Television comedy producer
Born: April 26, 1937;
Died: May 9, 2016
THE television producer Gareth Gwenlan, who has died aged 79, was one of the most prolific and successful producers of sitcoms at the BBC. While his greatest creation was Only Fools and Horses, he was also responsible – either as producer or as commissioning editor – for such popular hits as Keeping Up Appearances, ‘Allo ‘Allo, Birds Of A Feather, Bread, To The Manor Born and The Fall and Rise Of Reginald Perrin.
His acute eye for a new show – and who should be in it – was seldom wrong and he knew exactly what would work on screen and when to give an actor a free hand.
Mr Gwenlan was in the studio when the most famous episode of Only Fools and Horses was being recorded. The episode, titled Yuppy Love, included the scene in the pub when David Jason’s character, Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter, was trying to impress some girls and promptly toppled headlong through an open bar hatch. It is regarded as a television classic. Mr Gwenlan admitted: "David timed it to perfection and it literally stopped the show."
Gareth Gwenlan was born in Brecon but was raised by his widowed mother near Merthyr Tydfil. After training as an actor and teacher at drama school he did national service with the RAF and then directed plays at repertory theatres in York and Derby.
His early work as a director at the corporation included directing Carla Lane’s Going, Going, Gone in 1975. That year he was asked to produce a new sitcom, Just a Nimmo starring Derek Nimmo and Arthur Askey - it proved very popular and ran for four years. But it was the huge success of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin that brought Mr Gwenlan to the attention of the hierarchy at the BBC.
He admitted, “Rise and Fall was my first big break, working with the wonderful Leonard Rossiter. It was a success, and the rest of my career sort of fell in behind it.”
As producer/director Mr Gwenlan was associated with a string of hits: he was reunited with Carla Lane for the delightful Butterflies (with Wendy Craig and the young Nicholas Lyndhurst), The Mistress (with Felicity Kendal) and Bread - the everyday life of the exuberant Boswell family.
Mr Gwenlan was appointed BBC Television’s head of comedy in 1983 and commissioned such smash hits as Yes, Prime Minister, Birds of a Feather, One Foot in the Grave and Keeping Up Appearances. His shrewd grasp of television comedy was demonstrated in 1993 when he overruled an internal decision to cancel Blackadder.
But it was Only Fools that secured his position in television history. He supported and nurtured the show from 1982 to the Christmas trilogy of 1996, which attracted 24 million viewers and is regularly rated as the BBC’s most popular sitcom.
Huge audience figures were also seen for To The Manor Born (with Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles) and while he was in charge of comedy at the BBC the corporation won Best Comedy awards every year.
He admitted to a lapse of casting judgement – which he rapidly corrected. Initially he was not convinced that Richard Wilson was right to play the ever-grouchy Victor Meldrew. Luckily, he reconsidered.
He was dubious about bringing the Trotters back for three final episodes in 1996: “We were on a hiding-to-nothing” he once admitted. “It was a major risk. It was very much a piece for David and Nick and they had some wonderful studio scenes in front of an audience. It was a great show to work on.”
He was a much respected figure throughout the television business and was awarded a Royal Television Society Fellowship, appointed an OBE and received a lifetime achievement award from Bafta in 2011. Mr Gwenlan served on the committee of the Garrick Club.
He was thrice married. His first two marriages were dissolved and he is survived by Gail Evans whom he married in 2000, a son from his first marriage and a daughter from another relationship.
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