tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36374870740302628022024-03-12T19:40:06.761-07:00The drunkenness of things being variousSome stray thoughts; mostly pop and old British television drama, bits of memoir perhaps.Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.comBlogger430125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-29288816502339478732023-08-05T02:17:00.007-07:002023-08-17T12:17:44.004-07:00Sweetcorn<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXKkfIkjKDiJHpijJ_Hl4qH1bJhoC-BW318nIal1MvpH_kTxEJeW_4f_olKn57z9oB4D-L1wQY8xkhqKROZDMe5n9Z69_21wpgBvSCn65nIQIntby91bdNJWl71Oj9KZZ2pfjKuKA7ZlkN225q2XvkqrSZ4EvDCVrQaeT4TYPzPWO1lNuWMs1BwTozC74/s768/Snapshot-2023-08-05%20at%2009_59_25%20AM-2122282439.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXKkfIkjKDiJHpijJ_Hl4qH1bJhoC-BW318nIal1MvpH_kTxEJeW_4f_olKn57z9oB4D-L1wQY8xkhqKROZDMe5n9Z69_21wpgBvSCn65nIQIntby91bdNJWl71Oj9KZZ2pfjKuKA7ZlkN225q2XvkqrSZ4EvDCVrQaeT4TYPzPWO1lNuWMs1BwTozC74/w400-h300/Snapshot-2023-08-05%20at%2009_59_25%20AM-2122282439.png" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p> <i>Coronation Street</i> #1096 (19 July 1971) materialized on YouTube the other day, reminding me that something about the eighty-second domestic scene
of Elsie and Alan Howard that starts at 12.15 snagged against my
imagination. Indeed, when I first saw it three years ago I had to
transcribe the dialogue:</p><div dir="ltr">ELSIE: Well, what's wrong with it?</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ALAN: Oh, come on, Elsie! You know damn well, what's wrong with it -</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ELSIE: I just put a bit too much water in the potato, that's all.</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ALAN: <b>It's running off the plate!</b></div><div dir="ltr"><b><br /></b></div><div dir="ltr">ELSIE: Well, I managed to eat mine.</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ALAN: Well, I'm not going to eat it.</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ELSIE: Oh? Well, we'll soon settle that, won't we?<br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">There! I suppose you can manage to eat the sausage, can't you?</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ALAN: Yes! I can manage to eat the sausage.<br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ELSIE: You know, I'm not a miracle worker. I can't cook you a four course lunch in the time I've got!</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ALAN: I don't expect a four course lunch.</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ELSIE: Well, you obviously expect more than you get. Every time I put a meal in front of you I get a long face.<br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ALAN: I'm just getting a bit tired of these interminable fry-ups. That's all!</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ELSIE: <b>Look, that's all I've got time for! I've only got an hour for lunch, you know!</b></div><div dir="ltr"><b><br /></b></div><div dir="ltr">ALAN: So it's not your fault?</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ELSIE: <b>No, it's not my fault! <br /></b></div><div dir="ltr"><b><br /></b></div><div dir="ltr">What would you like me to do instead?</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ALAN: Well <i>how do I know</i>? <br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ELSIE: <b>Well you must have some preference!</b></div><div dir="ltr"><b><br /></b></div><div dir="ltr">ALAN: Look, I don't mind a fry-up -<br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ELSIE: <b>OH I WISH YOU'D MAKE UP YOUR MIND!</b></div><div dir="ltr"><b><br /></b></div><div dir="ltr">ALAN: <b>If you could make it <i>interesting</i>! Just a little <i>attractive -</i></b></div><div dir="ltr"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div dir="ltr">ELSIE: <b>HOW CAN YOU MAKE A FRY-UP ATTRACTIVE? A fry-up's been a fry-up ever since Adam was a lad!<br /></b></div><div dir="ltr"><b><br /></b></div><div dir="ltr">ALAN: Well you you could use vegetables.</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">ELSIE: <b>VEGETABLES?!</b></div><div dir="ltr"><b><br /></b></div><div dir="ltr">ALAN: <b>Vegetables!</b></div><div dir="ltr"><b><br /></b></div><div dir="ltr">ELSIE: <b>WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE SPUDS ARE?</b></div><div dir="ltr"><b><br /></b></div><div dir="ltr">ALAN: <b>OH COME ON, ELSIE! I mean <i>peas </i>and <i>beans </i>and <i>carrots </i>and <i>sweetcorn </i>-</b></div><div dir="ltr"><b><br /></b></div><div dir="ltr">ELSIE: <b>SWEET <i>WHAT</i>?</b></div><div dir="ltr"><b><br /></b></div><div dir="ltr">ALAN: <i><b>Sweetcorn.</b></i></div><div dir="ltr"><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div dir="ltr">ELSIE: <b>WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO GET THAT FROM? THIS ISN'T THE WEST END OF LONDON, YOU KNOW! AND I'M NOT A CHEF! I'm just a <i>supervisor </i>of a <i>warehouse </i>who is <i>trying</i> - <i>trying!</i> - to help her <i>husband</i> get <i>solvent</i>. <i>Sweet-flaming-corn</i>!</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>END OF PART ONE</b></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"> Two
details that I'd forgotten watching this again, at the start and end of
the scene. Props are clearly having fun providing unappetizing instant
mashed potato. And the director (Paul Bernard) has elected to end the
scene on an irritated Alan listening to a chiding Elsie, rather than the
speaker. (This is reminiscent of Philip Saville's disturbing close-ups
on Tom Bell's frustrated face as he listens to Madge Ryan's endless
nagging as his mother in Pinter's <i>A Night Out</i>, eleven years ealier)<br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"> This
is clearly very functional dialogue, created at the behest of the
storyliners needing to show the strains on the Howards' marriage at this
point in the episode, rather than any particular inspiration or
invention on the part of writer (Leslie Duxbury). Showing the two of
them rowing in their lunch break will do fine, and is easy to set up.</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"> Knowing
that Pat Phoenix and Alan Browning were a (combustible) real-life
couple enhances one's appreciation of the natural-sounding rhythm of the
argument. Pat Phoenix sometime used to skim through and paraphrase her
lines, but it all seems to be as written here - we don't see her
frequently deployed trick of banging her hand down on the furniture to
call for assistance from fellow performers. Alan's word choice of
"interminable" fry-ups is inaccurate - it should surely be something
like "unending" - but has a certain authenticity to it in
how one's vocabulary does start to get more imprecise when you begin to
feel real anger rising within yourself.</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"> But
the reason why this ordinary scene immediately lodged in my memory is
because the details are far more interesting than what is going on
between the characters. <span><span style="background-color: inherit;">For a start, it supports one of my dramaturgical maxims that there is no scene in
any drama set at a mealtime that cannot be improved by making some reference to
what the characters are eating. It's almost the only activity that can be shown
on screen that everybody watching has an active interest in, and imagining the
taste and texture of the food consumed encourages an easy empathetic
understanding of something of what the characters are feeling at the moment</span></span>.</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"> But
most of all, its the unintended, escalating, comedy that lies in the
example given of an supposedly outlandish foodstuff. I know that
Weatherfield was a bit of a backwater in the early days, but you would
have thought that at least tins of sweetcorn would have been easy to
come by. Perhaps even sold in the Corner Shop, though they would have to
have had the Jolly Green Giant obscured by a label reading "KEY" (the
unique to Coronation Street brand) in 1971. </div><div dir="ltr"><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iaSxXlFm0Dc" width="320" youtube-src-id="iaSxXlFm0Dc"></iframe></div><br /><p> </p>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-13529590138322264862023-08-02T05:26:00.004-07:002023-08-02T05:27:36.898-07:00Watching Colin's Sandwich/ Recording Colin's Sandwich<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiItsMIH53pCs4zY3fZjmKJsdWz5wDKwzuun6pTkpLm24Mv96hOS9KXEphDGFLQwBvH6HM4efuBEUUs4fC_fYkh9lZxIWJGj1QZq0mqDP2_2w0JOxnQwmDOjX4mbcH14TM0lIU-Un2KyZJa7rBcdsWvYt1-RJc6BhQapAed7AbM0TTE0l8kYAFvGxX8B1c/s779/RT%20Colin.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="779" data-original-width="584" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiItsMIH53pCs4zY3fZjmKJsdWz5wDKwzuun6pTkpLm24Mv96hOS9KXEphDGFLQwBvH6HM4efuBEUUs4fC_fYkh9lZxIWJGj1QZq0mqDP2_2w0JOxnQwmDOjX4mbcH14TM0lIU-Un2KyZJa7rBcdsWvYt1-RJc6BhQapAed7AbM0TTE0l8kYAFvGxX8B1c/w480-h640/RT%20Colin.png" width="480" /></a></div> <br /><p></p><p> It is ten years since Mel Smith died. This post reprints a piece I wrote for the <i>Critical Studies In Television </i>blog soon afterwards (but in a rather better proof-read version than the one that went up), and adds a new piece of my reflections from watching the studio recording tape of the pilot episode. Since I wrote the first piece, a DVD of <i>Colin's Sandwich </i>was released by Simply Media in 2014, but has long since been deleted.</p><p><b>1.<i> Colin’s Sandwich </i>(BBC 1988-90): Remembering forgotten television, remembering Mel Smith.</b><br />
<br /> Starting work on the three year AHRC project ‘The History of Forgotten
TV Drama in the UK’ at Royal Holloway has led me to think a lot about to
what extent I remember television myself, and the reliability of my
memory.<br />
<br /> A widespread false memory syndrome can afflict even ostensibly
well-remembered programmes. The experience of systematically watching
all 53 episodes of <i>The Sweeney</i> (ITV, Thames 1974-78), for
example, is one that often contradicts popular cultural memory of the
show. The parts of the programme that constitute what Nick Love
(director of the recent <i>Sweeney</i> film revival) describes as “an
iconic media brand” - the same few endlessly recycled quips and stunts
that make up the geezers-motors-and-birds cultural memory of the series -
do not constitute the majority of the programme as it actually was,
often pretty downbeat, dialectical about the purpose and value of
policing, and with a distinctively rueful feel.<br />
<br /> If this is the case for such a well-known programme, how can we then
trust our own personal memories of the obscure and forgotten television
that we enjoyed, looked forward to seeing, cherished od memories of?
