Look - Mike Yarwood!
 Mike
Yarwood was one of THE biggest British TV stars of the 60s and early
70s. His BBC shows Look - Mike Yarwood! and Mike
Yarwood In Persons were prime time favourites, making him as
big a household name as the people he impersonated.
Mike Yarwod's career really took off in a 1964 edition of Sunday
Night At The London Palladium when his impersonation of
Prime Minister Harold Wilson
put him on the map.
He soon grew into one of television's top attractions, and while
Wilson remained his greatest success, Yarwood also won acclaim for
his general attention to detail (particularly for his victim's
mannerisms) and for his mimicry of the likes of Brian Clough, Eddie
Waring, Alf Garnett, Robin Day and Ted
Heath.
With such a political bias to his act, the arrival of Margaret
Thatcher at Number 10 contributed to his demise, and his career
sadly veered off course.
Having regularly attracted audiences of more than 20 million,
Yarwood found the decline of his career in the 1980s difficult to
adjust to. Alcohol addiction and mental health problems plagued him
after his showbiz career slumped, and at a time when comedy was
demanding a harder edge, Yarwood quickly lost ground to Rory Bremner
and a new breed of satirists.
|
