Cyril Fletcher

Cyril Fletcher enjoyed something of a renaissance in his long comedy career in 1972 when TV producer and presenter Esther Rantzen asked him to join the consumer program That's Life and recite some of his 'Odd Odes'. He proved such a success with the audience that he became a fixture of the show for eight years. Fletcher had been composing and performing his comic odes as a child and throughout his career as a first class comedian and pantomime 'dame' they were a staple part of his act. He was part of British variety's heyday both as a producer and performer and once said of the genre: "Variety as a cradle for stardom was unsurpassed. It is an exciting and exacting science." Cyril Trevellian Fletcher was born in 1913. He began writing comic poetry when he was still at school and at an early age had ambitions to become a classical actor. His first job was as an insurance clerk but a chance meeting with the producer Greatorex Newman led to him appearing in the Fols De Rols Concert Party in 1936 at Hastings, Sussex. Fletcher went on to appear at the Holborn Empire in London and was soon given his own radio series with the BBC. He topped bills in variety all over Britain and was one of the first comedians to appear on television at the BBC's new Alexandra Palace in the first pantomime ever televised, Dick Whittington. After World War Two he and his wife Betty Astell presented summer shows and pantomimes throughout Britain. On television Fletcher was a regular on What's My Line? and TV's first religious program Sunday Story but it was his lugubrious voice and cozy presence on That's Life that made him a household name in later years. Gardening was one of his great loves and for 14 years he was presenter of ATV's Gardening Time and in 1990 Cyril Fletcher's Lifestyle Garden. He and his wife eventually retired to Guernsey in the Channel Islands but he still occasionally delighted audiences with his one man show After Dinner with Cyril Fletcher. He wrote an autobiography, Nice One, Cyril.