It Ain’t Half Hot Mum actor John Clegg dies aged 90 as tributes pour in for beloved BBC star

Beloved BBC actor John Clegg has died aged 90.

The star, best known as La Di Da Gunner Graham in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, passed away peacefully and a private funeral will be held on August 29 in West Sussex.

A notice posted on Tuesday said he “died peacefully in custody” and would be “missed by all his theatre friends, his Chichester friends and his family”.

BAFTA member Morris Bright MBE paid tribute to John in X, writing‘We are very sorry to hear that La Di Da Gunner Graham, actor John Clegg, has gone to that big concert party in heaven, aged 90. He was certainly one of the guys who entertained us.’

Tributes to the star poured in, with the British Comedy Society posting on X: “We are saddened to hear of the death of actor John Clegg, better known as Padrewski from It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, Gunner Graham. He was 90.”

John, born to English parents in Murree, Punjab, India in 1934, played Gunner ‘Paderewski’ Graham in the classic sitcom.

He also appeared in episodes of Dad’s Army and Mr. Bean, and most recently in the romantic comedy film Bridget Jones’s Diary.

John was married to his comedy partner Mavis Pugh until her death in 2006, and the two starred in 1988’s You Rang, M’Lord and 1972’s Are You Being Served?.

Pugh also appeared in Fawlty Towers, while Clegg had a smaller role in 2001’s Bridget Jones’s Diary.

In October 2017, Clegg gave a talk called ‘My Life as an Actor’ at the Chichester Literary Society, detailing his career which began at the prestigious RADA drama school in London.

He regaled audiences with anecdotes, including his encounter with a young lady, Judi Dench, who said she did not think he was suited to traditional Shakespearean roles.

A fan of Rudyard Kipling, Clegg also co-produced a one-man show with his wife Mavis based on the storyteller, which was a hit at the Edinburgh Festival in the 1980s.

It Ain’t Half Hot Mum first aired on BBC One in 1974 and ran for 56 episodes before ending in 1981.

The comedy, set in India during the final months of World War II, attracted up to 15 million viewers at its peak in the 1970s.

But it is often considered too offensive for today’s more aware sensibilities, particularly because white actor Michael Bates darkened his skin to play the Indian character Rangi Ram.

But British-Indian comedian Sanjeev Bhaskar, who rose to fame on the comedy series Goodness Gracious Me, says comedy should not be banned from rerun channels or streaming platforms.

“There have been discussions about shows being removed,” he said, adding that he understood that “in this day and age” some classic shows are considered unacceptable.

But he explained: “I’ve always defended It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. My argument was always that, firstly, Michael Bates could speak fluent Urdu.

“He served in the Indian Army and spoke the language. And secondly, within that show, the character he played was not the butt of the jokes… He (Rangi Ram) was the one who fixed the problems, he was the one who solved things.”

Speaking to fellow comedian Rob Brydon on his podcast in 2022, he said it was also important not to delete old shows as they offer insight into the past.

“Context is everything,” he said. “My argument has always been to try to judge things from that time, to understand what the social climate was like when it came to entertainment. Society moves on and evolves.

“The problem for me with removing them completely is that they are part of the history, the social history of where we’ve come to now… I’m all for putting disclaimers, putting all that kind of stuff, but I think deleting them erases some of that journey.”