This question was in the back of my mind when a particular favourite
programme of my teenage years, the BBC2 sitcom <i>Colin’s Sandwich</i>
(1988-90) resurfaced on YouTube the other month, a few days after the
death of its star, Mel Smith. Although it gathered a reasonable amount
of publicity at the time of broadcast, <i>Colin’s Sandwich</i> is not a
programme that has passed into television history. Nobody will ever
write a Manchester University Press ‘Television Series’ monograph about
the career of its writers, Terry Kyan and Paul Smith. Unseen by myself
(or seemingly anyone else) since being repeated in 1992, I have never
subsequently heard anyone talk about it. The bits that I thought I
remembered vividly did not appear to be memories shared by anyone else,
even on Internet vintage TV forums. This obscurity has continued even
now that the programme is back in YouTube circulation (via authentic
eighties off-air VHS recordings with original BBC2 idents and
occasionally wobbly tracking) and - despite Mel Smith’s posthumously
raised profile – still only a few hundred people have watched them
online.<br />
<br /> Mel Smith plays the everyman figure of Colin Watkins in the series, a
North London office worker in the complaints department of British Rail
with a rather arch girlfriend Jenny (Louisa Rix) – who you feel really
could be doing better than Colin – and some literary aspirations.
Smith’s lugubrious appearance, fanciful monologues of spiraling
absurdity, and the show’s shabby metropolitan setting led to much of its
initial publicity describing it as a <i>Hancock’s Half Hour</i> (BBC
Television, 1956-61) for the eighties. This turned out to be an unwise
strategy, as subsequent unenthused press coverage invariably then
concentrated on unfavourable comparisons to its revered antecedent.<br />
<br /> The main reason why <i>Colin’s Sandwich</i> was commissioned by the BBC
appears to have been as a useful solo star vehicle for Smith, at the
time one of the BBC’s most popular comedians in partnership with Griff
Rhys Jones. Watching the show, it is almost impossible to imagine anyone
else playing Colin, but at the same time Mel Smith’s presence in every
scene does dominate the programme to a degree that threatens to
overpower it. Colin’s distinctive perception of the world and his place
within it is realised throughout the series via two particular dramatic
devices, both playing to particular strengths of the Smith persona and
performance style. Comic monologues occur frequently, increasingly
absurd rants sometimes delivered to others (occasionally - especially
during Colin’s best man speech at a wedding reception - with humiliating
consequences) and sometimes soliloquys by Colin alone in his flat.
Although these speeches always contain several really funny ideas, and
Smith is of course a very talented comic performer, they can become
repetitive, and slow down the narrative of each episode. Rather more
successful, and unexpected, is the continual use of voice-over to
represent Colin’s unspoken thoughts throughout scenes, usually unspoken
frustration and impatience, akin aurally if not visually to Channel 4’s <i>Peep Show</i>
(2003-2015). This bold device, hard to achieve in a sitcom recorded in
front of a live studio audience, displays Smith’s gifts for comic facial
expressions to their fullest extent, for example Colin attempting to
stifle a yawn during a protracted heart-to-heart conversation.<br />
<br /> The second series of <i>Colin’s Sandwich</i> was screened in 1990 with
little fanfare, but is a noticeable step up from the first, a more
assured and emotionally mature programme that goes into unfamiliar comic
territory, particularly in its last two episodes in which Colin copes
(badly) with the death of his father, culminating in what I think is the
highlight of the series, Colin breaking down with grief on a
make-and-break French holiday with Jenny. I found the protracted eight
minute sequence of Colin making a scene in a restaurant unsettling to
watch in 1990, and am even more impressed with it after finally getting
to see it again in 2013, with the mounting sense of someone messing up a
very good thing dependent upon the patience with which the scene
develops, becoming progressively more unsettling and less funny without
breaking the viewer’s emotional engagement.<br />
<br /> Now that Mel Smith is no longer alive, its hard not to read some
extra-textual poignancy into the character of Colin, especially as the
show is so evidently constructed as a star vehicle for him. Watching Mel
Smith appear as himself on chat shows, I always got a sense of someone
trapped in a rather tiresome star persona of gruff plain-speaking
funnyman. (A friend of mine went to a book signing for the <i>Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book</i>
in 1987, attended by Smith and other comedy luminaries of the time, and
noticed that every time he signed his name outrageous funnyman Mel
would say, “Good practice for wanking!” - not a particularly amusing
observation even when said just the once. When my friend reached Smith
he interrupted him and told him that he didn’t have to say it, causing
an embarrassed silence). But a cursory look into Mel Smith’s biography
reveals a considerable hinterland, working at the Royal Court Theatre as
an assistant director before turning to TV sketch comedy, and a
convincing straight role as a tough property developer in Tom Clarke’s
characteristically bleak serial <i>Muck and Brass</i> (Central, 1982).
Perhaps something of Smith’s own situation is worked into Colin’s
frustrated literary ambitions (which, crucially, are not delusional in
the series) and frustration with blokeish rituals. Certainly it’s a
comedy performance that still continues to make me laugh a lot, and
contains some surprising moments of grace and finesse.<br />
<br /> As with a lot of old television, <i>Colin’s Sandwich</i> offers an
uneasy reintroduction to the world of the time that it was made when
watched by someone old enough to have lived then, but this impression
becomes particularly marked in a realistic comedy of the everyday. This
uncomfortable sensation isn’t just found in the surface details that you
notice (the copy of the Sun in Colin’s office bearing the headline ‘<b>FERGIE’S DAD IN VICE SHOCK</b>’),
but the features of everyday life that have subsequently disappeared –
being able to buy Sunday papers on Saturday nights at Central London
railway stations, the old licensing laws that Colin rails against.
Particularly notable is the amount of comic mileage extracted from
telephone technology – never mind mobile phones, the arrival of 1471 and
caller number displays on landlines would scupper several very funny
scenes in this series. But, above all, it’s the sense that Colin’s 1988
life itself, presented as humdrum and unremarkable, just wouldn’t be
possible now. He has a very steady job working for British Rail (gone by
1996), which is enough for him to have (presumably bought) a rather
nice flat for himself in Brent Cross, not a lifestyle that can easily be
achieved in London 25 years on.<br />
<br /> This brings me to my major conclusion about <i>Colin’s Sandwich</i> when
seen again in my early forties. Why did I like this series so much at
the time? Part of the reason why the series had the effect it did on me
when I was a schoolboy, was that it was presenting a version of an
ordinary adult life that a middle-class Londoner like me might expect to
be living myself in a couple of decades time. It’s worrying to note
that the character of Colin is supposed to be only 35… That’s the sort
of thing that makes me feel really old. There are several occasional
moments of awkward comedy in the series – when Colin Watkins has to give
up drinking for a fortnight and is forced to endure a nightmarish works
pub crawl, or an episode when he accepts an invitation to be best man
for a workmate and rails against the ghastliness of stag nights and
wedding receptions – that struck a particular chord of emotional
recognition within me when I first watched them, empathizing most
strongly with Colin's frustrations at the impositions of rituals and
ceremonies and having to fit with a series of expectations that he can
see through, even though such experiences don’t arise in quite the same
way in your life when you’re sixteen years-old. It’s also worth noting
that I watched the programme with my parents, who both found it funny
and found Colin and Jenny sympathetic characters. Sometimes, you come
across things in fiction when you’re young that tell you exactly the
sort of person that you’re inevitably going to become, jokes that
crystalise your still nascent sense of what life is going to be like for
you. When we remember the television that we emotionally invested in,
we remember something of ourselves. Be prepared for twinges of
uncomfortable self-recognition when you watch them again after many
years.
</p><p><i><b> </b></i></p><p><b>2</b><i><b>. Colin's Sandwich</b></i><b>: Pilot episode studio recording tape (1987)</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8kS9tS_cvJstaBdtiHoTtnDQFHoMP18bhM-XoYZ6xjP7i4jagPgeaWUHQXOVnRo4ec0TJdOX6KPIwmm7n3LDh0L9abvqJcpR5y6bMihAInkWOyPx3cxZ0m064OubRRQ_WCTWo9F27TeZvDYX7ShSdv4GYturypqyXWTi-S6QXrIJ29MX_AOgR5A1TiVc/s768/Snapshot-2023-07-31%20at%2005_19_48%20PM-2099524218.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8kS9tS_cvJstaBdtiHoTtnDQFHoMP18bhM-XoYZ6xjP7i4jagPgeaWUHQXOVnRo4ec0TJdOX6KPIwmm7n3LDh0L9abvqJcpR5y6bMihAInkWOyPx3cxZ0m064OubRRQ_WCTWo9F27TeZvDYX7ShSdv4GYturypqyXWTi-S6QXrIJ29MX_AOgR5A1TiVc/w400-h300/Snapshot-2023-07-31%20at%2005_19_48%20PM-2099524218.png" width="400" /></a></b></div><b> </b>I got to see the studio recording tape of the 1987 <i>Colin's Sandwich</i> pilot, and made a few notes after watching: <br /> <p></p><p> Obviously I've seen both pilots and studio tapes before, but never the studio tape <i>of</i> a pilot, so this nascent iteration of <i>Colin's Sandwich</i> was highly instructive. Things I learnt were -</p><p> You would obviously commission a series of this on the strength of the
pilot. The script was almost entirely unchanged in the transmitted
version (episode one, 'Flaunt It'). I think that a few lines were
rephrased, but the only difference that I could notice was the peculiar
non-diegetic use of the sound of a submarine at the end of one scene.
