His Lordship Entertains facts for kids
Quick facts for kids His Lordship Entertains |
|
|---|---|
| Directed by | Harold Snoad |
| Starring | Ronnie Barker Josephine Tewson David Jason Mary Baxter Moira Foot Frank Gatliff |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of episodes | 7 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Harold Snoad |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC2 |
| Original release | 5 June – 17 July 1972 |
His Lordship Entertains was a British TV comedy show, also known as a sitcom. It starred the famous actor Ronnie Barker as a character named Lord Rustless. This show was a follow-up to an earlier series called Hark at Barker.
In the first show, Lord Rustless was on ITV. But for His Lordship Entertains, he moved to BBC2. The earlier show also had short, funny scenes called sketches. However, His Lordship Entertains was a regular sitcom, meaning it told one continuous story in each episode.
The show was set in a grand old house called Chrome Hall, which had been turned into a hotel. David Jason played Dithers, a very old character. Josephine Tewson played Mildred Bates. Both actors worked with Ronnie Barker many times after this show. In fact, all the main actors from Hark at Barker came back for this series.
Ronnie Barker wrote all the scripts for the show himself. He used a secret pen name, Jonathan Cobbald. He often called the show "Fawlty Towers mark one." This is because it was about a hotel and came out three years before the very popular hotel sitcom Fawlty Towers.
Recently, students at Nottingham University's New Theatre performed four episodes of the sitcom on stage.
What Happened to the Episodes?
For a long time, people thought all the episodes of His Lordship Entertains were gone forever. This is because the BBC used to erase old TV tapes to save money. This process is called "wiping."
However, in 2009, the very first episode of the show was found! It was called 'The Food Inspector'. Also, all the scripts for the show were printed in a book by Ronnie Barker called All I Ever Wrote.
Meet the Cast
Here are the main actors and the characters they played in the show:
- Ronnie Barker - Lord Rustless
- Josephine Tewson - Mildred Bates
- David Jason - Dithers
- Mary Baxter - Cook
- Moira Foot - Effie
- Frank Gatliff - Badger
- Mary Merrall - Mrs Ringer
- Bart Allison - Mr Blunt
- Gladys Henson - Mrs Ringer's Friend
- Diana King - Harriet
- Anthony Sharp - Sir Geoffrey Quick
- Michael Knowles - Mr Smith
- Walter Sparrow - Mr Flint
- Patrick Troughton - The Sheik
- Colin Bean - Guest
- Pamela Cundell - Mrs Featherstone
