Richard Webber - Last of the Summer Wine

ROY CLARKE

’Working with John Comer [Sid] was a joy. He was a stand-up comedian and wonderful at delivering the lines. He was very popular.

JANE FREEMAN (Ivy)

Foggy and Clegg are sat in the café. Ivy, in hat and coat, is at another table, gripping her handbag and looking stern. They’re waiting for Compo to arrive, also Gordon with his minibus.

IVY: Are you sure you locked the back door?

SID: Thirty-three times you sent me to lock that back door. I’ve been up since six o’clock just locking the back blasted door.

IVY: Yes. Leave me to do all the packing.

SID: Packing? It’s more like unpacking. ‘You can’t take them ,’ she keeps saying. ‘I’ve no room for them. I haven’t an inch of space’. Then she opens her mouth.

IVY: I heard that.

SID: And I’ve been hearing that ( indicating her mouth ) for nearly 30 years. Have a rest woman, you’re on holiday.

MEMORIES…

‘Jimmy Gilbert offered me Ivy after seeing me play a dreadful landlady in The Fishing Party. I’ll never forget recording the pilot because immediately afterwards I went on my delayed honeymoon to Greece. We had to catch a 10pm flight and with little time to prepare I went off resembling Ivy, with my normally curly hair greased down flat!

‘I used to get aggressive people come up to me in the street, complaining about how I mistreated Sid; and people, usually men, would approach my poor husband, saying, “She must be hell to live with!” My late husband, director Michael Simpson, knowing the soppy me, got upset because he didn’t care to be regarded as a henpecked husband.

‘It’s been an honour saying some of Roy Clarke’s lines. In the early days, though, I thought the show was chauvinistic and questioned whether to carry on. But then Enid [Roy Clarke’s wife] said to me: “You’ve got to remember, Ivy is me, and she’s a powerful woman—she’s a compliment.” I didn’t mind so much after that.’

JANE FREEMAN (Ivy)

Ivy and Sid are holidaying in Scarborough. They’re sat in deckchairs on the beach. Sid is dozing in his chair making light snoring noises. Ivy is deeply involved in a women’s romantic magazine. Sid snores and reality kicks in. She belts him with the magazine as she compares her husband to the hunk in her magazine.

SID: ( Startled ) What’s up?

IVY: Talk to me.

SID: What.

IVY: You never talk to me not even when we, well you know…( in a low voice ) not even when we make love.

SID: There’s not much to talk about, the rate we go at it. You still do it as if your mother’s watching.

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