The comedy impressionist Mike Yarwood, who has died aged 82, held the record for the most-watched British light entertainment programme of all time (his 1977 BBC One Christmas show attracted 21.4 million viewers, narrowly beating the Morecambe and Wise special that immediately followed) but he later confessed to feeling desperately unhappy and inadequate during the professionally triumphant years when his was a household name.
Yarwood impersonated most of the showbiz stars of the day – Ken Dodd, Frankie Howerd, Steptoe and Son, Max Bygraves, Michael Crawford’s Frank Spencer etc – but his most famous comic creations were politicians and royalty: he poked affectionate fun at Prince Charles, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Harold Macmillan, Edward Heath and John Major. When he was prime minister, Wilson sat reading state papers with Yarwood on television in the next room, telling his wife: “Give us a shout when I’m on, Mary.”
