(You will probably notice that there are still a few pictures missing, a deficiency that will be put right as soon as time and technology allow.)
A Nostalgic Look Back to More Ingenuous Times
Only the Brits, and specifically the writing duo Perry&Croft had been able to make a sitcom with a side-splittingly funny character like "Gloria Beaumont", who is at the same time poignant, touching, stirring and deeply moving.
The man behind "Gloria" was Melvyn Hayes.
The sitcom is It Ain't Half Hot, Mum, a BBC production about a Royal Artillery concert party, set in Deolali, India and later in the jungle of Burma, during the last months of the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, who had both served in similar roles in real life. It was first broadcast on BBC 1 between 1974 and 1981 in eight series totalling 56 episodes. Each episode ran for 30 minutes.
The title comes from the first episode in which young Gunner Parkins (Christopher Mitchell) writes home to his mother in England.
"Gloria" (we never learn his real first name) is a heavily effeminate actor (he considers himself the only "real artiste" among the bunch) who revels in wearing women's clothes. His favourite dame is Ginger Rogers.
It is at no point of the show implied that "Gloria" is homosexual. He is instead a classic example of a drag queen. Media accounts, stating that the show is "full of homoerotic innuendoes" are simply not true. All the other young men, most of them butch, some even hunky, are deeply embarrassed by having to wear drag, a point from which the show draws a lot of its hilarity. The troupe treat "Gloria" like a little sister, and indeed his effeminate act is that of a little girl, not that of a sexually aware woman, which makes it all the more endearing. When he gets complimented for his performance - usually by the officers - he responds with girlish coquetry and delight or sulks and pouts.
I believe the episode "Ticket to Blighty" carried the intention to clarify the matter about "Gloria's" sexuality once and for all. To get the "ticket" out of the army and home,"Gloria" pretends that he believes to be a woman and will thus hopefully be considered "psychological unfit for service", a euphemism, of course, for "homosexual". He resents the thought, but getting the "ticket" is more important.
The performance of Melvyn Hayes here is so incredibly, side-splittingly, hilariously, oddball-ish, freaky-ish funny, that I simply HAVE to ask you to watch the entire episode. It has a surprising end, but I won't spill the beans.
The other star of this episode is the indomitable Mavis Pugh (who was in real life married to John "Gunner Graham" Clegg) as ATS Chief Commander (Lt. Colonel) who disciplines her "gals" with an iron fist.
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| "My gals are settling in nicely." |
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| "Good heavens! What on earth are THEY? Rejects? Keep them away from my gals! I've quite enough to worry with the normal men." When she sees the troupe performing their "physical training". |
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| "I'll report you to Madam, my commanding officer!" When the BSM calls him once again a "tart". |
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| "Too much lipstick! And you are not wearing a brazière!" |
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| "You savage! You simian brute! You're an animal!" (To the hapless BSM who tried to get the bombardier out of the ATS and into his regular uniform.) |
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| "He wants me to wear MEN'S CLOTHES!" |
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| "How disgusting! To think I put my arms around a MAN! And a common soldier at that!" |
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| Later, Mavis Pugh played the part of Lady Lavender in Perry&Croft's comedy You Rang, M'Lord, the mother in law of the eponymous lord. Another class act, this time as a stubborn old lady who isn't quite as gaga as people think she is. |
Melvyn Hayes once said: “Playing Gloria all those years meant some people assumed I was gay. If anyone asked me if I was a homosexual I’d say ‘Ask one of my six children!’”
He had never performed in a similar role before. Melvyn recalls: "David Croft said early on, 'You're playing this very camp.' I said, 'My character is called Gloria and I'm wearing a dress. How else should I play it?'"
He did it with sheer and undiluted genius.
The premise of the series is that the troupe's nemesis, Battery Sergeant Major Williams, is constantly threatening them with posting to the front line because he is ashamed of being Sergeant Major to "a bunch of poofs", which drives the humour of the series from the very first episode. In the opening credits, the Sergeant Major is standing watching the men perform and one can clearly see him mouthing the offensive word. It will make a regular occurrence and is one of the reasons why the series isn't re-run anymore.
