Death of a camp comedy icon

Death of a camp comedy icon

For 12 years and through 69 episodes of Are You Being Served?, John Inman played one of TV’s campest and most affectionately loved characters, Mr Humphries.

Inman died last week in London, aged 71, from hepatitis A, and his passing has been mourned as the loss of one of comedy TV’s great icons, particularly as Inman had become famous for his high-pitched signature catchphrase, I’m free.

While the limp-wristed and mincing antics of Mr Humphries won millions of fans, gay activists in the 1970s protested against Inman’s portrayal, claiming he added to television’s distortion of the homosexual image. But with the passing of time, Mr Humphries’s stature in TV history has come up for some re-examination, with the character now seen as a bold, strong-willed, sharp-witted gay man who never apologised for the way he was.

Since the heady days of his TV success, Inman had been busy on the British stage, particularly as a pantomime dame. In 2005, he entered a civil partnership with his companion of 33 years, Ron Lynch, who survives him.

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