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Charlie Drake | Archie Andrews | Playing the Field

© Hunter Peters

With the century  coming to a close, finally - it seems like we've spent the whole of the nineties counting down to it -  I've been pondering some of life's biggest mysteries...Why are we here? What does the future hold? Who are the greatest British Television performers of all time? It's this last great mystery I've decided to investigate more fully here at Suite 101 with this, the first in a series, of brief sketches of the lives and careers of many of the greats of British Television past and present. Many of these performers will be quite familiar to audiences outside the UK but quite a few are likely to be unknown  to those not lucky enough to have grown up with the BBC and ITV. Hopefully these articles will bring new fans to some of these deserving artists and fond recollections to those of remember how great they were. This week I give you that mighty mite Charlie Drake and the irascible Archie Andrews.

Pint sized (5'1") funny man Charlie Drake, like many early television personalities got his start first in radio and then in a series of programs for children before breaking out as one of Britain's most popular comic actors. Drake first came to the attention of Britain's kiddies as a member of  Mick and Montmorency, a comedy team which paired the diminutive Drake with the rather taller (6'5")  Jack Edwardes as a pair of bumbling blokes who stumble and crash through a never ending series of jobs from which they always get sacked. The best of these sketches appeared under the "Jobstoppers" title on ITV in the late fifties. After their considerable success children's the pair split up to pursue solo projects, Edwardes went on to another children's series (Herlock and Sholmes) and an eventual attempt to resurrect the Mick and Montmorency act with a new partner replacing Drake (Felix Bowness later better known as Hi-de-Hi's Fred Quilly). Drake, on the other hand, had graduated to entertaining the kiddies mums and dads.

Drake's first full solo series was 1957-8's "Drakes Progress" which co-starred, during it's first season, the prolific Irene Handle and Warren Mitchell. 1958 also saw the premier of, perhaps, Drake's best TV work "Charlie Drake in..." each episode of which Drake got to play different characters in different comic situations. "Charlie Drake in.."  was also a big ratings winner for him and helped firmly establish himself as one of Britain's biggest comics., 

Throughout the sixties and into the late seventies Charlie Drake continued to perform on television in a number of series and one off appearances including a trio of series (in '65, '69, and '78) called "The Worker" that

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