Original subtitles

It was one of the biggest British sitcom successes of all time,

at its peak watched by half the country,

and it introduced us to a one-man walking disaster

called Frank Spencer.

Giving us priceless moments of unforgettable comic chaos.

Oh.

"Oh, Betty, I broke a window."

But behind the scenes, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em

was a story of near-misses, happy accidents and death-defying danger.

You wouldn't really have Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em work today

because of health and safety.

We'll uncover some never-before-told secrets behind the series'

most audacious stunts...

It's a bit like exposing a magician's magic trick.

...show remarkable, rare footage from the making of the episodes,

revealing just how close the danger was for its star...

That's low. That's really low.

It was part of the fuel that drove him.

...and even speak to the man who created it,

to discover how he faced years of painful rejection.

I don't know why I never gave up, really.

It was dangerous. It was ridiculous. It was hilarious.

I've never seen anything like it since, to be honest.

Tonight, we're going to reveal the secrets and scandals

of one of Britain's best loved sitcoms.

It's 1973. We're all happily smoking on the Tube, jumping in the car

after a few pints with no seat belts, and letting our kids

play with fireworks.

But no-one in Britain is putting themselves in more danger

than this man.

What followed was one of the most extraordinary sequences

ever seen in a sitcom.

And every astonishing moment was performed by its star,

Michael Crawford.

That was all Michael. Skating down the stairs.

Coming off the pavement. Catching hold of the bus.

He should get the credit for that as a stunt arranger.

It mixed amazing action with brilliant lines like this...

I haven't got no change!

And it was built around one of its star's many talents.

My ticket.

Michael had brought a pair of roller skates and he was trying them out.

And it was then when I realised that this bloke is really good,

he knows what he's doing.

But there were secret doubts. Could Michael really pull it off?

There was huge anxiety behind the scenes in terms of filming it

and so much really rested on Michael Crawford's timing

and physical control to actually make it work, that it was always

just a whisker away from disaster.

Move out the way!

It had to be obviously presented as one continuous sequence,

but it was done in stages

and each of them was very difficult, very elaborate and very dangerous.

I've been articulated!

And he's hurtling towards this department store doorway

and he crashes through the doorway. And then, of course,

we cut to the studio where we did the effects.

We set up all the shelves that would crash safely down

and everything would fall off of them.

But it always amazed me. In fact, he still does.

And, in fact, he was allowed to do all his own stunts.

Heaven knows who wrote the risk assessment for that!

But how had such an extraordinary sitcom been conceived?

Well, the secrets behind that can now be revealed.

The tranquil setting of the Isle of Wight is seemingly

a million miles away from the chaos of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em

but it's home to the man who created it.

Meet Raymond Allen. He invited us into his home for a rare chat.

Over 50 years ago, he had a dream to make it as a writer

but, much like Frank Spencer's life, it wasn't easy.

I was sending away scripts all the time

and I'd written... In the end, I'd written about 45.

Ray tried his hand at drama and then comedy, but faced a string

of rejections, including one that was particularly brutal.

I had a letter from the producer and he said, "To be a comedy writer,

"you need three things —

"some talent, an ear for dialogue

"and a sense of humour." He said,

"Unfortunately, having read your script,"

he said, "You don't appear to have any of these."

Ray had been sending scripts off for 15 years.

He was in his early 30s and seemingly going nowhere.

He was living with his parents and he was actually writing the scripts

in his parents' shed at the bottom of their garden.

He was doing a whole variety of little odd jobs,

trying to make ends meet. They'd say, "What does he do for a living?"

And my parents say, "Well, he works at the cinema.

"He cleans the toilets, you know."

And I've been doing that five years.

I don't know why I never gave up, really.

But you sort of just keep going, I suppose.

But it was whilst working at that very cinema

that Ray had the first of many happy accidents

that would change his life forever.

I used to stand outside the cinema, cleaning, sweeping the steps,

and this man approached me and he said,

"This film they've got on this week,"

he said, "ls there any fighting in it?"

I said, "Well, yes, it's The Battle Of Britain."

And he said, "Does anyone get killed?"

I said, "Well, yes, a lot of people get killed."

"Oh, my wife wouldn't like that,"

he said, "She didn't like anything like that.

