Obituary: John Esmonde (original) (raw)

In the great era of television situation comedies, roughly from the mid-1960s to the mid-80s, practically every successful series was hatched by partnerships of two writers who worked by bouncing ideas and lines off each other until they knew they were on the right track. David Croft and Jimmy Perry gave us Dad's Army; Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, The Likely Lads, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? and Porridge; Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Steptoe and Son.

John Esmonde, who has died at the age of 71, was half of a partnership with Bob Larbey, who together came up with popular series including Please, Sir! and The Good Life, but they were not established writers who had teamed up because that was the best modus operandi for sitcom-writing. They had known each other since childhood, having both been born and raised in south London - Esmonde came from Battersea - and been schoolboy mates at Henry Thornton grammar school in Clapham.

Though Esmonde was the younger by two years, the pair remained firm friends and, on leaving school, found jobs in the same firm of block-makers. Esmonde did his national service in the RAF, worked in the offices of a paint company and made a start in trade journalism, without much success.

But the pair still met regularly and shared an interest in radio humour. As a result they started getting together in the evenings to try their hand at radio comedy scripts. During the first three years, one offering brought in a joint fee of two guineas from the BBC. Then, in 1965, when they were in their late 20s, they finally achieved a series of their own with the radio sitcom Spare a Copper, which starred Kenneth Connor as a bumbling policeman and was successful enough to enable the pair to become full-time writers.

Other series followed, including Just Perfick (1969), from the Larkins stories by HE Bates, which would not reach the TV screen as The Darling Buds of May for another 22 years, and then not written by Esmonde and Larbey. They made their television debut in 1967 with Room at the Bottom (for the BBC), a cheery low-life series about a crew of maintenance workers - the title was a playful twist on John Braine's hugely popular novel and movie, Room at the Top.

Please, Sir! a year later featured the trials of an English teacher in a tough secondary modern school. Although the BBC had turned it down, the newly enfranchised London Weekend Television snapped it up, and instead of the usual half-hour format gave it a 45-minute slot. Perhaps because of this, and thanks to John Alderton's skill in the lead part, the result had a disarming veracity. Instead of the blatant semaphoring of intentions common to so many sitcoms, the teacher's dismay when he felt he was failing to get through to his pupils would be banished by a sudden, unexpected reward - a seemingly unfinished drawing which was actually continued on the other side of the paper, or a child's piercing interpretation of a line from Shakespeare.

The Good Life, which the BBC accepted for production in 1975, featured Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal as a suburban couple resolved to practise self-sufficiency and live off the land without leaving Surbiton, much to the scorn of their neighbours, played by Paul Eddington and Penelope Keith. Again Esmonde and Larbey succeeded in sustaining genial life-like comedy without elaborate plot contrivances on the one hand or drifting into sitcharm, rather than sitcom, on the other.

The two writers continued to work together, meeting daily in a rented office in Dorking, Surrey, midway between their homes, Larbey still in London, Esmonde now settled on the Sussex coast. Success continued to come their way, notably with Get Some In! (Thames, 1975-78), which drew on their national service days in the 50s.

The Fenn Street Gang was a spin-off from Please, Sir!, which caught up with the kids and their teacher in later life and yielded a movie as well as the LWT series of 1971-73. Ever Decreasing Circles (BBC, 1984-89) brought back Briers as a fussy organisation man keeping life locked up in the cellar. Brush Strokes (BBC, 1986-91) featured a laddish painter and decorator, played by Karl Howman, and in due course spawned Mulberry (BBC, 1992-93) with the same actor as the mysterious - no, sinister - housekeeper engaged by spinster Geraldine McEwan.

In 1995, Esmonde and Larbey decided to make Down to Earth, with Briers once again, a final effort before they parted company professionally. Esmonde retired to La Herradura, on the southern Spanish coast, with the intention of writing novels. He is survived by his wife, Gina, whom he married in 1960.

· John Gilbert Esmonde, radio and television writer, born March 27 1937; died August 10 2008