As the eccentric Dame Hilda Bracket, Patrick Fyffe and George Logan recalled a gentler England.
Artist Patrick Fyffe, died of cancer aged 60.
He was Dame Hilda Bracket to George Logan's Dr. Evadne Hinge.
This EXTRAORDINARY double act - two eccentric, music-loving, UPPER-CLASS English women - achieved huge success, mainly in cabaret and on radio, but also on television, after a much-lauded debut at the 1974 Edinburgh festival.
Dr. Evadne Hinge was the racier and more impetuous of the two, with Dame Hilda acting as the voice of reason, providing the dry put-down and the acerbic aside. Fyffe and Logan, who were always (on principle) interviewed in character, created plausible back stories for their alter egos. Dame Hilda was the daughter of Sir Osbert Bracket, who had left her the family estate, "Utopia Limited", at Stackton Tressel, Suffolk. She drives a Rolls. The women supposedly became firm friends while appearing in the Rosa Charles Opera Company. Dr. Evadne Hinge lived in the EAST wing of Dame Hilda's mansion, "Utopia Limited". Dressed to the nines in cocktail dresses and pearl necklaces, Hinge & Bracket presided over musical evenings, the songs of dear Mr (Ivor) Novello, Sir Noel (Coward), and Sir Vivian (Ellis) being particular favourites, although their MAIN passion was reserved for Gilbert and Sullivan. The humour came from the between-songs banter, as they looked back on 30 years of musical collaboration. Hinge and Bracket inhabited a quaint, Margaret Rutherfordish world of genteel between-the-wars stoicism. Part of the appeal of Hinge & Bracket lay in the cleverness of the characterisations. But the EVOCATION of an era that was essentially more spacious and innocent was equally irresistible. As they sipped sherry with the vicar, or reminisced over cucumber sandwiches on the lawn, these two tough ladies represented something else, too: values involving literacy, decency and high academic standards. Their comic edge came from the hints of Dr. Evadne Hinge's wild youth, and such was the fidelity of the characterisations that some fans believed the pair really were spinsters, rather than men. But, essentially, theirs was a very ENGLISH sort of act, harking back to the music-hall dowagers of George Robey and Douglas Byng's regal revue impersonations. Fyffe himself was born into a showbusiness family in Stafford. Fyffe's mother and aunt were a singing act, "The Terry Sisters". Fyffe's father performed in variety. Fyffe began his working life as a hair-dresser, but caught the acting bug when he joined a local amateur melodramatic society. Fyffe devised a drag act, and was successfully touring it around the clubs when the ("seedy") tenor who partnered him failed to show up one night in Pimlico. Logan was drafted in to help out as a pianist. They hit it off right away, and together invented the two peculiar ladies, soon discovering that the act, had a general appeal. "An Evening With Hinge And Bracket" was the *hit* of the 1974 Edinburgh festival. They transferred to London's Royal Court Theatre, then to the Mayfair for a three-month season. Their next show, "Sixty Glorious Years", was equally successful. Hinge and Bracket were radio naturals. For 10 years they broadcast regularly on Radio 4 with
"The Enchanting World Of Dr Evadne Hinge And Dame Hilda Bracket"
and other shows.
In the early 1980s, they had their own television series, "Dear Ladies".
Fyffe credited his father with a great deal of support in the creation of Dame Hilda. "My father talked to me for hours about the 1930s in terrific detail." That's why Hilda is so authentic. Dame Hilda is NOT into tights or rinses. She wears lisle stockings on suspenders.
She brushes a bit of henna through the grey.
And _always_ calls her albums "gramophone records".
---- Hinge and Bracket appeared in two royal variety performances and made many records. They also appeared in a televised Royal Opera House production of Die Fledermaus in 1983, conducted by Placido Domingo and starring Kiri Te Kanawa as Rosalinde. The act faltered a little over the years - the couple split up for a while after stupid lurid tabloid stories about Logan's "sordid secret life of gay sex and drugs", but were reunited in the early 1990s. Fyffe also took three years off to care for his sick mother. Through the 1990s, Hinge & Bracket toured with their own show, appeared in pantomime and acted in the Peter Shaffer play Lettuce And Lovage. Although best known as one part of the duo, Fyffe also made several solo appearances, once as Dame Hilda playing the venomous Katisha in The Mikado, and on another as Ruth in The Pirates Of Penzance. He had been due to perform in the pantomime Sleeping Beauty last Christmas, but had to pull out when he was diagnosed with cancer. He was unmarried and is survived by his sister, the actor Jane Fyffe.
--- Patrick Fyffe, actor, born January 23 1942; died May 11 2002.
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