"|'ll tell her we won't go and see that."

I said to the usherette, I said, "That's a weird chap, isn't he?

"He keeps asking me if there's any killing in the war film."

And she said, "Yeah, that's Mr Spencer. He's a bit odd."

She said, "And he's got a son called Frank, and he's even stranger.

That fateful encounter planted the seed for a strange

walking disaster called Frank Spencer

and his patient wife, Betty,

and Ray set about writing yet another script,

which he saw as a one-off play.

The play had Frank and Betty as a honeymoon couple in a hotel room

with Frank causing havoc and smashing everything up.

In the end, it became episode four of the series, rewritten to make it

a second honeymoon for Frank and Betty.

Oh, Frank. Betty. Oh.

And the original title was based around, erm,

a popular chocolate bar.

I was writing about an accident—prone man.

And there was an advert out at the time.

"Have a break. Have a Kit Kat."

And so I'd called it Take A Break, Take Your Husband.

Mm, not sure that title is going to catch on.

So with very little hope, Ray despatched the script to the BBC.

But for the first time, Luck was on Ray's side.

By happy chance, the script landed on the desk of Michael Mills,

Head of BBC Comedy, and he was looking for a new sitcom.

Michael Mills was one of the pioneers of producers

and directors in British television.

He'd been a huge figure in terms of situation comedies,

and he was hugely respected amongst other executives.

Michael Mills said, "Well... we like your script.

"We thought it was funny. We like the character.

"And we'd like to buy it.

"We're going to offer you so much money."

And I said, "What? You mean you're going to pay for it?"

Having never earned more than £10 a week, for the first series

of Some Mothers he earned £350 an episode.

When they offered it to him he thought that was for the whole series. He couldn't believe it.

Michael Mills believed in the project so much

that he quit as Head of Comedy

in order to produce and direct the series.

But he insisted on a new title for the show.

After rejecting Take A Break, Take A Husband

you could have been watching...

...before Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em was chosen.

And as Ray wrote further scripts

he didn't have to look far when it came to thinking up more mishaps.

I always thought I was sort of jinxed.

Everything seemed to go wrong with me.

He was always bumping into things, dropping things, breaking things.

Frank Spencer is very closely aligned to what Ray Allen was like

in the 1970s, particularly before he got the scripts commissioned

by the BBC, and he was doing all these different odd jobs.

He kind of was the Frank Spencer of his day himself, really.

This inability to hold down a regular job became a running joke

for Frank, with Ray drawing directly from his work—related disasters

for storylines. Whilst he was working as a cleaner at the cinema,

he famously flooded the place.

I was trying to fix the toilet and it broke

and I just got absolutely soaked.

And that was the story that ended up in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em.

BANGING

I've made a hole, Betty!

Even Frank Spencer's iconic look was drawn directly from his creator.

All because of an embarrassing encounter worthy of Frank himself.

Ray was a fan of Humphrey Bogart films

and he decided to invest in a big overcoat like his cinema idol.

And the director, Michael Mills, said to Ray while they were

at Television Centre, "We need to find Frank a funny costume."

And he said to the costume person, who was in the office as well,

"Go somewhere cheap and get something really tatty looking."

And then he said, "Well, you know, like a raincoat."

"What do you mean, a raincoat?"

And he said, "Well, have you seen what Ray's wearing?"

I never wore the raincoat again. I felt so embarrassed about it.

Coming up, we reveal the future comedy legend

that BBC bosses didn't want for Frank Spencer.

They all sort of shook their head.

"He hasn't got the sort of charisma to carry the show."

And the bizarre request from the show's star

that led to a surprising casting decision.

I said, "I've got a daughter the right age."

"She's got to be called Jessica." I said, "Yes, she's called Jessica."

It's impossible to imagine anyone other than Michael Crawford

as Frank Spencer, but the course of comedy history

could have been very different.

We can now reveal some of the famous names first suggested for the role,

starting with Albania's favourite movie star.

Producer Michael Mills saw Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em

as a vehicle for Norman Wisdom

and negotiations started with Norman.

He said, "Well, I quite like the character,"

he said, "But I suppose he puts the funny lines in later."