Greeted with bafflement by the audience, Mel Smith even apologizes for
it at the end of the take.<br /> </p><p> The real change is in the casting. I always knew Louisa Rix was tremendously good as Jen, but you <i>really</i>
appreciate her qualities when she's not in it. The central question of
the programme - which I can remember talking about with my parents when
we watched it together, the sign of something that had really caught our
imaginations - is, why is she with him? Rix is very skilled at showing
how Jen and Colin have a shared comic wavelength and understanding even
when they're fighting (along with Mel Smith, of course). Frances Tomelty
(an actress with next to no sitcom experience) makes her feel like a
shrew and the freewheeling passages in the dialogue where she's as
amusing as Colin come across as vamped. Also, in the broadcast series
the old hand Micheal Medwin gave the character of the publisher a
different dynamic of being a generation older, which worked better than
the more subdued younger man cast here (David Lyon), too.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgivTH1LOcSZolBqgTgN1f4kGVjMejmLsTQapnGeo8dqT6aBbAsSn6WLochJ17O-XU0-zqwprUGKKqBo3DSXbBi-_RyBV3tx4wSrgpvJzvaoW-bQ9t3IDP6mDQ8YivY1sxH-6tkuSg44hcPt2izxjKwd0SQ0h-hwneDLm4VbMo6eqKsudclXC7PlMtgD9A/s768/Snapshot-2023-07-31%20at%2005_18_10%20PM-1019627033.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgivTH1LOcSZolBqgTgN1f4kGVjMejmLsTQapnGeo8dqT6aBbAsSn6WLochJ17O-XU0-zqwprUGKKqBo3DSXbBi-_RyBV3tx4wSrgpvJzvaoW-bQ9t3IDP6mDQ8YivY1sxH-6tkuSg44hcPt2izxjKwd0SQ0h-hwneDLm4VbMo6eqKsudclXC7PlMtgD9A/w400-h300/Snapshot-2023-07-31%20at%2005_18_10%20PM-1019627033.png" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p> The broadcast set of Colin's flat had noticeably more character than in
this version. Cluttered bookshelves replaced tasteful prints, making
the place feel more lived in and showing Colin to be a man with a
lively, but untidy, mind.<br /> </p><p> Mel Smith came over very well as a person to me in this, engaging with
the audience at the end of takes, acknowledging and thanking the good
work done at great speed by the floor managers (watching this made me
appreciate that getting props right when setting up retakes is a really
tricky skill), supportive of Mike Grady when he keeps on getting his
lines wrong in the final (and Grady's only) scene. As well as being a
gifted, very distinctive, comic, he also gives the impression of being a
star actor whom you'd want at the head of your company.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkDdLcWBPTfzhx-_reaUisKmElqUXvDR0sYELtMZiNuODrGED9L1CKBw4HIaE_cpleVONCsrDy0EFJI1h2oid95jYbKAndNfeeY8shLKFZnbPLFVekMg2cBCzDH__sQ2P_SmRy7MyU_F2oZZZtgR_sXpzjoxvBH-YMdXl70N0U8B-9P4Tfw0QciacMcvg/s768/Snapshot-2023-07-31%20at%2005_21_19%20PM-1399728069.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkDdLcWBPTfzhx-_reaUisKmElqUXvDR0sYELtMZiNuODrGED9L1CKBw4HIaE_cpleVONCsrDy0EFJI1h2oid95jYbKAndNfeeY8shLKFZnbPLFVekMg2cBCzDH__sQ2P_SmRy7MyU_F2oZZZtgR_sXpzjoxvBH-YMdXl70N0U8B-9P4Tfw0QciacMcvg/w400-h300/Snapshot-2023-07-31%20at%2005_21_19%20PM-1399728069.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /> The warm-up man (who we continually hear but never see) is Bob Mills.
If you want an insight into a working comic having to constantly step in
and then get cut off again then the gaps have some subsidiary interest.
Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-23800914587345481062023-06-19T07:17:00.001-07:002023-06-19T07:22:26.955-07:00The Rules of One-Day Conference Preparation<p> I found these instructions that I made back in my days as an academic, burned by my experience of many poorly-prepared and poorly-paced events. I'm sure that they still apply:</p><div>1. Start no earlier than 10 (delegates to arrive from 9.30).</div><div>2. Tea and coffee on arrival.</div><div>3. Make sure that all speakers are given technical support to set up in advance <mark class="I_ZkchTG" id="highlight">of</mark> their panel. If possible, insist that your speakers take the time to set up before the panel starts.<br /></div><div>4. Never run any more than four papers simultaneously without a break.</div><div>5. A conventional panel of three 20 minute papers should be given a 90 minute timeslot. This gives you a bit of slack for papers to overrun, and if the discussion peters out and you let people out early - well, no delegate has ever complained about that. <br /></div><div>6. The first break is to occur no later than 11.30. Breaks should be thirty minutes. This alleviates rush and makes them proper breaks.<br /></div><div>7. Lunch should be no later than 1, and no shorter than an hour.</div><div>8. Always provide
biscuits.</div><p></p>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-39902785705000054512020-11-16T08:44:00.000-08:002020-11-16T08:44:20.161-08:00Pace yourself<p> I read an
interview with Chris Tarrant in the paper. The 72 year-old presenter
had recently had a stroke and was now attempting to relaunch his career as a
broadcaster of gravitas with a series of historical documentaries for
Channel 5, <i>Hitler's Holocaust Railways with Chris Tarrant</i>.</p><div id="yiv5554013898yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1540852315110_2544"> One
claim in the feature sticks in the mind - "Tarrant is a confident man.
He once boasted of drinking 20 pints, smoking 60 cigarettes and sleeping
with four women in a single day." <br /></div><div id="yiv5554013898yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1540852315110_2877"><br /></div><div id="yiv5554013898yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1540852315110_2885"> It's a curious boast.<br /></div><div id="yiv5554013898yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1540852315110_2559"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv5554013898yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1540852315110_2750"> I find 60 cigarettes in a day easy to believe.</div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv5554013898yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1540852315110_2618"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv5554013898yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1540852315110_2610"> Sleeping
with four women in a single day is credible. Drinking 20 pints in a
single day is also credible. But combining both in the same day is more
difficult to comprehend. If the four women were prostitutes, or he was
attending some kind of orgy it would make sense, but then that doesn't
sound like something that someone in his position would boast about.</div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv5554013898yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1540852315110_2681"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv5554013898yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1540852315110_2680"> How
many of the four women did he already know, I wonder? Presumably he was
already a public figure when this day occurred. Fame can have a curious
aphrodisiac effect - I once spent an evening in the University of
Birmingham Students' Union with one of the 'stars' of (poorly-regarded
Channel 5 soap opera) <i id="yiv5554013898yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1540852315110_2816">Family Affairs</i>
and - watching a flow of shouting drunken girls proposition him - I
observed that he could easily have had sex with four women in
succession, providing he had no inhibitions about very quickly finding a
place to do it in. But not after more than - what? - <i id="yiv5554013898yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1540852315110_3415">ten </i>pints?</div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv5554013898yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1540852315110_2915"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv5554013898yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1540852315110_2944"> Maybe
the chain-smoking Tarrant had sex with the four women during the day
and then - in a fit of remorseful emotional confusion - got hideously
drunk afterwards. But, again, that wouldn't sound like something to
boast about to me.</div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv5554013898yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1540852315110_2995"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" id="yiv5554013898yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1540852315110_2994"> The
one conclusion that I did draw from this compelling claim was that if
Chris Tarrant evenly paced his three activities over the course of the
day, then you would imagine that the fourth woman would have got the
rough end of the deal.</div>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-54850001606332864802020-09-05T12:43:00.001-07:002020-09-05T12:43:43.543-07:00A Comedy On This Day: Dad's Army - Ring Dem Bells (5 September 1975)
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RbEtzPpIuGo/X1PqM3wvE0I/AAAAAAAABdo/OzQunl6CRGQHo9fnzyNkt5YPeOLWZwNcACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Snapshot-2020-09-05%2Bat%2B08_41_16%2BPM-682613125.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RbEtzPpIuGo/X1PqM3wvE0I/AAAAAAAABdo/OzQunl6CRGQHo9fnzyNkt5YPeOLWZwNcACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Snapshot-2020-09-05%2Bat%2B08_41_16%2BPM-682613125.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The first episode
of the eighth series. If you've got a programme as well-established as <i>Dad's
Army</i> was by 1975, with much loved regular characters, you only need to have
one very good idea per episode. A premise that's original, can be easily
described and creates an image in the mind will is probably be enough to carry
your audience. "The platoon dress up as Germans" is just one such
idea.<br />
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having dressed them up, the eventual
plot that stems from this idea ends up as a bit of a runaround. Far funnier are
the little character bits that arise from the change of costume - Pike dressed
as a German officer playacting behind <span class="highlight">Mainwaring</span>'s
desk when he's alone in the office, or Wilson's approval of the "awfully
smart" Nazi uniform.<br />
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reason why they are dressed up as
the enemy is because they're extras in a film. The 'Crown Films' people that
the platoon deals with are the part of this story that most extends the <i>Dad's
Army</i> world. Instead of glamorous characters, they turn out to be a pair of
unpreposessing cockneys played by John Bardon and Hilda Fenemore, who often
appeared as variations of these roles, and it's diverting to see a bit of
London visit Walmington-on-Sea. Neither has very much distinctive to do, but
costume woman Queenie's combined solicitousness (calling the soldiers 'dear' as
she measures them up) and practicality rings true to me.</span></div>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-25727784110705887482020-09-04T00:01:00.000-07:002020-09-04T00:37:26.896-07:00A Comedy On This Day: Man About The House - The Last Picture Show (4 September 1975) <br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_3sSFUOQwKo/X1HmG-gF14I/AAAAAAAABdY/Aa73wrvfIuA3nmLZ2VucZ2nR3WgtUVQ3wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Snapshot-2020-09-04%2Bat%2B07_59_17%2BAM-961292917.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_3sSFUOQwKo/X1HmG-gF14I/AAAAAAAABdY/Aa73wrvfIuA3nmLZ2VucZ2nR3WgtUVQ3wCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Snapshot-2020-09-04%2Bat%2B07_59_17%2BAM-961292917.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> When I'm watching <i>Man
About The House</i> 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 <i>friend</i>! She'd have
good cause to be upset by your behaviour!'<br />
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<br />
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-22631805626999293952020-08-31T14:19:00.000-07:002020-08-31T14:21:57.087-07:00"Competent and combative" A dubious privilege of having attended a quite-famous public school is the opportunity to read obituaries of your teachers, an experience unknown to most other people. This school finally stopped sending me an annual print copy of <i>The Old Grundian </i>a few years ago, but I do still look at the online copies, just to check that no-one who I remembered has died.<br />
<br />
<div dir="ltr">
I learn that Mr B, my form master and mathematics teacher when I was a first former, is no more. When I was twelve I was terrified of this man. What do I remember of him?</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br clear="none" /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
On my first day at school, talking to some other boys - who I had been at primary school with, but who had left to go to Grundwich a year earlier, when our classes were being allocated. "You don't want to get Mr B - he's a <i>bastard." </i>And a sense of confirmed fatalism when my name came up for his class.</div>
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<div dir="ltr">
Our
classroom still had wooden desks all facing the teacher's desk. How did
he address us? The one recurring phrase that I do remember was,
instructing a boy to come up to his desk, "Slither hither, wretched
toad", said for his own amusement. He had a heavy physical presence.
