Basil Brush's Mr Derek, and Yes [Prime]Minister's Bernard Woolley, has died.
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[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT] -
My life, each morning when I dress, is four and twenty hours less. (J Richardson) -
I'm along time admirer of Derek Fowlds. I regularly watch repeats of 'Heartbeat' and also 'Yes Minister'.
The reach of 'Yes Minister' was much longer than I expected. A few years ago in an interview I had with Adam Fischer held in the conductor room at Semperoper Dresden, Fischer explained to me:
"I just had to learn English. It was strange because at that time growing up in Budapest my first language had to be Russian. Oh, yes. Because in Communist countries in the 1950s and 1960s Russian was the language we were supposed to speak. But the whole country loved learning English very much and there were not enough Russian teachers. It was a party decision that everyone had to speak Russian, but it was made without realising they didn’t have enough teachers. My school teacher couldn’t speak Russian that is why we never learned it. But I started learning English when I was twelve, my parents arranged for me to have private lessons. No, I’ve never lived in England although my children went to school there in 1991. I can tell you that like a lot of people in Hungary, I improved my English with the help of watching BBC TV programmes. Yes Minister the political sitcom and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister from the 1980s. I have all the series recorded and I think Yes, Prime Minister – when Jim Hacker becomes the PM – is the better one. ‘Civil service’ English is what they speak of course.
This my favourite clip from 'Yes Minister' featuring Derek Fowls 'Who reads the papers?':
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Lovely story, Stanf - thank you
Interesting that AF prefers the Yes, Prime Minister series - I always prefer the earlier ones, where Hacker is as terrified of the PM as his is his "Secretaries".[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]Comment
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Always a really good actor - probably Basil’s best ever straight man! RIP DerekComment
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Absolutely. I really enjoyed every tv role he did. Yes you’re probably right Cloughie. RIPOriginally posted by cloughie View Post
Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750Comment
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Completely agree, cloughie...a brilliant dry wit. Sad to see Mr Derek go.Originally posted by cloughie View Post
Here he is on life with Basil.
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