Eric Sykes Kinnear, Beryl Reid, and Norman Rossington. It was his last screen appearance with Hattie Jacques. The film employed an idea drawn from the British showbiz tradition in which extras used the word "rhubarb" to simulate low-level background dialogue, which had also been a running joke in "The Goon Show". In 1981, Sykes wrote, directed, and starred in the offbeat comedy "If You Go Down in the Woods Today" for Thames, with a cast including Roy Kinnear, Fulton Mackay, and George Sewell. During 1982, Sykes played the Chief Constable in the slapstick police comedy film "The Boys in Blue", which starred
Eric Sykes but from the early 1950s Sykes began to make an ultimately successful transition from radio to TV, writing a number of series episodes and one-off shows for the BBC. His credits in this period include "The Howerd Crowd" (1952), "Frankie Howerd's Korean Party", "Nuts in May", and "The Frankie Howerd Show", as well as "The Big Man" (1954) starring Fred Emney and Edwin Styles. Sykes also made his first screen appearance at this time in the army film comedy "Orders Are Orders" (1954), which also featured Sid James, Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers, Bill Fraser, and Donald Pleasence. Sykes's small office