Jeremy Lloyd awarded OBE for British comedy brilliance
Doing a bit of new years ‘catch up’, we ran across some brilliant news regarding Jeremy Lloyd, co-creator and co-writer with David Croft of Are You Being Served and ‘Allo, ‘Allo. Seems as though Jeremy Jeremy Lloyd was awarded an OBE, which is short for Officer of the Order of the British Empire, in the 2013 New Year’s Honors List. The honor was given to Lloyd in recognition of his services to British comedy. Lloyd’s writing partner throughout his career, David Croft, was earlier awarded the OBE when he and his co-writer on Dad’s Army, Jimmy Perry, were given the honor in 1978.
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From an actor’s perspective, Trevor Bannister and Frank Thornton discussed Jeremy’s contributions to Are You Being Served from a writing and casting standpoint during our 2010 interview for the PBS special, Behind the Britcom: From Script to Screen. Besides the obvious genius of Croft and Lloyd from a casting standpoint, Jeremy also revealed during the interview that he had worked for a short time for Simpsons of Piccadilly and many of the characters depicted are drawn from his recollections of his time there. One such character, Mollie Sugden’s Mrs. Slocombe was based on Lloyd’s grandmother and not and employee of Simpsons.
While everyone knows Lloyd for his brilliant work on AYBS and ‘Allo, ‘Allo, many may not remember his 1969-70 stint as a regular on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In. In addition, Lloyd appeared in two Beatles films, A Hard Day’s Night (tall dancer at the disco) and Help! (restaurant diner). He was also in the 1965 film, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines and had a brief role in The Magic Christian, which starred Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. In true comic timing genius fashion, when Starr appeared in an episode of Laugh-In, recalling the films he and Lloyd were in together, word is is that Lloyd looked at him as a stranger, and said: “Sorry, you can’t expect me to remember everybody.”
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Congratulations, Jeremy Lloyd. You have been a true gift to British comedy worldwide and will continued to be to public television audiences in the States for years to come.
