Video/Audio/Text Interviews with AYBS Cast Members
Frank Thornton
Used with permission from Helen James Productions Ltd.
(2010)Tony who created a “This is Your Life” site has a section for Frank at:
http://www.bigredbook.info/frank_thornton.html
All 3 images ©Thames Television International
Thanks to Tony who runs his TIYL site at: http://www.bigredbook.info/
PBS
(1994)”A Conversation with Capt. Peacock”
John Inman
Mollie Sugden
Interviews
http://www.teletronic.co.uk/molliesugden.htm
A Brief History
(Transcribed by Ellen Holbrook)
MOLLIE: The word “knickers” has such a naughty, saucy connotation,
doesn’t it? You know, it’s not a word people use very often. I was
having tea, we were all sitting around a table. Sitting next to me
was a boy, he’d be about eight years old and obviously he had been
told to behave himself and equally obvious he had no intention of
behaving himself and he kept muttering things under his breath, little
rude words and now and again just pinching me and I could see that his
mother knew what he was doing and was terribly embarrassed and so I
just turned to him and said: “and knickers to you!” Well, you’ve never
seen such an expression and he couldn’t believe his ears that a
grown-up would use such a rude word, but mind you it did the trick
because he behaved himself after that!
INTRODUCER: Embarrassment about underwear can start at a very early
age, as Mollie Sugden recalls:
MOLLIE: I cannot tell you what we wore as children, I mean I can
remember when I was about five years old, which was over seventy years
ago, so remember, but we wore the most amazing amount of clothes. I
remember having “combs” or “combinations” and they were like a vest
and knickers all in one, and then underneath that there’d be a Liberty
Bodice, I don’t know if you have ever seen a Liberty Bodice, they have
to be seen to be believed! And they have little rubber buttons all
around to which were attached suspenders with little buttonholes
made out of leather and you would fasten these buttonholes onto the
little rubber buttons on your Liberty Bodice and they held up your
black stockings and then on top of all that you had knickers and they
were – well, just the usual navy blue school knickers, you know, with
elastic around the bottom but it was terrible to show any leg, but it
was terribly difficult because the suspenders were rather long and
therefore there was usually a gap in between the knicker leg and the
the top of your stockings and one wore such short gym tunics and I was
in mortal terror in case a boy should see the top of my leg between my
knickers and my stockings and the awful thing about these wretched
suspenders was if you bent down quickly they went “ping!” the button
came off and you were left with suspenders hanging down, it was
dreadful! I don’t know how I managed to grow up at all. *laughs* I
don’t know why I didn’t die of shame!
MOLLIE: I remember my husband saying, “You would like a different pair
of knickers for every day of the year – three hundred and sixty-five
pairs of knickers!” and he’d used to go in just before Christmas and
he’d go into the ladies department with no shame at all and say: “I
want the sexiest pair of knickers you’ve got” *laughs* and the
assistant used to be quite amazed, *laugh* so it certainly didn’t
worry him but I mean in those days, remember I’ve been married for
forty years, they weren’t as sexy as they are now, they weren’t taken
back. *laughs* It was nothing like they have nowadays.”
(Article used with permission from Ellen).
Michael Attwell
“First clip of chat show pilot hosted by Bernard Braden and featuring Michael Attwell as a guest at the time he was starring as Razor Eddie in Turtle’s Progress. Michael Attwell sings My Time of Day from Guys and Dolls and tells funny stories about filming with horses.”-Jake Attwell
(Clip and text used with permission from Jake Attwell).
Trevor Bannister
Interview With Trevor Bannister At The Churchill Theatre In Bromley
This has been done word for word. ME: Could you give me a brief description on what Scissor Happy is all about?
TREVOR B: Well Scissor Happy is a very unusual play, it is also a unique play. It is a comedy thriller which is set in a hairdressing salon and involves the people cutting the hair, and the customers. There are half a dozen people in the play. Up above the hair dreesing salon which is set in London lives a lady called Isabel Czerny who was a famous retired concert pianist who actually owns the whole building and the property, suddenly she is found to be murdered and I’m in the salon pretinding to be a customer when in actual fact I am policeman and we’ve had the place under survaliance- my assistant and myself becuse we have been following a certain person who has come in for a haircut. We then however find there is a murder on our hands which we hadn’t anticipated obviously . The rest is about me as a policeman trying to unravel the murder and question everybody, the imortant thing about the play is tht it involves the audience, they are the witnesses to the murder as I didn’t see everything that happened, so it is a question and answer situation and very much a adlib situation with the entire audience, they are the play so with their questions I re-construct and if it’s not being re-constructed as the way it happened originally they have to point that out to me and tell me what went wrong and what was different. It is very funny and is a very entriging piece and a lot of fun,but the audience actually solve the crime.The decide who the killer is and that can vary from suspect to suspect each night so obvioulsy the play is never the same twice ever.
