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At a time when ITV was screening long-running, raucous sitcoms such as Love Thy Neighbour and Bless This House, the actor DerekWaringwasstarring in a gentler comedy that brought the channel another winner with audiences, albeit for only two years.
In Moody and Pegg (1974-75), he was the divorced antiques dealer Roland Moody, who moved into a London flat but found himself sharing it with the single civil servant Daphne Pegg (played by Judy Cornwell). Both had what appeared to be a valid lease on the same property from a rogue estate agent, so they reluctantly agreed to share.
Up to 15 million viewers regularly tuned in to the series, following the comedy - cleverly mixed with drama in the scripts by Julia Jones and Donald Churchill - that had a permanent undercurrent of antagonism between the two singletons, who each regarded the other as a squatter.
The actor was born Derek Barton Chapple in Mill...