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Mollie Sugden toiled for decades in provincial theatres and supporting roles before she joined the cast of a new BBC sitcom, Are You Being Served? in 1972. The series became a surprise hit, and ran for 13 years. It made Sugden’s reputation, even though it confined her to playing blue-rinsed tyrants and formidable mothers for the rest of her career.
Are You Being Served? was set in Grace Brothers, the sort of old-fashioned department store that even in the 1970s was becoming an anachronism. The comedy arose from the long-standing feud between Gentlemen’s Ready-to-Wear and Ladies Separates and Underwear, the two departments being forced to share cramped display space. Senior Saleswoman in Underwear was Betty Slocombe, played by Mollie Sugden. It was a role that another actress might easily overplay. Not Mollie Sugden. In her hands, Mrs Slocombe rang true: full of self-importance, but also vulnerable and quick to take offence.
Those were more innocent days. The sight of the effeminate menswear assistant, Mr Humphries, fluttering around a customer’s inside leg seemed daringly funny. Sugden fitted perfectly into the seaside-postcard humour of the characters.
She played her comedy straight. Neither Mrs Slocombe, nor the equally monstrous Mrs Hutchinson, whom she played in The Liver Birds, had much humour themselves. Sugden delivered dreadful lines about Mrs Slocombe’s cat — “mah pussy” — with a deadpan expression.
Within the business Sugden was known as jolly, modest Yorkshire actress with a talent for comedy. To the public, she was simply Mrs Slocombe.
She was born in Keighley, Yorkshire, and educated locally. She inherited an extrovert streak from her father, a builder’s merchant and lay preacher, and made her debut when she was 4. At a crowded table on Christmas Day she was asked if she could “do anything” upon which she stood on her chair and recited a funny poem. Encouraged by the applause, she “realised how wonderful it was to make people laugh”. By the age of 11 she was travelling eight miles to Bradford once a week for private drama coaching.
The war interrupted her career. She made shells in a local munitions factory. Afterwards she was offered a place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Her tutors were keen to clean up her accent, with the result that she emerged after two years, like Eliza Doolittle, with suspiciously “refined” pronunciation. It stood her in good stead later, when the parvenues in which she specialised would slip back into their old accents during moments of stress.
Her first job was with a small company in Accrington, Lancashire, which also included a young Eric Sykes. After three months she moved to a repertory theatre in Oldham. Home for the next eight years was a series of boarding houses as she did the provincial seaside resorts and more repertory theatres. It was in Swansea that she met her husband, the actor William Moore (who played the henpecked father of Ronnie Corbett in Sorry). They were married in 1958 when Slocombe was 35 and six years later she became the mother of twin sons.
Sugden was often cast as a mother. On television she was a mother in My Wife Next Door (1972) and For the Love of Ada (1970-71). Her agent tried to steer her into serious drama and won her the part of Anne of Cleves’s lady-in-waiting in the BBC series The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1969). There were also occasional sightings of her as a landlady in Coronation Street. But most directors saw her as a comedienne.
Her break came with the role of Mrs Hutchinson in Carla Lane’s sitcom about two girls sharing a flat, The Liver Birds (1971-79). Sugden played the snobbish mother of Sandra (Nerys Hughes).
At about the same time, Sugden was approached by the writer David Croft. He had become the BBC comedy department’s golden boy after his success, with Jimmy Perry, in creating Dad’s Army. That year he was approached by a young, untried writer named Jeremy Lloyd who had a promising idea for a sitcom set based in a department store. Croft recruited Sugden, having written the part of Mrs Slocombe for her. It was a strong cast, with John Inman, Wendy Richard and Frank Thornton, among others.
After a likeable first episode, the first series of Are You Being Served? was approved and reached the screens in 1973. Sugden did not have star billing but she was the cause of much of the mirth. It was her idea to change her character’s hair colour each week, from lilac to blue to sage green, reasoning that such a bossy character would have the hairdressing department under control. She was gratified to notice that, as a result of her new role, she received excellent if somewhat nervous service from shop assistants. “I think everyone knows a Mrs Slocombe,” she said. “She’s quite prevalent.”
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