This Is Your Life: Roy Hudd

Roy HUDD (1936-2020)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Roy Hudd, comedian, actor and presenter, was surprised by Michael Aspel - with the help of Angela Rippon, Lionel Blair, Gabrielle Drake and Jilly Cooper - while recording an edition of the ITV panel show What's My Line?

Roy, who was born in Croydon, first began performing with his local youth club, where he was encouraged by the comedian Michael Bentine. Following his National Service with the RAF, he appeared in variety as part of a double act before working solo. Having been spotted by a BBC producer, he was invited to join the BBC satirical television programme Not So Much a Programme, More a Way Of Life.

He established his long-running satirical BBC Radio programme, The Hudd Headlines, in 1975 and was named the Radio Personality of the Year the following year. In 1982, he won the Society of West End Theatre award for Best Actor in a Musical for Underneath the Arches. In addition to writing books and being an expert on the history of Music Hall, Roy was involved in many show business charities, including the Water Rats and the Artists Benevolent Fund.

"You swine! I'll be there, sir! Isn't it frightening!"

programme details...

Edition No: 749
Subject No: 742
Broadcast date: Wed 4 Jan 1989
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Thu 3 Nov 1988
Venue: Teddington Studios
Series: 29
Edition: 12
Code name: Lines

on the guest list...

Morris Aza
Debbie - wife
Max - son
Peter - brother
Sybil - sister-in-law
Matthew - nephew
Ben - nephew
Michael Bentine
Tony Groom
Eddie Cunningham
Ned Sherrin
Nick Berry
Christopher Timothy
Colin McLean
June Whitfield
Chris Emmett
Lord Delfont

production team...

Researcher: Caroline Blackadder
Writer: Roy Bottomley
Directors: Brian Klein, David Clark
Producer: Malcolm Morris

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

That's Entertainment

there's no business like it

Michael Bentine

Christopher Timothy

June Whitfield

Screenshots of Roy Hudd This Is Your Life

Roy Hudd recalls his experience of This Is Your Life in his autobiography, A Fart In A Colander...

In the late eighties and well into the nineties I did series after series of that good old warhorse of a panel game, What's My Line? There are still folk about who remember the original series back in the black-and-white days. Eamonn Andrews was the host and Lady Isobel Barnett, Barbara Kelly and Gilbert Harding were the regular panellists, with a variable fourth in the team, usually someone to get the laughs.

I thought this was the very best game of them all. It didn't rely on greed and big money prizes, all a winner got was a certificate to say they'd beaten the panel. Such a simple idea. The guests would be folk whose job we had to guess. They would begin by miming something to do with the job, and then we'd ask them questions that could only be answered 'Yes' or 'No' - and we were only allowed ten 'Nos'!

I used every trick in the book to discover what the jobs were before the programme started, especially the ones that I could get a few laughs out of. I remember one of my better enquiries was to a bra manufacturer: 'Does it involve lifting at all?' I wasn't told anything at all about the majority of guests, and I rarely got any right. I did, however, have one major triumph. A bloke came on, did his mime and, as a complete shot in the dark, I said, 'You're a chicken sexer!' - and he was! Somewhere at the back of my mind, I remembered a man doing the very same action the contestant had mimed on the Thomases' farm in Northamptonshire, to where I had been evacuated all those years before. Everyone swore I'd been told beforehand but, as sure as God made little yellow furry things, I hadn't. At last I had respect!

The very best 'catch' I can remember, though, was when they caught me for This Is Your Life. One of the spots in What's My Line? was when the panel were blindfolded and then had to guess the identity of a mystery celebrity. On one particular show we put on the blindfolds and the mystery guest answered all our questions in a hammy Welsh accent.

'Well, I'm damn sure you're not Neil Kinnock,' said I.

To which the voice replied, 'Perhaps you'd recognise me if I said "Roy Hudd - this is your life!"' I did. It was Michael Aspel and I was whisked off to Thames TV to collect the red book. I think the programme's budget took a bit of a tumble once Eamonn Andrews died as the furthest any of my friends and family came was from Walthamstow and Croydon. It was a good 'do' though and just after it was recorded I was elected King Rat of The Grand Order of Water Rats for their centenary year.

Series 29 subjects