Did Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier get on?

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

Recently while trying to introduce IDS jnr to some of the programmes I would watch as a child, I showed him Bod and the Mr. Men, and it made me realise that they were of course voiced by Lowe and Le Mesurier. This got me thinking whether Lowe and Mesurier got on. From what I understood their Dad's Army characters to a certain extent mirrored their own upbringings (Lowe I understood was the son of a butler "in service", while Le Mesurier was a public schoolboy from a family with money).

Daydreaming on the bus today, I imagined them talking about their respective Mr. Men and Bod gigs. I could imagine that Lowe lecturing JLM that Bod didn't really showcase his talents, while the Mr. Men was a better show. JLM would reply in a Wilson-ish manner that he saw it as a bit of pin money...

Long story short, did they get on off set? I understand that Lowe struggled for a long time with alcoholism and was quite a difficult character, and read an account somewhere that not even Lowe's wife went to Lowe's funeral in order not to miss some stage performance.

Does anyone know any more?

[Oliver Mardy]

I don't. I'll keep an ear out though, and let you know if I do hear anything.

[Brundle-Fly]

God, you must be bored.

[worldsgreatestsinner]

There's this BBC radio play that's on Archive.org

https://archive.org/details/DearArthurLoveJohn

It's about their friendship, but I haven't heard it yet and I'm unsure to what extent it's based on fact

[Glebe]

Gold are celebrating the 50th anniversary with a doco mini-series, wonder if this supposed not-getting-on is mentioned?

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

God, you must be bored.

When you have three kids under three and the eldest one is near addicted to Thomas the Tank Engine, you try out other programmea for your sanity. And these kind of thoughts are often the kind of things that go through my mind due to lack of sleep.

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

There's this BBC radio play that's on Archive.org

https://archive.org/details/DearArthurLoveJohn

It's about their friendship, but I haven't heard it yet and I'm unsure to what extent it's based on fact

Wow! Will listen to that this evening. Had not heard of that one! Thanks.

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

I don't. I'll keep an ear out though, and let you know if I do hear anything.

Thanks!

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

Gold are celebrating the 50th anniversary with a doco mini-series, wonder if this supposed not-getting-on is mentioned?

Will see if I can somehow get onto that.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Did Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier get it on ? And did Hattie Jaques, whilst fondling a pre-frozen chunk of faecal matter, in accordance with those rumours, join I  for good measure ? Makes you wank think, doesn't it ?

[TheMonk]

God, you must be bored.

I often think the best thing about this forum is people rarely say things like this about the obscure threads that come up. The world has so many people saying  "you've got way too much time on your hands" to shut down a conversation. This place is generally a nice haven from that.

[Jittlebags]

...And did Hattie Jaques, whilst fondling a pre-frozen chunk of faecal matter, ...

Really? Did Hattie do a Stansfield? That's going into my celeb rumours notebook just after Una Stubbs and the glass coffee table.

[thraxx]

God, you must be bored.

Yes this forum is no place for whimsical niche questions about comedy.

[Chriddof]

I often think the best thing about this forum is people rarely say things like this about the obscure threads that come up. The world has so many people saying  "you've got way too much time on your hands" to shut down a conversation. This place is generally a nice haven from that.

Yeah, seeing everyone here take the piss out of a perfectly normal comedy nerd question is a bit weird. Is it just because it's not about something current, or was it the little daydream that was mentioned? Because I feel if someone were to pose a similar question about Seinfeld and Jason Alexander or whoever, everyone would have taken it seriously.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Yea this is good post

[Brundle-Fly]

When you have three kids under three and the eldest one is near addicted to Thomas the Tank Engine, you try out other programmea for your sanity. And these kind of thoughts are often the kind of things that go through my mind due to lack of sleep.

Fair enough. Sorry. A bit pissed and grumpy last night.

The question people should be asking is 'Did Colin Bean who played Private Sponge sit with the main cast at lunch or with the extras?'

Edited for being uppity

[Beagle 2]

They were both big boozers, so you would like to think that they had the odd session together. There was a well-attended memorial service for Arthur Lowe after the funeral itself, and this article explains a little more about why his wife wasn't there. I can't find anything to suggest there was any animosity between them. Given JLM notorious affability, I can't imagine them having a cross word.

