Mike Yarwood OBE (14th June 1941 – 8th September 2023)
I was saddened to hear of the recent death of one of my all-time favourite heroes – Mike Yarwood.
The decade of the 1970’s was a funny old thing. A lot of people (apparently) look back at that decade and decided that they really hated it. For me however, that decade was the best. Quite probably the reason why most of the heroes and people that influenced me more than any other came from the 1970’s. That was the decade in which I grew up.
So Mike Yarwood did impressions
It would be impertinent of me to say that that was all he did – there was a whole lot more to it – and he was the very first person to do Political impressions of current people (and he did them very well) – and on television!
Mike was one of those people that I loved – on British TV during most of the 1970’s (and early 80’s) with his own shows garnering peak audiences exceeding that of Morecambe and Wise at their zenith.
Mike was a pioneer, a true entertainer in the real sense – nothing even close to that had ever been done on TV before – including the use of chroma-key (an early technique of pre-recording and later playback) to create the illusion of different characters (all played by himself) interacting. It’s been said that he has had an influence on the way a lot of modern-day impressionists work.
Like The Morecambe and Wise Show, The Dick Emery Show, Frankie Howerd’s Up Pompeii or Ray Alan (and Lord Charles, of course), I absolutely loved all of shows Mike Yarwood did. Entertainment at its very best for a Saturday night!
Michael Edward Yarwood
Yarwood was one of Britain’s top-rated entertainers, regularly appearing on television from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s. He left Bredbury Secondary Modern School in 1956 and worked as a messenger and then salesman at a garment warehouse. In his youth he was also a talented footballer, and almost pursued a professional career (a good job he didn’t!).
He was undoubtedly one of the biggest stars of British television in the 1960s and 1970s, with his own prominent shows, which changed between BBC and ITV (ATV and Thames Television) based on high profile financial deals. Though he had made a short appearance with Tony Hancock in Hancock’s Half Hour in 1961, Mike owed his initial success to the Sunday Night at the London Palladium variety ‘spectacular’, on which he first appeared in 1964. His appearance coincided with the senior political career of his most famous ‘character’, Labour Party leader and the then Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
Topping the TV ratings
At its height, Yarwood’s BBC TV shows, which were based on a variety mix of comic sketches, guest musicians and a closing song sung by Yarwood (introduced by the line, “and this is me”, which became the title of his first autobiography), regularly attracted 18 million viewers.
Among the prominent British personalities he portrayed were Eddie Waring, the famous charismatic rugby league commentator; Brian Clough, the controversial football manager; Robin Day, the then top political interviewer on the BBC; Magnus Pyke, the eccentric TV science presenter; Alf Garnett, the lead character from Till Death Us Do Part originally portrayed by Warren Mitchell; the fictional American detective Columbo; Frank Spencer, the comic creation of sitcom actor Michael Crawford; and Wilson’s Conservative Party rival Ted Heath.
Using the then-new technology of chroma key, Yarwood frequently staged set-pieces in which he appeared as several characters at the same time using pre-recorded segments. An example of this might be a panel game or discussion featuring his versions of Robin Day, Harold Wilson and Brian Clough.
It was Yarwood’s performance as Harold Wilson that ultimately became his instantly recognisable trademark. He briefly caused some controversy by including Prince Charles as one of his regular impressions.
Setting Records
It is a long-held popular myth that the 1977 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show, which attracted 28 million viewers (around half of the total UK population at the time) was a record for a single light entertainment broadcast in Britain. The Mike Yarwood Christmas Show, which immediately preceded Morecambe and Wise on Christmas Day 1977, actually received a slightly larger audience. This means that Yarwood, not Morecambe and Wise, holds the unbroken record for a single light entertainment broadcast in the UK.
Yarwood was the subject of a This Is Your Life special, presented by Eamonn Andrews on 31 May 1978.
Characters’ Catchphrases
Yarwood’s characterisations also created catchphrases which came to be identified with famous figures, even if they never actually used them. However, the two most famous were actually spoken by the persons he caricatured. “Silly Billy”, spoken by his caricature of British Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey, was actually used by Healey to describe strikers. It was rumoured that “I mean that most sincerely, folks”, spoken by his caricature of Opportunity Knocks presenter Hughie Green, was made up by Yarwood but, in reality, it was first spoken by Green himself.
Television Career
Yarwood’s career peaked during the 1970s when he was one of a stable of stars under the BBC Light Entertainment impresario Bill Cotton, alongside Bruce Forsyth, Dick Emery, Morecambe and Wise, Val Doonican and the Two Ronnies, all these performers having started their careers on ITV during the preceding decade. By the late 1970s some of them left the BBC and returned to independent television. Both Yarwood and Morecambe and Wise signed up with Thames TV, with mixed results.
The 1980’s was as strange a time as the 1970’s, comedy was changing and the old Politicians were either retiring (or dying). Not helped by Britain’s first female Prime Minister (Margaret Thatcher), Mike’s impressions were still top-notch, however most people were forgetting the characters he was impersonating. Although Mike enlisted the help of Janet Brown (who impersonated Margaret Thatcher better than Margaret herself!) and Suzanne Danielle (who controversially was the first person to impersonate the then Princess Diana on television), his show ratings dropped until his show was cancelled by Thames TV at the end of 1987. The emergence of alternative comedy in the 1980’s – which took a far more mordant and satirical attitude towards politicians (Yarwood saw himself as an all round family entertainer rather than a satirist) – his career never recovered and the loss of some of his most loved characters and its fragility was directly linked to the politicians he impersonated.
Public Retirement
Mike was also suffering from some personal problems during that time and he eventually (and sadly) retired from public life in the late 1980’s. He briefly made some appearances in the mid 1990’s (on Have I Got News For You and impersonating the then Prime Minister John Major), however his career did not restart.
Three programmes (four if you count his 1978 This Is Your Life appearance) have been made to date that celebrate Mike’s talent and his popularity.
In 2002, UK TV channel Channel 4 included Mike as one of their Heroes Of Comedy series. In it, various clips are show from Mike’s 70’s and 80’s shows, including the famous one where he impersonates both Harry H. Corbett and Wilfred Bramble as Steptoe & Son in a real time live conversation. Not a slip. Originally Broadcast on 16th February 2002, this was the first episode of series six. In it, Mike is quite candid about his issues in the mid 1980’s however is still funny as he impersonates Frankie Howard!
The second programme to feature Mike was on what was to be Bob Monkhouse’s final TV appearance in 2003. Although not broadcast on television until 2016, this marks the last time that Mike Yarwood appeared in person on television.
The third programme to feature Mike was a one-off programme for BBC One called Bruce’s Hall of Fame. Broadcast on 27th December 2014, veteran entertainer Sir Bruce Forsyth hosted a 1hr 10min programme with six artists celebrating and paying tribute to the stars who inspired them from the famous London Palladium stage. Contemporary impressionist and stargazer Jon Culshaw chose Mike Yarwood as his person that inspired him.
A living legend
Mike (or Mr. Yarwood, as I should address him) was one of those big stars of the 70’s and 80’s that I always wanted to meet. I wanted to meet him to tell him how entertaining he was, how much joy he brought to our family, as we watched his shows on a Saturday night. And especially, how much we all appreciated his hard work and loved him for it.
In my humble opinion, Mike Yarwood is still sorely underrated for the pioneering work that he did. Although Mike was awarded an OBE in 1976 by one of his most famous “impressionees” – Harold Wilson – I always thought that he deserved a lot more credit.
But there you are, definitely one of my heroes – Mr. Mike Yarwood OBE
And that was him.