Diane Holland: actress on television show Hi-de-Hi!The actress Diane Holland played the gloriously snooty ballroom dancing instructor Yvonne Stewart-Hargreaves in the hugely popular holiday camp sitcom Hi-de-Hi! which ran on BBC One from 1981-88.
Yvonne and her equally supercilious husband, Barry, (Barry Howard) are presumed to have had a successful dancing career in ballrooms throughout the country but are horrified to have ended up working in a brash and breezy holiday camp where, as well as teaching clumsy campers the rudiments of the valeta, they are forced to join in such activities as donkey races and fancy-dress competitions. In one episode the couple reluctantly lead a barn dance with Barry dressed as a country yokel and Yvonne as Bo-Peep. “This is too much,” snaps Yvonne. “All we have left in this dreadful place is our dignity.”
The series, written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, was based on Perry’s experiences working as a Butlins Redcoat after the war and was set in the fictional holiday Maplin’s Holiday Camp in 1959. Characters included the wily camp host Ted Bovis (Paul Shane), the boozy Punch and Judy man Mr Patridge (Leslie Dywer), the over-excitable chalet maid Peggy Ollerenshaw (Su Pollard), the Welsh Valleys girl Gladys Pugh (Ruth Madoc) and the suave entertainments officer Jeffrey Fairbrother (Simon Cadell).
The bickering Barry and Yvonne (“Barry, don’t be so common”) were not the main stars of the show but often had the best lines. In the episode No Dogs Allowed the couple are seen in their chalet — where they sleep in single beds — and Barry is convinced that he can hear noises coming from next door. “All I can hear is very loud snoring,” he says. “It’s the story of my life,” replies Yvonne witheringly.
Barry Howard said: “We were marvellously bitchy in the series and said all the things that real-life husbands and wives would have liked to have said.”
Off-screen, Holland, who was the sister-in-law of Jimmy Perry, was a private person who shunned the showbusiness limelight. “I am not at all like Yvonne,” she said. “I would hate people to think that.”
Born in 1930, she began her career as a singer and dancer in variety and was first spotted by Jimmy Perry when she was a member of the dance troupe the Page Hatton Trio.
She spent many years working in provincial theatre both in legitimate theatre and in variety where she was noted for her brilliant comedy timing.
She was also adept at serious roles and broke into television in the early Sixties playing the troubled Sarah Maynard in the long-running ITV soap Crossroads. She appeared in episodes of Poldark and Bergerac and she co-starred with Joss Ackland and Denholm Elliott in the Tales of the Unexpected story The Stinker (1980).
Especially chosen by Perry and Croft to play the role of Yvonne Stewart-Hargreaves in Hi-de-Hi! she quickly became a household name. During the run of the show she received a fan letter from a troop of servicemen in the Falklands War and became their official sweetheart.
In 1982 she played Celia Littlewood in Grace and Favour, Perry and Croft’s follow-up to Are You Being Served? More recently she had been seen in Casualty and she played the Maiden Aunt in the Royal Ballet television production of The Nutcracker.
She had been suffering from bronchial pneumonia. She never married.
Diane Holland, actress, was born on February 28, 1930. She died on January 24, 2009, aged 78
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