Chesney and Wolfe
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Ronald Chesney (born 1922) and Ronald Wolfe are British TV comedy scriptwriters, best known for their popular 1960s / 1970s sitcoms The Rag Trade and On The Buses.
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Early years
Chesney left school at the age of 16 and became a professional harmonica player. He was declared unfit to serve in World War II because of illness. He began to write potential radio scripts for the BBC and that's where he came into contact with future writing partner Ronald Wolfe.
Wolfe was born in London and served in World War II as a radio engineer. In the early 1950s he began to contribute to radio scripts, and his long and fruitful partnership with Chesney began.
Chesney and Wolfe's works
The first major series for Chesney and Wolfe was ITV's Educating Archie, in 1958, which featured ventriloquist Peter Brough and his puppet Archie Andrews. Two years earlier they had written a one-off special for the BBC entitled Here's Archie, which also featured Brough - and his dummy - and Irene Handl.
In 1961 the pair created the influential The Rag Trade, starring Peter Jones, Miriam Karlin and Reg Varney. Written for the BBC, this comedy was set in a working class environment and featured strong roles for the female actors, which was unusual for the time. Set in a fabric workshop - Fenner Fashions - it centred on the battles and conflicts between the bosses and the workers, and contained a certain degree of social commentary. Sheila Hancock, Esma Cannon and Barbara Windsor also appeared.
In 1963 Chesney and Wolfe repeated their success with the BBC sitcom Meet The Wife starring Dame Thora Hird and Freddie Frinton. It was originally a one-off Comedy Playhouse pilot called The Bed. Again, this featured working class characters and humour. Interestingly, the programme is mentioned in the Beatles song "Good Morning Good Morning".
In the mid to late 1960s they wrote The Bed-Sit Girl starring Sheila Hancock, and Sorry I'm Single starring Derek Nimmo, Gwendolyn Watts and Elizabeth Knight. In 1968 they created Wild, Wild Women starring Barbara Windsor, which was a kind of period-piece variation on The Rag Trade.
There next major series though was ITV's On The Buses which started in 1969. It starred Reg Varney as a bus driver, Michael Robbins, Anna Karen as the plain Olive and the memorable lip-quivering Stephen Lewis as Blakey. The series ran until 1973 and was a phenomenal success, producing three film spin-offs and an American remake, Lotsa Luck, which ran for 1 season on NBC in 1973-1974. When the series ended Wolfe and Chesney followed it with Don't Drink The Water, which starred Stephen Lewis's Blakey abroad in Spain. However, this was not a success and didn't go down to well with viewers or critics.
In 1972, the Two (Writing) Ronnies, as they were sometimes known, wrote the ITV sitcom Romany Jones starring Dad's Army star James Beck and featuring Jo Rowbottom and Arthur English. It lasted four series but didn't match the standard of most of their previous work. The fact that Beck died after the second series didn't help. Even so, it created a sequel - Yus My Dear in 1976, featuring Arthur Mullard and Queenie Watts.
In 1977, there was an updated version of The Rage Trade for ITV with Peter Jones and Miriam Karlin returning, and Anna Karen virtually repeating her Olive character from On The Buses
Their last series as a comedy scriptwriting duo was 1980's Watch This Space starring Christopher Biggins as the boss of an advertising agency.
TV credits
- Here's Archie (1956)
- Educating Archie (1958)
- The Rag Trade (1961)
- Meet The Wife (1963)
- The Bed-Sit Girl (1965)
- Sorry I'm Single (1967)
- According To Dora (1968)
- Wild, Wild Women (1968)
- On The Buses (1969)
- The Other Reg Varney (1970)
- Romany Jones (1972)
- Don't Drink The Water (1974)
- Yus My Dear (1976)
- The Boys And Mrs B (1977)
- The Rag Trade (1977 remake)
- Watch This Space (1980)
- Take A Letter, Mr Jones... (1981)
- Allo Allo! (1982)
External links
- Ronald Wolfe (http://www.ronaldwolfe.com/biography/ronaldwolfebiography.htm) - his own web site with biography and contact details.
- IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0156255/) - link for Ronald Chesney.
- IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0938132/) - link for Ronald Wolfe.