Humphrey Barclay

Last updated

Humphrey Barclay (BEM)
Born (1941-03-24) 24 March 1941 (age 83)
Dorking, Surrey, England, United Kingdom
Education Trinity College, Cambridge
Occupation(s)Comedy Executive, TV and radio producer
Known forFounder of Barclay Productions (TV production firm)

Humphrey Barclay BEM (born 24 March 1941) is a British comedy executive and producer.

Contents

Career

Barclay was educated at Harrow School, before reading Classics at Trinity College, Cambridge, where his first foray into show business was via the Amateur Dramatic Society. He then appeared in Cambridge Footlights revues alongside Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, David Hatch, Jonathan Lynn, Jo Kendall and Miriam Margolyes. Barclay was offered a job as a BBC radio producer and soon afterwards put together the team who performed the comedy show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (four series starting in 1964). Moving to television, Barclay oversaw Associated-Rediffusion Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967–69).

Following the ITV franchise changes of 1968, Barclay joined London Weekend Television (LWT), for whom he produced the Doctor... series (1969–77). One episode in that series involved a hotel proprietor and his wife and was written by John Cleese. Barclay said at the time that he thought there might be a series in the characters. [1] Later, Cleese created Fawlty Towers for the BBC.

In 1975, he produced the Donald Sinden/Elaine Stritch sit-com Two's Company , which received the "Best Situation Comedy" BAFTA nomination in 1977. Barclay became Head of Comedy at LWT in 1977 and supervised successful series, including No, Honestly and A Fine Romance (1981–84). In May 1980, he unveiled Metal Mickey as a show "with the appeal of Star Wars , the Daleks and Mork and Mindy ".

Following criticism [1] at the Edinburgh International Television Festival of what was seen as casual racism in the LWT series Mind Your Language (1977–79; 1986), Barclay commissioned No Problem! , transmitted by Channel 4 during 1983–85, the first original black-made sitcom for British TV (an earlier series featuring a black family, The Fosters (ITV, 1976–77), had been a remake of a US show).

Barclay left LWT in 1983 and formed Humphrey Barclay Productions, which produced the media satire Hot Metal (ITV, 1986–1988), medical sitcom Surgical Spirit (ITV, 1989–95), and sitcom Desmond's (Channel 4, 1989–94) with black characters. In 1996, he returned to LWT as Controller of Comedy and, in 1999, became Head of Comedy Development for Granada Media International.

Though already in partial retirement, in April 2002, he joined Celador Productions as Development Executive.

Inheritance

In 2000, Barclay was adopted into the royal family of Tafo, a village which is a three-hour drive north-west of Accra in the Kwahu region of Ghana, while there to attend the funeral of his friend, the actor Christopher (Gyearbuor) Asante. [2] As a chief of the community, he now bears the title of Nana Kwadwo Ameyaw Gyearbuor Yiadom I, Nkosuohene of Kwahu-Tafo. [3] Barclay is active in helping to raise funds for the community, which has had unemployment levels of more than 80 per cent. He has teamed up with Ikando Volunteers to help provide skilled volunteers to the community. He is in the line of descent of the Barclays of Mather and Urie, a Scottish lairdship.

He is a descendant of David Barclay of Youngsbury (1729–1809), a Quaker banker who famously manumitted all of the slaves he acquired in English Jamaica as the result of a debt. [4] In 2016, through an introduction via Verene Shepherd, the Jamaican historian of diaspora studies, Humphrey Barclay met with a distinguished African American descendant of one of the slaves freed by his ancestor. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Goodies</span> Trio of British comedians known for the TV series of the same name

The Goodies were a trio of British comedians: Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie. The trio created, wrote for and performed in their eponymous television comedy show from 1970 until 1982, combining sketches and situation comedy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Jason</span> British actor (born 1940)

Sir David John White, known professionally as David Jason, is an English actor. He has played Derek "Del Boy" Trotter in the BBC sitcom Only Fools and Horses, Detective Inspector Jack Frost in A Touch of Frost, Granville in Open All Hours and Still Open All Hours, and Pop Larkin in The Darling Buds of May, as well as voicing several cartoon characters, including Mr. Toad in The Wind in the Willows, the BFG in the 1989 film, and the title characters of Danger Mouse and Count Duckula.