He turned it down and later bitterly regretted the fact that he had.

In the end, I was glad Norman Wisdom wouldn't do it because he'd probably

start singing halfway through.

And before doing Porridge or Open All Hours,

one Ron might have led another life.

Ronnie Barker was considered for a while.

He looked at the script, he read it, but went back and basically said,

"Look, this is physical comedy. I'm a words man." So he declined.

But, amazingly, one future comedy legend wasn't considered

leading man material. I said, "Well, I saw a guy on television last week

"and he was brilliant. He was so funny."

I said, "His name's David Jason."

They all sort of shook their head and the Head of Comedy said,

"Well, I've seen David Jason

"and I didn't really like him very much.

"The trouble with David Jason is he hasn't got any sort of personality.

"He hasn't got the sort of charisma to carry a show."

Those same BBC bosses thought David Jason was...

...and had...

So without a suitable lead, the series was in danger of collapsing.

But another happy accident was about to occur.

At the time that they were casting,

a brand-new farce called No Sex Please, We're British

had taken the West End by storm.

And it featured a young actor called Michael Crawford.

Michael Mills, the producer, went to see Michael Crawford

in No Sex Please, We're British on stage.

He was playing the role of the hapless bank clerk Runnicles

and immediately saw the personality traits of Frank Spencer in him.

The role required manic, physical energy and brilliant comic timing.

It was just what was needed for Frank.

I thought he was really good and he was so funny.

He had a lot of the Frank Spencer mannerisms then.

Michael Crawford had been a rising star in the 1960s and even appeared

in the Hollywood musical Hello, Dolly! alongside Barbra Streisand.

But when that flopped, his career stalled.

And for a time he was even stuffing cushions

for his wife's haberdashery business.

The lead role in a new BBC sitcom

offered him the chance of a comeback.

And by good fortune, Michael knew exactly how to bring Frank to life.

Michael Crawford from the beginning conceived Frank

as being a very childlike character, an innocent child

who gets into all sorts of scrapes.

Who the hell are you?

I'm Frank. Frank Spencer. I need a doctor.

It was always interesting with the voice. It's kind of...

AS FRANK SPENCER: It's a little bit like that.

It was like a little toddler learning to speak,

and that makes perfect sense.

Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Crawford.

During Michael's entertaining appearance on Parkinson in 1973,

he disclosed how his performance as Frank

was inspired by his five-year-old daughter.

I said, "Lucy, did you have something to eat before lunch?

"Stand up and tell me."

So she stands there and she...

AUDIENCE LAUGH THROUGHOUT

"No, I tried that with him yesterday.

"I know."

And he would incorporate them into Frank.

That's the childlike innocence

that he's picked up from being a father, really.

As an actor,

I think it's an astonishing piece of work that he does.

The levels of just all the little tics and tricks and stuff...

HE INHALES SHARPLY That in breath is a famous thing.

I've never met an actor who's created a character

with the detail of that level.

But when Michael originally showed his version of Frank

to the man who first thought of him, it was something of a shock.

He came to the door as Frank Spencer.

I remember I was very worried

because this was the first time I'd met Michael.

I thought, "God, I hope this guy's a really good actor, you know,

"because his sort of...

"He's got this peculiar voice, and very strange."

I thought he was being serious.

It's important that a writer understands how an actor envisages

that character because it's only words on a piece of paper.

You have to trust the writer and the writer has to trust the actor.

And Michael displayed his remarkable commitment to being Frank Spencer

throughout the making of the series.

When the studio scenes came to be filmed in front of an audience,

Michael completely locked himself in the character.

He always kept in character all the time.

He wouldn't speak to the audience before the show.

So it looked like it was that character in front them,

it wasn't an actor playing Frank. It was Frank.

He was utterly amazing. And, God, he worked hard, you know?

Playing opposite such a dedicated performer

in front of a live audience wasn't easy.

The laughs were very nearly contagious.

He comes to the hospital and I have a line to him.

Now, listen, when women get depressed, they start imagining things. They begin to feel

that they're not wanted. Especially if, as in your case, the husband doesn't bother to come very often.

VOICE OVER: And he looks at me cos he's a very dangerous actor.

He doesn't speak. He looks at me and he goes...

