinger Ewan MacColl, who wrote The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Dirty Old Town. (And Ewan MacColl was the father of Kirsty MacColl, but that was from a different marriage.)
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Post by samdawson on May 18, 2021 15:24:28 GMT
If that theatre was run by a communist I wonder what plays they took part in? Would that have been the 1960s, or earlier? It would be worth quickly looking it up online (just search on 'Theatre Royal Stratford, Littlewood'), it's a longer and more interesting story than can be given here (politics, the East End, class, O What a Lovely War, the Kray twins, Barbara Windsor, what Littlewood said to Michael Caine etc)
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Post by samdawson on May 18, 2021 15:42:09 GMT
Joan Littlewood was at one time married to British folksinger Ewan MacColl, who wrote The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Dirty Old Town. (And Ewan MacColl was the father of Kirsty MacColl, but that was from a different marriage.) I was recently reading a history of the British folk movement of the 60s and realised I had seen most of the leading characters simply through helping out at CND demos and events in the 80s
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Post by Dr Strange on May 18, 2021 15:54:18 GMT
I was recently reading a history of the British folk movement of the 60s and realised I had seen most of the leading characters simply through helping out at CND demos and events in the 80s Have you seen the 3-part BBC4 documentary Folk Britannia? It's been uploaded (illegally I presume) to YouTube.
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Post by samdawson on May 18, 2021 16:07:33 GMT
I did, thanks, yes. BBC4 is a bit of a treasure for these things
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Post by ripper on May 18, 2021 18:25:23 GMT
That's very interesting, thank you. We forget how important theatre was back then don't we. It was probably more important in earning a living for many than TV or film work. It's very sad how she died. It says she was drinking half a bottle of brandy a day for ten years. I am old enough to have watched Man about the House and George and Mildred when they were first broadcast on ITV, and was shocked when it was announced that Yootha Joyce had died. Man about the House and George and Mildred have both been screened on ITV2 or ITV3--I forget which--quite recently. I prefer Man about the House to George and Mildred. Both have some great verbal exchanges between Joyce and Murphy as Mildred and George Roper, but I just find MATH funnier--it also has the terrific Roy Kinnear as a dodgy mate of George's in some episodes, as well as more likable leads in O'Sullivan, Wilcox and Thomsett imo.
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Post by dem bones on May 18, 2021 18:55:41 GMT
If that theatre was run by a communist I wonder what plays they took part in? Would that have been the 1960s, or earlier? It would be worth quickly looking it up online (just search on 'Theatre Royal Stratford, Littlewood'), it's a longer and more interesting story than can be given here (politics, the East End, class, O What a Lovely War, the Kray twins, Barbara Windsor, what Littlewood said to Michael Caine etc) .... and Tod Slaughter. He was a popular draw there. In 1950 the BBC broadcast a performance of 'Spring-Heeled Jack, the Terror of Epping Forest' live from the Theatre Royal.
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Post by jamesdoig on May 18, 2021 21:25:01 GMT
Joan Littlewood was at one time married to British folksinger Ewan MacColl, who wrote The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Dirty Old Town. (And Ewan MacColl was the father of Kirsty MacColl, but that was from a different marriage.) Surely it's time for a youtube link
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Post by Dr Strange on May 18, 2021 22:00:20 GMT
I was just looking at Ewan MacColl's wikipedia entry - I hadn't realized that he started out as a stage and radio actor and scriptwriter in the 1930s, before focusing on music in the 1950s, nor that both The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Dirty Old Town were originally written for theatre plays.
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