I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again was a BBC radio comedy programme that was developed from the 1964 Cambridge University Footlights revue, Cambridge Circus., as a scripted sketch show. It had a devoted youth following, with the live tapings enjoying very lively audiences, particularly when familiar themes and characters were repeated; a tradition that continued into the spinoff show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tim Brooke-Taylor</span> English actor and comedian (1940–2020)

Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor OBE was an English actor and comedian. He was best known as a member of The Goodies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Grade</span> English television executive and businessman (born 1943)

Michael Ian Grade, Baron Grade of Yarmouth, is an English television executive and businessman. He has held a number of senior roles in television, including controller of BBC1 (1984–1986), chief executive of Channel 4 (1988–1997), chairman of the board of governors of the BBC (2004–2006), and executive chairman of ITV plc (2007–2009). He sat as a Conservative Party life peer in the House of Lords from 2011 until after his appointment as Chair of Ofcom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">London Weekend Television</span> ITV weekend service for London

London Weekend Television was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm to Monday mornings at 6:00. From 1968 until 1992, when LWT's weekday counterpart was Thames Television, there was an on-screen handover to LWT on Friday nights. From 1993 to 2002, when LWT's weekday counterpart was Carlton Television, the transfer usually occurred invisibly during a commercial break, for Carlton and LWT shared studio and transmission facilities.

Chesney and Wolfe, were a British television comedy screenwriting duo consisting of Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe. They were best known for their sitcoms The Rag Trade, Meet the Wife (1963–1966), On the Buses (1969–1973) and Romany Jones (1972–1975). When their partnership began in the mid-1950s, Chesney was already known to the public as a harmonica player.

Andrew Paul Marshall is a British comedy screenwriter, most noted for the domestic sitcom 2point4 children. He was also the inspiration for Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Although he had also previously adapted stories for Agatha Christie's Poirot, in 2002 he made a further move into writing "straight" drama, with the fantasy horror series Strange. He has also written several screenplays.

Stanley Livingstone Baxter is a Scottish actor, comedian, impressionist and author. Baxter began his career as a child actor on BBC Scotland and later became known for his British television comedy shows The Stanley Baxter Show, The Stanley Baxter Picture Show, The Stanley Baxter Series and Mr Majeika.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metal Mickey</span> Childrens TV sitcom (ITV, 1980–83)

Metal Mickey is a fictional five-foot-tall robot, as well as the name of a spin-off television show starring the same character. The robot character was created, controlled and voiced by Johnny Edward.

Doctor in the House is a collective name for seven separate British and Australian television comedy series inspired by the "Doctor" books of English author Richard Gordon. The books had also previously been adapted as a series of cinema films. The television versions were less directly based on the Gordon books than was the film series, but were instead half-hour sitcoms chronicling the misadventures of a group of medical students, and their later checkered careers as doctors.

<i>Desmonds</i> 1989 British TV sitcom

Desmond's is a British television sitcom broadcast by Channel 4 from 5 January 1989 to 19 December 1994. Conceived and co-written by Trix Worrell, and produced by Charlie Hanson and Humphrey Barclay, Desmond's stars Norman Beaton as barber Desmond Ambrose, whose shop is a gathering place for an assortment of local characters. The show is set in Peckham, London, and features a predominantly black British Guyanese cast. With 71 episodes, Desmond's became Channel 4's longest running sitcom in terms of episodes.