Most men - and particularly teachers - show flashes of a certain
residual boyishness at some moments, but I never saw that in him.</div>
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<br clear="none" /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
You
never felt that he was speaking to a boy as an equal, having an
ordinary conversation without a side to it. I recall one algebra lesson
when a boy asked (not cheeking him - Mr B wasn't a teacher who
you'd treat in that way), What's the point of this? I mean, how will it
ever apply to our lives? With most of what we do I can see how it will
go on to help us with money or measuring things. He refused to
answer and we were disappointed in him. Disappointed for his not
recognising the genuine spirit of enquiry and for his failure to covey
an enthusiasm in maths, something that he was clearly very good at.<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> I suppose that <span style="font-size: 12pt;">his best side</span>
would probably have been seen if you were a gifted mathematician at
A-Level.</span></div>
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<br clear="none" /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Apart
from mathematics, the other thing that he was interested in was sport.
During the weekly class free period, he would put a little transistor on
his desk and listen to test match commentaries. His valedictory speech
to the class on the last day of summer term told us that we should spend
our summer going to events like athletics meetings with our friends
("and you should have made plenty of those over this year") rather than
wasting our time watching television. I didn't follow this advice.</div>
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<br clear="none" /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Mr
B had a temper on him. College gossip recounted that he had been
suspended a few years ago for brawling with an Art master. A curious
thing about my memory of that year is that I remember his reputation for
hitting boys, perhaps throwing things at us, but I can't clearly
recollect his actually <i>doing</i> it, although I do recall the
atmosphere of severity when he had been displeased with a boy. I don't
know whether I've blanked out the memory. Maybe as a sensitive boy I wasn't capable of processing it at the time, or perhaps it didn't actually happen at all.</div>
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<div dir="ltr">
One thing that I do remember. Because I was a boy who was brought to tears on most days at school, other boys would scathingly ask
me, well, why didn't you cry when Mr B hit you, then? The object
of the question was to prove some shamming or hypocrisy on my part,
because if I didn't cry if the teacher hit me then it would in some way
invalidate the authenticity of the many other occasions when I was
brought to tears. But I don't <i>think </i>that he ever did hit me. Its the sort of thing that you <i>ought</i> to remember. Plus I don't think that I was the sort of insubordinate boy who would have brought out that kind of rage in him.</div>
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<div dir="ltr">
The
lasting impression that he left on me is that I don't think that I've
ever come across a man with less femininity in his nature. I had the
strong sense that he was the type of man with no interest in or
understanding of women's things. Obviously this doesn't come up very much
in a boy's school but I do recall all the other masters in his
position referring to wives or families on occasion, or just conveying a
fluent interest in the wider world beyond school. For the type of boy
that I was, having spent the previous seven years at a co-ed primary
school around the corner, growing up alongside girls and boys with
mostly women teachers, Mr B was exactly the sort of schoolmaster
that I shouldn't have had, at that age and in that institution.</div>
<div>
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<div dir="ltr">
Reading
his obituary, thirty years after I last saw the man, is a sobering
experience. I'm surprised to learn that he was only thirty-nine when he
taught me. Twelve year-old boys aren't very good readers of the age of
grown-ups but he exuded the sense of someone older. The obituary doesn't
reveal any surprising details or aspects of his nature. He doesn't
appear to have had any personal attachments. Mathematics, school and
sport really <i>were</i> his life, even to the extent of regularly
attending College matches and tournaments after he had left the school, a
participation that is presented as admirably committed rather than
illustrative of a sadly empty retirement. </div>
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<br clear="none" /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> But my lasting impression is of the sense of something
suppressed, that something being what are our best qualities - warmth,
openness, kindliness. </span>I'm struck by the lack of warmth in the obituary, with the best
that can be found by way of colourful character detail provided by
recollections of his "unsparingly critical observations". Mr B was a
sarcastic schoolmaster, I think. One of the few things I've learned in
life is that there's nothing as <i>freezing</i> as sarcasm. It shrivels
people up, which is what its designed to do. Its invariably a bad thing
to deploy, always reflecting badly on the person who uses it. I'd
definitely rather be forgotten than be remembered for my unsparingly
critical observations.</div>
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</div>
Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-43992883546051589482019-09-02T19:59:00.001-07:002019-09-02T19:59:45.492-07:00A Comedy On This Day: I Didn't Know You Cared - A Knitter In The Family (3 September 1975)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Vwqw6zQUB_c/XWqfFor1wBI/AAAAAAAABYs/4ZA8Nz5ExiYjQNUmqmQd6uF8AiMRBzChgCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-31%2Bat%2B05_23_32%2BPM-495853065.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Vwqw6zQUB_c/XWqfFor1wBI/AAAAAAAABYs/4ZA8Nz5ExiYjQNUmqmQd6uF8AiMRBzChgCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-31%2Bat%2B05_23_32%2BPM-495853065.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">LES: Look at it all. Gloom, muck,
desolation. Ugliness.<br />
<br />
MORT: Aye. Bloody marvellous, in't it? </span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Only the second episode, and the studio audience are audibly subdued and
hesitant at times. You can tell that they're trying to orient themselves around
what sort of comedy this is and how it works. It has no familiar stars in it,
and the rhythm and object of the jokes feels different to anything else. Peter
Tinniswood was one of those writers with his own distinct idiom (none of his
characters speak like people in any other programme) and <i>I Didn't Know You
Cared</i> doesn't try to iron it out, making a virtue of this peculiarity
instead. It's also very Northern/ Yorkshire and working-class, and so
presumably harder for the Television Centre audience to quickly identify with.<br /> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> The audience become more won over by a bravura performance by Vanda Godsell as
Carter's soon-to-be mother-in-law. Mrs Partington is a truly appalling woman,
mean, judgemental and uninterested in others, traits that are revealed in a
near-incessant monologue. Watching and understanding this character makes more
sense of the rest of the world depicted in <i>I Didn't Know You Cared</i>,
explaining why these menfolk are so gloomy and fatalistic about dealing with
women. <br /> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Personally, the one thing that really made me laugh in this episode was it's
most extreme statement, when a despondent Uncle Mort reflects that, "Still</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%;">, </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">there's a
lot to be said for death. I'll bet it's not half so boring as life."</span></div>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-11864761074501850172019-09-01T21:59:00.000-07:002019-09-01T21:59:38.457-07:00A Comedy On This Day: Rising Damp - The New Tenant (2 September 1974)<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uVOTbBTMd7s/XWqeB43x3SI/AAAAAAAABYg/WspECP1kiigs_ujntmiIqLeuv7wjU4htQCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-31%2Bat%2B05_19_07%2BPM-54938180.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uVOTbBTMd7s/XWqeB43x3SI/AAAAAAAABYg/WspECP1kiigs_ujntmiIqLeuv7wjU4htQCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-31%2Bat%2B05_19_07%2BPM-54938180.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> The first episode, but not strictly from the first
series. Actually part of an unofficial <i>Comedy Playhouse</i>-type series of
six weekly playlets from Yorkshire Television. So what were the other five? A
mixed bag, it would seem. Galton & Simpson's <i>You'll Never Walk Alone</i>,
about Leeds United fans (led by Brian Glover) on a train to London for the Cup
Final, was only ever intended to be a one-off. <i>Brotherly Love</i> with Keith
Barron as a miner-turned property speculator. <i>Slater's Day</i>, with John
Junkin as a PR man, a rare comedy excursion from Chris Boucher. Barry Took's <i>Badger's
Set</i>, featured Julian Orchard doubling as a famous personality and his
uncomprehending old father. And a second long-running success for Yorkshire, <i>Oh
No It's Selwyn Froggit</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> You can see why you'd immediately commission a series on the strength of this.
