Others include the Rolling Stones plugging Rice Krispies in 1964 and Benny Hill backing Schweppes drinks.

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Mr Wolfe also worked with many of the best-known actors of the era, including Kenneth Williams, Barbara Windsor, Sheila Hancock, Beryl Reid, Thora Hird and Benny Hill.

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Exhibit A is a prominent press photo, which shows The Rest (plus a dozen friends) in a comic tableau that looks like a still from a Benny Hill sketch.

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In the case of "One Man, Two Guvnors, " playwright Richard Bean drew from the Italian tradition of commedia dell'arte, Shakespeare and farce, right on through to Benny Hill and Monty Python.

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And it is difficult not to warm to a man who, for all his knowledge, still lists his favourite TMS moment as one which could have come straight from the pages of a Benny Hill script.

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While there's no video of this particular test flight, there is a video of the instruments being loaded onto the aircraft, shot with the very camera that's now installed vehicle's tail (and augmented with the requisite Benny Hill theme song).

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The high drama of the result, and the reported finger-jabbing row between rebel star Jesse Norman and the prime minister was followed by low farce as a government whip, I'm told, dashed through the corridors like something out of the end credits of the Benny Hill show.

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There seems to be a grave worry here that 2.5 seconds of downtime between beach volleyball points would put 15, 000 people to sleep, so there's been a never-ending blast of music Miami Sound Machine, Maroon 5, Usher, Yakety Sax (better known as the theme to "The Benny Hill Show").

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