Maybe It Ain't Half Hot, Mum plays even more heavily on class distinctions and tensions as most British sitcoms do anyway.
The cast:
Front row (sitting) LTR:
Char Wallah Muhammad (Dino Shafeek)
Muhammad walks around the camp all day, selling cakes and tea from his urn. We also hear him sing the "musical interruptions" between the scenes, which are mostly contemporary popular hits, accompanied by a sitar. At the close of the end credits he starts to sing "Land of Hope and Glory" only to be interrupted by the Sergeant Major shouting "SHUT UP!!!"
Bearer Rangi Ram (Michael Bates).
Rangi Ram is the concert party's native bearer and effectively the lead character of the series. Rangi is a lovable but devious individual, who can often manipulate the situation for his own ends (usually money). He always speaks of himself as "us British" and of the other Indians as "damn natives". The Sergeant Major shouts at him more than at anyone else, but Rangi bears it with equanimity, the more as he is also the one the Sergeant Major confides in when he wants to talk about problems (which Rangi, although always sworn to secrecy under the threat of a faith worse than death, invariably and immediately shares with Muhammad and the Punkah Wallah). Rangi is the only character to "break the fourth wall" and often regales the audience with a tongue-in-cheek "old Hindu proverb" at the end of the episode, mocking British silliness. He disappears without mention after series 5 due to the death of Michael Bates.
Punkah Wallah Rumzan (Barbar Bhatti).
Rumzan the punkah wallah always sits outside the battery office, pulling a string that is attached to a large fan indoors. He comments on everything in Urdu, and always adds a few words in English at the end. Rangi often tells him to "sit up straight while you are punkah-ing" and not to "be such Clever Dickie". He is far more intelligent than the others give him credit, and much of what he observes early on is often borne out in the end, but no-one notices. He disappears after Series 7 without mention.
The Indian camp staff are always subtly and tongue-in-cheek-ish taking the mickey out of their British "superiors". From time to time they have to muck in with the show,
Second row (sitting and standing) LTR:
Gunner "Atlas" Mackintosh (Stuart McGugan)
"Atlas" Mackintosh does the strong man act in the show, which involves tearing telephone directories in half and bending iron bars. He is rather short-tempered, especially when Beaumont calls him a "great, big, butch, hairy haggis". He is the one with the strongest male pheromones and speaks with a broad Scottish accent.
Gunner "Lofty" Willy Sugden (Don Estelle)
Gunner Sugden is the tiny, rotund, timid lead singer of the concert party usually seen in an old-fashioned pith helmet. He has an angelic tenor voice which even the Sergeant Major cannot resist when he sings. Unfortunately, he is always picked out by the Sergeant Major as a "volunteer" when there is a particularly nasty or dangerous task to be carried out, which he touchingly bears with his own brand of quiet dignity. When all is said and done, he is the pluckiest of the whole bunch as well as a deep-down-decent guy. Like "Gloria", another character as tragic as funny and Don Estelle lends it amazing depth. Surprisingly, Lofty is on his third marriage.
Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Reynolds (Donald Hewlett)
Lieutenant-Colonel Reynolds is the most senior officer in charge of the concert party and enjoys their shows immensely. He thinks army life in Asia is very hard, and, whilst he isn't a coward, all he does is sit around sipping pink gin and dining with the elite. He is having an affair with the wife of a fellow officer. He is a stereotypical British Army Officer, very stiff upper lip, prim and proper. He treats Captain Ashwood with mild contempt because the latter hasn't been to public school and lives in a part of London (Richmond) Reynolds considers inferior. Ashwood's utter stupidity often infuriates him, but he is basically goodnatured and tries at all costs to avoid losing the easy life he has. Reynolds is a solicitor in civilian life.
