Charlie Drake
Acting
Biography
Charlie Drake, was an English comedian, actor, writer and singer best known for his catchphrase "Hello. My darlings!". With his small stature (5 ft 1 in or 155 cm tall), curly red hair and liking for slapstick, he was a popular comedian with children in his early years, performing with Jack Edwardes in the double act Mick and Montmorency on children's TV. He subsequently made the break into primetime TV and critical and commercial acclaim with his solo show Drake's Progress (1955-1957). He was best known for his series The Worker (1965–70) in which he played a perpetually unemployed labourer who, in every episode, was dispatched to a new job by the ever-frustrated clerk at the local labour exchange. In the sixties, Drake made the transition to cinema, making several comedy films. By the 1980s, Drake reinvented himself as a straight actor, including a memorable performance as Smallweed in the 1985 BBC adaptation of Bleak House and playing Nagg in Samuel Beckett's Endgame in 1989. He suffered a series of strokes in 1995 and retired, passing away in 2006 at the age of 81.
Known For
Anthology drama series.
Screen One
This documentary series uses drama and commentary to shed light on the lives and works of Joseph Conrad, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, T. S. Eliot, Henrik Ibsen, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Luigi Pirandello, Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf.
The Modern World: Ten Great Writers
Bleak House is BBC television drama first broadcast in 1985. The serial was adapted by Arthur Hopcraft from Charles Dickens' novel Bleak House and it was the second adaptation by the BBC.
Bleak House
The Bob Monkhouse Show was an entertainment show presented by Bob Monkhouse. The show celebrated the art of comedy and comedian guests were invited to perform a stand-up. The programme began in 1983 and ran for three series until 1986. A number of notable guests appeared on the show, such as Joan Rivers, Janet Brown, Jim Carrey and Peter Cook.
The Bob Monkhouse Show
A gala programme broadcast each Christmas night by the BBC from 1958 to 1972 and also revived in 1994. It was hosted by a leading star and featured specially made short, seasonal editions of the previous year's most popular sitcoms and light entertainment programmes.
Christmas Night with the Stars
In twenty years Charlie has had a thousand jobs. Each week sees Charlie attend the Labour Exchange to try and get a new one.
The Worker
An adventure story for children involving a professor's efforts to discover an antidote to some 'shrinking' pills, and the attempted theft of his formula by two crooks
Monster
Classic short British comedy, full of stars, about two workmen delivering planks to a building site. This is done with music and a sort of "wordless dialogue" which consists of a few mumbled sounds to convey the appropriate emotion. TV remake of the 1967 short.
The Plank
In this British comedy set in Saudi Arabia, a gentle British travel-agency clerk decides that it would be a smashing idea to open up a desert resort in Arabia. He heads to the desert and immediately finds himself on the bad side of a local sheik as the fellow tries to build his resort atop oil-rich land. A war erupts between rival desert bands as they vie for the rights to the oil, but it is the travel agent who wins out in the end
Sands of the Desert
In the presence of HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother accompanied by Their Royal Highnesses The Prince and Princess of Wales. From the stage of the Victoria Palace Theatre stars from the world of entertainment bring you comedy and music.
Royal Variety Performance 1984
Ernest Wright's peerless prowess as a locksmith comes to the attention of a tough big-time crook, who feels that the little man would be a valuable asset to his crime kingdom. In order to inveigle him into a series of jobs, he sets up a beautiful hostess as a trap, into which the hapless Ernest inevitably falls..!
The Cracksman
During a game of golf between a police inspector and a vicar the inspector cheats by having a constable move his ball into favourable positions and the vicar's into hazardous ones. when the vicar discovers this he prays for divine intervention which turns the tables.
Rhubarb Rhubarb
A team of inept undertakers attempt to get a coffin to a funeral on time. An undertaker is in charge of moving a coffin from a home to the church. The home is on the 26th floor of a skyscraper; the stairs are narrow; the lift is small and prone to stop working. Chaos ensues.
Mr. H Is Late
Professor Popper develops a shrinking formula which he and a group of school kids take by accident, ending up trapped in his laboratory. But that's not the only problem that faces the professor and his friends.
Professor Popper's Problems
No description available.
Charlie Drake And Jack Edwardes
Percy Pointer's passion in life is the theatre, and all his spare time is devoted to the play he is writing. When it's finished it arrives on the desk of a London impresario, when he wants to stage a flop.
Mister Ten Per Cent
A bawdy pantomime filmed during the sellout 1995 nationwide tour.
Sinderella Live
A performance of Samuel Beckett's 'Endgame', a play in which nothing happens, once - unlike Beckett's first play 'Waiting for Godot' in which nothing happens twice. It is not a play about chess, in any explicit sense, but it does feature a lovable if curmudgeonly old man in a dustbin. Generally accepted to be Beckett's bleakest play - indeed after it's 1957 English debut at the Royal Court, the TLS's Olivier Todd quipped that it made Waiting for Godot look like "a cheerful operetta". However, Beckett himself described it as "the favourite of my plays." Although the programme was not broadcast until 1991 it was recorded in 1989 prior to Beckett's death and had his blessing. This production is particularly notable as it is first full-length television performance of the play.
Endgame
Undistinguished British farce (in Technicolor and CinemaScope). Stoker Charlie (the diminutive Drake) helps 150 Wrens under Superintendent Maxine Audley, who've hijacked a frigate, HMS 'Huntress', to prove they're the equal of their male counterparts. Hardly a feminist masterpiece, but fans will relish the nightmare court-martial in which Drake plays all the parts
Petticoat Pirates
An adventure story for children involving a professor's efforts to discover an antidote to some 'shrinking' pills, and the attempted theft of his formula by two crooks