It has a certain distinct individual personality to it. Eric Chappel's dialogue
is quite densely-packed, full of allusions and reminiscences, and doesn't sound
like anything that I've heard spoken in any earlier ITV sitcom. The Victorian
house doesn't feel quite like anywhere we've seen before on ITV, not just in
the detailed set (the bashed lampshade in the 'best' room) but in the
relentless mentions of cold and discomfort - even the title, explained by
Rigsby to Alan, "That's not rising damp, it's condensation!". Even Vienna
is a geriatric cat of a type rarely allowed onto the television screen.<br /> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> It's obviously perfectly cast, with four identifiable characters who all seem
to have some sort of gap in their past that has brought them to here. One thing
that's rare about <i>Rising Damp</i> is that I'm equally interested in how all
of the four characters get on with each of the other three, making six
intriguing combinations.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> The studio audience are clearly very taken with what they're seeing, with one
male and one female laugh particularly prominent. It is noticeable how the one
thing that they find most hilarious is the very <i>idea</i> of having to
respond to a black man... </span></div>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-40042338832767760442019-08-31T21:40:00.001-07:002019-08-31T21:40:31.231-07:00A Comedy On This Day: Sez Les (1 September 1973)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LnhlCmDcnjw/XWqdCbSHuqI/AAAAAAAABYQ/wV3FSbEWRYUc8-y0XhV54f-KKO7aR0w7wCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-31%2Bat%2B05_14_49%2BPM-287160205.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LnhlCmDcnjw/XWqdCbSHuqI/AAAAAAAABYQ/wV3FSbEWRYUc8-y0XhV54f-KKO7aR0w7wCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-31%2Bat%2B05_14_49%2BPM-287160205.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Yorkshire seem to
have tightened their belts in allocating the <i>Sez Les</i> budget since 1972.
There's only one special guest artiste, only one dance routine, and little in
the way of filmed sketches this time round.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The unisex Irving Davies Dancers have replaced the Les Girls troupe, and they
are quite a contrast to their predecessors. This week, they interpret Neil
Sedaka's 'I'm A Song (Sing Me)" through the medium of mime. A curly-haired
(male) lead dancer stands at the foot of a staircase, in front of the rest of
the troupe who are arranged on the steps. All are in Marcel Marceux-type
whiteface (something current in music at the time, with Leo Sayer and the
Sensational Alex Harvey Band). The lead dancer is awarded a lot of close-ups
and performs straight to camera. The effect is alarming. Someone in the team
must really like Neil Sedaka because Dana's song is an unremarkable cover
version of 'That's When The Music Takes Me'.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Us037BmvMxk/XWqdKWstlKI/AAAAAAAABYU/iy6hAKKrxr8Cd-1z0KZGkz_lgSTRLVp2gCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-31%2Bat%2B05_14_25%2BPM-1854644630.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Us037BmvMxk/XWqdKWstlKI/AAAAAAAABYU/iy6hAKKrxr8Cd-1z0KZGkz_lgSTRLVp2gCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-31%2Bat%2B05_14_25%2BPM-1854644630.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> There's a very curious long sketch with Roy Barraclough as a suitor of Dawson's
daughter, announcing his intentions to the father. He is a wildly mincing
character, and the mixed messages that he gives off cause Dawson to repeatedly
respond inappropriately ("A CAMPari? Mind the POUFFE!", etc.). In a
bewildering punchline, the suitor removes his cap and wig and reveals himself
to actually be a butch fellow. It isn't made very clear why he should have been
disguising himself in the first place... It's a frustrating watch, because it's
an exciting premise and Roy Barraclough is so good in the role, but ends up as
such a pointless skit.</span></div>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-86808071795662685412019-08-30T21:59:00.002-07:002019-08-30T21:59:38.395-07:00A Comedy On This Day: Two Of A Kind (31 August 1963)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2TJwIex1Ark/XWn-nD2HEMI/AAAAAAAABYE/C_hElXY5uDcu2J8cZj_acn9k1SDmmHGBQCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-31%2Bat%2B05_58_58%2BAM-805521096.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2TJwIex1Ark/XWn-nD2HEMI/AAAAAAAABYE/C_hElXY5uDcu2J8cZj_acn9k1SDmmHGBQCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-31%2Bat%2B05_58_58%2BAM-805521096.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The material that
Morecambe & Wise were given to work with in this series was sometimes
gossamer-thin. There are several cherishable moments in this episode - Eric
trying to placate a growling offstage dog ("Is he registered with the
kennel club?" "No, the zoo"), Ernie, dressed as a hussar,
attempting to sing 'Wunderbar' through Eric's interruptions, Eric wearing a
suit for an enormously fat man and claiming that it's perfect fit - but none of
these moments happen in something that could be described as a fully-realised
routine, let alone sketch. The sheer likability and silliness of the stars
carries the material.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> An underwhelming pair of musical guests this week. Drumming bandleader Eric
Delaney was one of those musicians who put on a show by moving about the stage,
but even with him capering from one drumkit to another it's hard to maintain
much interest. The Mike Sammes Singers were <i>the</i> vocal harmony group for
hire in the 1960s (the Trunk Records <span style="mso-field-code: " HYPERLINK \0022https\:\/\/trunkrecords\.greedbag\.com\/buy\/music-for-biscuits-0\/?tab=wav_downloads\0022 \\t \0022_blank\0022 ";"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://trunkrecords.greedbag.com/buy/music-for-biscuits-0/" target="_blank"><i>Music For Biscuits</i></a> compilation of their advertising
jingles</span></span> is a strangely compelling listen) but I'd never actually
seen them before. I didn't realise that there were only six of them! I'd always
imagined a big choir. The three men and three women perform a "boop be
doop boop boop" interpretation of 'Pick Yourself Up', counting time and
swapping chairs.</span></div>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-32086250838283384952019-08-27T21:21:00.000-07:002019-08-27T21:21:05.532-07:00A Comedy On These Days: Outnumbered - The School Run/ The Special Bowl/ The City Farm (28/29/30 August 2007)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XOlIth-uvdQ/XWS4f0ApnmI/AAAAAAAABX4/54zXdf9lPnEJv-bhJohNObI_m7bMfsAVQCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-27%2Bat%2B05_57_43%2BAM-2106703349.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XOlIth-uvdQ/XWS4f0ApnmI/AAAAAAAABX4/54zXdf9lPnEJv-bhJohNObI_m7bMfsAVQCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-27%2Bat%2B05_57_43%2BAM-2106703349.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> A comedy on <i>these</i>
days... It's been serendipitous that the first episodes of this came up first,
and instructive to replicate the original pattern of transmission. You might
think that stripping three episodes over three consecutive nights on BBC1 would
be running something of a risk, but it actually works really well, achieving
something like optimum viewing conditions.<br /> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Seeing this as three daily episodes means that the parts are close enough
together for the viewer to retain all the information, but also spaced enough
apart to build up some reflection about what you've seen and anticipation as to
how the story might progress. There are a lot of strands in this programme,
which get built up gradually, and the series sensibly introduces one new major
family member per episode in parts two and three (Sue's sister and father).<br /> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> A strange thing about the cumulative effect of watching is that (even though I
was enjoying it) I hardly laughed at all in the first episode, but was laughing
a lot by episode three. This might be because the first episode, which
establishes the family and what sort of programme this is through showing a
workday morning spent rounding up the children and getting them to school, is
intensely stressful to watch. The continual effort of having to keep track of
multiple children, and constant distraction from any grown-up concerns that you
have to deal with is one of the most effortful common experiences, and the
style of the episode conveys this busyness through a very short average shot
length that I found exhausting to watch. <br /> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> By episode three things have calmed down a little, and the rivalry between the
two sisters and managing the doddering father creates a different type of
tension on top of the parenting. David Ryall is one of those actors whose
performances I saw I often find myself thinking back upon - the first role I
saw him play was God (!) in a thinly-attended Katie Mitchell production of <i>The
Mysteries</i> at the Barbican Pit, the last one as Feste in <i>Twelfth Night</i>
in what I think was his last stage performance. He always seemed to exude a
distinctive sense of morose authority, also seen here in the part of the
grandfather, even through a haze of dementia.</span></div>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-85397705164786657332019-08-26T21:29:00.000-07:002019-12-02T23:32:38.017-08:00A Comedy On This Day: Doctor In Charge - The Taming Of The Wolf (August 27 1972)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ds4vhlpZqv8/XWNkM8YB11I/AAAAAAAABXs/a1FDVqC5GbEM73et1VQUWVw7yFTW09uogCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-26%2Bat%2B05_46_13%2BAM-1234560617.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ds4vhlpZqv8/XWNkM8YB11I/AAAAAAAABXs/a1FDVqC5GbEM73et1VQUWVw7yFTW09uogCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-26%2Bat%2B05_46_13%2BAM-1234560617.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> This episode is
almost precisely the sort of thing that first comes to mind when you think of
the <i>Doctor</i> series - young doctors chasing younger nurses. Or in this
case, a new intake of young phsyiotherapists...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Chief among whom (indeed the only one with any lines) is Deborah Watling as
Emma Livingstone, a doe-eyed ingenue. Watching her in action here gives you a
good idea of what she must have been like in all of those touring farces. She's
given very little to work with in Garden & Oddie's script, being more of a
figure for Robin Nedwell to react to than much of a distinct character in her
own right. Despite Professor Lomas' description of Dr Waring as "in
training for a future as a dirty old man", Emma brings out Waring's
previously unseen gallant and chaste side, rhapsodising about holding her hand
and taking her to a Cliff Richard concert. Which doesn't go down well with anyone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> All of the best things in this episode are physical, rather than verbal. First
Emma giving Dr Waring a massage, out of which which Robin Nedwell gets laughs