Captain Jonathan Tarquin Ashwood (Michael Knowles)
Captain Ashwood is an even bigger fan of the concert party, especially when they dress up as girls. He is very, very stupid, and often unknowingly ruins other people's plans, especially the Sergeant Major's. He has absolutely no military bearing, mindset or knowledge, which makes it easy for the Sergeant Major and the others to manipulate him into using his authority to achieve their own ends. Like Colonel Reynolds, he isn't a coward either, although probably too stupid to be one. Ashwood is exceptionally devoted to his wife, Fiona, seriously disgusted by what he perceives as sexual libertinage and a keen gardener.
Bombardier "Gloria" Beaumont (Melvyn Hayes)
Back row (standing) LTR:
Gunner "Nobby" Clark (Kenneth MacDonald)
Gunner Clark does a whistling act and bird impersonations in the show and plays the banjo. He is goodlooking, soft-spoken, goodnatured, likeable and a bit stupid.
Gunner "Nosher" Evans (Mike Kinsey)
"Nosher" does a rather awful paper tearing act. He is always eating something, resulting in spraying the contents of his mouth all around him when he speaks (usually about "grub") which annoys his comrades and which the Indian camp staff have to sweep away.
Gunner "Paderewski" Jonathan Graham (John Clegg)
Gunner Graham is the concert party's pianist. His appearance - bald and bespectacled - marks him out as a stereotypical boffin. He is an Oxbridge man, has a degree in English literature and comes from a "good family". He speaks with a very upper-class accent, which sometimes irritates the officers because they think it's not befitting for an enlisted man or that he may be mocking them. This is, too, why the Sergeant Major always sneeringly repeats what he says (which makes him wince) as well as addressing him as Mister La-De-Dah Gunner Graham. The others (even the Sergeant Major and the officers) often rely on his intelligence to get them out of awkward situations, which he often does.
Battery Sergeant Major Tudor Bryn Williams (Windsor Davies)
The Sergeant Major is the only real, professional soldier among the concert party and its officers. He is bigoted in his views, making every effort to bully the Indian camp staff and reminds everyone of British supremacy in Asia. He has only one goal in life: to get his soldiers posted up the jungle and into action. He is disgusted seeing his soldiers prance about on the stage wearing dresses and make-up and frequently calls them a "bunch of poofs". Consequently, he dislikes all members of the concert party, apart from Parkins, whom he believes to be his son because he had had a fling with the latter's mother. He treats him much better than he treats the others, and keeps telling him - to Parkins' intense embarrassment - that he has "a fine pair of shoulders". The Sergeant Major is a true professional, not at all dumb and genuinely brave.
Gunner "Parky" Nigel Parkins (Christopher Mitchell)
"Parky" is the youngest member of the concert party and has tried everything to become part of them, including being a ventriloquist, comedian, and singer, although he is very clumsy and stupid and never does anything right. Parkins is not Williams' son, but when the rest of the concert party discover what the Sergeant Major believes, Parkins is welcomed, as the Sergeant Major would then want to stop them being sent to the frontlines. However, Parkins is also genuinely liked by his comrades because of his good nature and helpfulness. He is the only one to volunteer for dangerous assignments, which the Sergeant Major always manages to nip in the bud by ridiculous excuses and to Parkins' disgust.
Premium award for the funniest line in the series:
In the episode "Forbidden Fruits" "the stuff they put into the men's [and the officer's] tea" has run out. Sexual frustration is rampant. Captain Ashwood, ever the devoted husband, tries to write to his wife and to cool himself down, empties a glass of water in his face.Enter Mrs. Waddilove-Evans having kicked the Punkah Wallah for "slouching".
Mrs. Waddilove-Evans is the wife of Major Waddilove-Evans and Colonel Reynold's ghastly, libidinous (or, to put it more bluntly, oversexed) adulterous love interest and, I presume, a cartoon version of the British army wife in India.
Ashwood introduces himself.
Mrs. Waddilove-Evans: "Yes, I've seen you with the Colonel."
