Shirley Brahms

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name	Wendy Richard
date of birth	20 July 1946
sun (zodiac) sign	Cancer (the Crab) - water sign
ruling planet	the Moon
character name	Shirley Brahms
tenure on the show	1972-1984
Brahms' status	asst. salesman 1972-1984
catchphrase	"we live in a detached house!"

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Shirley Brahms, played by Wendy Richard, is Mrs. Slocombe's assistant (asst. #134) on the ladies' counter. With the exception of the five senior salesmen (before Mr. Humphries) and Mr. Spooner (played by Mike Berry), she is the least featured of the Grace Brothers' clothing department counterstaff. Thus we don't really get to know her too well, but she is a likeable and pretty character.

Miss Brahms doesn't really have a consistent theme for humor's sake in Are You Being Served? (AYBS?), but her main gag is that she bristles whenever someone insinuates that she is common. To which she invariably replies that she lives in a detached house as opposed to a "commoner's" semi-detached! Conversely, Miss Brahms has a tendency to accuse other people (and things) as being common, and it's amusing to watch the other characters flash Miss Brahms a "look who's talking" sort of stare. We see (and get some laughs from seeing) Miss Brahms trying to be less common in several episodes, such as affecting a posh accent to replace her natural Cockney in "By Appointment" and "Closed Circuit" (as example episodes). Unfortunately, she IS common, at least in background: her Cockney accent is a dead giveaway ("Yeah, well we can run the canteen better than what they does do! ...That don't sound right, do it?"), and we learn in "Calling All Customers" that Miss Brahms actually DOES live in a semi-detached house. Aside from her common-ness, though, Miss Brahms doesn't have much of a theme: her main contribution to the humor of AYBS? are her remarks, which are usually very witty. Unfortunately, even though she is portrayed as being witty, Miss Brahms is sometimes given lines which make her appear like The Typical Airhead. Shirley also has a tendency to augment her chest (with cotton-wool in "Big Brother" and a padded bra in "The Old Order Changes"), even though she doesn't need it (cf. "Shoulder to Shoulder")!

Of the Grace Brothers staff, Miss Brahms is closest in friendship to Mrs. Slocombe. She had a love-hate relationship with Mr. Lucas; had Mr. Lucas not been so "mean [and] oversexed" Shirley might have taken to him a bit more. They did go out together a few times, but it never came to anything (because "that usherette had a new battery in her torch"). She had a better relationship with Mr. Spooner, since he was younger and acted more like a little brother, and he wasn't as oversexed as Mr. Lucas or as mean with the same frequency. Oh, and although Miss Brahms is a pretty virtuous girl (I mean hey, she kept both Mr. Lucas and Captain Peacock away!) she has no compunctions about showing a bit of leg to try and get a higher position at Grace Brothers, rather than be stuck as Mrs. Slocombe's junior.

That's Shirley in a nutshell for you! Or is she in a semi-detached house... :P