The Plank is a popular 30-minute, 1979

1979 in film

The year 1979 in film involved some significant events.- Major events :* March 5 - Production begins on Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.* May 25 - Alien, a landmark of the science fiction genre, is released....

 British slapstick comedy, which was a remake of an earlier 1967 version of the film which was written and directed by Eric Sykes

Eric Sykes

Eric Sykes, CBE is an English radio, television and film writer, actor and director whose performing career has spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and/or performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Peter...

. The 1967 version of "The Plank" was, in turn, based on an episode called "Sykes and A Plank", which Eric Sykes wrote for his television comedy series, Sykes and A...

Sykes and A...

Sykes and a... is a black-and-white British sitcom starring Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques that aired on BBC1 from 1960 to 1965. It was written by Eric Sykes, Johnny Speight, John Antrobus and Spike Milligan...

in 1964. The 1979 version was produced for television by Thames Television

Thames Television

Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....

 and broadcast on the ITV

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 network.

Although not technically a silent film it is unusual having little spoken dialogue, instead the film is punctuated by grunts, other vocal noises and sound effects. The Plank was the first in a series of similar 'no dialogue' comedy films written by Sykes.

Plot

When two builders find that a floorboard is missing, they buy a replacement floorboard and return with it through the streets, causing unexpected chaos.

Award

This 1979 television version won the prize at the 1980 Festival Rose d'Or

Rose d'Or

The Rose d’Or is one of the most important international festivals in entertainment television. It was founded in Montreux in 1961 and has taken place in Lucerne since 2004. Producers, executives from independent and public service broadcasters and heads of production companies from over 40...

, held in Montreux

Montreux

Montreux is a municipality in the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.It is located on Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps and has a population, , of and nearly 90,000 in the agglomeration.- History :...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

.

Cast

• Eric Sykes
  Eric Sykes
  Eric Sykes, CBE is an English radio, television and film writer, actor and director whose performing career has spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and/or performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Peter...
  
  
• Arthur Lowe
  Arthur Lowe
  Arthur Lowe was a BAFTA Award winning English actor. He was best known for playing Captain George Mainwaring in the popular British sitcom Dad's Army from 1968 until 1977.-Early life:...
  
  
• Jimmy Edwards
  Jimmy Edwards
  Jimmy Edwards DFC was an English comedic script writer and comedy actor on both radio and television, best known as Pa Glum in Take It From Here and as the headmaster 'Professor' James Edwards in Whack-O!-Biography:...
  
  
• Lionel Blair
  Lionel Blair
  Lionel Blair is a British actor, choreographer, tap dancer and television presenter. He is the son of Myer Ogus and Deborah Greenbaum...
  
  
• Henry Cooper
  Henry Cooper
  Henry Cooper may refer to:*Sir Henry Cooper , British Heavyweight boxer*Henry Cooper from Tennessee*Henry Cooper , English recipient of the Victoria Cross...
  
  
• Harry H. Corbett
  Harry H. Corbett
  Harry H. Corbett OBE was an English actor.Corbett was best known for his starring role in the popular and long-running BBC Television sitcom Steptoe and Son in the 1960s and 70s...
  
  
• Bernard Cribbins
  Bernard Cribbins
  Bernard Cribbins, OBE is an English character actor, voice-over artist and musical comedian with a career spanning over half a century who came to prominence in films in the 1960s, has been in work consistently since his professional debut in the mid 1950s, and as of 2010 is still an active...
  
  
• Robert Dorning
  Robert Dorning
  Robert Dorning was a musician, dance band vocalist, ballet dancer, and actor. He is known to have performed in at least seventy-seven television and film productions between 1940 and 1988....
  
  
• Diana Dors
  Diana Dors
  Diana Dors was an English actress, born Diana Mary Fluck in Swindon, Wiltshire. Considered the English equivalent of the blonde bombshells of Hollywood, Dors described herself as: "The only sex symbol Britain has produced since Lady Godiva."-Early life:Diana Mary Fluck was born in ­Swindon,...
  
  
• Charlie Drake
  Charlie Drake
  Charlie Drake was an English comedian, actor, writer and singer.With his small stature , curly red hair and liking for slapstick he was a popular comedian with children in his early years, becoming nationally-known for his "Hello, my darlings" catchphrase...
  
  
• Liza Goddard
  Liza Goddard
  Liza Goddard is an English television and stage actress best known for her work in the 1970s and 1980s.-Early life:Goddard was born in Smethwick, West Midlands, England...
  
  
• Deryck Guyler
  Deryck Guyler
  Deryck Guyler was an English actor, best known for his portrayal of officious, short-tempered middle-aged men in sitcoms such as Please Sir! and Sykes.-Early life:...
  
