Monday 8 April 2019

A Comedy On This Day: May To December - Fools Rush In (9 April 1989)



 The second episode, and this series is running on (considerable) promise, rather than achieving much in the way of actual laughs at this stage. One problem is that its less interesting to see how this pair get together than it becomes watching how other people respond to them once they become a couple.

 It’s full of funny ideas that aren't quite followed through. There's a scene in which the daughter of the Anton Rodgers character invites him to Sunday lunch and tries to set him up with a dressy widow, played by Rosemary Leach. These are surely the optimum conditions to set up an amusing scene, but somewhere along the line it hasn't been thought to give the widow an actual character or any sustained dialogue. The gap between intention and realisation is disappointing.

 The bimbo receptionist in the solicitors office, who's sole purpose being to misunderstand everything that other characters say in an airheaded fashion, is a trying character. That said, her presence provides the one moment that really made me laugh, when Clive Francis' suave middle-aged roué tells her, "My wife doesn't understand me"...

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