The illustrated Friends: Mr Pastry

So, who is the first name Alan Ant claims is his good friend? It's Mr Pastry.

Richard Hearne created Mr Pastry as a stage character, moving into television when having a highly specialised novelty act could still get you a regular, long-running series rather than just three minutes of scorn from Simon Cowell. In fact, if there's anyone who has a claim to be the first proper TV star, it'd be Mr Pastry.

Athough perhaps sliding down the memory hole now, at the time Hearne was huge - he was offered the Doctor Who role when John Pertwee left the Tardis, but turned it down because he wanted to do Who-as-Pastry; he also was a regular on the Ed Sullivan Show back when Paul McCartney was still searching for free submarine toys in boxes of Wheatie Flakes.

When you're looking for someone to compare One Direction's current American status to, Mr Pastry would probably be a more useful model than The Beatles.

Obviously, being from a more uptight era, Hearne would have behaved himself on those American jaunts - certainly there'd be no mysterious claims about large numbers of children looking desperately for a pastry-father.

So this, then, is Mr Pastry. He's a friend of Adam Ant:


[Buy: There doesn't seem to be any Mr Pastry available on DVD, but Hearne stars in The Time Of His Life]

[Part of The Illustrated Friends]