Farewell to Sir Bruce Forsyth, a national treasure who was truly our own

Brucie was not for export. His charm was pretty much unintelligible to foreigners, though universally loved by his home audience

Sir Bruce Forsyth has passed away at the age of 89 (PA)

Brucie, as we knew him, was unusual in having a Guinness Book of Records category basically invented for him – longest career ever as a male presenter. This roughly followed the reign of Elizabeth II, his contemporary.

So from grainy black and white images on 1950s television sets fashioned to look like cocktail cabinets to YouTube clips viewed on smartphones, Brucie was hardly off our screens. Indeed he was keen to point out that he actually made his television debut in 1939, before the time when there was even the possibility of recording the event, albeit one of the less memorable of that year.

More than that though, here was a man who had the same schtick all the way through that long, long career – basically a varying mix of chat, banter, old school dance (especially tap), anecdotes, some passable singing and a bit of acting. On the golf course with mates such as Tarby, on countless Royal Variety Performances, Strictly, the Generation Game, on stage in panto (Dick Whittington, what else?), chat shows (guest or host) and anything else he was on, the routine was the same.

And the catchphrases! He ought to have had another Guinness record for those, for he surely possessed more than any other entertainer, ever. Right from the start too – though “I’m in Charge!”, from his early days doing Sunday Night at the London Palladium is now somewhat obscure. Somewhere I have the single record of that from about 1961, picked up at a jumble sale decades after it was released. The meaning of it remains mysterious to me and anyone else under 80, not that it matters. As I say, a remarkable longevity, but sadly so long that some of it is archaeological in its interest.

He always struck me as happiest as a solo performer, notwithstanding some nice duets with Sammy Davis Jr, but of course that’s wrong. He relied very heavily on the members of the general public, mostly drawn from the middle classes, who wound up on his game shows. He teased them mercilessly but affectionately.

Brucie never let up after that, and his career was actually a series of double acts with the guests, celebs or interviewers in his orbit as the straight men or women, and himself as the funny one, and he had an unsurpassed talent for it. This even included an encounter in the 1980s with the brilliant Frankie Howerd, where these two showbiz legends joshed away to no great effect – and chose not to mention the rather obvious wigs sitting uneasily on their respective pates, a light entertainment version of the theory of nuclear deterrence I suppose.

The public, in truth, returned the teasing. Like Terry Wogan and Howerd, the Forsyth wig was just ridiculous, and every schoolboy could do an impression of his exaggerated mannerisms, and the touch of vanity that might be glimpsed. He also overreached himself. Around 1978 the nation quietly sniggered when his Big Night Out on ITV became one of the biggest televisual turkeys of all time – with hours of Saturday night prime time that Brucie’s undoubted talents simply could not fill. He was much more bothered by his flopping in America than his British fans who couldn’t care less that he didn’t have quite what it took.

Brucie, you see, was not for export. His charm was pretty much unintelligible to foreigners though universally loved by his home audience. In the end I suppose I’d have to conclude that so far as old-fashioned entertainment was concerned, Brucie was indeed in charge.