Dick Emery

Dick Emery's Comedy Gold (Channel 5) is a long-overdue tribute to a forgotten funster. I expected his humour to be clunky and outdated now but find myself still laughing at it, and still waiting for the trip. So do plenty of contemporary comics. Catherine Tate, Harry Enfield and the Little Britain guys all owe him a debt, their own gargoyle galleries being nothing if not Emery-esque, and The Fast Show's Charlie Higson turns up in the profile to admit as much.

A few years ago on a visit with the kids to the National Museum of Flight at East Fortune I was amused to find one of Emery's biplanes among the exhibits. I wait for the programme to mention his flying exploits and it does. Emery owned many small aircraft and many cars, his son Nick speculating that he changed wheels every time the ashtrays got full.

And he had many wives. Five in all, I think, although it's easy to lose count. One would turn up at his dressing-room to find him "entertaining" a chorus-girl; another would receive his proposal of marriage while he was still wedded to someone else. This Mrs Emery says: "He loved being in love, loved the chase and was usually irresistible to those being chased." He was chased himself - by the RAF for desertion and later by the taxman.

A hectic life, then, and his exit was pretty busy too, with three of the wives jostling for position round the deathbed. His children saw little of him but daughter Eliza sums him up thus: "Always neat hair, really funny, terrible wind, gorgeous."

Archive: Dick Emery's driving instructor days, 1973

Tales of the road before the comedian became famous.

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The son of comedy legend Dick Emery has said he was targeted by a conman exposed by the BBC. Carl Mould, 52, has been contacting actors and offering voiceover training and opportunities in exchange for a fee.

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Dick Emery's daughter on how his womanising scarred her

"I couldn't call him Daddy because it didn't feel right," she says. "He wasn't around enough. I was desperate to get to know him. I remember when I was about eight, my brother, Michael, and I were staying with him in Southsea, in a hotel. After dinner one evening, a young lady arrived so he gave my brother and me some money, went off with this 17-year-old and left us for a couple of nights. We used to take ourselves off to the fair and went mad with room service."

Seventeen million: the audience figure The Dick Emery Show regularly pulled in - and the number of years his Saturday TV show seemed to plough on for (just under two decades, in reality). Which likely explains why catchphrases such as "Ooh, you are awful ... but I like you!" (the first part also being the title of his ridiculously entertaining 1972 film) seem so indelibly carved into the comedy bedrock. Here, David Walliams and Charlie Higson reflect on this gifted mimic's appeal.

Dick Emery: the neglected superstar of TV comedy

A new BBC documentary pays tribute to Dick Emery who was rated 'one of the comedy greats' by David Walliams. But is he still funny?

What a line-up for a sitcom; three of our most accomplished actors - Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi and Frances de la Tour - star, and the writers are the super-talented playwright Mark Ravenhill and Gary Janetti, who used to work on Will & Grace, one of the classiest comedies on American television in decades. And what do you get? Well, not quite the laugh fest that it might have been (or may yet become), but an opener that had a reasonable hit rate.

Vicious is another back-to-the-future comedy, a one-room sitcom with two of the queeniest gay men to grace our screens since the dear departed Larry Grayson and John Inman. If Dick Emery's Clarence had made an appearance he wouldn't have looked out of place and, with De la Tour's presence, it could be called Rising Camp (sadly not my line - I nicked it).

Freddie (McKellen) and Stuart (Jacobi) are a bickering, gossipy gay couple who live in crepuscular gloom in their Covent Garden flat. Freddie is a never-has-been actor ("You may have seen me in a scene in Doctor Who") who has long since lost his Wigan accent; Stuart is a one-time barman who is still not out to his mother. He's waiting for the right time - "It's been 48 years!" cries Freddie.

Into the flat upstairs moves the attractive youngster Ash (Iwan Rheon), who attracts appreciative looks both from the men and their faghag friend Violet (De la Tour); most of last night's episode concerned their convoluted attempts to find out if he was gay or straight. Don't people just ask if they're interested to know?

The cast are clearly having fun with the bitchy lines, but Jacobi is overdoing the flounce and Ash is as yet underwritten. Too much of Vicious relies on tired comedy tropes; older people are gagging to have sex with people young enough to be their grandchildren, they don't know anything about youth culture ("Is Zac Efron a person or a place?" Violet asks); or they're deaf, dotty and fall asleep easily. Oh please. As for the double rape "joke" everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves, including director Ed Bye.

On the evidence of last night's first episode Ravenhill and Janetti can't decide if Vicious is lazy retro fun for all the family, or an edgy post-watershed show that's taking us to places never previously negotiated on British TV. Let's hope it's the latter over its seven-week run.

Comedian Dick Emery gets the once over as this snappy biographical series profiles another great British entertainer. Emery, who died in 1983, is best remembered for his self-titled sketch show - the catchphrases, vaudeville humour and grotesque British caricatures which will seem strikingly familiar to fans of Little Britain. Interviews with Emery's ex-wife (one of five) and last girlfriend underline the comic's voracious womanising, while rare home footage offers something new for devotees.