Comedy records. Whatever happened to them?
Not that this quite beautiful tune is a comedy record per se, though Windsor Davis' interjections and introduction make it one, so actually scrub that, it's a comedy record after all. But isn't it marvellous. A huge much-discussed number one from 1975, off the back of a TV show that was all the rage. We never missed it, as fake and studio-bound as it was. No one actually thought they filmed in a jungle as much as they believed Are You Being Served? was filmed in a real department store, but with a large swathe of the audience old enough to remember the bygone days in which it was set, it all rang true. We never missed it, and neither did anyone else.
Looking at it now of course it is, shall we say, of its time, and you don't often - ever? - see it repeated anywhere, but it remains a classic. The Davis/Estelle double act was everywhere at this time, culminating in this hit. In those days it was only natural that you should capitalise on your sitcom fame by doing something like this, especially if you had a voice to sing with. No one batted an eye. The charts were full of comedy songs. Not now though.
When did we get so serious?