I've tried to come more often.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

But I've had a bit of bother, see?

And of course, in rehearsals, even in the dress rehearsal,

we kill ourselves laughing.

And Michael Mills, the director, comes to us and he said,

"You mustn't laugh when the audience are in."

"No, no, no, Michael, we won't."

And if you see it, he's daring me to laugh.

Plus, I'll blew my pudding up.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

And that was it. So we got it in one take but,

my gosh, it was frightening.

The British public was starting to take Frank Spencer

to their hearts. But even a character as extraordinary as Frank

couldn't carry the series alone.

He needed his endlessly tolerant and long suffering wife, Betty.

Ray realised for it to be a fully formed comedy

it had to be a husband and wife.

So you weren't just looking at Frank Spencer, you were looking at

the marriage and the relationship.

Your mother's never liked me.

Oh, but she will. Our marriage was a great shock to her.

You know she wanted me to marry somebody else.

Who? Well, no-one in particular. Just somebody else.

When you look at the performances and the writing, the pairing of them

is very equally balanced.

Michele Dotrice was cast as Betty

and proved to be vital to the series.

She brought such a sense of vulnerability and realism to it

that the audiences cared about her,

and she gelled with Michael Crawford.

Oh, Frank, you will try and get this job, won't you?

Betty, I always try.

I know you do, Frank. No-one could be more trying than me.

LAUGHTER

They fitted so well as actors and characters.

Their on-screen chemistry was matched by a strong

off-screen friendship, which proved a lifeline for Michael,

whose own marriage had recently ended.

He also credited her with helping to get through one of the hardest

parts of his life, the break-up of his marriage.

He actually called her the sister he never had.

But on-screen, their dynamic was about to take an unexpected twist

when Michael suggested that Frank and Betty should become parents.

But we can reveal that one classic scene

might have been very different.

Michael Mills, he just thought it would be funny if...

"Betty suddenly said, "I'm pregnant, Frank."

And he was carrying a tray and he dropped it.

And, um...

I said I wanted to build the part up.

There's going to be a little addition to our family.

LAUGHTER

The reactions that Michael provides as Frank are timeless.

How do you mean?

And Frank just misinterprets it like he misinterprets everything.

We're going to hear the patter of tiny little feet.

The writing and the wordplay is magnificent.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, Betty.

I'm not having another cat in this house.

LAUGHTER

And then of course Michael could do wonders with it in the episode.

I've had enough trouble with Cleopatra.

Last week I caught her scratching the wallpaper over there

and when I told her to stop, she did a whoopsie in my beret.

And the team didn't have to look far to find their new arrival.

The first Jessica was the daughter of a cameraman.

What's Daddy looking at, Jessica?

Daddy's looking at the man in the moon.

Yes, thanks to one of the crew, baby Jessica had a starring role

in the 1974 Christmas special,

prompting a memorable catchphrase from her TV daddy.

Who's going to see the Queen on Christmas Day? Yes, you are.

"Who's going to see the Queen on Christmas Day?"

But when an older Jessica was needed for the following series,

Michael Crawford's very specific demands about casting her

made the search for his next co-star seem almost impossible.

Michael Crawford walked into the office and was insisting

that the child playing his daughter should be called Jessica

or she wouldn't respond to him. And I said,

"I've got a daughter the right age."

"She's got to be called Jessica."

I said, "Yes, she's called Jessica." So she was cast.

And we can now reveal the lengths the production team went to

in helping the new Jessica feel right at home.

It was filmed in my house.

It's familiar surroundings for baby Jessica.

There was poor daddy stuck to the chair and he didn't know what to do.

Just like Rodney the rabbit

when he had tea with a nasty, horrible beast. And we all know...

As a parent, I was terrified that she wouldn't respond favourably

to Michael. Babies either take to somebody or they don't.

She was not too comfortable with him at first,

but he was very good with her. And Rodney had plenty to say about that.

He says, "Wizard, keep your carrots and all that you've amassed.

"Remove your spell, unglue my tail.

"I will not be harassed."

Crawford scenes with Jessica showed Frank as a loving dad.

It's really sweet, really touching.

Got one thing right, didn't he? He had Jessica.