[Satchmo Distel]

Lowe was a Tory and had a frosty relationship with Clive Dunn, who was a Labour supporter.

Hattie Jacques had an affair with someone - Hancock?

[Brundle-Fly]

Hattie Jacques had an affair with someone - Hancock?

Corden.

[Ignatius_S]

Lowe and Le Mesurier did get on – but even if they didn't, they obviously had no professional issue working together. I'm pretty sure that Lowe and Le Mesurier had worked together before Dad's Army.  Certainly, they did the occasional non-DA job when the series was going and they were to co-star in the radio spin-off/sequel, It Sticks Out Half a Mile.

With ISOHAM, Lowe sadly died after the pilot (which wasn't broadcast until years later) but the series went ahead with Bill Pertwee. Not brilliant, but I have a soft spot in it and Ian Lavender reprising Pike is also rather good and playing supporting characters (Pertwee and Le Mesurier were great, natch). I also think there's more to it than Parsley Sidings which starred Lowe with Lavender, Kenneth Connor and Liz Fraser.

I suspect most know this but Lowe and James Beck were to take the Hancock and James roles in a series based on Hancock's Half Hour, which Galton and Simpson had updated and recorded a pilot (IIRC, based on The Economy Drive). Beck's passing prevented the series going ahead.  G&S had rewritten the characters to suit the pair and and it remains an intriguing thought about what the series would have been like. Both were superb actors and Lowe was in one of the better Comedy Playhouses.

The Gold documentary is shaping up well but the first episode, when talking about the casting of Jones, doesn't mentioned that David Jason was hired and then promptly un-hired.

I've been meaning to get a copy for myself but Bill Pertwee's books about Dad's Army is meant to be very good indeed – and the person who I gave one as a gift was very impressed.

[Queneau]

the Mr. Men

I love this and I will from now on refer to the series as the Mr Men.

It's hard to imagine Le Mesurier having any real issues with people. He remained friends with Hancock after he fucked his wife so, you know.

As for Bod and the Mr. Men thing, I have a real fondness for both of these shows and introduced my son to them some years ago. Brilliant stuff all round though the Mr. Men still has some pretty iffy bits in them - such as the Mr. Jelly imagining someone pulling a gun on him.  You what, mate?

[Autopsy Turvey]

This is one of the questions that most fucks off Ian Lavender. The press has always been obsessed with the idea that they couldn't stand each other. All off them got on splendidly, with the sort of civility, tact and fortitude that you'd expect of cultured Englishmen of their generation.

[Maurice Yeatman]

The only mutual frostiness was between John Laurie and Arnold Ridley, wasn't it? Unless my memory's faulty again.

Laurie was conspicuously absent from Ridley's 'This is Your Life'. Lowe, Le Mesurier, Dunn, Lavender, Pertwee, Frank Williams and Edward Sinclair (can't remember who he played) were all there.

[Brundle-Fly]

From a Mail Online pice 2010. Not linking.



On screen, it was the rapport between Le Mesurier and Lowe which became pivotal to the success of the series.

'So well attuned were we,' John would later remark, 'that often an exchanged glance between us was enough to make a point in the script. One critic was kind enough to say that we did not really need dialogue — it was quite evident what we were thinking simply by studying our expressions.'  It was true: Lowe — a sublime bridler — could sum up a dozen lines simply by sitting up and inhaling sharply as if he had just been scalded, as could Le Mesurier merely by sliding the tip of his tongue along his thin-lipped, lopsided smile.

No word, when it was used, was ever wasted: Lowe, for example, managed, by varying his intonation, to make 'Wilson' sound not only like a name but also, whenever the situation called for it, a question, an accusation, a cry for help or a threat. Whereas Le ­Mesurier never uttered a single 'Yes, sir?' without having first marinated it in sarcasm.

There were no false notes: each actor drew not only on his own disposition, but also on his own wit to bring his character smartly to life. Behind the scenes, though, the two men were very different from each other, and Lowe often seemed to regard Le Mesurier's extracurricular adventures with the same strange mixture of censoriousness and envy that Mainwaring reserved for those of Wilson.

