Tea with Mr. Humphries

(If the author of this article could contact me, I'd appreciate it.  I don't
 have her e-mail address and could not ask her for permission to use this
 write-up of hers.  Thanks!  - Ganymede)

*

Karen writes:

Well, I just got back from my afternoon tea with Mr. Humphries.  What a
delightful afternoon.  We started with "Mr. Humphries - Are you free?" at which
point we heard: "I'm free," and out he came.  The gentleman from PBS talked to
us for the first hour and let us asked questions while John Inman went out on
the balcony to have photos taken with each of us individually.  I thought this
would be boring but it wasn't.  Ron was very interesting and shed some
interesting light on the how and why of their programming and what nobs work at
BBC.  Boy are they fussy.  Anyway, after all the people had had their pictures
taken, they served tea.  We had sandwiches (cucumber, smoked salmon, ham) and
scones with clotted cream and jam and lovely little tarts (no cracks, Mudge &
Merly) of raspberry, blueberry and blackberry.  There was also lots of
different coffee cakes and condiments - excellent chow.  Of course they also
served coffee and tea (not in pots).

Then John Inman came back out and did what I think he does best - interacted
with the audience.  He just takes questions from the audience and that gets him
going.  No one asked anything at first so I dived right in.  I asked him if he
was still a big Coronation Street fan and he said, "Absolutely.  It is the only
decent soap on the air," which got a great round of applause.  He doesn't watch
Eastenders because he can't understand the accents.  So I told him about our
list and said that many of us would like to see him join the cast.  He said it
would never happen.  He said there was no one to talk to.  I didn't quite get
it for a second and then realized he meant it was not filmed in front of a live
audience like "Are You Being Served?" was.  They had an audience of 250 people.
He said he won't work without an audience.

He answered everyone's questions and also told interesting little stories about
the show and the filming.  There were only 69 episodes plus the "Are You Being
Served? Again!" series.  All in all it was a most enjoyable afternoon.

- Karen in Toronto