A Comedy On This Day: The Gaffer - There Goes The Bride (21 June 1983)

 Bill Maynard sounds worryingly out of breath in this episode, panting heavily in the middle of sentences - unless its an actor's device for conveying Graham White's dense dialogue!

 There's a fair amount of filmed inserts this week, something that I don't really associate with The Gaffer beyond the factory yard. A pub stag night starts off in the studio, but then oddly turns into a filmed montage sequence of an idyllic night's debauch for the regulars, downing yards of ale and leaching after barmaids, to a smoky saxophone soundtrack. The effect is peculiar, especially as there is no continuity of design between the two pub sets and a different barmaid on film.

 This is followed by the Gaffer driving through the Yorkshire countryside at the end of a freezing winter with melting snow on the ground, and a shot of the gaffer petting a border collie outside a farmhouse - a unique moment when we see him as a likeable character. None of these inserts are remotely funny, but the extra dimension of real-world conditions enhances the programme.

A Comedy On This Day: The Gaffer: The Blackleg (24 May 1983)

 When Graham White puts a simile or an inverted phrase in four or five consecutive lines, watching The Gaffer is like trying to do the cryptic crossword at speed. Bill Maynard will say something like, "Concession is bad for the soul", and I find myself having to work out what that means, where it comes from/ what it should be and what it means in terms of the plot while still listening out for the next line which will require the same amount of mental effort.

 This week, the Gaffer manages to manipulate his secretary going on strike to his advantage, as it prevents him from paying bonuses to other workers. The blackleg of the title is a shrewish temporary secretary, whose character is conveyed in broad outlines by getting the actress to wear a pair of heavy-rimmed glasses and scowl. This is in contrast to Pat Ashton as Betty, who gets given an existential moment this week ("There must be more to life than this" she suggests, looking around the grim office) and a sadly unflattering new hairdo that adds some ringlets to the front. This new secretary even tidies the gaffer's desk away and cleans the floor, although the office still looks so drab and flyblown that it doesn't have much of a transformative effect.

A Comedy On This Day: The Gaffer - All In A Day's Strike (9 January 1981)

 The Gaffer had an unusual provenance for a star vehicle sitcom, written by a novice writer, Graham White (who had next to no TV credits after this) rather than an established figure. The result is that the structure and dialogue goes a bit beyond what would normally be attempted in such a series.

 White was the manager of a small light-engineering firm and The Gaffer is a series about the misadventures of a manager of a small light-engineering firm. There's a particularly precise level of inside knowledge of the travails of the small businessman in this script - (juggling orders, chasing up and delaying payments and supplies, dealing with unions) - which isn't spoon-fed to the audience, and requires some effort to keep up with.

  On top of that, White's dialogue wasn't easy - dense with quite elaborate similes that actors find it hard to speak:

His dialogue is among the best I've read for years. The only problem is that some of it is almost impossible to say. For instance, in a scene where one wife meets another he'll give me a line such as: 'I see the irascible force has ganged up with the resistible object'. (Bill Maynard, TV Times, 3 January 1981)

  These lines are funny, but the biggest laughs often come from the characters' simpler reactions to them. You get the feeling that everyone involved is still working out how to best make this material work, but Bill Maynard's bearlike heavy gait and growl as the Gaffer immediately registers as something recognisable and true.

  You don't see fantastically grubby offices on television anymore - this one is up there with Hammond Transport Services or the Crossroads garage.