Eric Sykes

Iconic film and TV star Barbara Windsor celebrates three female comic actresses, continuing with Carry On co-star Hattie Jacques (1922-80), who appeared in 14 features in the parody/slapstick film series, most famously as the no-nonsense Matron. Jacques did time as a nurse and a welder prior to her theatrical debut at London's Player's Theatre. Radio appearances included the 1950s comedies Educating Archie and Hancock's Half-Hour, and in the 60s and 70s she starred with Eric Sykes in two of his major TV projects. The programme explores the turbulent private life of a woman considered warm, kind and endearing by her peers, and does not ignore the fact that Jacques was never happy that the subject of her weight problem was considered acceptable comic material. Contributors include her son Robin Le Mesurier, friend Joan Le Mesurier (her husband's third wife), biographer Andy Merriman and Carry On co-star Anita Harris.

On the Sunny Side of the Street plays in the background over an opening montage of quotes on the career of Hattie Jacques, from Sophie Tuckshop in ITMA on the radio to all those Carry On films. Barbara Windsor says she was "a national treasure", Eric Sykes (who played her brother in their long-running TV series) calls her "feisty", everyone says what a generous person she was. This isn't a totally sunny story, as anyone who saw that BBC docu-drama on her broken marriage to John Le Mesurier will recognise. But it is a kind one.

Eric Sykes: How My Dead Mother Saved My Life

More than 90 per cent blind and almost completely deaf, Eric Sykes sits behind his desk on the first floor of his Bayswater office feverishly writing the latest chapter of his forthcoming novel with a ballpoint pen.

In Hattie, Hattie Jacques (Ruth Jones) looked like she might be about to tell This Is Your Life host Eamonn Andrews to get stuffed, before composing herself and affecting modesty: "Oh Eamonn, they don't come much duller than me." Ha ha. What Andrews didn't know was that Jacques had just changed the man in the marital bed, despatching husband John Le Mesurier upstairs and summoning down their lodger.

No one knew this, This Is Your Life passed off without scandal, and in the divorce court, to protect Jacques, Le Mesurier pretended to have been the adulterer. "Thank you for ending our lovely marriage so beautifully," she said.

What a story! How civilised and quietly heroic and terribly British. Well, Le Mesurier was, anyway. The drama gave us nothing of Le Mesurier the actor and not very much of Jacques the actress.

Eric Sykes, in the run-up to BBC4's latest squint under the greasepaint of the great showbiz era, had complained about this.

But Hattie wasn't a sensationalist piece, just sad and moving and told in the usual Beeb 4 way with one classic car (the E-Type Jag driven by the fancy man, not his own), period lampshades, a fug of cigarette smoke, skinny ties, a dollop of casual sexism, a couple of old choons and, of course, a good script and some cracking acting.

Jones did that remarkable thing of making you forget all about her best-known role (Gavin and Somebody) but Robert Bathurst as Le Mesurier was even better, perfectly capturing his vagueness.

Swift production of the martini decanter solved most of his crises, although for having to tell his sons he was finally leaving he tried this sweetener: "I've got you both... pen knives."

I cheered when he remarried Jacques' friend Joan, completely forgetting that the latter's subsequent affair with Tony Hancock had been the subject of a previous Beeb 4 biopic. Pass the martini, old bean.

Hattie Jacques's career as a comic actress saw her appear in 14 Carry On films and build a long-term working partnership and friendship with Eric Sykes. But this focuses on her marriage to Dad's Army star John Le Mesurier, which was interrupted when she had an affair with a cabbie and moved him into the marital bed, with Le Mesurier moving into the attic room upstairs. That Jacques and Le Mesurier remained on good terms is testament to Jacques' magnetic, scrumptious warmth, which actress Ruth Jones captures here beautifully.

Eric Sykes hits out at Hattie Jacques drama

Veteran actor and writer Eric Sykes has criticised an upcoming TV drama about friend and colleague Hattie Jacques.

The actor and writer Eric Sykes, with whom Hattie Jacques had an enduring partnership on television, once described the matronly comic actress as "one of the very best". She was also referred to as the "Mother Superior of the Carry On family". This repeated profile, with contributions from Sykes, Miriam Margolyes and Mo Mowlam, looks back at Jacques's life and career in television and film, and at the sad fact that her talents as a straight actress were often overlooked because, as she lamented, directors only gave her "funny fat lady" parts. A new drama about Jacques's life, Hattie, airs on BBC Four on Wednesday, January 19.

Let's hear it for the likes of Sykes!

Many who are drawn to the flame of the stage like a moth, Eric Sykes suffered painful shyness when he was younger.

ITV1's Unforgettable strand, in which friends, family and peers pay tribute to great entertainers, celebrates the life of Spike Milligan, the writer, musician, poet, artist and Goon who died in 2002. Milligan, considered a genius and madman in equal measure, had an absurd and subversive humour that fuelled The Goons, the Fifties comedy troupe which made his name and was so influential it's led to him being called the godfather of alternative comedy. In a sense, the show owes a debt to the War: Milligan met fellow Goon Harry Secombe when both were serving with the Royal Artillery in Tunisia. Post-war, they teamed up with Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine to launch the most popular comedy show of the Fifties, remembered fondly for its surreal humour and ludicrous plots.

Away from performing, Milligan was a successful author, too, producing dozens of books for children and adults, most memorably his hilarious series of war memoirs, beginning with Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall. His success was tempered by depression and melancholy, however, making Milligan the archetypal sad clown. This intimate tribute features photos from Milligan's personal collection as well as previously unseen home movies, and contributions come from Milligan's children, including the first interview with his daughter Romany, one of two of his children born out of wedlock. Eric Sykes, Paul Merton and Terry Jones also pay tribute.

As part of Radio 2's current Comedy Season here are big star profiles today, tomorrow and Wednesday, all three from independent producers. Alexander Armstrong tells the Peter Sellers story tonight which, after Radio 4's Saturday night Archive special, is a bit of an overload. (Don't rival Controllers and schedulers speak to each other these days?) From The Goons on radio in the 1950s to Hollywood fame in the 60s the gulf between public and private person is once more explored. Eric Sykes and Denis Norden are among the interviewees.