Finding Jessica had been another lucky chance, but as the series

continued, would cast and crew be pushing their luck too far?

Coming up, the never-before-revealed secrets behind some of the show's

most famous stunts. Between you and I,

it's a bit like exposing a magician's magic trick.

And how one scene almost ended in tragedy.

The risks were getting bigger and bigger.

It's the 1970s and the stuntman is the king of cool.

We're thrilled by seeing Evel Knievel jump over things.

But when it comes to stunts,

only one man was the real action hero of the decade.

Betty! Betty! No, Frank!

It was remarkable scenes of physical comedy like this

that set Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em apart from other sitcoms.

Hold on!

Because what made them so remarkable was that the stunts

were all performed by the star of the show himself.

He willingly put himself in danger every time.

Michael Crawford insisted on doing his own stunts.

Most actors don't do their own stunts.

Michael Crawford, he was skin and bone. There was nothing of him.

To look at him, you would think, well, he'd blow away in the wind.

And he's an amazing stunt guy.

Betty! You'll kill yourself! Betty...

SHE SCREAMS

His weight to strength ratio was incredible.

He was very physical, there's no doubt about that.

Michael Crawford was a huge fan of the Hollywood slapstick greats

such as Buster Keaton and Laurel and Hardy,

and wanted to emulate the physical comedy of his heroes.

Remarkably, some of his stunts

were performed in front of a live studio audience.

But the pressure to achieve these live stunts was immense.

If Michael was in the studio in front of the live audience

and a stunt had to be executed,

if it didn't work, you'd have to do it a second time

and you wouldn't get the same fresh, spontaneous laughter that you would

the first time around. So there was a lot of pressure on the stunts

working the first time around.

And as the series continued, the expectation to better the stunt work

only increased — as did the danger.

With Michael Crawford, stunts got more and more dramatic

and elaborate and the risks were getting bigger and bigger.

You stupid git! I told you not to press the button!

Unbeknown to viewers at the time, this vertigo-inducing stunt,

which saw Frank as a window cleaner's assistant,

was so risky that it almost ended in tragedy.

Michael was up an office block above the North Circular Road

in London, high up with Derek, who he was playing the window cleaner.

And it ended up with Michael holding Derek's ankles

and Derek holding onto the cradle. That was all in the script.

But a vital miscalculation nearly proved fatal,

as Michael disclosed during his revealing appearance

on Parkinson in 1973.

Well, what we didn't realise was that this cradle we're in,

with our weight outside it, would pull the cradle into the wall

so that we could go up on the tracks against the wall,

but it wouldn't come down because it dug into the wall.

The cradle had jammed.

They were trapped, precariously dangling 250 feet above the ground.

Fortunately, Michael was able to see the funny side,

as his candid chat with Parky showed.

So we're hanging there and I'm watching Willesden, Harlesden...

There's Wembley. And then you swing back and, oh,

there's the Houses of Parliament in the distance.

You don't go back over past life or anything. You just keep thinking

how small everything is and maybe it can get bigger.

And I saw the camera down there and the guy was still filming it

and I thought, "They're trying to get me on the 9:00 news."

LAUGHTER

They were dangling for about 20 minutes before it was worked out

they could take the cradle to the top of the building

and they jumped off, six feet onto the roof.

This extraordinary footage of the sequence being filmed

shows Michael finally being rescued

and just how close he'd come to disaster.

You wouldn't really have Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em work today

in terms of the stunts because of health and safety,

whereas in those clays you could really get away with much more

because there was much less anxiety beforehand and procedure about it.

But away from the cameras, one man wasn't thrilled by the risks

Michael was taking.

I was worried about the stunts

cos I thought if he injures himself, that's it, you know?

But despite that near-fatal episode, Michael was determined

that the stunt should be even bigger, and he was still prepared

to risk life and limb to do it.

One death-defying stunt in the second series

had Frank and Betty going on a picnic at the seaside and the car,

an old Morris Minor, ended up hanging halfway over the cliff.

LAUGHTER

MORE LAUGHTER

It was the stuff of comedy legend.

Betty?

You promise you won't be angry with me?

I suppose we're stuck again, are we?

We've got a bit of trouble, yes.

