Born
David John Andrew Sharland in Sandbanks, Dorset on the 7th
of September, 1922. He was born into a family steeped in show
business, his mother Anne Croft was an established stage actress and
his father Reginald Sharland, already famous for having a career as
one of Hollywood's early radio actors. But his Croft's actual career
started when seven appearing in a cinema commercial of the late
1920's. Though by the end of the next decade, the aspiring young
actor appeared in an uncredited role in the 1939 film version of
Goodbye, Mr Chips as Perkins.
His
own school days were spent at St John's Wood Preparatory School and
later at Rugby School in Warwickshire, but come 1942 and with the
second World War happening, he enlisted in the Royal Artillery,
serving in the North African campaign and also in India and
Singapore. It was during his time in North Africa that Croft
contracted rheumatic fever and was sent home to convalesce back in
Britain. Afterwards he undertook officer training at Sandhurst
Military Academy, before being posted to India just as the war in
Europe was just ending itself. Assigned to the Essex Regiment, he
rose the rank eventually becoming a Major during his time in the
Army.
When
his military service ended, Croft went back to his first love of
entertainment becoming first an actor and singer, thought this was to
lead to his career in writing as well. His start came though himself
meeting, Freddie Carpenter who at that time produced many pantomimes
for Howard and Wyndham across Britain at that time. From this, it
resulted with Croft writing scripts for their pantos. But in his
friendship with lifelong friend, the composer and conductor Cyril
Ornadel, he met theatre producer Fiona Bentley who had just purchased
the right to some of Beatrix Potter's stories and was looking to
adapt and musicalise them. The task was given to himself to write the
scripts and lyrics for a series of these stories to be released on
records to be narrated by the Hollywood actress Vivien Leigh and
starring with Croft, actors and actresses of the calibre of Graham
Stark and Cicely Courtneidge.
Afterwards
his career took a move into television when he joined the fledgling
Tyne Tees Television to direct shows for them including early madman
Ned's Shed and Mary Goes to Market, but his heart lie in
entertainment and he was charged with producing the variety show The
One O’clock Show, inviting the best of local talent to appear to
perform their act in front of the cameras and also inviting the best
of the entertainment industry to come up to to Newcastle to appear as
well. But it was during his time at Tyne Tees where he produced his
first ever sitcom Under New Management, it was the story about a
derelict pub in the North of England. This being the earliest
recorded example of Croft producing a sitcom for television. Come the
mid-sixties, he moved to the BBC and using his experience of
producing Under New Management, shows like Beggar My Neighbour,
Further Up Pompeii plus Hugh and I were given to him to produce. But
this put him into the BBC Light Entertainment department with Bill
Cotton Jnr, who he was to have a fruitful working relationship for
most of his writing and producing career.
At
that time whilst producing Hugh and I, he met Jimmy Perry. Perry
himself was tired of having just small parts in sitcoms, so he
decided to write a pilot for a series initially called The Fighting
Tigers about the British Home Guard. When Croft saw the script, he
consulted with his agent wife Ann and said to her “I've got a
script from Jimmy Perry here and I think its got something about
it..” and she agreed as well. From that Croft said he liked it to
Perry and that they should write it together, thus Dad's Army was
born. First broadcast in 1968, the initial title sequence was to have
film footage of the war over Bud Flannigan's tune of 'Who do you
think you're kidding Mr Hitler?'. But when Bill Cotton Jnr. saw it,
he thought it was a bit too much and so the footage was dropped for
the now familiar map and arrows title sequence. The craft that both
of them put into the series, made the show much bigger then the war
itself. The antics of the Warmington-On-Sea Home Guard kept viewers
amused and made bigger stars out of Arthur Lowe as Captain
Mainwaring, John Le Measuieras Sergeant Wilson , Clive Dunn, Arnold
Ridley, John Laurie, James Beck, Ian Lavender. All of them not top
line stars until Dad's Army changed their lives forever.