ME: So are there millions of endings or are there set ones?
TREVOR B: Well there are three set endings, there are three possible suspects in the play and it could be anyone of those people so the audience decide who they think is the villin that night and that’s the way we perform the rest of the play. iT is very funny and for the people in America of course it is a American play really although we are doing it in England. In America it has being running in Washington and Boston for 20 odd years and over there it is called “Sheer Madness”, not “Scissor Happy”.
ME: How long does the play run for?
TREVOR B: We are on tour for 20 weeks, next week when we finish here in Bromely we then go to Eastbourne for 8 weeks during the summer.
ME: Do you enjoy your role as a detective?
TREVOR B: I enjoy this role particulary as it involves talking to the audience which is a unique experience for actors as we usually work with a imaginary forth wall, we pretend there is no audience there, but this reverses that totally so we have to be very aware of the audience.
ME: I saw “Funny Money” last year and you were a detective then.
TREVOR B: Yes, it was a very different piece.
ME: Do you prefer acting on the stage or on television?
TREVOR B: Bascially I prefer the theatre, I started in the theatre and that is where my roots are. I think most actors are more at home in the theatre. I love television I always enjoy doing television, I suppose I must have done over 500/600 televisions over the years, and a number of films, which I also enjoy but I do prefer theatre.
ME: When you are in theatre you cannot cut parts out though.
TREVOR B: No, what you see happens at the time, that’s the wonderful thing about live theatre is that, that performance will never be repeated beacuse you never get the same two performances exactly the same although we aren’t changing the line or anything except in the case of the play I’m doing at the moment which is a adlib piece, but generally speaking no you obvioulsy stick to the text and things, but things then vary beacsuse we are very reliant on the reaction of the audience.
ME: People though tend to laugh more when things go wrong.
TREVOR B: Well they do laugh when things go wrong, I don’t like to see things go wrong and don’t think any of us do really, but ocassionly things do go wrong that we don’t want to happen.
ME: Have you got ny plans for Television?
TREVOR B: No, not for television, I’m going to be back in the theatre after this and Christmas doing pantomime, I was there last year and they’ve asked me to come back again so I’m looking forward to that, it should be nice.
ME: I heard you have plans to go to America, is it this year?
TREVOR B: There are plans for me to go to America, I go over to America every year or two to appear on PBS over there on the streght amnd popularity of Are You Being Served?and I help with their fundraising which they perform once or twice a year.
ME: Do you keep in touch with any of the cast?
TREVOR B: Yes, I’m in touch with them, in fact most of them. Only a couple of weeks ago I was at a awards ceremony dinner at a hotel in London with Wendy, John, Mollie and one or to others. We do see each other quite often, I see quite a lot of Frank Thornton as we are very old friends from way back before “Are You Being Served?”, and I still see a fair amount of Mollie, John and so on.
ME: I know it was your decision to leave the programme, but did you ever watch the last few series you were not in and think to yourself how it would be nice to still be in the programme?
TREVOR B: No, I was very happy with the decision I made which was to after 8 years move on. No, I never watched the programme, not when I was in it or after I had left it.
Thank you very much Trevor for answering my questions.
(By Ellen Holbrook; used with permission).
Various
The Croft Perry Podcast (Main site: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/thecroftperrypodcast)
| Jeffrey Holland | |
| Gordon Peters | |
| Therese McMurray | |
| John Clegg | |
| John D. Collins | |
| Jess Conrad | |
| Taryn Kaye | |
| Steve Edwin | |
| Ann Sidney | |
| Joanne Heywood | |
| Fleur Bennett | |
| Andrew Barclay | |
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Charles Nicklin |
| Paul Humpoletz | |
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Nicholas McArdle |
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Rusty Goffe |
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Sandra Clark |
| Images used with permission from The Croft Perry Podcast (Main site: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/thecroftperrypodcast) |