Rhubarb (1969 film) 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 number plates on vehicles were "RHU BAR B". A baby "spoke" by holding a sign with the word ""Rhubarb"" written on it. "Rhubarb" is a radio idiom for unintelligible background speech. Typically extras would mutter the word over and over to provide ambience for a crowd or party scene. In "The Goon Show" the cast was usually only the
Hattie Jacques on stage, radio, screen and record made her film debut in an uncredited role in "Green for Danger" in 1946, before working in a number of minor roles in a series of Dickens adaptations. From 1958 to 1974 she appeared in fourteen "Carry On" films, where she was "usually cast as formidable hospital matrons (at least four) or man-devouring predators". Jacques had a long professional partnership with Eric Sykes, with whom she co-starred in two long-running television series, "Sykes and a..." and "Sykes". The couple also produced an album and a single in 1962; a stage show followed between 1976 and 1979, "A Hatful of Sykes".