The late entertainer Roy Hudd's wife has started a fundraising campaign to acquire funds for a permanent memorial outside one of his favorite theaters.
The actor passed away in March 2020 at the age of 83 and lived close to Stowmarket, Suffolk.
Due to the pandemic, his wife Debbie was unable to hold a funeral, which is why she came up with the idea for a statue in Bury St. Edmunds.
Because Roy was a man of the people, she said, "I don't want to put him on a pedestal because he would hate that.
So, hopefully, he will be sitting on a bench outside Bury St. Edmunds' Theatre Royal.
He adored the theater in question. ".
The statue will be made by Suffolk-based sculptor Sean Hedges-Quinn and will cost about £100,000 to produce.
When he unveiled the sculpture of his friend, music hall actress Gracie Fields, by Hudd in Rochdale, they became friends.
Hedges-Quinn also created statues of Captain Mainwaring from Dad's Army in Thetford, Norfolk, as well as those of Sir Alf Ramsey, Sir Bobby Robson, and Kevin Beattie for the Ipswich Town Football Club.
Hudd, a specialist in music hall history, had a long and prosperous career that lasted more than 60 years.
He began his career entertaining tourists as a Redcoat at Butlin's before transitioning to the stage, screen, and radio.
Both his long-running BBC Radio 2 program The News Huddlines and his portrayal of undertaker Archie Shuttleworth on Coronation Street made the star well-known.
He also made appearances in Call the Midwife, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, and Benidorm in the latter stages of his acting career.
He enjoyed working in radio, but then, according to Mrs. Hudd, "he'd want to jump to Shakespeare or doing Max Miller or his old time music hall.".
He was working with many different age groups of people, and it kept everything interesting for him. He especially enjoyed performing in pantomime for young audiences.
He believed that, along with applause, laughter was the best sound in the world for making people smile. ".
- On May 14, 2023, Alison Steadman and John Culshaw will perform at a News Huddlines benefit performance at the Sondheim Theatre in London.
