Monday, 11 March 2019

A Comedy On This Day: Bless This House - Watch The Birdie (12 March 1973)


 This episode has that "This will just about do, at a pinch" quality that you often find in series with a large turnover of episodes from multiple writers. It’s a broad farce, where the labouredness of the many plot contrivances heavily outweighs the intended hilarity of their eventual consequences. So this man happens to be a photographer and his fiancée happens to be a model and short-sighted and temporarily working behind the bar? So Sid happens to be in his son's photographic studio when his son has conveniently absented himself with the flu and the model is in her underwear and the curtain falls down and she stumbles into Sid's arms and the camera goes off? Hmmm...

 Probably the element that works best is the most distinctive part that has least to do with the main plot. There's a doleful taxidermist with a stuffed parrot. David Battley, who must have been the automatic first choice for lugubrious eccentric supporting roles for a generation, plays him.

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