Dick Clement's Biography

Dick Clement was born in September 1937 at Westcliff-on-Sea, in Essex, England.

Dick Clement and writing partner Ian La Frenais are responsible for some of the most successful character-led comedies in British television: ‘The Likely Lads’ (1964-66), ‘Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?’ (1973-1974), ‘Porridge’ (1973-1977) and ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’ (1983, 1986, 2002, 2004).

Regarding The Likely Lads, Dick Clement was quoted in The Independent in 1993 as saying:

"We were trying to write what we'd seen not on television but in movies - those black and white Sixties movies of the grainy North."

Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement’s film writing credits include ‘The Commitments’ (1991), ‘Goal’ (2005), ‘Flushed Away’ (2006), ‘Across the Universe’ (2007) and ‘The Bank Job’ (2008).

Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais met in Notting Hill in the early 1960s. Dick Clement was a trainee radio producer, but also beginning to contribute to new BBC sketch shows, such as ‘The Dick Emery Show’.

Following their success with ‘Porridge’, Dick Clement and La Frenais migrated to Beverley Hills in 1975; both married American wives, and now live “so close that if Ian forgets his pencil he can go back for it”.

A stage musical adaptation of the movie ‘Barbarella’, written by Dick Clement with a score by Dave Stewart, opened in Vienna in 2004 and closed in early 2005.

Dick Clement was awarded the OBE in the Queen's 2007 Birthday Honours list.

In October 2017, Porridge returned to BBC One once again written by Clement and La Fresnais.