Captain Ashwood: "How do you do."
Mrs. Waddilove-Evans: "You're awfully wet."
Captain Ashwood: "People always telling me that. It's just the way I am."
(I may write about YRM later.)
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| Straw hat and dinner jacket - the foppish Teddy's ultimate gesture of defiance in the face of his class. |
Other highlights:
When the Sergeant Major learns in "The Grand Illusion" about Gunner Beaumont's promotion to bombardier, he flips his lid. Apart from his choice of words, his over-forceful efforts to introduce an element of masculinity into his soldiers is not in line with modern military ethics either, another politically incorrect black mark on the show's record.
In fact, the boys ("Gloria", ever the little girl, begging them for comfort and protection in dangerous situations) are always quite brave in the series and know how to handle their guns if the necessity occurs. They just want to live through the war in relative comfort and safety, precisely that what most young men would do in their place.
The only, and self-admitted, real coward among them is Bombardier Beaumont. "I'm only a li'l boy! I don't wanna die!" (This is even more funny, because Melvyn Hayes was with over 40 considerably older than most of the other cast.) He is extremely squeamish, always bellyaches as verbosely as shrilly about the roughness, heat, "creepy-crawlies" and mosquitoes of army life in India, is prone to Oscar-worthy tantrums, bouts of shrieking hysterics and he faints frequently, sometimes as a means to his ends. His usual explanation is, that he considers himself "a sensitive artiste".
"Never has I seen such a display of blatant poofery", clip from the episode "Forbidden Fruits" where "the stuff they put into the men's tea" runs out. Sexual frustration is rampant, so are aggressions.
"Gloria's Finest Hour" may not be the very best of the series, but it's certainly the most interesting one when it comes to Melvyn Hayes' performance. By a bump on the head "Gloria" is turned temporarily from an effeminate wimp into a bloodthirsty killer machine and - and this is the really baffling bit - Melvyn Hayes pulls it off with the same credibility he lends "Gloria".
Just watch it from 14:55 and remember that "Gloria" got a bump on his head, that's all one needs to know
The camp has run out of food because a Japanese mortar emplacement is blocking supply deliveries. After Bombardier Beaumont, as he insists to be referred to now, has enforced his authority over the troupe by shooting at them with an automatic weapon, he convinces the reluctant Sergeant Major to cover his back during a single-handed raid on the Japanese post where he intends "to strangle the Japs with his bare hands".
And here it gets almost spooky. Body language, facial expression, voice, elocution style have all changed. It's as if we are watching a different person altogether (which, in a way, we are) and it isn't at all funny, just awesome.
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| "You nasty little pervert" he calls an unlucky Lofty after the latter has, to soften him up, suggested that, as Beaumont has confirmed that he will never wear women's clothes again, they could reverse roles in their Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler act. |
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| The Sergeant Major is at first bemused when asked to cover Bombardier Beaumont's back during a single-handed raid on the Japanese post, where he (the Bombardier) intends "to strangle the Japs with his bare hands", but he finally complies. |
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| On the way they encounter a cobra. Williams is, understandably, shit-scared. The Bombardier... |
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| ...is going "to strangle it with his bare hands", which... |
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| ...indeed he does and then bites it behind its head to kill it. |
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| They raid the Japanese post and then... (watch the video). |
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| When they learn that they've been recommended for the Victoria Cross... |
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| ...which they are not getting. However, they are mentioned in dispatches and get the Oak Leaf Spray. "Bombardier Beaumont, you proved to us that you are a man. With unwavering resolve and iron courage." |
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| "Ow! You pricked me! That hurt!" |
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| How dare you... I can't stand the sight of blood!" he berates a somewhat bemused Brigadier. |
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| "Gloria" is back. All's well that ends well. |
In the episode "Class of 1945", the men encourage the Battery Sergeant Major to apply for an officer's commission to get rid of him. He does so, but fears all the social burdens that come with it, as he had been invited to a dinner with Reynolds, Ashwood and a Brigadier. The officers, snobbish to the core, clearly expect, even hope, that Williams will fail the "test" and embarrass himself, while Gunner Graham gives him etiquette lessons.