To viewers it seemed death-defying. But we can now reveal the secret

work behind the scenes that went into protecting the show's stars.

When we were doing the cliff-hanger, we had to get this car

and put a hinge on it.

We fastened this hinge to two massive great railway sleepers

that we dug into the side of the cliff.

And then we had a piece of scaffolding pole

fastened to the front of the car

so we could move it up and down on cue when we wanted to.

SHE SCREAMS

Don't move. We'd get a garage to weld bits to the car

so that there was no chance of that car really going over the cliff.

Hold on. Yes. Oh! It's rocking.

As Betty and Frank fought to save their car, what followed next

has gone down in TV history, as Michael Crawford performed

an extraordinary piece of derring-do all in the name of comedy.

Frank?

Oh, Frank!

Oh, what shall I do?

Betty!

But there were yet more secret safety features.

And we decided we wouldn't just have it harnessed on,

we'd have two safety lines on his harness,

and we also fastened an extra exhaust pipe

because the exhaust pipe on this Morris,

it wouldn't have taken Michael's weight.

So we put in another pipe which was much more substantial.

And in part of that sequence,

he does hold on to this pipe and it bends down.

The exhaust, Frank!

I have a photograph here of me testing it

before Michael comes to the location so it is safe for Michael to do.

Oh, my God! Hang on, Frank!

But beyond the on-screen terror, there was an extra

never- before — revealed safety feature.

Between you and I, it's a bit like exposing

a magician's magic trick.

But we did cheat a little bit.

We also decided that we would take some stunt boxes with us

and some crash pads, and we set up the boxes and the crash pads

at the bottom of the cliff

to make absolutely sure we didn't lose him,

cos if we injured him or killed him, we would never, ever work again.

So we put boxes at the bottom of the cliff just in case.

The continuing success of Some Mothers meant that in 1974

a Christmas special was commissioned.

But as it was physical comedy that had elevated the show

to such dizzying heights,

the writer and star devised a way to make Frank fly...

...as an unlikely angel in the church Nativity.

I remember doing the Nativity,

and then one of the lines was, "You dirty shepherd."

Stop looking up there!

You dirty shepherd. LAUGHTER

Cover Jessica's eyes.

It was another inspired piece of physical comedy.

So hilarious, in fact, it was almost impossible to film.

Stop looking...

HE LAUGHS, AUDIENCE LAUGHS

These are the rarely seen outtakes from this comedy classic,

showing Michael desperately struggling to say his lines

to a delirious studio audience.

Stop looking up me leg!

LAUGHTER

You're a dirty shepherd.

LAUGHTER

The Christmas special was mainly done in the studio,

but there were some things that had to be done outside.

He puts too many sandbags on

and he goes flying up to the top of the church roof.

Not that big one!

LAUGHTER

That was done outside in Norfolk in a derelict church.

But just how perilous was this epic ending for the star of the show?

The only trouble was, on the day we went to do it,

it was blowing a gale.

It was blowing a hooley. It was blowing about 40 or 50mph.

The astonishing climax

saw Michael dangling from a giant rescue helicopter

and braving those dangerously high winds to do so.

You'll see how windy it is and when the helicopter takes off

with him on it with "Merry Christmas"

you will see him swinging in the wind.

The 1974 Christmas episode had literally ended on a high.

This remarkable Yuletide treat

was viewed by a staggering 23 million people,

so the following year's Christmas special

had to be even more spectacular. The pressure was on.

Searching for inspiration,

Ray again secretly drew from his own real life calamities.

Back in the '70s Ray was learning to drive.

He really wanted to, but he couldn't quite master it.

He thought, "Oh, why don't I have Frank trying to learn how to drive?"

Oh, this is a nice wide road, isn't it? Yes, isn't it?

The result was another jaw-dropping stunt. There's an aeroplane.

I want to get out. No...

LAUGHTER

Frank panics and obviously wants to get out the car.

But it really is Michael Crawford who's acting out that stunt.

55, 55. It's at 60.

This rare footage shows the team filming the exhilarating sequence,

as Michael calls the shots over the radio.

Hold on tight now, hold on tight. Here she comes, here she comes.

Yes! There she goes. That's low. That's low!

That's really low.

Stuntmen don't act and actors don't normally do stunts.

