Introduction
The 1970s in the UK will be remembered for political strife, glam rock and a number of hit comedy programmes. Who can forget comedies such as Bless This House, On The Buses and The Good Life? However, there were a number of shows that wouldn’t make it if they tried to be shown on television today and would remain as dusty scripts with a big cross on them. Some had the plug pulled on them at the time after screenings, Curry and Chips was the forerunner in 1969, a comedy with Eric Sykes and Spike Milligan and written by Johnny Speight, but only survived six episodes before it was thrown on the cutting room floor, deemed politically incorrect and racist. Love Thy Neighbour ran for eight series between 1972-1976, 53 episodes in total and Till Death Us Do Part with the bigot Alf Garnett, ran between 1966 and 1975, a total of 54 episodes with 16 episodes missing, wiped by the BBC when they did a spring clean of the archives to free up storage space.
One show that I remember well from my childhood was the LWT show, Mind Your Language. A comedy about an evening foreign language English class with students from China, France, Greece, India, Italy, Spain, Japan, Pakistan, Sweden and West Germany. A tongue in cheek comedy that mocked those that didn’t speak English as their first language and overseen by the haphazard teacher, Jeremy Brown, played by Barry Evans. A heartthrob actor of his time and who had already starred in the hit comedies Doctor In The House, Doctor At Large, Crossroads and the films Adventures of a Taxi Driver and the 1967 classic, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush which was filmed in Stevenage where I live.
Behind the Laughs
Evans was funny and charming and for a considerable period of his life, was highly successful but he lived in a period of time where the humour of the times would go past its sell by date and today is uncomfortable to watch and has been replaced by a multicultural society where most of the time, people embrace the mix of diversity that we have in our country. Evans became a victim of his own success and as the calendar flipped over to the 1980s, Barry’s acting work was starting to dry up. An appearance in Crown Court in 1978 and Dick Emery’s comedy, Legacy of Murder in 1982, were all he had to show after the axe was lowered on Mind Your Language in 1979 after a two-year run and 42 episodes. He never got to play the serious roles and was typecast like Harry H. Corbett.
Although the show was briefly revived in 1985, shown in most television regions in 1986 with six of the cast members, it was humour that shouldn’t have been let out of the vault. a Barry was last seen in the 1993 film, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, the last incomplete novel by Charles Dickens in which he plays Bazzard. Evans wouldn’t work as an actor again after this film and literally fell on hard times. In his last few years of life, he worked as a taxi driver.
The Secret
What is little known about this orphan who the press described as “a loner” was that unlike his public persona of being the ladies’ man, he held a guarded secret, he was actually gay. A secret that he kept for obvious reasons, if the press got wind of it, they would splash the story over the headlines and make mincemeat of him. It would become a noose around his neck that would eventually be tightened. In 1997, Barry Joseph Evans was found dead by the police in the literal squalor, in his shabby home. Beside his body, they found a bottle of whisky and an out of date bottle of aspirins with the tablets spilled across the table and his will.
The police had initially visited the house to tell Barry that his car that he had reported stolen had been found. An 18-year-old “friend” of Evans was later arrested for the theft of the vehicle and in connection with his death. The youth claimed that on the day in question, he had visited the house to tell Barry that he wouldn’t be visiting again, leaving at 3 a.m. An upset Evans downed half a bottle of whisky. The man was later charged with his murder but then released due insufficient evidence. The coroner deemed the cause of Evans’ death as a result of an alcohol overdose with the aspirins not being taken.
However, there are many questions surrounding this death. The 53-year-old had head injuries and there was no trace of aspirin in his body. His phone lines had been cut and credit cards had been stolen as well as his car. Another young man was charged with breaking and entering, stealing a number of antiques and valuables from Evans’ home that he had purchased over the years. The press portrayed the death as suicide, saying that Barry was drinking a bottle of whisky every two days in the lead-up to his death. A claim that could be questioned as Evans was a taxi driver and would have lost his license.
What was Barry’s relationship with these youths and why were his telephone lines cut? At the time a friend said Evans had called him at five o’clock in the morning and asked him to call him back. The call couldn’t be made because the lines were later cut. Evans was cremated in Golders Green Crematorium. An actor from Guildford who will be remembered as a cheeky man but who never reached his full potential. Someone who I know would thrived if he had been given the opportunity to play some serious roles.