In the end, we see a wonderfully humane Brigadier and two officers who come out as the asses they are.
It's one of the few moments, the Sergeant Major comes across as vulnerable and touching.
The episode "The Superstar" is remarkable for quite a few more touching moments. We see a Beaumont, who gives up his one only real chance of stardom for the sake of poor little Lofty and a Rangi who has for once shed all deviousness. It was the second last episode in which Michael Bates starred. He died not much more than a month after the episode was aired. I may imagine it, but I think it's worth having a look at his eyes when he persuades Beaumont to give up his career prospect to save Lofty's happiness and maybe his life.
"Lead Kindly Light" regales us with the funniest stage performance of the entire series.
For once, the Sergeant Major has a reason NOT to have the concert party disbanded and for that he has to divert the attention of a nauseatingly sanctimonious army chaplain from one of the juicier numbers.
He has to hold up the padre until the troupe has changed for a more chaste performance.
What does he do?
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| "Hallelujah! I've seen the Light!" |
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| ♪ ♫ ♪ "MY EYES HAVE SEEN THE GLORY OF THE COMING OF THE LORD" ♪ ♫ ♪ |
In the meantime, the boys are ready.
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| Lofty's rendition of Schubert's "Ave Maria" is heartwarming... |
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| ...less so his "chorus". |
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| Nobby. |
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| Gloria. |
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| Nosher. |
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| Even Mohammed has to muck in. He doesn't seem to have any religious scruples. |
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| The padre is most delighted by the wholesome, innocent fun. Than he is ushered away... |
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| ...and the scene changes, from Schubert's "Ave Maria"... |
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| ... to "Infernal Galop" from Offenbach's "Orpheus in the Underworld, popularly known as "Can-Can"... |
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| ...Toulouse-Lautrec included. |
The final episode "The Last Roll Call" is in a league of its own. We see the men sad, depressed and bedraggled in the awful English weather, we see a Battery Sergeant Major who bullies them more mercilessly than ever, we see two officers whose utter indifference towards their men rubs out all memories we had of the two likeable nitwits in India and Burma and we are glad to see them go.
All the boys will make their way, after all, they are working class and will find jobs. Post-war Britain needs workers. They have families, little Lofty is married. Gunner Graham is on his way to his tutor in Cambridge, he needs mental stimulation after his long intellectual celibacy.
They look incongruous, pathetic and touching in ther civilian clothes.
The Sergeant Major had hoped firstly for a union with a widow in Wales, alas, she had gotten married in the meantime, secondly for a position as prison warden, but he is too old. He has nowhere to go, but then, an unexpected door to a (hopefully) better future opens.
What will become of "Gloria" remains unclear.
To honour the actors who are not with us anymore:
Michael Hammond Bates died on January 11, 1978 at the age of 57. His Rangi Ram simply disappeared from the show after series 5. Why the producers of IAHHM didn't find an opportunity to honour the man who was, in effect, the star of their show with a mention is beyond me.
Michael Bates was Indian-born and raised, learned Urdu before he learned English, and had been commissioned in the Indian Army in March 1942. He served in the Burma Campaign as major with the Brigade of Gurkhas and was mentioned in dispatches in 1944.
Sound perfect, doesn't it?
It wasn't.
Michael Bates was white. His performance is now considered "blackface" and thus beyond the politically correct pale. Melvyn Hayes said in an interview (audio below) that the ethnically Indian actors who had been considered for the part all said that they couldn't have done it as well.
The last episode in which he took part was aired November 29, 1977. Bates died about a month later, on January 11, 1978 from cancer. In his last series, series 5, we see him walking with a stick.
RIP Soldier!
Donald Hewlett died on June 4th, 2011 at the age of 90. He played a very similar character like Captain Reynolds in the (again excellent) 1990 - 1993 Perry&Croft sitcom You Rang, M'Lord?...
