Frank Spenser gets articulated

 

For many people, Michael Crawford will always be the original Phantom of the Opera, and who can blame them? He could belt out the music of the night better than anybody.

But I still remember what a genuine shock it was when the Phantom dropped in the late eighties, because Crawford was always Frank Spenser to me, indulging in some superb kitchen-sink stunt-work on tea-time television.

Even when it was being rerun years after the original broadcast, Some Mothers Do Have Em was absolutely essential viewing in our house, and I do still have deep sympathy for the long-suffering Betty and they way she had fallen for the walking disaster that was Frank. A hugely awkward and clumsy human being, Frank would inevitably end up with his head in the toilet, or upside down in a wardrobe that is going down the stairs, or hanging onto the bumper of his Morris Minor as it dangled precariously over a cliff.

Crawford wasn't just afraid to hit the high notes on Broadway, he was absolutely fearless for the sausages and mash audience and did his own stunts. Need him to rollerskate beneath a moving truck? Sure! He'll do it for the laffs,

My family wasn't the only people enamored with that stuttering beautiful fool, he got millions and millions of viewers in his heyday, and millions of people imitating him. The thrills and spills of a human doing extremely dangerous shit always gets the blood racing, whether it's Tom Cruise strapping himself to  a plane for a multi-million dollar Mission Impossible, or Michael Crawford  getting up to all sorts of nonsense for a sitcom episode that cost 13 quid to make. Courage doesn't cost a damn thing.