By Elliott West
“I didn’t write Desmond’s for black people. I wrote it for white people so they could see how black people are. At that time, the negative press about muggings and shootings was all we seemed to get. I was fed up with it.”
Trix Worrell
Introduction
One of my favourite situation comedies growing up has to be the brilliant Channel 4 programme Desmond’s written by Saint Lucian-born Trix Worrell. Based on the comings and goings of a Caribbean barbershop in Peckham, South London, this was a place where there was more gossip and laughs than actual hair being cut. Broadcast between 1989 and 1994 and running for 83 episodes over 8 years. Worrell assembled some of the most talented actors with Norman Beaton and Carmen Munroe as the parents of the chaotic Ambrose family with fantastic support roles of Ram John Holder as Porkpie and Gyearbuor Asante as Matthew.
Beaton and Munroe had previously starred together in the first black comedy on British television, The Fosters, broadcast on LWT between 1976 and 1977 with Lenny Henry in an early supporting role. A comedy written by Jon Watkins that centred around the Foster family who lived in a council flat in South London and ran for 27 episodes. A comedy based on the American sitcom Good Times. Norman Beaton had parallel careers as a calypso singer & teacher in Guyana before emigrating to England in 1960. The first black teacher in Liverpool. Played guitar in a band with Roger McGough in the Cavern Club. Gave up both jobs to chase his dreams: writing musicals & acting. Beaton who had played Ariel in Shakespeare’s The Tempest and set up the Black Theatre of Brixton, would also go on to star in the film Black Joy and the BBC drama Empire Road. While Munroe appeared in a number of West End productions and was a presenter on Play School. An acting career that dates back to 1962. So these two Guyanese-born actors were perfect for the lead roles in Desmond’s.
The Perfect Match
Trix Worrell who had written Channel 4’s first black comedy No Problem! which ran for 3 series over 27 episodes from 1983 to 1985 and was about a family of Jamaican heritage, the Powells, living in a council house in Willesden Green, London with a talented cast headed by Victor Romero Evans, written by Farrukh Dhondy and Mustapha Mutura and created by the Black Theatre Cooperative. Humphrey Barclay was the producer and the two would team up again for Desmond’s alongside Charlie Hanson who also helped produce both.
The Centre of the Community
Desmond’s is no ordinary barber’s shop. It is a meeting place, where the characters can put the world to right, rage about their problems, hand out pearls of wisdom and languor in the nostalgia of their youth. Although written as a comedy about a family from the Caribbean community, Worrell wanted to appeal to a multicultural audience, showing them how this Windrush generation put family and community as the top values in their priority list. Although the Ambrose family lived above the shop, the seating area of the barber’s shop was like a second living room. A place where Porkpie came after a visit to the bookmakers and Matthew after university. Reading a newspaper or drinking copious amounts of beverages, the two would have to be prised from their seats to leave. Desmond seemed to spend most of the day on one short back and sides, regularly distracted by whoever walked through the shop door.
This was a comedy that had a catchy theme tune and a shop interior and exterior that was actually a real barber’s shop. It was in fact Lloyd’s, situated at 204 Bellenden Road, Peckham and owned by Lloydie, a barber who had come from Jamaica in the 1960s and also had a shop in Lavender Hill, Battersea. A Peckham barber’s where you come for a traditional trim or the latest hairstyle of the day. A social hub that was packed out at weekends.
Just Funny!
Some describe Desmond’s as the British equivalent of The Cosby Show, a comedy that Norman Beaton would later appear in. It did very well when the show was sold to the Caribbean and the USA. The comedy is full of tension, especially between Michael, who would rise to the position of bank manager. The eldest son with a superior attitude and the younger son Sean and the daughter Gloria forever bickering. Sean into his music and Gloria who used to sit on her bed and sing into her hairbrush or daydream about being a famous model. Yet despite their family feuds, the Ambrose family was full of laughter, love and warmth. One that would always come together at meal times, unlike many today. A series that came to a sad end when shortly after the last episode in 1995, Norman Beaton collapsed at Eugene F. Correia International Airport and died from a heart attack.