...and again together with Michael Knowles as hilariously funny sidekick, his utterly useless brother.
The Welsh actor Windsor Davies died on January 17, 2019 at the age of 88, much bemoaned by a still huge fan base, because he had been, as Melvyn Hayes says in this BBC News interview, quite different from his on-screen character, a "lovely lovely man", generous to a fault, humble and quietly spoken.
RIP Windsor.
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| Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59712606 |
Estelle had a powerful tenor voice, and a Number 1 hit in the UK Singles Chart in 1975 with a semi-comic version of "Whispering Grass", followed by a cover of "Paper Doll" which reached number 41, and a top ten LP, Sing Lofty (1976). All three were recorded together with It Ain't Half Hot, Mum co-star Windsor Davies.
In his autobiography, Sing Lofty: Thoughts Of A Gemini, Estelle was very bitter about modern-day entertainment, attacking those who refused to rerun It Ain't Half Hot, Mum as "tight-crutched, white-trousered morons". According to his obituary in The Independent, "in recent years Estelle cut a slightly sorry figure, dressed in his "Lofty" outfit, setting out a stall of his tapes and singing to passers-by in shopping centres."
He died in Rochdale Infirmary and was buried in Rochdale with the oversized pith helmet he wore as Gunner "Lofty" Sugden.
"Gunner Parkins" Christopher Mitchell died on February 22, 2001 at the age of 53.
As an actor, he wasn't able to live up to his success as "Gunner Parkins" and mainly appeared in small and bit parts in sitcoms.
He died from liver cancer (bluntly put - he drank himself to death) one month before his father, the respected character actor Norman Mitchell (1918 - March 19, 2001).
Let us remember him as we saw him in the series, his handsome boyish face and his stately figure with the indeed "fine pair of shoulders". He did have star potential. Life can be a bitch.
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| (Incidentially, Norman Mitchell appears in the episode "The Pay Off" as a political officer. with an unexpected assignment for the troupe.) |
Likeable hunk "Gunner Nobby Clark", Kenneth MacDonald, died on August 6th, 2001 at the age of 50.
MacDonald was the youngest of the cast, being more than three years younger than co-actor Christopher Mitchell.
Born in Manchester in 1950, the son of a Scottish heavyweight wrestling champion, who died when Kenneth was 13, Kenneth MacDonald became one of British television's most appealing character actors in a career that spanned a quarter of a century. His greatest claim to fame was in the role of the publican, "Mike Fisher," in the hugely successful sitcom series Only Fools and Horses which ran for 15 years, 1981-1996.
Kenneth MacDonald died of a heart attack while on holiday in Hawaii with his family. Ironically and sadly, on the day his death was announced, it was reported that an additional series of Only Fools and Horses would be filmed.
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| Dino Shafeek in Young Winston |
He became a household name as Char Wallah Muhammad, singing Land of Hope and Glory at the end of every episode only to be shouted down by Sergeant Major Williams' "Shut Up" and the "musical interruptions" between the scenes for which he got extra credit, mostly contemporary popular hits accompanied by a sitar
But this was not the only politically incorrect comedy he was involved in, as he also played Pakistani student Ali Nadim in ITV's Mind Your Language. The series was cancelled in 1979, despite attracting some 18 million viewers, as ITV executive Michael Grade considered the stereotyping offensive. [Sic!]
Later roles were harder to come by, save for a minicab driver in Minder and an immigration officer in 1978's Carry On Emmanuelle.
Shafeek died from a heart attack at his home in London in 1984 just days before his 54th birthday.
Melvyn Hayes
Melvyn Hayes had an impressive career in showbusiness. In this pleasant interview from 2017 he tells about his successes and glitches, his encounters with famous actors and about sometimes bizarre circumstances during filming, about It Ain't Half Hot Mum and about his special relationship with Jimmy Perry. Was he typecast after "Gloria"? Of course he was, he says, but he had been anyway because of his size of 5'10" and a half (about 1,61m), something that was only to be expected and about which he was - and is - very laid back.As the interviewer put it in a comment at YouTube: "Melvyn now lives with his family on the Isle of Wight and is thankfully as sharp as ever!" When the interview was perfornéd he was 82.
