#jack smethurst

A Kind of Loving (1962) John Schlesinger

Jack Smethurst has died aged 89, it was confirmed February 16, 2022.  Smethurst died at home while surrounded by his family.  The TV legend had a long and varied career, but he will also be best remembered for his daring portrayal of racist bigot Eddie Booth in the iconic 1970s British sitcom, Love Thy Neighbour (1971-76).  While those with weak stomachs wrongly label the sitcom as being racist itself, it’s real purpose was to show the stupidity and pointlessness of racism.  To that end, it couldn’t be realistic without using at least some confronting language as it could never be credible with dialogue like something off The Brady Bunch.  Jack played Eddie as the stupid fool he was, but gave him enough humanity to make him as real and occasionally likeable as he was also misguided and childish.

A British television sitcom broadcast from 13 April 1972 until 22 January 1976. The series spanned eight series and 53 episodes (plus an unaired pilot included here). The principal cast consists of Jack Smethurst, Rudolph Walker, Nina Baden-Semper, and Kate Williams. In 1973, the series was adapted into a film of the same name, and a later sequel series was set in Australia. Created and largely written by Vince Powell and Harry Driver, and was based around a suburban white working class couple (Eddie and Joan Booth) in Twickenham and a black couple (Bill and Barbie Reynolds) as next-door neighbours. One of the leads, Rudolph Walker, who played Bill Reynolds, wrote for The Guardian in 2001, it is about "a black guy and a white guy being damned stupid" The theme song, "Love Thy Neighbour", was composed by Mack Gordon and Harry Revel and sung by Stuart Gillies. Since 1972, when Love Thy Neighbour was first transmitted, it has been criticised for its politically incorrect handling of issues of racism, it was made in an era when Britain was perceived to be struggling to come to terms with mass immigration. Its writers stated that each episode included both anti-white and anti-black sentiment, in this "mutual racism", racist attitudes were "shown as a reciprocal, inevitable and petty process". The views of the main white male character (Eddie Booth, played by Jack Smethurst) were presented so as to make him appear ignorant and bigoted and were contrasted with the more tolerant attitude of his wife. "In nearly every show, the white neighbour was shown to be wrong", Rudolph Walker wrote in 2001. The main male black character (Bill Reynolds, played by Walker) was better educated, although also stubborn and capable of using insulting phrases, such as the terms "Honky", "Snowflake", "Paleface" or "Big White Chief" to describe his white neighbour (often in response to being called "nig-nog" or "Sambo"). The comedy invariably fixated on the "Blackness" of Bill and Barbie or rather, "television's interpretation of Blackness (limbo-dancing, voodoo/Black magic)." Repeats of Love Thy Neighbour have not been seen on British terrestrial television for many years. Rudolph Walker, who defends the series, regrets the programme's reputation in a "very politically correct climate" and asked in 2003 why "We can't take the piss out of each other and laugh".

Jack Smethurst  (Eddie Booth)