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One of the disadvantages of living in the United States is that British celebrities are often unknown here, and so the death of Mike Yarwood last September totally got by me. I only just noticed.
He was an enormous part of my adolescence, with his impressions of Harold Wilson and Ted Heath and Dennis Healey and so very many more. When I think back on those happy days I rank him with Eric and Ernie. He made me laugh.
RIP Mr. Yarwood.
I think he was lucky in that there were not that many impressionists around when he made his name. Certainly, he was not in the same league as Rory Bremner or Alistair McGowan when it came to the accuracy and variety of his impressions.
Council bluffs
I think Yarwood, like many impressionists, suffered when the subjects of his best political impressions fell from power.
Yeah, well. You've got Newport.
Some of the phrases, that became associated with politicians, he actually made them ,such as “silly billy” for Denis Healey. Harold Wilson made sure, he appeared on Parkinson alongside Yarwood, which was a great show. There was a documentary on C5 recently, which they’d made just before his death.
I read an obituary that credited Yarwood with the excellent sales that Dennis Healey's memoir "The Time of My Life" enjoyed. It was an interesting insight, and true I think. I have the book on my shelf. It was a very interesting and colourful account of a Labour Party politician who trod the well-worn path from flirtation with communism to a centrist form of democratic socialism. But for Yarwood making him so famous I don't think I would have bothered. Who reads the memoirs of chancellors of the exchequer?
Agree that Mike Yarwood was one of the best however Eric and Ernie practised their 'ad libs' to death