On Monday, writer Jeremy Lloyd passed away at the age of 84 following his hospitalisation for pneumonia. Best known for his collaborations with David Croft, Lloyd was responsible for writing some of the best-loved British sitcoms of the twentieth century, including Are You Being Served and ‘Allo ‘Allo.
Born in Essex in 1930, Lloyd started his career in writing in 1958. He was also an actor, making his film debut in 1960s comedy School for Scoundrels and making cameos in Beatles films A Hard Day’s Night and Help. He achieved acclaim in America for his appearances in the 1969 season of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. But he didn’t appear in the next season, having left the country to enter a brief marriage with Joanna Lumley.
Born in Essex in 1930, Lloyd started his career in writing in 1958. He was also an actor, making his film debut in 1960s comedy School for Scoundrels and making cameos in Beatles films A Hard Day’s Night and Help. He achieved acclaim in America for his appearances in the 1969 season of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. But he didn’t appear in the next season, having left the country to enter a brief marriage with Joanna Lumley.
Jeremy Lloyd will be mainly remembered for his writing. In 1972, he and David Croft collaborated on department store sitcom Are You Being Served. Based partly on Lloyd’s experiences working in a London department store as a suits salesman, the show was jammed full of as many innuendoes and euphemisms as could be acceptable in a family sitcom. The humour was frequently politically incorrect, but the characters, catchphrases and jokes have endured (and work on several levels – you don’t need to understand the double meaning of “pussy” to find the jokes about Mrs Slocombe’s badly behaved cat funny). The series continued for thirteen years, and was followed in 1992 by spin-off Grace and Favour, which saw the characters move from the Grace Brothers store to run an inn.
Lloyd and Croft also collaborated on ‘Allo ‘Allo, the sitcom which ran from 1982 to 1992 and satirised the spate of World War Two related TV programmes in the Seventies and Eighties, most specifically Secret Army. Set in Nazi-occupied France, the series followed cafe owner Rene Artois as he stumbled into becoming a Resistance hero, collaborated with the bumbling German officers and tried to hide his affairs from his wife.
In 2013, Jeremy Lloyd was awarded an OBE for services to British comedy. With the sitcoms he co-created still repeated regularly on British TV screens, the love the public has for his particular brand of humour, using double meanings and ridiculous situations to push the characters to their limits.
In 2013, Jeremy Lloyd was awarded an OBE for services to British comedy. With the sitcoms he co-created still repeated regularly on British TV screens, the love the public has for his particular brand of humour, using double meanings and ridiculous situations to push the characters to their limits.
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