Chris Serle has passed away atb the age of 81.

Best known on That's Life, but also manyn other BBC TV shows and radio. Who recalls In At The Deep End for instance.

Although Chris hasn't been in the spotlight for a number of years now, quite remarkably only last week I watched the first episode of another of his well received and remembered shows from BBC2, The Computer Programme, first shown in early 1982. It was remarkable.

In this show, along with Iain McNaught Davis you can see at one point as he taps away learning to use Prestel to book a plane ticket that it's actually lunchtime on Friday 8th January 1982 as he's doing it, at half past twelve. They were probably snowed into the studio that lunchtime, an enormous deep snowfall hit the south that day and the country was in chaos outside.

This is actually a show and series well worth re-watching from today's context. At the end of this, Rex Malik, a computer author and journalist showed enormous foresight about the period we are now in and how those of us who were young teenagers back then would be using technology.

The Computer Programme - January 1982.

youtu.be/5dIcOXx3Exc?si=K1ymWgsO1o8tO7q5


It's good to see from all the tributes this morning that Chris Serle was as thoroughly decent and nice as he always appeared on TV. I always found him to have a very calm and reassuring voice.

So sad. One of the last of the proper presenters. Zero histrionics, unpatronising, warm, very funny and always interesting. That breed of broadcaster soon extinct.

Isn't it interesting that there are some people you hear about passing and feel a deeper sense of sadness for them than others who are mere news when reported. Chris fell into this deeper sense of sadness to me and I'm sorry to hear this. He was so much more than That's Life of course and I like that you have not focussed on his most notable show in your announcement. That's another part of my youth gone now.

Thanks for the computer show heads up, never saw it at the time, will check it out with interest.

I have very fond memories of Chris Searle from Thats Life, and in the Deep end, where he worked in rotation with his Thats Life co-presenter Paul Heiney to try different jobs. I remember him been a hairdresser and Paul Heiney been an actor in the film "Water". He seemed like a lovely gentle guy with no ego, its a shame his career didn't continue after the early 90s.

robbiex wrote:
I have very fond memories of Chris Searle from Thats Life, and in the Deep end, where he worked in rotation with his Thats Life co-presenter Paul Heiney to try different jobs. I remember him been a hairdresser and Paul Heiney been an actor in the film "Water". He seemed like a lovely gentle guy with no ego, its a shame his career didn't continue after the early 90s.

I wonder if you recall the edition of In At The Deep End where Paul Heiney tried his luck at becoming a stand up comedian, took the advice of various comedians, then was sent out to do a stand up routine at some busy venue and absolutely bombed with little or no reaction. I'm sure he was wearing a dress at the time too! It was one of the most embarrassing things I'd seen at the time and I wanted the ground to swallow ME up watching at home. I've looked online for this edition in the past and been unable to find it.

It was reported that Chris Serle passed away yesterday, 23rd September but infact it now appears he died a week ago on 16th September after having suffered a stroke.

I always enjoyed anything he was a part of on television. He was one in a long line of familiar regulars on our screens a few years ago who just suddenly vanished almost overnight for reasons unknown.

Cheers Rich for the Computer Show link. That was a fantastic watch, I'll check out the other nine in the series too.

The name rang a bell and when I Googled his name and saw his photo I remembered him from a Greek language series. It seems I was right, as Wikipedia says "He was also the interviewer and host of the BBC series Greek Language and People with Katia Dandoulaki". I enjoyed that programme and remember him as a sympathetic presenter. What a shame he's gone.

Rich wrote:
robbiex wrote:
I have very fond memories of Chris Searle from Thats Life, and in the Deep end, where he worked in rotation with his Thats Life co-presenter Paul Heiney to try different jobs. I remember him been a hairdresser and Paul Heiney been an actor in the film "Water". He seemed like a lovely gentle guy with no ego, its a shame his career didn't continue after the early 90s.

I wonder if you recall the edition of In At The Deep End where Paul Heiney tried his luck at becoming a stand up comedian, took the advice of various comedians, then was sent out to do a stand up routine at some busy venue and absolutely bombed with little or no reaction. I'm sure he was wearing a dress at the time too! It was one of the most embarrassing things I'd seen at the time and I wanted the ground to swallow ME up watching at home. I've looked online for this edition in the past and been unable to find it.

I'm afraid I don't recall the episode where Paul was a stand-up comedian, but it likes like the sort of thing they would do. I remember when he trained to be a hairdresser, it took him 1.5 hours to do a haircut, which matches what I took to do my own during lockdown. Chris also worked as a comedy actor for several years before joining "Thats Life". He had several walk-in parts in Dave Allen at large apparently.

I'd quite like to see that In At The Deep End, called Stand-Up Comedian with Paul Heiney. It went out in 1982 and I remember it too. A couple of these shows are doing the rounds on YT but not many, that's a shame. Maybe with the loss of Chris Serle the BBC might think about sticking them on the BBC iPlayer. The series lasted 5 years from 1982 to 1987. If I remember correctly each one alternated between Chris Serle and Paul Heiney having a go at something. An early forerunner of the later Channel 4 show Faking It.

They attracted some really big names to some of these shows, as the comedian one shows on IMDb. www.imdb.com/title/tt14045634/

Chris was a very busy man in 1982 wasn't he. On That's Life, doing In At The Deep End and also The Computer Show that was already mentioned, now that was good at the time and is even better to look at now. I highly recommend it looking back from the future. I had a ZX81 in 1982 and still have it tucked away for safe keeping. It had just 1KB of RAM, my grandfather bought it for me for my birthday that year, I think in WHSmiths and it felt like a huge purchase and a big spend. On finding out I had it there was a teacher who asked if I could bring it into school where he ended up teaching some basic computing to a select few pupils in various lunch hours.