Plight of the star of the un-PC sitcom

He was the star of one of the biggest sitcoms of the Seventies, seen by up to 17million viewers a week.

But after starring as racist suburbanite Eddie Booth in Love Thy Neighbour Jack Smethurst found it so hard to get work that he ended up working in a flower shop.

The actor, now 84, admits that the role in the politically incorrect ITV sitcom, which ran for 54 episodes from 1972 to 1976, cost him work.

But he told a BBC documentary he had no regrets about starring in the comedy, in which he played an old-school socialist outraged to discover that his new neighbours were black – and would taunt them with racist language.

'For a while after Love Thy Neighbour finished, and I'm not ashamed to tell you this, but I couldn't get arrested,' Smethurst says on the Radio 4 show Still Loving Thy Neighbour?, which airs at 4pm this afternoon.

'A friend of mine had a flower shop in Harrow-on-the-Hill, not far from here and I worked in his flower shop. People would come in and go, "No, it can't be…" And I knew nothing about flowers.'

He said that his struggles to find employment were because of the 'dreadful expression "typecasting",' but added: 'I don't think it was the racial content; I think it's the fact that your face is so familiar. I think people are a lot more adaptable now in accepting that an actor who was playing one role is playing a different role this time.

'It must have lost me a few roles, but I more than made up for it. It's been a chequered career but it's been a rewarding one. I've enjoyed every minute.

Since the show ended, Smethurst has had some high-profile roles, with occasional appearances on Coronation Street and playing Davenport in Last Of The Summer Wine, as well as small roles in Chariots of Fire and the John Goodman vehicle King Ralph

His Trinidadian co-star Rudolph Walker had a more successful career, much of it on stage. He has played Patrick Trueman in EastEnders since 2001; starred in Ben Elton's The Thin Blue Line; narrated the Teletubbies when it was redubbed for the American market and was awarded an OBE in 2006 for his services to drama.

Walker has defended the show saying of his character Bill Reynolds: 'He gives as much as he gets. He called me a "nig-nog" I called him a "honkey". There was give and take.'

Published: 19 Sep 2016