The Scousers

The Scousers was a regular series of sketches from the Harry Enfield's Television Programme BBC comedy show of the early 1990s.

Gary, Barry and Terry

It featured a set of stereotyped Liverpudlian characters or Scousers, "Ga'", "Ba'" and "Te'" (Gary, Barry and Terry) played by Gary Bleasdale, Harry Enfield, Joe McGann, and Mark Moraghan. The original inspiration for the Scousers sketches were Barry Grant and Terry Sullivan, two characters from the Channel 4, soap opera Brookside, set in Liverpool. Bleasdale, McGann and Moraghan are actually from Liverpool.

The Scousers were usually depicted with Kevin Keegan bubble perm hairstyles and bushy moustaches, wearing shell suits, and speaking in exaggerated Scouse accents. Common catch phrases they came up included "Eh? Eh? Eh?" "Dey do do dat dough don't dey dough" ("They do do that though, don't they though").

"Calm Down!"

Most sketches saw two of the trio develop an argument, with the third member stepping in to break up the argument (and frequently finding himself pulled into another disagreement). Whenever a potential problem or dispute arose, this would result in The Scousers repeating to each other their most famous catch phrase:

" Eh! Eh! Alright! Alright! Calm down! Calm down!"

This catch phrase was Bleasdale's input as he changed the scripted original, which was "Break it up 'ey, come on, break it up", during the first rehearsal. McGann brought "Dey do dough, don't dey dough" to the sketches. The characters had allegiances to the city's football teams with "Ga'" being an Everton fan while "Ba'" & "Te'" were Liverpool fans. This leads to even more disagreement.

The actors Paul Usher and Brian Regan who played Brookside characters "Barry" and "Terry" also appeared in a "The Scousers" sketch "Terry Gets Married". One of The Scousers re-emerged several years later in Enfield's sketch show Harry and Paul.

References


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