The Sporting Gent

The Sporting Gent was anything but sporting. Here was a man who you would avoid at all costs because the only one he ever looked out for was number one. He would sell his own mother if the price was right and was described as Emery as a ‘genuine British cad.’ He was based on a character Emery had met on the beaches of Normandy, a few days after D-Day. "We had been posted [there] to entertain the troops and keep up morale. When we landed, shaky and glad to be on terra firma again, this chap-a real RAF type-came up and asked with concern where the girls were. To be asking about girls, when as we spoke we could hear Caen being bombed to pieces! When we told him that we played the girls roles as well, he gave that ‘Ha ha ha’ which has become the Sporting Gent’s familiar guffaw." Emery thought that while full of comedic possibilities, the Sporting Gent was a thoroughly reprehensible character: "He is identified by his loudly checked jacket, jaunty bow-tie, flat cap and thin, well trimmed moustache, and is usually found in bars, drinking shorts-which he never buys himself if he can help it. I like to think he is the outcast of a well-to-do family. The kind of tweeds his father wore have been replaced with a louder pattern in accordance with his flashy taste. To compensate for his loss of station, the Sporting Gent has to overstate everything. Keeping up appearances is important to us all; to this man they have to compensate for everything else. He is interested in your wallet, possibly your wife, but definitely not you-unless it’s your round that is."

Interviewer: Pardon me, sir.
The Sporting Gent: Yes, old boy?
Interviewer: Do you believe in being a good neighbour?
The Sporting Gent: I most certainly do, old chap. Take the other evening-my neighbour's little pussy got stuck up on the roof. I climbed up to get it down and fell through straight into the au pair's bed.
Interviewer: That's unbelievable!
The Sporting Gent: That's exactly what the wife's solicitor said.