Sad to learn that the fine comedy actor Tony Haygarth has died. His turn as the boorish, sexist slob PC Wilmott in "Rosie" always had me in stitches. His unrequited love for the willing but lumpish PC Brenda Whatmough was one of Roy Clarke's funniest running gags.....
"She's fighting it, Rosie - I think she's fighting it!"
"I think she's winning, Wilmott".
We accept them in comic fiction, because we can look at them and laugh and pretend that because they’re extremes, they don’t represent us, but we are all of us men in the Wilmots of this world, and Tony Haygarth one was one the best Wilmots there ever was.
DM