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Ian
Carmichael: A Retiring Chap
Born: June 18 1920, Hull, Yorkshire,
England
In
the eyes of many people, Ian Carmichael
OBE is inextricably linked with the
fine comedies of the Boulting Brothers.
Described by one writer as an affable
innocent-at-large who bore the brunt
of the Boultings’ scalpel humour,
Carmichael’s standing as a superb
comic actor – not a comedian
– grew as the Boultings’
product was sharpened and honed during
the late Fifties.
The films, amiably satirical and natural
descendants of Ealing’s classics,
have rightly become classics themselves:
Private’s Progress, I’m
All Right, Jack, Brothers in Law,
Lucky Jim, Heavens Above.
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BFF 2004 Ian Carmichael Screenings
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Ian
Carmichael
Biography
By the early Sixties, Carmichael sought fresh
challenges to break the shackles of buffoonery
typecasting that the Boulting comedies had
placed upon him as “the same old bumbling
accident-prone clot”, as he put it.
He found his salvation in the BBC, and television.
In 1965, as upper-class ass Bertie Wooster,
he teamed with Dennis Price for The World
of Wooster – a delicious and fondly
remembered live TV series based on the stories
by P.G. Wodehouse. In a scandal that is still
reverberating more than 30 years later, 19
of the 20 stories were wiped, apparently by
accident. Only one episode, Jeeves and the
Exit of Claude and Eustace, remains, and will
be screened during BFF2004.
Carmichael’s success with Wooster, and
his popularity with the public, was assured
with his second TV creation, Dorothy L. Sayers’
effete, aristocratic, monocled sleuth Lord
Peter Wimsey in the 1970s.
Officially semi-retired since the early Eighties,
Ian Carmichael now makes his home in North
Yorkshire, emerging only for the occasional
role such as hospital administrator T.J. Middleditch
in the Yorkshire Television series The Royal.
He was made an O.B.E. in 2003 – a long
overdue reward for 40 years of laughter and
comic dexterity.
We are delighted to welcome him to BFF2004. |
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