"…but I like you." These were the much-quoted words of sex-starved Mandy, uttered to every man she met and usually accompanied by a playful nudge that sent the unfortunate man flying. Mandy ("You're not married…oh, say you're not married") was one of the many comic creations of Dick Emery, whose BBC sketch show lasted from 1963 to 1981. Other well-loved characters included an assortment of vicars with buck teeth, usually lecherous but always highly genteel. One of these, "Dr Cheatwell of Cheatwell Hall," presided over a boys' school in which the clerical headmaster and some of the more unscrupulous older boys carry out a series of scams in which parents and pupils are all fleeced. Farmer Finch was another favourite. As well as various Christmas specials, there was a feature film in 1972 called "Ooh…You Are Awful." While much of the humour seemed old-fashioned to later audiences (it essentially derived from the music-hall era) at the time it never failed to please its audiences, and the Dick Emery Show is still occasionally repeated today.
