Dick Sharples
| Dick Sharples | |
|---|---|
| Born | 7 June 1927 Manchester, England |
| Died | 19 October 2015 (aged 88) London England |
| Occupation | Scriptwriter |
| Nationality | British |
| Period | 1956-2015 |
| Genre | Television |
| Notable works |
Joan and Leslie (1956-1958) Three Live Wires (1961) In Loving Memory (1969, 1979-1986) Hallelujah! (1981-1984) Farrington of the F.O. (1986-1987) |
Dick Sharples (7 June 1927 – 19 October 2015) was a British TV scriptwriter of British sitcoms. He has also written novels, plays and drama series (for both television and radio).
Dick Sharples was born in Manchester. He began his career as a cartoonist and a writer for a Manchester Advertising Agency. One of the agency's customers was comedian Al Read who ran a meat pie company called H. Read and Son. Sharples wrote the tagline "potatoes and meat, simply heat" for the company's fritters.
A chance meeting with a local, jobbing printer called Archie Carmichael led to Sharples writing his first novel whilst still a teenager. The Man Who Rode By Night was a 40,000 word Western, and led to Sharples being paid 21 shillings for every thousand words.
One of Sharples' first television writing credits was for the 1956 ATV series Joan and Leslie, starring Harry Towb and Noel Dyson. Other early television work included writing episodes of soap opera Compact, drama series The Saint, and Dixon of Dock Green. Early screenplays included collaborating with Gerald Kelsey (one of the Joan and Leslie co-writers) on the 1961 comedy film The Golden Rabbit which starred Willoughby Goddard.
Up to now, Sharples had concentrated on delivering scripts for other peoples' series. This was, however soon to change. In 1969 Sharples wrote a one-off comedy episode called In Loving Memory. Broadcast on 4 November 1969, the story was based in a rural Yorkshire undertakers. It starred Edward Chapman as Jeremiah Unsworth, and Marjorie Rhodes as his wife Ivy. Also cast was Christopher Beeny as Ivy's slightly silly nephew. Almost ten years later, the Unsworths returned to television in a seven part series. Christopher Beeny returned to the role of nephew Billy, but the other roles were re-cast. Thora Hird took on the role of Ivy, whilst Freddie Jones played Jeremiah. The first episode of the series was broadcast on 21 May 1979 and ran for five series, the final episode being broadcast on 27 March 1986. In the long gap between the pilot and the first series, Sharples worked on many other series, including a four-year stint as script editor on the UK version of General Hospital.
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