Sunday 15 February 2009

Henry Kelly...A true delight


In 2005 Kelly left LBC Radio to 'revive his television career'. TV work has proved scarce however but when his agent rang us this Christmas to ask if he could be a guest on our show we both agreed without hesitation.

Henry is one of those loveable old Irishmen who have such a natural charm that they were born to be on TV. During his heyday in the late 80's 'Going for Gold' was must watch television. However fashions change and Kelly, by his own admission, found himself on the media scrap heap.

Things got gradually worse and in February 2004, shortly after joining LBC 97.3, Kelly declared himself bankrupt thirteen years after the British Inland Revenue had sued him for the non-payment of income tax and national insurance contributions during the 1980s.

Many of you will feel that a man earning such good money should not have been so greedy and deserved all he got. However at the time Kelly had huge financial commitments. His wife lost her job at Kings College Dental School for "Gross Incompetence and Dereliction of Duty". We are not too sure what happened but it is claimed that, as a cost cutting measure, the former Mrs Kelly did not invest in her private practice and ended up working with only basic dental equipment. However claims that for two months during the summer of 1988 Kelly's wife worked entirely with dental floss have not been substantiated.

Henry Kelly has no doubt seen better days but as you will have observed today he still has the ability to win over an audience. There are rumours that he is to host a new panel show on UKTV entitled, "Where's my Carrot Mr Saunders? If so we wish him all the best.

Mr Kelly was and is a delightful man. It is obvious that he now drinks more than is appropriate for a man in his 60's, but we believe, given the chance, he could again establish himself as a major TV star.

1 comment:

  1. oh my god.. what a subtle crushing of his character! well done, like a comedy sketch, but better.

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