Eric Sykes

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Eric Sykes in the "Sykes" TV series (DVD)
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Eric Sykes in the "Sykes" TV series (DVD)
"The Plank" (DVD cover)
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"The Plank" (DVD cover)

Eric Sykes, CBE (born May 4, 1923 in Oldham, Lancashire) is an English comedic writer and actor. He is widely regarded as an unsung hero behind much British comedy over the past fifty years.

He is perhaps best known for his BBC television sitcom with Hattie Jacques and Deryck Guyler, called Sykes. However, he was well-known on radio during the 1950s, both behind the scenes and in front of the microphone.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Sykes's career in entertainment began during his time in a Royal Air Force Special Liaison Unit during World War II, during which time he worked with Flight Lieutenant Bill Fraser.

He also helped Spike Milligan with The Goon Show after Milligan's depression. He had first collaborated with Milligan on a radio special called Archie in Goonland, which was a crossover between The Goon Show and the "radio ventriloquism" show Educating Archie starring Peter Brough and his dummy Archie Andrews, which Sykes had been writing. Archie in Goonland was not a success, and all existing recordings and scripts have been destroyed, but Milligan and Sykes collaborated on numerous Goon Show scripts and shared an office for years afterward.

One of Sykes' best known creations is his classic wordless slapstick routine, The Plank, which began as a sketch in his TV series. It was later expanded into an enduringly popular 45-minute film in 1967, co-starring Sykes, Tommy Cooper, Jimmy Edwards, Roy Castle, Graham Stark, Stratford Johns, Jim Dale, Jimmy Tarbuck and Hattie Jacques. A third version was made in 1979 as a half-hour special, with an all-star cast including Arthur Lowe (taking Cooper's role), Charlie Drake, Charles Hawtrey and Wilfrid Hyde-White. Edwards and Sykes also toured in their theatrical farce Big Bad Mouse, which while keeping more or less to a script, gave them free rein to ad lib and address the audience.

On 25 December 1979 Sykes was the subject of Thames Television's This Is Your Life. Guests included Sean Connery, Spike Milligan, Douglas Bader, and Hattie Jacques.

Sykes toured Australia with the play Run for Your Wife during (1987-1988). The cast also included Jack Smethurst, David McCallum and Katy Manning.

Sykes became partially deaf due to illness as an adult. His distinctive spectacles contain no lenses, but they are rather a bone-conducting hearing aid. Disciform macular degeneration, a condition brought about by age (and possibly smoking) has left Sykes partially-sighted, and he is registered as blind.

In the British New Year's Honours List published 31 December 2004, Sykes was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to Drama, following a petition by MPs after he was excluded from the Birthday Honours List.

In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted amongst the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.

More recently, Sykes appeared as Mollocks, the servant of Dr Prunesquallor, in the BBC's mini-series adaptation of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast. He continues to act on stage and on television, despite his advancing years.

He married Edith Eleanore on 14 February 1952. [1] The couple have three daughters and one son.

[edit] Awards

[edit] Selected filmography

[edit] Created and starring Eric Sykes

[edit] Other selected filmography

[edit] External links

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