Dick Emery: the neglected superstar of TV comedy Bloomsbury-born Emery's comedy was firmly rooted in the traditions of music hall. His parents, the comedy double act Callan and Emery, separated when he was eight, and that shaped everything that followed. His father was a violent man and a heavy drinker who, Emery recalled, "did extraordinary things, cruel things to me, which twisted me up when I was much older." His mother dominated his life, and lived to 94. It's little surprise that Emery took refuge in comic characters. "I hide me," he once said, "a comic's gotta hide all the pain he feels inside." Emery played many of his characters as grotesques (he lacked the charm of Tommy Cooper or the true tragi-pathos of Tony Hancock) but there is substance to some of them, such as the "toothy" vicar. Emery said of clergymen, "To me, they are a breed apart, totally divorced from reality. I have watched them intoning the same old pious platitudes in late-night discussion programmes, Sunday religious broadcasts and nightly epilogues, in voices which must surely be reserved for their TV appearances. His revenge was to create sketches highlighting hypocrisy, such as the one with the following dialogue: Vicar: "On behalf of my flock I have been keeping a critical eye on some of the scandalous strip clubs in the neighbourhood." Interviewer: "And what are your conclusions?" Vicar: "Well. for my money you can't beat Miss Lulu and her trained python at the Girlies Galore." Dick Emery as Hettie ALAMY The sex-crazed, cat-eye-spectacled old spinster Hettie is still a humorous character and Emery's posh hospital consultant must surely have inspired Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield's arrogant surgeons. But is it funny? The sketches are very mixed. There were marvellous writers on the show - Barry Cryer, Harold Pinter, David Nobbs (the creator of Reginald Perrin), Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman and Dick Clement all had spells - who came up with some vintage comedy. But some of the scripts were awful. Watching now, you can see the punchlines coming and the canned laughter is irritating. The jokes about women's boobs, gay 'queens' and sex-starved housewives all seem musty. And for all the strong characters, there are others such as the exaggeratedly camp Quentin Crisp-alike Clarence and the unconvincing Bovver Boy (Seventies Skinheads were actually scary) that make you cringe. Emery had other successes - a film, a Top 20 single in 1971 with the sickly ballad called 'If You Love Her' and a bestselling Dick Emery's Cookbook in 1979 - but his private life was painfully unhappy. He was married five times (all dancers) and an extract from his unpublished journals contained the lament: "God, give me strength to crest the waves of my discontent. Give me the strength that I may face the rest of my life with courage, truth and love, or I may sink forever in the loneliness of my tortured soul. A groundbreaking character comedian, yes. But "one of the comedy greats," as Walliams argues? I have my doubts.