<i>On the Buses</i> British TV sitcom (1969–1973)

On the Buses is a British television sitcom that was broadcast on ITV from 1969 to 1973. It was created by Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe, who wrote most of the episodes. It spawned three spin-off feature films and a stage version. Despite the writers' previous successes with The Rag Trade and Meet the Wife with the BBC, the corporation rejected On the Buses, not seeing much comedy potential in a bus depot as a setting. The comedy partnership turned to Frank Muir, head of entertainment at London Weekend Television (LWT), who loved the idea; the show was accepted, and despite a poor critical reception became a hit with viewers.

<i>Hot Metal</i> British TV sitcom (1986–1988)

Hot Metal is a British sitcom produced by London Weekend Television about the newspaper industry, that aired for two series on the ITV network in 1986 and 1988, along with a special episode for Comic Relief in 1989, that was broadcast on BBC One. Written by David Renwick and Andrew Marshall, it is very much a continuation in style from their previous sitcom Whoops Apocalypse!. It was produced by Humphrey Barclay Productions for LWT. After its original transmission, the series was repeated in 1988 on Channel 4 and in 2022 on Forces TV.

<i>Curry and Chips</i> 1969 British TV sitcom

Curry and Chips is a British television sitcom broadcast in 1969 which was produced by London Weekend Television for the ITV network.

Frederick Christopher Kwabena Gyearbuor Asante Erskine was a Ghanaian actor best remembered for his role in the Channel 4 situation comedy Desmond's, in which he played the role of Gambian mature student Matthew.

<i>Yes, Honestly</i> 1976 British TV series or programme

Yes - Honestly is a British television sitcom that aired on ITV between 9 January 1976 and 23 April 1977. It stars Donal Donnelly as Matthew Browne and Liza Goddard as Lily Pond Browne. The series followed the course of their relationship, from first meeting – when unsuccessful music composer Matthew, who has little if any time for women, hires Lily Pond, a beautiful and witty woman of Russian ancestry as his typist – to their eventual marriage. It is a sequel to No - Honestly and was written by Terence Brady and Charlotte Bingham and produced by Humphrey Barclay. The theme song for the first series was composed and performed by Georgie Fame, while the second series used an instrumental version of "No, Honestly" written by Lynsey de Paul.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Tesler</span> British television producer (1929–2024)

Brian Tesler, was a British television entertainment producer and senior executive. His career encompassed British television's post-war evolution from a single-channel BBC to the arrival of multiple terrestrial, satellite and cable channels in the 1990s. After experience in radio presentation with the British Forces Broadcasting Service in the 1940s he began in television as a light entertainment producer and director for BBC Television in 1952, producing mainly panel shows before gaining experience and working his way upwards to producing larger and more significant programmes. He moved to Britain's fledgling independent commercial television service ITV in 1957, joining Associated Television (ATV), who held the franchise for weekends in London. Here he took over ITV's biggest variety show, Sunday Night at the London Palladium.

Trouble in Mind was a short-lived British television sitcom series produced by LWT for ITV in 1991. It ran for nine episodes, each 25 minutes long. The series starred Richard O'Sullivan, Susan Penhaligon, Nicholas Day and Jim McManus. It has been reshown on Forces TV and Rewind TV.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Verene Shepherd</span> Jamaican academic (born 1951)

Verene Albertha Shepherd is a Jamaican academic who is a professor of social history at the University of the West Indies in Mona. She is the director of the university's Institute for Gender and Development Studies, and specialises in Jamaican social history and diaspora studies.

References

  1. 1 2 "British Film Institute biography of Humphrey Barclay".
  2. Deans, Jason (6 January 2003). "Comic hero". The Guardian . London. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
  3. "Humphrey Barclay Biography", Friends of Tafo.
  4. Shepherd, Verene (24 February 2008). "Freedom in the era of slavery: The case of the Barclay brothers in Jamaica". The Gleaner . Retrieved 15 January 2018.
  5. HONEYGHAN, PENDA (26 June 2016). "Legacies of slavery and freedom". Jamaica Observer . Jamaica Observer. Retrieved 15 January 2018.