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MELVYN HAYES TALKS ABOUT HOW MUCH COMEDY HAS CHANGED SINCE HE BEGAN HIS CAREER. BY HANNAH STEPHENSON

- HANNAH STEPHENSON

But the sitcom that made Melvyn a household name was It Ain't Half Hot Mum, about a Royal Artillery concert party entertaining the troops stationed in India at the end of the Second World War, also starring Windsor Davies. It was full of innuendo and camp humour.

Written by David Croft and Jimmy Perry, who also created Dad's Army, Croft had originally earmarked John Inman from the Seventies comedy hit Are You Being Served? to play Gloria, but for some reason it didn’t happen.

"All he said, instead of saying how brilliant I was, or how marvellous, or how good or how rubbish I was, he said, 'Melvyn Hayes was free."

It ran from 1974-81 for eight series and attracted up to 17 million viewers in its heyday, but later faced racist, homophobic and colonialist allegations, and was deemed out of step with what was acceptable for modern audiences. The BBC pulled repeats from its schedule.

A major criticism was the casting of white actor Michael Bates as an Indian character, in brown face makeup. Today, Hayes reflects: "Times have changed completely."