On one occasion, when the team was due to assemble for another fortnight of location shooting, John arranged for Bill Pertwee to give him a lift down to Thetford. Setting off from London on a Friday, he persuaded Pertwee to take a detour to Newmarket in order to visit the national stud and converse with an interesting assortment of trainers and jockeys. He then proposed another detour, this time to the pubs of Bury St Edmunds. The two men finally completed their journey — which would normally have taken no more than four hours — when they drove into Thetford on Sunday evening. Lowe, noticing their belated arrival at the hotel, came over and asked what kind of trip they had experienced. 'Fine,' said John, smiling sweetly, 'it took two days.' Lowe merely looked at his colleague, muttered 'Extraordinary,' and walked away.


I'd love to have seen the stage show. This number always makes me well up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf1aajtCdu4

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

There's this BBC radio play that's on Archive.org

https://archive.org/details/DearArthurLoveJohn

It's about their friendship, but I haven't heard it yet and I'm unsure to what extent it's based on fact

A fabulous spot - worldsgreatestsinner! I have just listened to it, a beautiful little play. Some clever little lines - a remark about Ridley in the second series being unlikely to make it through the series and a remark back that he's probably outlive the others - he did outlive Beck, Lowe, Laurie, Le Mesurier. What in fact came out was Lowe's dislike of Clive Dunn's left wing leanings. And that it seemed that Lowe and Le Mesurier became good friends - as others have suggested.

I've watched DA a lot (the irony of watching it on BBC Entertainment in Austria is tinged by having learned that Clive Dunn was in a POW camp here) but not really looked into the actors. I knew about Ridley writing The Ghost Train and knew Dunn as Grandad aka Charlie Quick.

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

The only mutual frostiness was between John Laurie and Arnold Ridley, wasn't it? Unless my memory's faulty again.

Laurie was conspicuously absent from Ridley's 'This is Your Life'. Lowe, Le Mesurier, Dunn, Lavender, Pertwee, Frank Williams and Edward Sinclair (can't remember who he played) were all there.

That is beautiful. Maurice Yeatman unsure of who Edward Sinclair played... Yup it was Maurice Yeatman.

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

Cheers for all the posts - you beautiful people. Will have to see if I can find ISOHAM somewhere. Hadn't realised how colourful and ultimately rather messy his private life was. It also appears that LM used to get drunk a lot with the others and put a lot away and that Lowe was a slightly sociopathic alcoholic who according to the play didn't mix with the others.

[Phil_A]

Cheers for all the posts - you beautiful people. Will have to see if I can find ISOHAM somewhere. Hadn't realised how colourful and ultimately rather messy his private life was. It also appears that LM used to get drunk a lot with the others and put a lot away and that Lowe was a slightly sociopathic alcoholic who according to the play didn't mix with the others.

Le Mes was a massive boozer to the point he was urged to quit for the good of his health, and it's that which caused his noticeably dramatic weight loss midway through Dad's Army. Sobriety made him very unhappy, so he eventually went back on the drink.

Also of some interest is the Hattie Jacques edition of This Is Your Life, filmed after John had found about her affair. Horrendously uncomfortable viewing.

It was his third wife, Joan, that had the affair with Hancock, although they did stay together.

[worldsgreatestsinner]

https://fourble.co.uk/podcast/isoham

The downloads should be working for It Sticks Out Half a Mile

[worldsgreatestsinner]

A fabulous spot - worldsgreatestsinner! I have just listened to it, a beautiful little play. Some clever little lines - a remark about Ridley in the second series being unlikely to make it through the series and a remark back that he's probably outlive the others - he did outlive Beck, Lowe, Laurie, Le Mesurier. What in fact came out was Lowe's dislike of Clive Dunn's left wing leanings. And that it seemed that Lowe and Le Mesurier became good friends - as others have suggested.

I've watched DA a lot (the irony of watching it on BBC Entertainment in Austria is tinged by having learned that Clive Dunn was in a POW camp here) but not really looked into the actors. I knew about Ridley writing The Ghost Train and knew Dunn as Grandad aka Charlie Quick.

I'd heard about the Lowe/Dunn thing before, the story about Lowe refusing a royal honour unless it was higher than Dunn's.