493 Hi-De-Hi

First  viewed :  Summer  1981

Hi-De-Hi  was  one  of  the  big  hits  of  1981  although  we  didn't  start  watching  it  until  the  beginning  of  the  repeat  run  on  a  Saturday  evening.

It  was  the  third  hit  comedy  series  from  Jimmy  Perry  and  David  Croft  and  like  the  previous  two  was  based  on  the  real-life  experiences  of  Perry  who  was  a  Butlins  Redcoat  after  the  war. The  series  was  set  in  the  late  fifties /early  sixties  hey-day  of  the  holiday  camp , well  and  truly  gone  by  the  beginning  of  the  eighties. The  make  do  and  mend  tawdriness  of  the  set-up   gave  plenty  of  opportunities  for  slapstick  comedy  but  there  was  also  a  strong  vein  of  pathos  running  through  it  from  empty-headed  cleaner  Peggy's  fervent  ambition  to  be  a  Yellowcoat  to  ballroom  dancers  Barry  and  Yvonne's  boundless  resentment  at  their  loss  of  status  which  they  usually  took  out  on  each  other.

The  series  began  with   the  appointment  of  shy, gauche,  public school-educated   Jeffrey  Fairbrother   ( Simon  Cadell )  to  entertainment  manager.  He  had  to  contend  with  fending  off  the  attentions  of  the  ghastly  chief  Yellowcoat    Gladys ( Ruth  Madoc ) and  the  sly  subversion  of  camp  comic  Ted  Bovis  ( Paul  Shane )  who  wanted  his  job.  Ted   had  a  naive  young  apprentice  Spike  ( Jeffrey  Holland ) whom  he  mentored, their  relationship  being  very  similar  to  Fletcher  and  Godber  in  Porridge .

As  usual  with  Perry  and  Croft  there  was  a  strong  ensemble  cast  and  a  pro-rata  distribution   of  lines  so  that  the  most  junior  member  was  lucky  to  get  a  word. In  this  the  Private  Sponge  character  was  the  third  Yellowcoat  girl  who  seemed  to  change  each  season. My  favourite  was  Val  in  the  second  season  who  was  played  by  Gail  Harrison. She  actually had  a  decent  c.v.  behind  her,  having  had  a  good  part   in  David  Copperfield  and   a  recurring  role  in  Emmerdale   Farm  as  Henry  Wilks'  daughter,   so  it's  hard  to  understand   why  she  took  such  an  unrewarding  role  in  the  first  place.

The  star  of  the  show  was  undoubtedly  Shane, a  mate  of  Les   Dawson  and  the  epitome  of  the  tragicomic  Northern  club  comedian. He  held  all  the  big  showpiece  scenes  together  and  his  comic  timing  was  invaluable   as  the  scripts  were  not  always  up  to  scratch. Of  the  four  main  Perry  / Croft  productions , I'd  say  Hi-De-Hi  was  the  least  well-written.

I  never  loved  the  series  and  really  struggled  to  get  past   Su  Pollard  whom  I  find  near-unbearable  and  I  don't  think  I  watched  it  much  past  the  first  two  series. I  only  watched  one  or  two  episodes  at  the  most  after  Cadell  left  -  a  big  blow - in  1984. The  series  carried  on, pepping  itself  up  with  new   regular  characters , until  1988.