from the anticipated sensual experience turning out to be a source of acute
physical pain. Then there's a doctor's ball with two dance routines. Against
his will, Dr Waring is forced into dancing a jive routine with Helen Fraser's
Dr Bingham - something that's particularly interesting to watch as Nedwell has
to convey reluctance while simultaneously dancing very well, performing
elaborate lifts and spins on Fraser. And then - from out of nowhere, really -
Deborah Watling dances the Charleston, <i>really well</i>, with Richard
O'Sullivan. It seems implausible that this would ever happen at a 1972 medical
students' ball, but it is fun to see two very familiar performers enjoying
themselves and showing off their agility in this famously silly dance.</span></div>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-63599162921788051162019-08-25T21:27:00.000-07:002019-08-25T23:02:53.672-07:00A Comedy On This Day: For The Love Of Ada - Ada & Walter Are Haunted (26 August 1971)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-erSLd_k-UjM/XWMGpQdhKQI/AAAAAAAABXg/3vcKm800b4IntDF-3RDFSCB54W9pjz8TQCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-25%2Bat%2B11_07_09%2BPM-1971948942.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-erSLd_k-UjM/XWMGpQdhKQI/AAAAAAAABXg/3vcKm800b4IntDF-3RDFSCB54W9pjz8TQCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-25%2Bat%2B11_07_09%2BPM-1971948942.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> This first episode of the final series certainly
moves <i>For The Love Of Ada</i> into unexpected territory, as Walter and Ada
discover that they share their new home with a ghost.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> The new home is the cemetery lodge, and Thames' designers have done a good job
in conveying the historical character of this building, furnishing it with
interesting-looking, chests, carved wooden chairs, brasses and Victorian
portraits on the wall and the like. The haunting is dealt with in quite a sober
way for a comedy, with Ada treating the matter practically ("Does this
mean our rates will go up?") and cheerfully, sitting up for the night in
the hope of meeting the ghost.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> When it looks like an apparition might be happening, the programme goes into a
completely different register, with suspenseful incidental music, a close up of
a slowly turning door handle and the camera panning through the room before
returning to the handle. It isn't a spectre at the door, of course, but the
ghost is given further attention, with Walter and Ada conducting some offscreen
research about the history of the lodge and the ghost's identity. Its
established in a few lines of dialogue that they've taken action to honour the
ghost's wishes, and then in a detail in the final scene the viewer is led to
believe that the ghost has been a real presence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;">
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> This is subtly done for a Powell & Driver script, and is really only a
subplot for the usual domestic concerns. But it's a really good way of
establishing that Walter and Ada have moved into a new home, encouraging the
viewer to understand on a subliminal level that the lodge a different sort of
environment to what we've seen before. </span></div>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-82344545876477290482019-08-24T21:24:00.000-07:002019-08-24T23:06:08.427-07:00A Comedy On This Day: Shelley - Happy Birthday - R.I.P. (25 August 1992)<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZTVtcZzwy-Y/XWAF84MvTII/AAAAAAAABXU/SApQAEYVaIMYQ-AGlk4bn7Q82KnnVRMTwCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-23%2Bat%2B04_27_29%2BPM-302977396.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZTVtcZzwy-Y/XWAF84MvTII/AAAAAAAABXU/SApQAEYVaIMYQ-AGlk4bn7Q82KnnVRMTwCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-23%2Bat%2B04_27_29%2BPM-302977396.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Written by David
Firth, one of four writers on this final series. This story feels like it could
have been told much the same way in a fifties sitcom, with Ted pretending to be
bedridden with a feigned slipped disc after no-one remembers his birthday.
Contemporary detail comes from Shelley complaining about the Doctor's surgery
having become a health centre with automated telephone booking and
receptionists who type into their Wang personal computers when he's trying to
speak to them. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Oddly, the one thing to make me laugh in this episode isn't even meant to be a joke,
when Shelley snaps at Ted, "Will you stop mistaking me for a young
person?" That's always an irritation of middle age, but not one often
depicted - old people still thinking that you're young in some way, when you're
acutely aware that you have nothing in common with the people who really
are young.</span></div>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-27234454673386695682019-08-23T21:21:00.000-07:002019-08-23T21:21:41.864-07:00A Comedy On This Day: Terry & June - Of Human Bondage (24 August 1987)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q7_osXceBZA/XVwYpTOcGnI/AAAAAAAABXA/HyHVnUuwqZUqOQ4kwBhsqiSziJ3OUrKIQCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-20%2Bat%2B04_58_15%2BPM-180777953.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q7_osXceBZA/XVwYpTOcGnI/AAAAAAAABXA/HyHVnUuwqZUqOQ4kwBhsqiSziJ3OUrKIQCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-20%2Bat%2B04_58_15%2BPM-180777953.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> I
wonder if, over the course of its 106 episodes, <i>Happy Ever After</i>/ <i>Terry
& June</i> ran through all of the seven basic plots? You would think that
they all turn up at some stage.<i> </i></span><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Terry & June</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> has the
potential to do six of them easily -</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">1. Cinderella/ The Hero Who Cannot
Be Kept Down - Unrecognised virtue at last recognised.<br />
<br />
2. Achilles - The Fatal Flaw.<br />
<br />
3. Faust - The debt that must be paid, the fate that catches up with all of us
sooner or later.<br />
<br />
4. Tristan - that standard triangular plot of two women and one man, or two men
and one woman.<br />
<br />
5. Circe - The Spider and the Fly.<br />
<br />
6. Romeo and Juliet - Boy meets Girl, Boy loses Girl, Boy either finds or does
not find Girl: it doesn't matter which.<br />
<br />
7. Orpheus - The Quest. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Number six (Romeo and Juliet) is
the only one that seems to be outside it's immediate scope, but perhaps there
might be a suitable story about their children somewhere in <i>Happy Ever After</i>...
</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I like the idea that it would be possible to teach a
seven-week creative writing/ narrative course exclusively through episodes of <i>Terry
& June</i>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> This one is a Cinderella story (a magical transformation of circumstances) with
a Premium Bond owned by the Medfords winning the month's top prize of £250,000
(which, even taking inflation into account - it would now be just under
£700,000 - seems like a relatively sober figure in a post-Lottery climate. I
see that the top prize Premium Bond is now one million pounds. Which has a
pleasing ring of wealth to it, although being a millionaire isn't exactly what
it once was.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The situation is certainly set up with
alacrity - Terry gets bills in the post, complains about how they must tighten
their belts, the phone rings with dramatic news. Two sources of dramatic
interest stem from this. It's to be expected that this good fortune must then
be undone in some way - as Terry keeps saying, the Medfords never win anything
and their becoming notably well-off would change the mood of the programme. How
is the fall from paradise going to happen? It keeps the viewer guessing, but
when the reversal happens it's not particularly clever, although at least it's
not completely implausible. John Kane has done some research into how Premium
Bonds work - the disappointment is a variation of the story of the bankrobber
coming out of prison, digging up their loot and discovering that it's no longer
legal tender. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Of greater interest is how this illusory wealth would affect the Medfords. There's
a scene where Terry and June are besieged by petitioners. June's friend Beattie
brings her niece along in the hope of June bankrolling her fashion house. The
vicar brings the church accountant along, hoping for a donation for a new organ
and central heating for the church. A bouquet-bearing Sir Dennis offers Terry a
seat on the Board, and some distant relatives led by an angry George A. Cooper
demand a share of the family good fortune. This is frustratingly skimped on. We
only get to see the first visitors (Beattie and her niece) in the living room,
their offer dismissed with polite steel by June. From them on, we only see
Terry and June greeting the petitioners in their hallway and shepherding them
into the living room... Having gone to the effort of casting so many assorted
characters, it's a shame that we don't then get to see them all crowding into
the room and interacting with each other.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> I think that most of
the problems that I've had with this last series could have been solved with
more robust script editing. John Kane was a seasoned old comedy writer who knew
what he was doing, but every episode seems to have a rather thrown away ending
that should have been much stronger.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The two leads are <i>always</i> seriously good, though, something that I didn't
really appreciate watching them as a schoolboy. It must be the combined
training of rep and constantly performing television comedy since the live days
of the fifties that meant that they knew how to make the most of whatever the
series asked them to do.</span></div>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-13202622531698229022019-08-22T21:22:00.001-07:002019-08-22T21:22:57.120-07:00A Comedy On This Day: Astronauts - Going Home (23 August 1983)<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n6I28cjRWWA/XVwXtAGfwiI/AAAAAAAABW4/zW94eYe2QeQzPi8jfw0wcNn326ryn6M7QCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-20%2Bat%2B04_53_37%2BPM-1038987033.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n6I28cjRWWA/XVwXtAGfwiI/AAAAAAAABW4/zW94eYe2QeQzPi8jfw0wcNn326ryn6M7QCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-20%2Bat%2B04_53_37%2BPM-1038987033.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The
final episode, broadcast on this day only in certain ITV regions, and at
11.35pm. An ignominious end for a series initially held in high hopes...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> You can see the promise in the situation, with the three astronauts preparing
to return to earth, the scientist frightened of the dangerous process, and the
Captain traumatised to learn that his wife has been having an affair at home.
