Sean Lock is dead!

[Mydogisagentleman]

Just heard it on the radio. It knocked me for six.
He was only 59. One of the funniest men on telly and radio.
RIP Sean

I was a bit disappointed with the episode C4 had as a tribute. The Sean Bean guy wasn't great. They should have shown the one where Miles Jupp was feeding the whelks to Sean.

Maybe it's just me, but I was expecting a clip show/montage with all the best moments from CatsDown that were just (or mainly) featuring him - not just a whole episode.

I normally actually quite like the Sean Bean send-up character, who's clearly deliberately meant to be woefully rubbish (not sure about that bizarre 'milking' bit) - granted he's no Horne Section - but last night should rightfully have been all about the other Sean.

@waterlego I wondered the same, if he already knew then that he was terminal.

It was five years ago so I don't think so.

Does anyone know if the routine about mumsnet was true? He said he loved posting here and felt supported. I'd like to think that was a real thing.

I really doubt he would have said it if not. I’d love to know his username! Wonder if he started some bun fights and spent all night laughing at us

Sadly I missed the stand up show and found the 8 out of 10 Cats episode unfunny. It would've been better with Joe doing his Naming Men's Penises At The Urinal poem. Sean's reaction to that was just what he thought of other comedians. It was sublime telly, I'll miss his daft irreverent jokes that had me breathless with laughter. And his clever jokes too.

'Oh my god, Jason Manford has actually posted a screenshot of a text he sent to SL a few weeks ago (complete with date and time so we know he's not faking!), accompanied with sage advice about how you should check in with friends you haven't seen for a while - look how caring Jason Manford is everyone, what another great opportunity for Jason Manford to show everyone how caring he is!'

Utterly cringeworthy. Seems many comedians have been competing to show who knew him best. We don't need to know you texted him JM, or that you went on holidays together Bill Bailey. Just a 'sad tragic news, he will be missed' will suffice.

Rhod Gilbert’s FB tribute was lovely and simple , just “RIP to a very very very funny man, alongside whom I was lucky enough to work occasionally. Truly one of a kind. My thoughts are with his family and friends at this sad time.”.

I liked Jimmy Carr's too 'Brutal news about Sean Lock today. I loved him. I’m watching clips of him right now - laughing & crying. I’ll miss him so much'

Not 'I worked with him for 15 years we were exceptionally close and his family is like my family, we holidayed together and everything'. Even though all that is probably true.

I was hoping the tribute show would be his best clips too, bit of an odd choice of 8 out of 10 cats episode. Maybe that will come later.

We don't need to know you texted him JM, or that you went on holidays together Bill Bailey. Just a 'sad tragic news, he will be missed' will suffice.

To be fair, I don't think there was anything necessarily wrong with JM mentioning having been in touch per se - it was just ultra-cringe to actually screen-shot his own text, especially as it was quite a generic one in the first place.

I gathered that Sean and Bill Bailey were very close indeed and I think Bill's grief came across as honest and genuine. He wasn't playing it for self-aggrandisement or virtue signalling in the least. Celebrities are people, just like the rest of us - imagine if you'd just lost one of your very close friends and the TV cameras wanted to record your reaction and your thoughts as you paid tribute to your much-missed dear friend.

Traditionally, newspaper announcements were the way that we ordinary folk would pay public tribute to our loved ones. Social media is probably the equivalent for most people nowadays. People often post quite twee little poems and cliches, but it's absolutely their choice and their expression of their own grief. Being a celebrity brings with it extra challenges. His wife would have been used to him being in the public eye and conscious of her part in protecting and providing the kids with a sense of anonymous normality. Of course, she is even more devastated than the close friends now, so she wouldn't want to suddenly go on TV and share her personal grief not just with those to whom Sean meant a lot (as you would with a normal funeral/newspaper announcement that people tend to specifically look for, and not a TV news programme that millions of people - most of whom wouldn't really know or care that much - would happen to catch).

But of course, Sean was a celebrity. I don't know what arrangements would have been made, but if it were me married to a celebrity who had died (especially having young children), I personally would much prefer to leave the widely broadcast public tributes to our close celebrity friends and trust them to do the person we both loved justice, for their many fans.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll - totally spot on post.

Meh, it might be virtue-signalling, it might be a reverse virtue-signalling (we were friends, honest, look! I'm not jumping on the grieving bandwagon, I knew him) or it might be guilt - they texted but had not seen them in person.
Not going to decry people for it, with social media, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Say nothing because social media commentary is uncouth or tawdry and people will wonder where your tribute is. Give a tribute and it's looked at and judged by randos like us
Grief is grief and people react differently.
The other thing of course is that we have the tendency to make those who passed into saints. That's why I quite liked Harry Hill's because he very lightly alluded to the fact that SL was not always easy.
Sean allegedly said panel shows ''can be quite an aggressive, competitive scenario, and some weeks on 8 out of 10 Cats I have to be Graeme Souness. I'm the team captain, and if I feel that somebody's not playing the game properly, maybe lacking some grace and proper manners, then I give them a really nasty tackle in the first five minutes. Welcome to the game, and don't you dare come on here and try to fucking take over.'' This links to Mark Lamarr's insight that Lock felt himself and other older comedians were red squirrels being subsumed by grey squirrels, when it came to the art and craft of comedy.
The irony is of course that all the panel shows are to a large extent scripted anyway but certainly, there were some comedians - Rhys Thomas in particular - who was put off panel shows for life and Vanessa Feltz mentioned how hard being a panelist can be in her conversation with Mark on Radio 2. (From 3.25 Jeremy Vine Listen Again Thursday. Vanessa Feltz standing in). That was worth a listen to as Mark was highly complimentary about his friend and co-writer but also very honest that he hadn't mellowed as such as he got older - he was a born curmudgeon and a born contrarian.
I loved Fifteen Storeys High and agree it should have been promoted more and given more of an audience by the Beeb (although I understood it to be considered a cult classic now).
Not sure if others have posted but for those who haven't seen them here are three Sean clips that many have spoken of this week.

(0.51 Cyril The Screw and 9.24 The tiger who went for a pint) (Carrot in a box) (Carrot in a box 2) (Madonna)

''What would you like your obituary to say?
I don't care. I'll be dead. But ideally I'd like it just to say
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AAAAAAAAAHHHHH
You can't write tears Jimmy.''
Lamarr speaking about Sean with Carolyn Quinn (link on youtube below...). Mark also said on twitter that when writing the Vince character for FSH they always thought of him as a young Prince Philip and would ask what would young Prince Philip do?

(33.25 mins in not 3.25)
Obit quote from Sean to Jimmy Carr and used as extract in Vanessa Feltz's tribute segment.
Quinn/Lamarr link from evening radio, similar to the sentiments expressed earlier in the day - namely, that Sean was an endless delight.

'I gathered that Sean and Bill Bailey were very close indeed and I think Bill's grief came across as honest and genuine'

I'm sure they were, he seemed the sort to have lots of close friends. You can of course say I knew him very well just without the cringeworthy 'we went on holiday together all the time!'. Seems unnecessary imo, trying to out grieve the grievers.

Rhod's and Carr's are perfect examples of how to pay tribute.

Mark also said on twitter that when writing the Vince character for FSH they always thought of him as a young Prince Philip and would ask what would young Prince Philip do?

Ha, that's brilliant, thanks for posting that!

He was also in one of the recent episodes of Mandy, if anyone's interested in watching that. Seemed like an odd cousin of 15SH.