Actor Richard Wilson has told how Victor Meldrew was killed off when he grew tired of playing an angry old man and of people yelling “I don’t believe it!” at him in the street.
The Bafta-winning sitcom One Foot in the Grave was a huge hit in the 1990s, with audiences of 18 million at its peak.
Written by David Renwick, it ran for 10 years and the cast and crew have now revealed the secrets of the show in a new TV documentary.
And 86-year-old Richard tells how he was relieved when Renwick suggested killing off Victor in 2000.
He said: “I’d been doing it for quite a long while I was getting a bit wearisome of being angry all the time.
“David said, ‘I’m thinking of killing Victor. What do you think?’ I said, ‘Kill him. Do it’.”
Richard could not escape his character and his famous catchphrase. He said: “I got the catchphrase shouted at me everywhere. In foreign countries, I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s got here as well’.”
While he knew the show was over, and that Victor was to be hit by a car and killed, it was news to the rest of the cast.
Angus Deayton, 67, who played the Meldrews’ neighbour Patrick, said: “I had no idea that it was going to be the final series until I saw the script for the last show and saw that Victor was going to die.”
Doreen Mantle, 96, who played Jean Warboys, said: “I was very sad. I didn’t want the series to end. But it was time that it ended.”
The sitcom, which ran for six series, relied on the brilliant partnership of Richard and Annette Crosbie as Victor’s wife Margaret.
Angus tells the Channel Five documentary: “Richard’s character is obviously the sort of serious one and Annette is a slightly lighter, jollier one. Annette was actually the more serious of the two and Richard was always playing jokes, keeping everything light and jolly.”
Talking about screen wife, Annette, now 89, Richard said: “She had never done a sitcom. But she was a very good comedian. She was quite straight, in many ways. But her comedy was very well done.”
Filming had its moments and Richard recalls being buried up to his neck in a 4ft hole. It took time to get right. He said: “I think I did it three times. Sitting in this bloody garden, cold.”
Outside scenes were filmed near Bournemouth, Dorset. Director Christine Gernon said: “Location managers would be driving around with boots full of whisky to drop off to disgruntled people who could not get into their houses because there would be a lorry blocking the road.”
* One Foot in the Grave: 30 Years of Laughs, Friday, 9pm, Channel 5.
