Mike Berry Remembers ‘Are You Being Served?’

America discovered the delightful British comedy series "Are You Being Served?" in the 80s, thanks to reruns on Public Television. Released in the U.K. 45 years ago this year, the 10-season show remains as popular as ever with fans.

Sadly, with the passing of Nicholas Smith (Mr. Rumbold) in 2015, only one 'staff member' from the Grace Brothers ladies' and gentlemen's clothing department is still around to share memories.

"I came in the 8th season, a lesser Trevor Bannister (Mr. Lucas), as someone to make rude remarks to Mollie Sugden (Mrs. Slocombe)," recalled Mike Berry from his home near the Wimbledon tennis courts in London. "I had watched the show for years when it first aired and loved it."

But Mike never planned a career in acting.

"I started as a singer and that's what I’m mostly known for in Europe. Then I began doing commercial work when James Hill, a producer for a new kid's show, saw me in one I did for the TV Times. He cast me with Jon Pertwee in the series, 'Worzel Gummidge' (1979-81). "

Pertwee, best known to American audiences as the third Doctor in the "Doctor Who" series, played a scarecrow that came to life in "Worzel."

"Jon was fabulous," said Berry. "He had to wear this incredible make-up, learn pages of dialog, and just became the character. But he was a great mentor and encouraged me as a young actor."

To British audiences at the time, however, Mike was still known as a rock ’n roll singer from the early 60s with his group Mike Berry and the Outlaws.

"My first song released in the U.S. was ‘A Tribute to Buddy Holly.’ Although it didn't make much of an impression on the Billboard charts, I did a lot of touring in Europe and I even made it to Nashville in 2005 to record an album, ‘About Time Too’ with The Crickets."

Mike recalls performing in the early 60s at The Cavern, the Liverpool club where The Beatles were also appearing, in their pre-Beatlemania days.

"We played at lunchtimes and The Beatles were there still struggling to get a record deal. But we'd just had the Buddy Holly Tribute hit and appeared on a national TV show, ‘Thank Your Lucky Stars.’ So to the folks in Liverpool, we were superstars – although we drove up in a van, not a limousine! I mean, we really weren't that famous, but Brian Epstein (Beatles’ manager) thought we could help get his group on television or even a record deal. So he told the lads to look after us. Paul even gave me a lift to my grotty hotel one evening after we went back to Brian's place to listen to a tape of their music. It was a terrible quality, live recording of rock ‘n roll cover tunes by The Beatles and we didn't think much of it other than the great harmonizing between Paul's high voice and John's raucous singing."

Mike ran into the group again after their big number one hit, "Please Please Me," and their eventual appearance on "Thank Your Lucky Stars."

"We were chatting in the canteen of the TV studio and John said ‘We’ll write you a song!’ I didn't think anything of it because they really weren't known for their songwriting at the time. Besides, all our songs were written in-house, so I never took him up on the offer and have been kicking myself ever since!"

With his singing career continuing and the end of "Worzel Gummidge" in 1981, Mike's new manager suggested another TV role.

"David Croft, one of the ‘Are You Being Served?’ writers, had the same manager and said the show was looking for a new cast member, so I was hired for the Mr. Spooner role. I was in the right place at the right time again!"

Mike says the cast was a little wary at first.

"But within no time, Wendy Richards (Miss Brahms) told me she and John Inman (Mr. Humphries) had talked, and John had said ‘He's got it’ meaning I could handle the role."

Inman, who played the hilarious "mummy's boy" character, was funnier off the set than on, according to Berry.

"We rehearsed Monday through Thursday and recorded on Fridays. John and I would go to lunch at the pub and he’d have me in fits of laughter, mostly at the expense of other people. When we returned to the studio, my face would literally be aching from laughter. He was a very inventive comedy actor and coming from variety shows and pantomime, created Mr. Humphries and the writers wrote for it, as they did for all the characters. They could say lines that would be hilarious for their characters, but wouldn't be funny if another actor said it. The writing by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft was just brilliant."

He still recalls script readings with the writers.

"On Mondays, we would all sit around a big table at the studio and read through the script as a group for the first time," he said. "David and Jeremy were always laughing at their own jokes and you could see David's shoulders shaking he was laughing so hard. But it was really sweet, because they had written the lines with the characters in mind and this was the first time they heard their words coming from the actual characters and it just broke them up. It was a credit to the marvelous talents of the cast who I have to say were all really nice people to work with and such pros."

Mike would go on the work with Wendy Richards in the mid-1980s on a music project. Richard's had a 1962 number one U.K. hit with the Mike Sarne song "Come Outside," in which Richard's vocally interjected a young girl's voice over Sarne's singing.

"I persuaded her to record an updated version, with me doing the Sarne part," said Berry. "Warner Bros. was excited about it and put out the record thinking it would be a winner, and I thought it was bloody good even though Wendy wasn't a singer and didn't have a good sense of musical timing. But we managed to knit it together on tape – the pre-digital era! Warner's expected us to promote it, but Wendy didn't want to do it live, so the song never took off. But it's still fun to listen to."

"Are You Being Served?" ended in 1985, but was resurrected as "Grace & Favour" in the U.K. (called "Are You Being Served? Again!"in the U.S.) for 12 episodes with many of the original cast, sans Mike Berry who was concentrating on his singing career.

And last year, to celebrate 60 years of TV sitcoms, the BBC bizarrely revived the series for a one-time special, recreating the original characters with new actors with the same clothing, voices, mannerisms, and catchphrases, as well as identical sets. Critics and audiences called it an "epic fail," although Mike's a little more generous.

"As a comedy, it wasn't too bad," noted Berry. "The jokes had to be solid because the familiar lines from the original cast just wouldn't be as funny coming from different actors, no matter how good they were. But it just lacked the sparkle of the original. And I had rather hoped I might have snagged the Arthur English role (Mr. Harman), but didn't."

English played the role of a Cockney maintenance worker, forever at odds with snobbish staff such as Captain Peacock, played by Frank Thornton, and Mrs. Slocombe.

"I remember one episode, during rehearsal, where Mrs. Slocombe had a perfume counter in the store and she was so proud of it. In walks Mr. Harman and starts sniffing, then looks at the bottom of his shoe. Everyone collapsed with laughter, because that wasn't in the script and Arthur just ad-libbed it. The writers couldn't believe their luck and kept it in."

Berry also recalls the final episode, in which his character played an unusually large role.

"The Mr. Spooner character was never fully developed and he often just hung around, but I never asked the writers for more lines. The biggest episode for me was the final one, ‘The Pop Star,’ where the plot centered on me becoming a singing star! Had the series gone on longer and I stayed, they may have built up my part but I’m not sure where it could have gone. But it was probably time to end it because I remember John Inman saying to me several times ‘We’ve done this in a previous episode.’ Although in other years there was talk of it being the final season, we had a nice farewell get-together and knew it really was the last one."

Today, Mike focuses on his music rather than acting and still records and performs, with a big tour coming up in October in the U.K. (see www.mikeberry.net).

"As old as I am, my voice is better than it ever was, so I still enjoy singing and performing," says Berry who turns 75 in September. "I describe my career as a series of stepping stones in a fast-running stream. You’ve got to have talent, but getting the opportunities can be the hardest part of this business and I’ve been fortunate to find quite a few."

Nick Thomas teaches at Auburn University at Montgomery, Ala, and has written features, columns, and interviews for over 650 newspapers and magazines.