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Prolific sitcom writer who co-created 'Love Thy Neighbour' and 'Bless This House'
With Harry Driver, Vince Powell formed one of British television's most prolific and successful sitcom writing partnerships. At their height in the 1960s and 1970s, the pair created some of ITV's most popular comedies, from George and the Dragon and Nearest and Dearest to Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width and For the Love of Ada, which featured some of Britain's biggest stars, such as Peggy Mount, Sid James, Hylda Baker, Jimmy Jewel, Joe Lynch, Irene Handl and Wilfred Pickles.
But the extremes of Powell and Driver's comedy - and of what was deemed acceptable in those less politically and socially aware times - were exemplified by two of their most archetypal domestic sagas. Bless This House starred Sid James as Sid Abbott, who found himself in a generation-gap battle with his teenaged son and daughter (played by Robin Stewart and Sally Geeson) while being hounded by his wife (Diana Coupland), who invariably outsmarted him. Although Sid's interests were ABC - ale, birds and Chelsea FC - the comedy was essentially harmless.
At the same time, Love Thy Neighbour was being screened. What is most startling is that there was apparently little controversy about such a sitcom, featuring Jack Smethurst and Kate Williams as Eddie and Joan Booth, a white couple living next door to the black Bill and Barbie Reynolds (Rudolph Walker and Nina Baden-Semper), and exchanging racist insults. "Nig-nog", "sambo", "white honky" and "snowflake" were among those traded, but Powell and Driver insisted they were simply mocking prejudice itself - on both sides of the racial divide.
Powell was born Vincent Smith, the only child of poor Catholic parents, in the Manchester suburb of Miles Platting in 1928. His mother died when he was five and his tailor father remarried two years later. The young Smith, who attended St Bede's Catholic College, regularly played truant to watch films at the local cinema and visit the theatre, where his love of comedy was fostered by variety acts such as George Formby, Gracie Fields and Jewel and Warriss.
On leaving school at the age...