Biographies

Described variously as the 'last great music-hall entertainer', 'the clown prince of comedy' and 'the squire of Knotty Ash', Ken Dodd tickled the British public for over 60 years. His live shows were legendary...and long! - "This isn't television, missus," he'd say, "you can't turn me off."

Charlie Drake delighted audiences with his slapstick comic antics in stage variety shows and on television for more than 50 years, often playing a downtrodden "everyman," who failed at everything he tried. Not so in real life.

Throughout his life Paul Eddington battled with a crippling disease. But as one of the leading stars in two of the nation's favourite comedies, it didn't stop him from cementing his place in the hearts and minds of the British public.

John Esmonde and Bob Larbey have unquestionably been responsible for some of British comedy's best loved programmes. From the comfort of suburbia in The Good Life to the darker world of Mulberry, the writers have given us some of the most memorable characters on television.

Terence Feely was, without doubt, one of the most prolific scriptwriters of that dubiously tagged "Golden Age" of British television.

Voted BBC TV Personality of the Year in 1991, awarded an OBE in 1998, CBE in 2006 and a BAFTA fellowship in 2008, Bruce Forsyth was associated with some of the most successful shows in television history. The secret of his success lay in a winning combination of innate talent and a natural rapport with audiences.

The founding fathers of British situation comedy. "Without them all our lives would have been filled with a lot less laughter."

The annals of British television history boast a handful of giants whose impact upon the medium has conferred upon them the status of legends. However, towering above them all is a single larger than life figure.

An often underappreciated yet vital component to the success and memory of any TV series or film is its music. In the field of classic British telefantasy there has arguably been no finer exponent than Barry Gray.

For a star so loved by the public, the speed of Larry Grayson’s rise to prime-time stardom was almost immediately matched by his disappearance from the television screens. We pay an affectionate tribute to a "funny, lovely, gentle man."