That promise is dramatic rather than comic, though, in a <i>Moonbase 3</i> sort
of way. Unfortunately, whenever the character and situation goes somewhere
interesting, the programme remembers that it's a sitcom and quickly (if
unamusingly) undercuts it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> This isn't helped by canned (rather than recorded with a studio audience)
laughter, a jarring feature in several ITV programmes of this period. Once you
start to notice it you can hear it, in the way that the laughter suddenly starts
and stops and the silences in between, and it sounds nothing like the organic
responses of a real audience. It also has an unfortunate editorialising effect.
Garden and Oddie's dialogue doesn't have much in the way of jokes, but it has
got a comic rhythm which gets undercut by sudden bursts of loud laughter at
exchanges which are only tangentially amusing in themselves. Then, once the
scientist astronaut gets frightened and the evangelist pilot attempts to
comfort her, you get a similar exchange like "God is your pilot/ I hope
that he has a fully qualified license", received in an unnaturally sterile
silence, because it was decided that laughter at a joke would be distracting
during a serious bit.</span></div>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-50210401918534751792019-08-21T20:57:00.001-07:002019-08-21T20:57:31.373-07:00A Comedy On This Day: Yanks Go Home - Bed Of Roses (22 August 1977)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dSaZKoXZWt0/XVwXC9pjGII/AAAAAAAABWw/ghGLv1Kwf8ARAFLLtgF5quqa-BlbW1f4wCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-20%2Bat%2B04_51_18%2BPM-161592444.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dSaZKoXZWt0/XVwXC9pjGII/AAAAAAAABWw/ghGLv1Kwf8ARAFLLtgF5quqa-BlbW1f4wCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-20%2Bat%2B04_51_18%2BPM-161592444.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Written
by Anthony Couch, a writer with only a handful of previous comedy credits to
his name. There's not much in the way of actual <i>jokes</i> in this episode,
but lots of scenes of the G.I.s making observations to each other about their
perfumed laundry.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> This week, the pub is losing American custom to the W.V.S. canteen, where the
ladies are laundering the G.I.s' clothes in exchange for nylons, candies, etc.
There's a canteen set that I wouldn't have minded seeing more of and a few new
characters only seen in this episode. Watching this series - which seems to
have one new single-use set and two or three guest performers every episode -
reminds me of being a child and buying one new set of Town Lego with my pocket
money each weekend, a fireman or policeman, say. You eventually build up a
whole town's population week by week. Unlike with the toys, though, you never
get to see them all together.</span>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-1844294241126928022019-08-20T21:32:00.001-07:002019-08-20T21:32:59.041-07:00A Comedy On This Day: Happy Ever After - Keeping Fit! (21 August 1974)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oyloN9_zU7s/XVwWXV5zWHI/AAAAAAAABWo/P73AZgl5e30jB-od2MSNXP_ikwwUXIYbgCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-20%2Bat%2B04_48_26%2BPM-255267554.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oyloN9_zU7s/XVwWXV5zWHI/AAAAAAAABWo/P73AZgl5e30jB-od2MSNXP_ikwwUXIYbgCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-20%2Bat%2B04_48_26%2BPM-255267554.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Just
four scenes in this all-studio episode. For a light domestic comedy, the
dialogue-heavy nature of the exercise requires the viewers to bring quite a lot
of imagination with them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The first scene is in the Fletchers' garden, of which we only see the porch.
Two orange floral garden loungers, June sat on hers drinking tea, Terry
fidgiting restlessly around his. We don't actually see the garden, buring a
long stretch of dialogue about it and Terry and June's different understanding
of what the space represents to each of them - for June a place to sit in, for
Terry a source of constant work. From the mass of details about what's in the
garden and what needs doing there, the attentive viewer builds up a cumulative
picture of what this space must look like - the one bad that Terry hasn't done
yet on the left, the compost heap in front of a flowering plant to the bottom
right, etc. It requires maintaining attention to get the most out of this sort
of dialogue.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The third scene - the Fletchers in bed - also requires sustained imaginative
concentration. In slightly unexpected territory for this programme, June
imagines her possible life as a widow, with Terry becoming jealous of any
future husbands, his wife teasing him about how he wouldn't be able to do
anything about it. This scene doesn't really have any bearing upon the
situation going on in the moment, and it shows a certain confidence in the
ability of the performers to trust the audience to go along with it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> I'm sobered to realise that Terry is supposed to be my age now, 45-46! He's
having a midlife crisis, alternating between acute hypochondria and a
short-lived keep-fit resolution. Both phases are ideal material for Terry
Scott's abilities as a physical comic, attempting to walk when full of
imaginary aches and pains (a stiff back, a stuck out dead arm and a leg with
cramp), then making a great to-do of three press-ups and failing to touch his
toes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The mynah bird flaps about in its little cage loudly, and looks highly agitated
by the studio lights.</span></div>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-28371590955253542242019-08-19T20:31:00.001-07:002019-08-19T20:31:40.231-07:00A Comedy On This Day: Doctor In Charge - Yellow Fever (20 August 1972)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ViOj3QVAv2U/XVrSOymHczI/AAAAAAAABWc/akBWvUBcDUonboSgx7b9rcAANxafm3IlwCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-19%2Bat%2B05_45_28%2BPM-445914209.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ViOj3QVAv2U/XVrSOymHczI/AAAAAAAABWc/akBWvUBcDUonboSgx7b9rcAANxafm3IlwCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-19%2Bat%2B05_45_28%2BPM-445914209.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I have a feeling Professor Loftus wants to speak to me about that
patient sitting up in the middle of his operation.<br />
<br />
What happened?<br />
<br />
He took one look at his intestines and fainted. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Another Graham Chapman script (with Bernard McKenna) and about as absurd
as the <i>Doctor</i> comedies got, with a delegation of 28 representatives from
the People's Republic of China visiting St Swithin's. A busy episode that packs
an awful lot of gags into 25 minutes, largely visual jokes about herding
multiple Mao-suited figures who go to places where they shouldn't, hide behind
doors, etc. At one point the script even requires the Chinese to stand in line
and fall like dominoes. <br /> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Two modes of comedy intertwine - the absurd (culturally specific details of
trying to integrate with Chinese customs) and the farcical (moving the
delegates about). The two styles reach their best moment of synthesis in a
scene when the delegates, in surgical masks and swabs, attend an operation. Dr
Waring prepares for the surgery by reciting from the Little Red Book, before Dr
Bingham enters with a Policeman - "Arrest these Chinamen!"</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-78662352899742792842019-08-18T21:14:00.001-07:002021-10-26T01:18:35.107-07:00A Comedy On This Day: Sez Les (19 August 1972)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ssbq_Hgn9-A/XVmfujuTq_I/AAAAAAAABV0/jqegoeC6N8wGxZKJYxRPwOwi0AiZ7za5ACLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2018-08-19%2Bat%2B11_36_44%2BPM-1517977856.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ssbq_Hgn9-A/XVmfujuTq_I/AAAAAAAABV0/jqegoeC6N8wGxZKJYxRPwOwi0AiZ7za5ACLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2018-08-19%2Bat%2B11_36_44%2BPM-1517977856.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;">For
such a bevvy of elegant ladies, the Les Girls dance troupe do get put through
some indignities on <i>Sez Les</i>. In a visual sketch this is deliberate -
Dawson as top hatted crooner with three dancers descending a misproportioned
staircase behind him: when the stairs get larger the dancers have to clamber
down and eventually use a stepladder. But when in this week's big roaring
twenties number - Amii MacDonald singing 'Black Bottom' - the women get dressed
as (Mickey) <i>mice</i>, the effect is... peculiar.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JcO14X3ActI/XVmhSXnhxDI/AAAAAAAABWA/Etgf4aa92Gs8Wich0QuV1ZPA2dC3tTwQgCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2018-08-19%2Bat%2B11_33_16%2BPM-2045554806.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JcO14X3ActI/XVmhSXnhxDI/AAAAAAAABWA/Etgf4aa92Gs8Wich0QuV1ZPA2dC3tTwQgCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2018-08-19%2Bat%2B11_33_16%2BPM-2045554806.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;"> Les Girls are put to more conventional use in the first number from today's big
guest star, Roy Orbison. Roy hasn't had a hit since 1969 and is working from
his back catalogue. He has updated his look for the seventies, though - still
with the dark glasses of course, but replacing his familiar dark suits with a
costume in thick white fabric. He performs 'Dream Baby' with Les Girls
surrounding him from above, below, to the left and to the right, the dancers
wearing either pink or orange tops and silver hot pants as they cavort to the
music.<br /> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-exmMJ-Kkl3A/XVmhij73f1I/AAAAAAAABWI/T0o-EKKloxcDdZ30hNIoI6EgjsyipT26QCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2018-08-19%2Bat%2B11_31_01%2BPM-2106334622.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-exmMJ-Kkl3A/XVmhij73f1I/AAAAAAAABWI/T0o-EKKloxcDdZ30hNIoI6EgjsyipT26QCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2018-08-19%2Bat%2B11_31_01%2BPM-2106334622.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;"> The effect is jolly, but detracts from the song's more ethereal, spectral,
qualities. At one point Orbison is seen to give an amused smile, a rare sight.
