I'd
completely forgotten that Tommy Saxondale had a daughter, an important detail
that seems to go unmentioned in other episodes. Including her and her boyfriend
isn't an entirely happy fit with how the series normally works. Tommy's young
assistant Raymond (always a funny part of the programme) gets relegated to only
a few minutes' appearance, as his presence would crowd a storyline about
Saxondale trying to understand young people.
The storyline about Tommy misjudging his daughter's boyfriend (James Lance, who played Ben, the cocky young man working at the Linton Travel Tavern, in I'm Alan Partridge) has some unsatisfactory aspects to it. The emphasis is on telling a 'lesson learned' story about Tommy discovering some empathy with his daughter through seeing the boyfriend through her eyes. This comes across as a bit sentimental, and works against what definitely would be funny, Saxondale becoming angered by a silly youth with an incomprehensible young person's manner. Also, the scene of Tommy's great misunderstanding of the boyfriend (he thinks that he keeps going to the lavatory to take drugs, when he really just has irritable bowel syndrome) isn't very well set up. You think, there must be a longer edit of this episode somewhere which makes more of this situation.
From time to time when watching this series I've found myself thinking, "Who is it that I know who Saxondale - just occasionally - reminds me of?" I've now realised... When Tommy Saxondale puts his glasses on, he fleetingly reminds me of leading television researcher Andrew Pixley. Not that Andrew has any of Saxondale's personality disorders or unwittingly threatening qualities, though!
The storyline about Tommy misjudging his daughter's boyfriend (James Lance, who played Ben, the cocky young man working at the Linton Travel Tavern, in I'm Alan Partridge) has some unsatisfactory aspects to it. The emphasis is on telling a 'lesson learned' story about Tommy discovering some empathy with his daughter through seeing the boyfriend through her eyes. This comes across as a bit sentimental, and works against what definitely would be funny, Saxondale becoming angered by a silly youth with an incomprehensible young person's manner. Also, the scene of Tommy's great misunderstanding of the boyfriend (he thinks that he keeps going to the lavatory to take drugs, when he really just has irritable bowel syndrome) isn't very well set up. You think, there must be a longer edit of this episode somewhere which makes more of this situation.
From time to time when watching this series I've found myself thinking, "Who is it that I know who Saxondale - just occasionally - reminds me of?" I've now realised... When Tommy Saxondale puts his glasses on, he fleetingly reminds me of leading television researcher Andrew Pixley. Not that Andrew has any of Saxondale's personality disorders or unwittingly threatening qualities, though!
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