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Basil Brush Show, The

In order then, it's Mr Rodney... ...Mr Derek... ...and Mr Roy

UPPER CLASS FOX with a human voice insults well-known BBC face, takes the piss out of world famous celebrities, blows up some sticks of pretend dynamite, introduces latest hit parade offering from The Shadows/Paul Nicholas/Elaine Paige, then repeatedly interrupts well-known BBC face trying to read an adventure story “until next week’s exciting instalment”. Established rakish credentials under tutelage of handkerchief-tampering sorceror DAVID NIXON before graduating to own variety show with co-host RODNEY BEWES. Successive “Misters”, in chronological and descending-greatness order, were DEREK FOWLDS, ROY NORTH, HOWARD WILLIAMS and BILLY BOYLE. Plenty of memorable tomfoolery with the likes of TERRY WOGAN and INSTANT SUNSHINE kept 1970s ticking over, while perennial invocation of “Dirty Gerty from number thirty” jostled for ubiquity with cries of “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!” getting increasingly slower. Voice and hand of IVAN OWEN. Latterly revived in 2002 with the wrong a) face b) voice c) format (a sitcom!), but nobody was watching so it didn’t matter. Boom boom.

5 Comments

5 Comments

  1. BibaNova

    June 16, 2009 at 10:24 pm

    Basil is a legend!

  2. Lee James Turnock

    April 30, 2010 at 5:18 pm

    Classic Basil remark to Dennis Waterman – “I didn’t know you couldn’t sing!”

  3. Droogie

    November 20, 2020 at 1:56 am

    Always got confused as a kid seeing the Public Safety Information short about beach safety starring Basil Brush being screened on ITV advert breaks. Basil was still on the Beeb back then, but also seeing Roy North appear in this who’d been replaced and the fact this was shot on proper 35mm film was a weird thing to process as a child.

  4. Droogie

    November 20, 2020 at 1:58 am

    Always got confused as a kid seeing the Public Safety Information short about beach safety starring Basil Brush being screened on ITV advert breaks. Basil was still on the Beeb back then, but also seeing Roy North appear in this who’d been replaced and the fact this was shot on proper 35mm film was a weird thing to process as a child.

  5. Glenn Aylett

    November 21, 2020 at 10:42 am

    Anyone know what happened to Howard Williams? It seems his career ground to a halt after The Basil Brush show in 1979 and his IMDB entry is quite bare after this date.

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