For his second number, he performs 'Running Scared' alone at the foot of a huge
white staircase. It's still an amazingly dramatic narrative song, but has been
frustratingly truncated for this performance.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;"> Today's other musical guests, The Peddlers, have been placed in front of the
audience. A veteran jazz/soul trio, they aren't really light entertainment
crowd pleasers. The three hairy men are dressed in matching crocheted
waistcoats, not an image that ever caught on. Singer Roy Phillips' voice is a
rather vomity-sounding shriek (like Roger Chapman of Family) and their latest
single 'Back Alley Jane', a churning locked-on groove largely performed on
Hammond organ, is a bit too heavy for this show, as seen in the audience
reaction.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oPRBZnGrkdI/XVmhxTrlNeI/AAAAAAAABWM/z8I45Gr4rkgwdOWqJXqwgARVPPt6Ell8ACLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2018-08-19%2Bat%2B11_34_58%2BPM-573919619.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oPRBZnGrkdI/XVmhxTrlNeI/AAAAAAAABWM/z8I45Gr4rkgwdOWqJXqwgARVPPt6Ell8ACLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2018-08-19%2Bat%2B11_34_58%2BPM-573919619.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "bookman old style"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /> With so many musical guests, Les Dawson does end up a rather marginal figure in
his own show. But he does get the best moment, in an elaborate filmed sequence
after the end credits, as a marching Salvation Army drummer who takes a wrong
turning and ends up unknowingly leading another march before returning to the
back of his own band. For added contemporary relevance the march that he heads
is a rabble of bra-burning women's libbers.</span>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-7601816006696574042019-08-17T22:24:00.002-07:002019-08-17T22:24:49.701-07:00A Comedy On This Day: Shelley - A Little Learning (18 August 1992)
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MhgePBZEgBo/XVjhDkym89I/AAAAAAAABVo/8bjgMmR64mUz-QNxo5NWXeniHkjMoN96ACLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-18%2Bat%2B06_24_14%2BAM-1909200962.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MhgePBZEgBo/XVjhDkym89I/AAAAAAAABVo/8bjgMmR64mUz-QNxo5NWXeniHkjMoN96ACLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-18%2Bat%2B06_24_14%2BAM-1909200962.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> By Guy Jenkin this
week, whose solo work is slightly coarser and less dextrous than his writing
partner Andy Hamilton's scripts. Shelley is again a somewhat marginal figure in
his own programme, largely there to make sardonic observations about Ted's
plans, while David Ryall actually does stuff.<br /> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Two interlocking storylines, Ted's prowess in pub quizzes and a private
detective conducting surveillance operations from Ted's house. The greatest
interest is derived from some bang-on specific 1990 details. Ted's nemesis in
the pub quiz, a young Irishwoman, is wearing a tight satin bomber jacket with a
very high waistband - a look that had a very limited shelf life. Meanwhile, the
shifty detective - despite being middle-aged and too old for this sort of thing
- is styled in a 'baggy' image with a mop-of-curls-shaved-at-the-sides
hairstyle as if he was in The Milltown Brothers. Taking pride of place in his
collection of expensive surveillance equipment is a Toshiba T1000 computer.</span></div>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-27719545971888242452019-08-16T22:40:00.004-07:002020-10-19T14:59:38.965-07:00A Comedy On This Day: Terry & June - Bats In The Belfry (17 August 1987)<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2xeKh8Ilx4E/XVeTKVirdLI/AAAAAAAABVc/SfKZic3B6tcDWEGjtpFi8fl4IQSP3dCjACLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-17%2Bat%2B06_39_25%2BAM-1126330444.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2xeKh8Ilx4E/XVeTKVirdLI/AAAAAAAABVc/SfKZic3B6tcDWEGjtpFi8fl4IQSP3dCjACLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-17%2Bat%2B06_39_25%2BAM-1126330444.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> A Sunday morning in
Purley. Terry's boiled egg has exploded. I am interested to spot that the
Medfords take the <i>Sunday Telegraph</i> (headline: "<b>Labour fears at
poll smear campaign</b>"), although Terry admits that he only gets it for
the comic strips and the easy crossword (both of which there would be more of
in other papers, I would have thought). Watching Terry handling the <i>Sunday
Telegraph</i>, I imagined him struggling with some complex report about the
Iran-Contra affair or Geoffrey Wheatcroft piece about the fortunes of David
Owen after Sunday lunch and quickly falling asleep. I would have imagined the
Medfords taking the <i>Mail On Sunday</i> myself, although that paper (est.
1982) would still have been a bit newfangled in 1987.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>June is slow cooking a joint of beef - no one
else appears to be invited to lunch. She asks Terry about getting one of those
new microwaves, which Terry thinks is a hairstyle. They are still churchgoers,
which makes sense considering what we can make out of their backgrounds. June's
mother phones up, and Terry and June have to take her to hospital for her legs.<br /> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> In a sense, <i>Terry & June</i> would be a more interesting programme if
fewer incidents occurred in it. Before long we're into the story proper, in
which the Medfords become trapped in the church's belfry when Terry offers to
mend the bell (a bell which doesn't look very metallic, incidentally). "He
might have a heart attack going up all those stairs!" June exclaims, exactly what I was thinking at the time.<br /> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The ending of this caper is rather muffed. Terry and June secure their release
when they attract the attention of the police by throwing slates at their car,
but we don't ever see them actually get rescued or interacting with the police
(who only exist in a filmed insert). The situation peters out instead of
reaching a memorable climax.</span></div>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-66731448606054198832019-08-15T20:09:00.000-07:002019-08-15T20:09:43.716-07:00A Comedy on This Day: Bless Me Father - A Mixed-Up Marriage (16 August 1981)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9PlDxapLe90/XVWCChl061I/AAAAAAAABVQ/Br-z8NYIoKw9JPw1p7LvQQZ6XmjGqASbgCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-15%2Bat%2B05_02_00%2BPM-242349968.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9PlDxapLe90/XVWCChl061I/AAAAAAAABVQ/Br-z8NYIoKw9JPw1p7LvQQZ6XmjGqASbgCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-15%2Bat%2B05_02_00%2BPM-242349968.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Sitcom was an unusual form for these clerical
stories to take. If you didn't know, and heard that a series of memoirs about
the life of a novice Catholic curate in a suburban London parish 30 years ago
were being adapted for television, you might assume that they would be a
nostalgic family drama programme, perhaps along the lines of <i>All Creatures
Great & Small</i> on Sunday evenings. But </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Peter
de Rosa, </span>the books' author, thought that his experiences would work well as a sitcom, and was
trusted enough to be granted his wish. All 21 episodes are by De Rosa, who
never wrote anything else for television, and the sense of an individual
authorial voice speaking from experience was one of <i>Bless Me Father</i>'s
two great strengths (along with the casting, of course)<br /> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> This final episode certainly has enough material and conflict in it to sustain
a 50 minute drama. It's the story of a mixed marriage between a Rabbi's son and
a Catholic orphan girl, which both religions attempt to block (nice to see
Cyril Shaps as the rabbi).<br /> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> The implications of the story are disheartening in places, with some
unhappiness due for the couple whichever decision they make. Both the girl's
parents were killed in the war we are told (in the kind of aside rarely heard
in an LWT sitcom) and rejecting the chance of a loving marriage would break her
heart again, but the couple face estrangement from both of their faiths if they
do marry.<br /> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> Most viewers' sympathies would be towards the young couple marrying, and the
script deftly plays with this, with the greatest laughs coming from the holy
men's appalled reactions when the couple threaten to convert to Anglicanism.
But it's to the script's credit that it doesn't skirt around the problems that
the couple will face, and accomplishes a happy ending that's harmonious without
being sentimental. And a marriage is a great way to end the series as a whole,
too, part of a British literary and theatrical comic tradition that goes back
centuries. </span></div>
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</style>Billy Smarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11808866217501456210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3637487074030262802.post-72401725198537531642019-08-14T21:23:00.000-07:002019-08-14T21:23:10.626-07:00A Comedy On This Day: Yanks Go Home - The Game Of The Name (15 August 1977)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yvs34vXlf2o/XVTeCIbxNAI/AAAAAAAABVE/NZZSXBvsDW4Fnj63BKn81P6H-_o_1pbWQCLcBGAs/s1600/Snapshot-2019-08-15%2Bat%2B05_22_13%2BAM-213569037.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yvs34vXlf2o/XVTeCIbxNAI/AAAAAAAABVE/NZZSXBvsDW4Fnj63BKn81P6H-_o_1pbWQCLcBGAs/s400/Snapshot-2019-08-15%2Bat%2B05_22_13%2BAM-213569037.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Although
Harry Kershaw's script has it's amusing features, there's an odd sense of
not-quite-a-sitcom about this (WWII, G.I.s in the village) programme at points. It seems particularly acute in scenes
in the pub, where the dialogue doesn't have much in the way of jokes per se.
The effect is like watching Rovers Return scenes in <i>Coronation Street</i>
with added audience laughter.<br />
<br />
The best parts come from this week's guest stars, Barbara Mitchell as local
aristocrat Lady Gertrude and Patrick Troughton as her grizzled retainer,
Lubbock. As we see a lot of this pair on their own - and several sets have been
constructed for Lady Gertrude's cobwebbed stately home - it's as though they're
the lead in someone else's show. Sadly, any spin-off would have been impossible
as Barbara Mitchell died of cancer within a few months of broadcast, at only
48. Lady Gertrude's skewed interest in the soldiers (as a source of booze) and
willingness to flatter them to get by is skillfully and distinctively
performed - a fitting tribute to an actress who always added something
empathetic and truthful to several sitcoms, especially <i>The Larkins</i> and <i>For
The Love Of Ada</i>.<br />
<br />
Lady Gertrude is dressed throughout in a coat and heavy boots, even during the
banquet that she holds for the G.I.s. Such privations and discomforts of wartime
living are the most pleasing details in this episode, especially Lubbock's menu
for the meagre feast; consomme (Bovril), poissons variese (sardines and tinned
Alaska salmon), mediallions de boef corne (bully beef fritters), Boston baked
beans gratin and pommes de terre Lubbock (chips), sago pudding.</span>
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