Chuffer Dandridge

Chuffer Dandridge was a fictional Shakespearean actor-manager,[1] whose emails were frequently read out by Terry Wogan on his BBC Radio 2 breakfast show Wake Up to Wogan, which aired from 1993 until 2009.[2][3]

Dandridge was created by fans of the show, civil servants Roger Byrne and Charles Slane, who described him as a "semi-retired Actor-Manager in search of a big break".[4][5] Like several other contributors, they chose a humorous pseudonym after many listeners had used double entendres in names to catch Wogan out.[5] The pair emailed new material on a daily basis, which Wogan would then read out on his show, sometimes corpsing with laughter along with colleagues Paul Walters, Alan Dedicoat and John "Boggy" Marsh.[2] The character was retired along with Wogan leaving the Radio 2 breakfast slot in 2009, although the character did return briefly the following year on Wogan's weekend show, Weekend Wogan.[6]

Dandridge misreported news and travel stories, interspersing them with a humorous monologue of his acting career.[7] He frequently name dropped colleagues he claimed to meet in the theatre,[8] and a regular in-joke was him complaining about being owed a white fiver (pre-1957 £5 note) he lent a colleague when both were in repertory theatre.[2] Wogan subsequently published some of the email transcripts in his autobiographies; in one, Dandridge compared the Eurovision Song Contest, which Wogan had presented for many years, to "a cabaret in pre-war Berlin, where I was naked, painted in zebra stripes and sitting bareback on a horse".[9]

David Sillito, Arts Correspondent for the BBC, suggested Dandridge was created to appeal to Wogan's love of author P. G. Wodehouse.[10] Wogan thought Dandridge's monologues parodied Donald Sinden and his character, optimistically hoping to revive his showbusiness career, was based on Charles Dickens' Samuel Pickwick.[2] Byrne and Slane eventually met Wogan at a bookstore signing in Dublin, surprising the latter who expected the pair to be significantly older.[2]

References

Citations

  1. Wogan 2008, p. 80.
  2. Wogan, Terry (2008). Wogan's Twelve: A Sharp Eye and a Witty Word to Mark the Passing Year. Hachette UK. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-409-10638-8.
  3. Lewis, Rebecca (31 January 2016). "People are sharing the moment Sir Terry Wogan said farewell to his Wake Up To Wogan listeners". Metro.co.uk. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  4. Hills, Matt; Luther, Amy. Listener online engagement with BBC Radio programming (PDF) (Report). BBC. pp. 23, 27.
  5. "Wogan's faithful TOGs". Daily Express. 9 September 2009. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
  6. "Chris Evans angers Togs with his manic style". The Daily Telegraph. 12 January 2010. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  7. Archer, Bimpe (1 February 2016). "I was Terry Wogan's "other listener"". The Irish News. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
  8. "Sir Terry Wogan's 10 best running gags, from Janet and John to Eurovision". Radio Times. 31 January 2016. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
  9. Wogan 2008, p. 83.
  10. Sillito, David (1 February 2015). "Sir Terry Wogan 'was master of the shared joke'". BBC News. Retrieved 1 February 2015.

Sources

  • Wogan, Terry (2008). Mustn't Grumble. Hachette. ISBN 978-1-409-10589-3.
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