  
• Charles Hawtrey
  Charles Hawtrey (film actor)
  George Frederick Joffre Hartree , known as Charles Hawtrey, was an English comedy actor and musician.Beginning at a young age as a boy soprano, he made several records before moving on to the radio...
  
  
• Frankie Howerd
  Frankie Howerd
  Francis Alick "Frankie" Howerd OBE was an English comedian and comic actor whose career, described by fellow comedian Barry Cryer as "a series of comebacks", spanned six decades.-Early career:...
  
  
• James Hunt
  James Hunt
  James Simon Wallis Hunt was a British racing driver from England who won the Formula One World Championship in . Hunt's often action packed exploits on track earned him the nickname "Hunt the Shunt." After retiring from driving, Hunt became a media commentator and businessman...
  
  
• Wilfrid Hyde-White
  Wilfrid Hyde-White
  Wilfrid Hyde-White was an English character actor.-Early life and career:Wilfrid Hyde White was born at the rectory in Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire, the son of William Edward White, canon of Gloucester Cathedral, and his wife, Ethel Adelaide Drought...
  
  
• Joanna Lumley
  Joanna Lumley
  Joanna Lamond Lumley, OBE, FRGS is a British actress, voice-over artist, former-model and author, best known for her roles in British television series Absolutely Fabulous portraying Edina Monsoon's best friend, Patsy Stone, as well as parts in The New Avengers, Sapphire & Steel, and Sensitive...
  
  
• Kenny Lynch
  Kenny Lynch
  Kenny Lynch, OBE is an English singer, songwriter, entertainer and actor from London. Lynch appeared in many variety shows in the 1960s...
  
  
• Brian Murphy
  Brian Murphy (actor)
  Brian Murphy is a British actor.Murphy was born in Ventnor, Isle of Wight. Although a prolific actor in many films and theatre productions for almost half a century, Murphy's most famous role was as the henpecked husband George Roper in the sitcom Man About the House and spin-off George and...
  
  
• Kate O'Mara
  Kate O'Mara
  Kate O'Mara is an English film, stage and television actress. She is perhaps most widely known for her role as Caress Morell, the scheming sister of Alexis Colby in the 1980s American primetime soap opera Dynasty, though is also known for playing other villains such as The Rani in Doctor Who and...
  
  
• Ann Sidney
• Reg Varney
  Reg Varney
  Reginald Alfred "Reg" Varney was an English actor, most notable for his role as Stan Butler in 1970s TV sitcom On the Buses.-Early life:...
  
  
• Frank Windsor
  Frank Windsor
  Frank Windsor is an English actor, mainly on television.He attended Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall. He began his career on radio and made an appearance in a 1953 film of Henry V...
  
  

See also

• The Plank (1967 film) — an earlier version of this film — on which this TV version was based.
• Other Eric Sykes short silent films in similar style to The Plank: Rhubarb
  Rhubarb (1969 film)
  Rhubarb was a 1969 British short film written and directed by Eric Sykes, starring Sykes and Harry Secombe. The dialogue consisted entirely of repetitions of the word "rhubarb", all the characters last names were "Rhubarb", and even the license plates on vehicles were "RHU BAR B"...
  
  (1969), Rhubarb Rhubarb
  Rhubarb Rhubarb
  Rhubarb Rhubarb is a 30 minute television comedy special made by Thames TV and transmitted in 1980. The special is a re-make of Eric Sykes' 1969 film, Rhubarb.-Plot:...
  
  (1980, a TV remake of Rhubarb
  Rhubarb (1969 film)
  Rhubarb was a 1969 British short film written and directed by Eric Sykes, starring Sykes and Harry Secombe. The dialogue consisted entirely of repetitions of the word "rhubarb", all the characters last names were "Rhubarb", and even the license plates on vehicles were "RHU BAR B"...
  
  ), and other TV specials for Thames TV such as It's Your Move
  It's Your Move (1982 film)
  It's Your Move is the title of two short films written and directed by Eric Sykes . The story of both films involves a married couple moving into a new home and enduring the ineptitude of removal men. As with most other films directed by Sykes, the action unfolds in a style echoing the silent,...
  
  (1982), Mr. H Is Late (1988) and The Big Freeze
  The Big Freeze (1993 film)
  The Big Freeze is a featurette-length film written and directed by Eric Sykes. The action centres around mishaps involving a father and son plumbing team attending to business in sub-zero temperatures at a retirement home in Finland. Like other Sykes directorial vehicles, the piece is a silent...
  
  (1993).

External links

• Comedy Guide - The Plank at bbc.co.uk
  Bbc.co.uk
  BBC Online is the brand name and home for the BBC's UK online service. It is a large network of websites including such high profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services co-branded BBC iPlayer, the pre-school site Cbeebies, and learning services such as Bitesize...