From Melvyn Hayes' website:
Melvyn started in show business at the Comedy Theatre London in 1950 disappearing twice daily for £4.00 per week in Maskelyne’s Mysteries, performing The Indian Rope Trick.
After spending the next ten years working constantly in films, theatre and television drama, his first big break came in 1960, when he signed a seven-year film contract with Associated British Picture Corporation and starred in No Trees in The Street, Crooks in Cloisters and the Cliff Richard movies, The Young Ones, Summer Holiday and Wonderful Life.
Early work for the B.B.C. included the title role in the award winning drama documentary The Unloved, The Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist and Edik in The Silver Sword.
In the mid 60’s he played over a thousand performances of Bill Naughton’s Spring and Port Wine in London’s West End.
Another lucky break came in the 70’s – Bombardier ‘Gloria’ Beaumont in television’s It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.
Melvyn has more than fifty films, (including The Curse of Frankenstein, Operation Amsterdam, Santa Claus- the Movie, The Flesh and the Fiends and Carry on England), a dozen West End stage productions, (and many U.K. and Overseas theatre tours (amongst his favourites were, Play it Again Sam, Run for Your Wife, The Bespoke Overcoat and The Dresser), summer seasons, pantomimes and over five hundred television (from Quatermass, Billy Bunter and The Double Decker’s through to The Thin Blue Line, the last series of Drop The Dead Donkey, a stint in Eastenders, where he fell for the charms of Dot Cotton! that wonderful actress June Brown and Countdown!) and radio shows to his credit.
He is equally at home in cabaret or as an after dinner speaker and a familiar voice in television and radio commercials. He has provided the voice for several cartoon series, (including Superted, The Dreamstone, Alfred J Quack, Little Dracula and the Duchess of York’s Budgie) both in this country and for Walt Disney and Hanna Barberra in Hollywood.
He’s very proud to have been chosen for many Royal Variety Shows, and on 7th January 1981, whilst playing ‘‘Mate’ to Windsor Davies’s ‘Captain’ in Dick Whittington at the London Palladium, Melvyn was the subject of Thames Television’s This Is Your Life.
Recent work includes, two, six month UK theatre tours, CASH ON DELIVERY and RUN FOR YOUR WIFE, kids Television, THE LEGEND OF DICK AND DOM and THE SLAMMER, some guest appearances on THE PAUL O’GRADY SHOW, an episode of of the next series of BENIDORM, some one nighters – standup – (only he did them during the daytime) and several voice overs (amongst them were: a penguin, a spider, and a pair of shoes…).
He is very proud to be a Past King of The Grand Order of Water Rats.
Equally impressive is his and his wife's career as foster parents. In this 2014 interview in the Telegraph he shares his memories:
"We started going to classes to learn what was involved. There were about 20 couples and people were saying things such as, ‘What sort of children are they? We live in a nice area.’ When we had to discuss what constituted abuse some just left because they couldn’t deal with it. After a couple of months Jayne and I were the only ones left.”It is hardly ever mentioned that Melvyn Hayes is Jewish.
That was 15 years ago.
Since then Melvyn and Jayne have fostered more than 50 children. Among the first were brothers Josh and Jordan who arrived aged three and two and never left.
Eight years ago four-year-old Toni, who had “all sorts of problems” including foetal alcohol syndrome, came for a week. She’s still with them too.
Melvyn and Jayne are the legal guardians of all three. When Josh, who has cerebral palsy, had an operation to straighten his back his first word on coming round was “dad”.
There’s a catch in Melvyn’s voice as he relates this. As an ambassador for Barnardo’s he is supporting its campaign to recruit 8,600 desperately needed new foster carers.
