Plot
Hi-de-Hi! was set at Maplins, a fictional holiday camp owned by entrepreneur Joe Maplin in the fictional seaside town of Crimpton-on-Sea, Essex.
It is loosely based on Butlins, the holiday camp empire of Billy Butlin, his Redcoats replaced by 'Yellowcoats'. At the end of the 1958 season, the camp Entertainment Manager Mr Baverstock, a conman and womaniser, had been sacked for stealing charity money from the camp wishing well. At the same time, the camp comic Teddy Drinkwater had burned out and resigned, leaving the two posts vacant. The following year, a Cambridge University Professor of Archaeology, Jeffrey Fairbrother, who had tired of academia, applied for the role of Entertainment Manager. This annoyed the portly Camp Host, Ted Bovis, who wanted the job.
The job of Camp Comic was given to naive but kind-hearted Spike Dixon, who was awaiting his 'big break' and wanted an introduction to the world of show business.
Most episodes involved Ted Bovis attempting to scam the campers as well as the well-meaning Fairbrother, who also had to avoid the romantic approaches of Chief Yellowcoat and Sports Organiser, Gladys Pugh, as he was estranged from his wife but was initially reluctant to divorce her because of the social stigma attached.
Most of the other characters in the show were out-of-work actors and entertainers at the tail-end of their careers. These included Fred Quilley, a disqualified jockey; Yvonne and Barry Stuart-Hargreaves, two former ballroom champions; and Mr Partridge, a failed music-hall star reduced to performing Punch and Judy puppet shows, despite hating children.
All these characters had been big stars in their prime but were forced to take jobs at Maplins as a result of their careers failing, mostly because of the chaos that ensued in the aftermath of World War II, which had ended 14 years earlier.
Other characters consisted of several young men and women who had summer jobs as Yellowcoats, and Peggy Ollerenshaw, an eccentric but ambitious chalet maid who dreamed of becoming a Yellowcoat.
Read more about this topic: Hi-de-Hi!
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,
The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)