But
it was a mark of Croft that he used jobbing actors in other parts in
other of his shows and then when it came around casting for his next
project, they would get a leading role for example Wendy Richard
appeared in Dad's Army, which lead her to getting the part of Ms
Brahms in Are You Being Served and one customer making a brief and
fleeting appearance during the episode The Apartment in the 1979
series of the show was later to become Spike Hollins in Hi-de-Hi,
Jeffrey Holland of course. But his memory of actors and actresses in
other shows was legendary and allowing them to come into the
spotlight to play major parts. As Jeffrey Holland and Paul Shane said
in a BBC 2011 tribute to the man “He ruled with a rod of iron, but
with a smile on his face..” “Like a smiling viper..”
Whist
Croft was still producing Dad's Army, he joined forced with Jeremy
Lloyd, another actor was jobbing and looking for something different.
So himself and Croft wrote a one off sitcom for the Comedy Playhouse
season called Are You Being Served, with the show itself being
shelved until tragedy intervened. With the Munich Olympics cancelled
postponed because of the Israeli hostage crisis, the BBC had time to
fill and the decision was taken to play Are You Being Served to both
fill time where the Olympics would have been and also as a moral
booster after such tragic events. With a captive audience, the filler
programme garnered viewers who enjoyed the light relief of Grace
Bros. over the heavy new coming out of Munich.
Time
again Croft had the magic touch over sitcoms, co-creating It Ain't
Half Hot Mum, Hi-de-Hi, You Rang M'Lord, 'Allo 'Allo and Oh, Doctor
Beeching. But his knowledge of comedy was second to none as every
time he picked the right person for the role in sitcoms, he managed
to bring Gordon Kaye and Vicki Michelle from Come Back Mrs Noah
starring Molly Sugden and Ian Lavender into 'Allo 'Allo. The second
of the wartime sitcoms, but this time from the other side of the
channel seeing what life was life was like in occupied France at that
time. Just like Dad's Army it proved that there was no difference
between either of the channel and the antics were just as silly, but
the writing was still magnificent as Melvyn Hayes recalled “He'd
laugh on all the run throughs, right upto the day of transmission..”
Proving the jokes were good but when it came to make them right,
Croft was always serious about that.
The
way that David Croft rode the nostalgic angle is an interesting one,
at the end of the 1970's there was a big 1950's revival and by the
time the early 80's had come around Perry and Croft had the right
sitcom written and made look at life in a 1950's holiday camp.
In
Hi-de-Hi, Perry's experiences as a redcoat at Butlin's provided
material for the show, but like all the rest of the sitcoms
co-written and produced by Croft, there was always a piece of one of
the writers experiences in there such as the experience of working in
a department store or the experiences of the British Army abroad.
With a common theme of class structure, not always would the top man
be a person who was privileged, Mainwaring being the Captain and
Wilson being the Sergeant, reversing roles allowing the class
structure to be played out, not in a socio-political way but with the
day to day working of people from different classes and seeing how
they would interact with each other. But this was pretty much like
Croft himself, a shy man who would observe other people and how they
went about their business, mentally noting down anything which could
used in the writing.
Even
in 2007, Croft had created a pilot for Wendy Richard and Les Dennis
called Here Comes The Queen. Proving that Croft still had an eye for
a good sitcom even in his later years, but he was a man always
looking to revisit ideas or make new ones. His style of scripting was
unique, writing head to head with his co-creators to allow them to
bounce ideas off each other, but also recording the scripts onto
dictaphones to allow him to here the right intonations of the words
being put to paper. Very much in the style of a self rehearsal, this
method came from his time as an actor rehearsing with other actors
their lines. For all his work came the honours which were richly
deserved such as winning the Writer's Guild award for Best Comedy
Script three years running between 1969 and 1971 for Dad's Army,
earning a lifetime achievement award at the 2003 British Comedy
Awards with young bit part actor who had appeared in some of his
shows turned host of the awards Jonathan Ross was there to see him
pick up the award.
The
legacy of David Croft lives on through the repeats of his shows, the
DVD's and also other projects as well. Everyone can at least claim
they have seen a bit of his work if they liked it or not, but truly
David Croft will be remembered in Television. Light Entertainment and
Comedy circles as the man who made Britain laugh...
No comments:
Post a Comment