Chuffer Dandridge

Chuffer Dandridge was a fictional actor-manager, whose emails were frequently read out by Terry Wogan on his BBC Radio 2 breakfast show, Wake Up To Wogan.[1]

Dandridge was created by fans of the show, civil servants Roger Byrne and Charles Slane, who described him as a "semi-retired Actor-Manager in search of a big break".[2] Like several other contributors, they chose a humorous pseudonym after many listeners had used double entendres in names to catch Wogan out.[3] The pair emailed new material on a daily basis, which Wogan would then read out on his show, sometimes corpsing with laughter along with colleagues Paul Walters, Alan Dedicoat and John "Boggy" Marsh.[1]

Dandridge misreported news and travel stories, interspersing them with a humorous monologue of his acting career.[4] He frequently name dropped colleagues he claimed to meet in the theatre,[5] and a regular in-joke was him complaining about being owed a white fiver (pre-1957 £5 note) he lent a colleague when both were in repertory theatre.[1] Wogan subsequently published some of the email transcripts in his autobiographies; in one, Dandridge compared the Eurovision Song Contest, which Wogan had presented for many years, to "a cabaret in pre-war Berlin, where I was naked, painted in zebra stripes and sitting bareback on a horse".[6]

David Sillito, Arts Correspondent for the BBC, suggested Dandridge was created to appeal to Wogan's love of author PG Wodehouse.[7] Wogan thought Dandridge's monologues parodied Donald Sinden and his character, optimistically hoping to revive his showbusiness career, was based on Charles Dickens' Samuel Pickwick.[1] Byrne and Slane eventually met Wogan at a bookstore signing in Dublin, surprising the latter who expected the pair to be significantly older.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Wogan, Terry (2008). Wogan's Twelve: A Sharp Eye and a Witty Word to Mark the Passing Year. Hachette UK. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-409-10638-8.
  2. ↑ Hills, Matt; Luther, Amy. Listener online engagement with BBC Radio programming (PDF) (Report). BBC. pp. 23,27.
  3. ↑ "Wogan's faithful TOGs". Daily Express. 9 September 2009. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
  4. ↑ Archer, Bimpe (1 February 2016). "I was Terry Wogan's `other listener'". The Irish News. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
  5. ↑ "Sir Terry Wogan's 10 best running gags, from Janet and John to Eurovision". Radio Times. 31 January 2016. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
  6. ↑ Wogan, Terry (2008). Mustn't Grumble. Hachette. p. 83. ISBN 978-1-409-10589-3.
  7. ↑ Sillito, David (1 February 2015). "Sir Terry Wogan 'was master of the shared joke'". BBC News. Retrieved 1 February 2015.

External links

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