Johnny Speight

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johnny Speight (born June 2, 1920 in Canning Town , Greater London , England , † July 5, 1998 in Chorleywood , Hertfordshire , England), was a British television screenwriter of many classic British sitcoms . His most famous works are Till Death Us Do Part (1965–75) , Curry & Chips (1969) , In Sickness and in Health (1985–92) . Till Death Us Do Part was broadcast to Germany with the television series Ein Herz und ein Seele by Wolfgang Quantity.

His most famous creation was the figure of the contradicting-bigoted Alf Garnett (played by Warren Mitchell ). His shows have mostly explored the issues of racism and sexism through satire and many of them are considered classics.

life and career

Born in Canning Town , West Ham , Essex (now Greater London ), John Speight began scripting comedy shows in 1955 , starting with Great Scott - It's Maynard! . His first major series was Sykes And A ... (1961), which starred Eric Sykes , Hattie Jacques and Richard Wattis . Speight was one of many writing talents in this series as well as Sykes, John Antrobus and Spike Milligan, among others .

He created the iconic working class tramp figure, played by Arthur Haynes in his long-term ATV comedy series with top ratings. Haynes died in 1966.

In 1965 Speight wrote a BBC TV pilot that was expanded into the series Till Death Us Do Part in 1966 . Warren Mitchell played the main role of Alf Garnett, a reactionary, conservative malocher figure who is particularly sensitive and makes his vicious comments on everything (cf. disgust Alfred ). Garnett went on to become one of the most memorable characters in British television history, despite his bad behavior. The series also starred British actress Dandy Nichols in the role of his long-suffering wife Elsie. The 1971 US sitcom All in the Family is based on this series.

During the production of Till Death Us Do Part , a BBC bureaucrat tried (according to legend) to convince Speight to improve his script by starting around the number of vulgarisms like "damn", "bloody" “(German: cursed!) And other words considered offensive to haggle. This incident became the basis of a satirical sketch performed by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore , with Cook playing the bureaucrat and Moore playing a screenwriter named "Johnny".

1969 was the world premiere of Curry and Chips , an equally controversial sitcom from LWT (London Weekend Television) for the ITV channel. Despite the obvious anti- political correctness , Speight's intention - as in Till Death Us Do Part - was to pillory, not to promote , discrimination .

The roles were stereotypes, with a dark-skinned made ( "blacked-up") Spike Milligan (the half as Kevin O'Grady Irish , half Pakistani should be), Eric Sykes as a liberal, Kenny Lynch as a black man with prejudice against Asians and Norman Rossington and Geoffrey Hughes star as the racist Liverpudlians .

Speight's next comedy was For Richer ... For Poorer (German: In good and in bad times) in 1975, a one-off pilot with Harry H Corbett as a left-wing political response to Alf Garnett.

After a brief return from Till Death Do Us Part on ITV in 1981 as Till Death ... , Alf Garnett made a vigorous return on BBC's In Sickness and in Health , which ran from 1985 to 1992.

In 1998 Speight died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 78. LWT then broadcast a series of specials with Warren Mitchell as Alf Garnett in the lead role. These broadcasts were originally put on the back burner by ITV controller David Liddiment .

TV scripts ("TV writing credits")

  • Great Scott - It's Maynard! (1955)
  • Evans Abode (1956)
  • Frankie Howerd (1956)
  • The Dickie Valentine Show (1956)
  • Two's Company (1956)
  • Early to Braden (1957)
  • That's Life, Says Max Wall (1957)
  • The Arthur Haynes Show (1957)
  • Frankie Howerd In ... (1958)
  • The April 8th Show (Seven Days Early) (1958)
  • The Cyril Fletcher Show (1959)
  • Ladies and Gentle-Men (1960)
  • Sykes and A ... (1960)
  • That Was the Week That Was (1962)
  • Shamrot (1963)
  • The Graham Stark Show (1964)
  • Till Death Us Do Part (1965)
  • To Lucifer - A Son (1967)
  • If There Weren't Any Blacks You'd Have to Invent Them (1968)
  • Curry And Chips (1969)
  • Spate Of Speight (1969)
  • All in the Family (1971)
  • Them (1972)
  • Frankie Howerd In Ulster (1973)
  • Francis Howerd In Concert (1974)
  • Marty Back Together Again (1974)
  • For Richer ... For Poorer (1975)
  • The Mike Reid Show (1976)
  • Spooner's Patch (with Ray Galton 1979)
  • The Tea Ladies (with Ray Galton 1979)
  • The Thoughts Of Chairman Alf At Christmas (1980)
  • Till Death ... (1981)
  • The Lady Is A Tramp (1983)
  • In Sickness And In Health (1985)
  • Carrott Confidential (1987)
  • The Nineteenth Hole (1989)
  • A Word With Alf (1997)
  • An Audience With Alf Garnett (1997)
  • The Thoughts Of Chairman Alf (1998)

See also

Individual evidence

  1. Born in Canning Town http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/465520/index.html Retrieved 08/10/07
  2. bbc.co.uk: For richer ... for poorer ( Memento of the original from March 26, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bbc.co.uk

Web links