When I'm watching Man
About The House I often find myself thinking that Robin is just the type of
person who I'd really dislike. There's an unappealing cockiness, taking the
form of being unwilling to take anything seriously and a lack of regard for
anyone else. There's an odd sequence when Chrissy brings her new boyfriend Neil
home and Robin immediately starts impersonating him and agreeing with him in a
sarcastic way that the boyfriend doesn't register but Chrissy does. And it
makes me think, 'But Chrissy is supposed to be your friend! She'd have
good cause to be upset by your behaviour!'
The bespectacled boyfriend is an interesting period character, a film buff of the 1970s and - as one of him female friends who bumps into him when he's on a date with Chrissy tells him that "you were on that panel at the BFI" - some type of film scholar, to boot. He turns out to be a film-obsessed monomaniac, assuming that Chrissy knows all about nitrate stock, Melies and Edwin S. Porter and will be happy to come the cinema society with him to see two hours of Eisenstein offcuts. His downfall comes when he gives Chrissy a birthday present that he would want himself, a cinecamera (Robin of course gives her nothing) and is honest about her filmmaking efforts.
The boyfriend is supposed to be a crashing bore, but such care and detail has gone into making his film history talk authentic and accurate that I'm afraid that my ears pricked up with interest whenever he launched into his boring lectures. He is certainly inconsiderate towards Chrissy, but then so is Robin... The film buff material reaches a peak of interest when Neil takes Chrissy to a film history exhibition of stills from early silents at the NFT! The exhibition set is only a few pokey panels in the Teddington studio, but Production Designer Alex MacIntyre has gone to some effort to get the exhibits right... I like to think that Thames had these items in stock from some Arts programme.
The bespectacled boyfriend is an interesting period character, a film buff of the 1970s and - as one of him female friends who bumps into him when he's on a date with Chrissy tells him that "you were on that panel at the BFI" - some type of film scholar, to boot. He turns out to be a film-obsessed monomaniac, assuming that Chrissy knows all about nitrate stock, Melies and Edwin S. Porter and will be happy to come the cinema society with him to see two hours of Eisenstein offcuts. His downfall comes when he gives Chrissy a birthday present that he would want himself, a cinecamera (Robin of course gives her nothing) and is honest about her filmmaking efforts.
The boyfriend is supposed to be a crashing bore, but such care and detail has gone into making his film history talk authentic and accurate that I'm afraid that my ears pricked up with interest whenever he launched into his boring lectures. He is certainly inconsiderate towards Chrissy, but then so is Robin... The film buff material reaches a peak of interest when Neil takes Chrissy to a film history exhibition of stills from early silents at the NFT! The exhibition set is only a few pokey panels in the Teddington studio, but Production Designer Alex MacIntyre has gone to some effort to get the exhibits right... I like to think that Thames had these items in stock from some Arts programme.
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