John Clegg spent eight years being yelled at by Windsor Davies, in a role which made him a household name. While some of the language used in the sitcom
It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, the story of an army concert party in India and Burma during World War 2, has not aged well, the antics of the "bunch of poofs" drew 17 million viewers a week in Britain at the height of its popularity. Clegg played the straightman foil, "La Di Da Gunner Graham" to Davies’ domineering Sergeant Major, trying to make sure that the show went on while Davies tried to turn the performers into real soldiers. The backstory was one which Clegg, born in present day Pakistan into a military family and a one-time army officer, understood and appreciated: he often said that there was a lot of himself in the character of Gunner Graham. A Rada graduate, Clegg had the good fortune to meet writer Jimmy Perry during an early theatre engagement: both he and his wife, actress Mavis Pugh, were to appear in Perry-penned shows. After
It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, Clegg wrote and performed a successful one-man show,
In the Eye of the Sun, in which he played Rudyard Kipling. Toured extensively, it won a Fringe First award in Edinburgh in 1981.Clegg died on August 2 aged 90. — Agencies
