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I only just recently found an audio podcast online where Trevor Banister is interviewed. He discussed his entire career, as well as his time in AYBS. He also makes it very clear why he left after season 7.
As many know, the filming of AYBS only lasted about six weeks. The rest of the year, the actors were busy doing other shows and a lot of theatre. Trevor in particular did an enormous amount of theatre both before and after the AYBS series.
If their schedules permitted, some of them even continued doing theatre even while filming AYBS.
Part of the issue is that after each year, the actors did not know if AYBS would come back for another season. This was every year, not just after season 7.
After finishing season 7, Trevor got setup to tour with one of the main theatre companies in Britain for over 20 weeks.
Soon after, the BBC contacted Trevor and told him he needed to give up his theatre job and come back for season 8.
At that time, the theatre paid significantly more than the BBC, and (of course) they were giving him 20 weeks of work as opposed to the 6 weeks of AYBS.
Trevor told them he'd be happy to do it if they could align the filming dates with his touring dates. The BBC insisted that they could not, and so Trevor went to the head of his theatre company and tried very hard to get them to change the touring dates so he could film season 8 of AYBS.
He was successful, and so he was fully setup to continue doing theatre while filming AYBS at the same time.
Suddenly, the BBC changed it's filming schedule and demanded that Trevor do the same.
At this point, Trevor had had enough and told them no.
Trevor was also approached to do Grace and Favour as well, however by then he was no longer interested. Trevor continued to work with many of the AYBS actors on other projects outside of the show.
It was a difficult situation for Mike Berry (Mr. Spooner) who was thrown in at the last moment to replace Trevor Banister. He was basically having to try to fulfill a role written for someone else. I think the Mr. Spooner character would have worked much better if the writers had started over and made a brand new character, however they probably did not have time.
I'm sure many fans are already aware of this, but I thought I'd post this anyway just for some discussion.
Thanks for a very detailed account of why Trevor Bannister left the series. Over the years, there were many rumors and bits and pieces, so finally the full story! Really don't blame him for what he did though since you have to go where the money is-especially as an actor.
Thanks - Yes, I found the interview very interesting, and this is all coming from Trevor himself during the audio interview. It was also great listening to him talk about all of his theatre work, which was the bulk of his career, even though the "Mr. Lucas" character continued to be what he was most famous for.
Fortunately, he said that he did not have much of a problem being typecast - He was able to do a wide range of theatre both before, during and after AYBS, not just comedy.
