Raymond Allen, 1940 – 2022
Some Mothers Do Ave ‘Em is 50 this week so we are celebrating by running a series of posts around the popular sitcom.
When you talk about Some Mothers many people forget Raymond Allen who wrote the scripts so as part of the celebrations we look back at his life.
Raymond Allen was a British television screenwriter and playwright. He was best known for creating the hit 1970’s sitcom Some Mothers Do Ave ‘Em. A lesser known fact is he also wrote comedy sketches for some other well known names: Frankie Howerd and Dave Allen and later Max Wall, Little and Large and Hale and Pace.
Quick Bio
Raymond John Allen was born on the 15th March 1940 in Ryde on the Isle of Wight to parents Les and Ivy Allen. His Father was a railway supervisor. The young Raymond Allen attended Ryde Secondary Modern School in his hometown until he was sixteen. His first job as a cub reporter for newspaper the Isle of Wight Times, lasted just 18 months when he quit due to the unsocial hours he had to work at.
Moving off the Isle of Wight he served in the Royal Air Force working at it’s accounts office in Gloucestershire for three years. Returning home to Island Allen took jobs washing dishes in hotels and cleaning at Shanklin’s Cinema.
He married Nancy Williams in 2017, she had one son from a previous relationship. They lived in Ryde during his later years. His most successful creation Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em was adapted into a stage play by Guy Unsworth and began touring in 2018.
Raymond Allen died on 2nd October 2022, on the Isle of Wight. He was 82, and had suffered from cancer.
Career
Raymond Allen decided to become a playwright and wrote around 30 serious plays in those early days. However these where commercially unsuccessful for more than a decade.
He wrote a script for his first sitcom, that was rejected by ITV. Not to be deterred he wrote a second script, conceived under the working title Have A Break, Take A Husband
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this was accepted by the BBC, and revolved around a couple Frank and Betty Spencer taking a honeymoon at a hotel. Despite accepting the script BBC producer and director Michael Mills, thought the story would be better reserved for later, as he commissioned Allen to write a full series.
The series would become Some Mothers Do Ave ‘Em that first script would become episode 4, with the first episode instead featuring Frank Spencer becoming a sales rep, the series would evolve into one of the all time classic comedies. Allen was subsequently invited to write six further episodes, with two more series coming afterwards.
Sadly Allen was unable to replicate the success of Some Mothers Do Ave ‘Em. His next effort The Dobson Doughnut (1974) only ever got as far as a pilot episode being broadcast. Two other sitcom proposals – Don’t Move Now (1976) and You’re a Genius (1977) – were produced but were not broadcast.
Allen subsequently contributed to nine editions of The Little and large Show and sold some one-off plays. there were also sketches for Frankie Howerd, Max Wall, Dave Allen and Hale and Pace. He also wrote for All Cricket and Wellies (1986), as well as the children’s show Fast Forward in 1987. However, he was unable to repeat his early success. He did have more positive results on the stage with One of Our Howls Is Missing, which toured in 1979.
In 2016, Allen contributed some of the dialogue to a special one-off episode of Some Mothers’ Do ‘Ave ‘Em for charity Sport Relief.
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Legacy
His most successful creation Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em was adapted into a stage play by Guy Unsworth and began touring in 2018.