John Bluthal

Those we have lost in comedy, 2018

It had already been a bad year for comedy industry deaths even before the late-breaking news that legend Dame June Whitfield had died.

Obituary: John Bluthal

John Bluthal, the actor who has died aged 89, was one of Spike Milligan's regular comedy partners and a familiar face in a string of British film farces of the 1960s and 1970s. In recent years, he was known for his portrayal of Frank Pickle, the bow-tied bore who is one of the parish council odd-bods in the BBC sitcom The Vicar Of Dibley.

Radio Times review

Some of the freewheeling lunacy, cracker-joke disguises and general corpsing from Milligan's six Q series for the BBC from 1969-82 are shown tonight and tomorrow at 10.30pm. Fortunately most of the stereotyping and sexism of the period has hit the editor's bin. But the programmes do show how many great stooges Milligan had, from Huw Wheldon/Hughie Green impersonator John Bluthal and simpleton-voiced Alan Clare to David "I was in Cockleshell Heroes, you know" Lodge.

This even makes panto seem deep

In a recent interview, Curtis attributed the success of Four Weddings and a Funeral to the 14 rewrites he'd given the script. Unfortunately, he apparently couldn't find time to give this series even one and, if it weren't for a fine cast with some strong character actors (Liz Smith and John Bluthal could bolster up even the telephone directory), the programme would simply disintegrate.

Not all trivia are bad, of course. Spike Milligan's Q7 (BBC2), which has now come to a lamented end, was probably the most trivial TV series of all time, but it had at least one sublimely inventive moment per episode. In the second-last instalment there was the body-builder's rosary (it had beads like cannon-balls) and in the last instalment there was a brilliantly funny interview with the Queen's chicken, featuring John Bluthal as Huw Weldon and Spike as the chickenmaster. Such flights of inspiration make the common run of light ent. look hopelessly ponderous.