And I think it was part of the fuel that drove him.

Hands on the wheel!

And Frank's fatalistic driving lessons required an ambitious climax

with some suitably ambitious visual effects.

He's taking his driving lesson and he drives off the pier

in a helmet into the sea. OK!

So we bought a Hillman imp. We didn't want it to nosedive.

And the Imp was the only generally available car at the time —

British car, anyway — that had a rear engine,

so the weight was already at the back.

So this came into our workshop and we basically filled it

with lumps of block polystyrene.

We packed every square inch we could have of the Hillman Imp

because it floats, and we thought we'll make it more buoyant.

Keep your eyes closed cos it's salty water. Right, yeah? Yeah.

Michael did his own driving, and we had a stunt adviser

in the passenger seat playing the examiner.

This remarkable footage of the episode being made

shows Michael and stuntman preparing to shoot the scene.

It disclosed the scale of the challenge they faced,

as well as the secret ramp hidden at the end of the pier.

And we built this ramp out of block board at the workshops,

transported down there. The idea being that when the Imp hit it,

it would kick the front end up, drop the ramp,

so it went off at this sort of angle because we didn't try it.

"We got six different Imps here to throw off..."

"No, we had the one."

And we had the one go at trying.

This footage vividly captures the tension on set.

There was only one chance to get it right.

It worked first time and that was it.

Pull the car out. Pull Michael out. Pull the stunt guy out.

Look out for that fence!

Mind the sea!

The stunt had taken hours of preparation,

only appearing on screen in the finished episode for a few seconds.

But the effort had been worth it,

as an astonishing 25 million viewers tuned in that Christmas.

The ratings were absolutely phenomenal.

It was so incredibly popular.

The show was on a winning streak, but its luck was about to run out.

Coming up, the secret negotiations

to get Michael Crawford back for a third series.

At the end of the day, the BBC made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

And the behind-the-scenes decision

that turned the audience against Frank.

It's quite difficult to watch compared to the kind of

childlike Frank that's in the earlier two series.

By the mid 1970s, audiences of up to 25 million

were tuning into Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em,

and Frank Spencer had become one of the most recognisable

and imitated characters in Britain.

It was a sign, really, of how popular the sitcom became

in the '70s that it really seeped into popular culture,

it seeped into schoolyards and offices, that everyone seemed to

have a raincoat and a beret and was doing a Frank Spencer impression.

AS FRANK: "Oh, Betty, I broke a window."

It was a absolute go-to must

for every impressionist... that you did Frank Spencer.

Even a fresh-faced Lenny Henry in his 1975 TV debut.

LAUGHTER

Oh...

AS FRANK: There's a lot of people out there!

To be able to pull that impersonation off properly,

you had to know all the idiosyncrasies

because there was so much to get hold of. It was so nuanced,

such a brilliant character. For an impressionist — a gift.

The public couldn't get enough of Frank Spencer,

but Michael Crawford was beginning to tire of him.

We can now reveal the secret negotiations that took place

to persuade him to return to the role.

For the first series in 1973,

Michael Crawford was paid £1,000 per episode.

Fairly modest sums, as usual, by BBC entertainment standards.

And while you could see that that was understandable from the BBC's

point of view, they just looked at it as an actor in a sitcom,

from his point of view, he saw that he was having to do

not just dialogue but also these incredibly dangerous stunts.

But there was such a clamour for a third series that I think

at the end of the day the BBC made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

He was only lured back to do the show again when he was offered

reportedly £10,000 an episode to do it.

That would be about £63,000 per episode today.

So Michael had got the deal he wanted and three years after

his last on screen appearance returned as frank in 1978.

But behind the scenes,

series three would prove to be the most challenging of all.

There was a new producer called Sydney Lotterby who previously

had done verbal comedy shows like Porridge,

and he was very good at verbal comedy. But I think he found

the physical comedy very, very hard.

The bar was very high after the previous two series,

so there was enormous pressure to maintain that and, if anything,

to push even further with the stunts.

One of the most astonishing bigger stunts

was when Frank finally moved out of his house.

He's leaving home and the lorry drives down the road

and the camera pans back down the road

and the house in the terrace collapses.

