A Comedy On This Day: Don't Drink The Water - Home From Home (27 July 1974)

 The obvious emphasis in this first episode is on broad comedy that creates as many opportunities as possible for Stephen Lewis to pull faces. But there is something quite oppressive about the barrage of relentless discomfort and embarrassment that Blakey and his sister immediately face in their new Spanish flat.

 The porter and his wife are rowing in Spanish. The builders are still in the apartment when they move in. The taps fall off the wall. The water is brown. The sea view is of another block of flats. A lizard scuttles across the floor. Pat Coombs gets hysterical. A storm breaks a window. There's a power cut. The next-door neighbours are cackling vulgarians. It’s established that all of the money has gone into moving here and it's impossible to get back home. Whenever Blakey tells anyone that Pat Coombs is his sister they think that's a euphemism for his mistress, etc., etc.

 The studio audience responds ecstatically to this catalogue of misfortunes. But there isn't space for much empathy in the script, apart from perhaps the five years of affection automatically accrued for Blakey off the back of On The Buses. After about five minutes, I started to daydream about how well (with minimal adjustment) this would work as a horror story. It just needs something a bit more perverse or grotesque about the couple next door, or a mutilated cat on the doorstep to fit into place...