As the first signs of disaster struck, little did the viewers

at home know the destruction that was to follow,

and the secret efforts that had gone into achieving it.

My first day on Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em was interesting.

I was dispatched to find a council

that would let us collapse a house in the middle of a terrace.

That was my first big task. On the first day.

I think it was in some desolate part of the East End where they were

tearing down these terraces and we managed to persuade the council

that we could shoot on that day.

People had rigged the back of the house so that it could be pulled

backwards by about three or four huge tractor—like vehicles.

It was a huge operation and very stressful because, you know,

getting the house to fall down precisely and leave a gap,

like a gap in a row of teeth, was very difficult.

LAUGHTER THROUGHOUT

APPLAUSE

For a BBC comedy, it was jaw—droppingly good.

How can you follow that?

I mean, I've never seen anything like it since, to be honest.

Most of the incredible set pieces for series three had been devised

by Michael himself, and he now wanted to fundamentally change

the character of Frank, too.

Michael was keen that Frank should grow up a bit for series three

and be a bit more in command, not the complete idiot.

He felt he would have matured over the years.

But he became sort of quite pompous at one stage when people would say

"Frank Spencer?" He'd say... I am he.

The Frank in series three

suddenly has this real confidence

that's bordering on arrogance at times.

To what are you alluring?

Well, there was the question of your garden extension.

Which I might add was never extensionified.

It's quite difficult to watch compared to the kind of childlike

Frank that's in the earlier two series.

And this major character change

was something that the writer and star did not agree on.

But then I always thought there were plenty of characters

who never changed. I mean, you've only got to think of

Laurel and Hardy, they never changed at all.

And I felt Michael could just go on being frank, you know?

But Michael wasn't too happy about it

and I think the character did change slightly.

We can reveal that BBC audience reports at the time showed viewers

thought Frank had become...

...and that his new confidence...

But despite this,

series three was still a huge success with the public,

averaging 18 million viewers each week.

And in December 1978, the show bowed out with a final Christmas special,

which saw Frank taking flying lessons,

an idea born from Michael actually being a qualified pilot.

A flying frank would mean one final stunt sequence,

the most ambitious yet attempted.

This time, not only would Michael be actor and stuntman,

but also cameraman, too.

My memory of the flying sequences were of Michael and the pilot.

Just the two of them cramming themselves into a tiny cockpit

in which cameras had been mounted.

But Michael had to operate the cameras while this plane

was performing these crazy stunts.

Logistically it was a nightmare, I think, because Sydney

had to communicate with the pilots and with Michael on intercoms

that barely worked and I remember

the shoots being very difficult and very stressful.

I... I think I'm the right way up again.

It was hair-raising stuff.

Frank finally made it back down to earth,

but it was the end of his journey.

Everybody involved with the program me

felt that it was the right time to call it a day.

Ray Allen was already now feeling exhausted

as far as coming up with new storylines was concerned.

Michael Crawford was keen to move on, to pursue other projects.

But for years afterwards,

Michael Crawford would still be Frank Spencer

as far as the British public was concerned.

It's that double edged sword, isn't it? If you do something excellently

and you really cut through and people notice you,

it's harder to move away from that and not be typecast.

Eventually, Michael gained critical and commercial success

with starring roles in acclaimed musicals such as Barnum

and, most famously, The Phantom Of The Opera.

But Ray Allen was never able to repeat the success

of Some Mothers.

I was still writing, but I'd never got a series out of it.

It was a bit disappointing, in a way. They'd say,

"Well, I like the show, but it's not as good as Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em,

"it's not as funny." It's so sad that Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em

was the only project that Ray did.

We should celebrate it because it is a fantastic series

and what an achievement.

Now in his 80s, Ray still lives on the Isle of Wight and looks back

with great pride at the comedy classic he first dreamt up

over 50 years ago.

It changed my life, really. It changed everything. I don't know

what would have happened if it hadn't been for Some Mothers.

It was the result of a series of happy accidents

driven by one of the greatest comic performances of all time.

It featured stunts that health and safety

wouldn't dream of allowing today,

with audience figures unlikely to ever happen again for a sitcom.

Truly, Some Mothers Did 'Ave 'Em and we'll never see its like again.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media