Posts Tagged With 'Middle class types looking stressed'

No 90 – William G Stewart

Posted in The TVC 100 by TV Cream | 3 Comments »

WILLIAM GLADSTONE STEWART has enjoyed a television career of two halves.

William, it was really nothing

Up until the mid-1980s he stayed firmly behind the scenes. Stewart produced and directed a huge number of light entertainment shows, including sitcoms like Bless This House and Father Dear Father (even directing the latter’s big screen spin-off, and we always like seeing him listed on IMDb as a proper film director).

He also oversaw quizzes, and became the first producer of Family Fortunes. In 1984 he brought The Price is Right to British screens, which was the first time many of the brash aspects of American game shows had been seen on UK television. A huge furore ensued, with the show being taken off air for a few weeks while Stewart and his team leavened proceedings with blandness. This didn’t stop him continuing to warm up the audience by rushing around in a pink bomber jacket while Land Of Hope And Glory blared from the studio speakers.

But aside from those lucky or misfortunate enough to witness such scenes, Stewart remained a complete unknown to the general public.

Then in 1988 a quiz idea was submitted to his company and he decided not just to produce it, but also step out from behind the camera to host.

Fifteen-to-One went on to run for, aptly, fifteen highly acclaimed years.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9vIGc9uPIQ

Much of the show’s success was doubtless down to William G, who was quite unlike any other quiz host. He brought a unique firm but fair manner to his role. He was not averse to the odd quip, but at the same time tolerated no messing about and always ensured the quiz was the star. He even sued a contestant who came back under an assumed name in contravention of the rules.

The format was certainly sturdy enough to provide brainteasing fun at teatime, but Stewart’s eccentricity made for some notable moments.

There were the elaborate classical artefacts given away as prizes, or the Senior Citizens Board charting the show’s oldest viewers, or the occasional bits of banter with some of the familiar returning contestants.

The best bit, however, was always when the quiz ran short and there was a bit of time to kill. On such occasions William G would either discuss his specialist subject, the Elgin Marbles, or chat about the show in general. This led to a special “Scrapbook” edition devoted to odds and sods that had arisen from viewers’ letters, including explaining how the team put the show together and even giving us a primer in the binary system.

In 2003 our man thought it was time to call it a day and Channel Four decided, rightly, Fifteen-to-One couldn’t carry on without him. And so this most amiable and consistent of quizzes sadly left our screens, with William G going into semi-retirement, occasionally popping up to talk about moments from his long TV career.

So go away, Bill, enjoy the summer holidays and come back and see us in the autumn. Or whenever’s good for you.

THE DEFINING ROLE: A man whose Wikipedia page announces that his catchphrases include “That’s it for today, we’ll be back tomorrow, see you then” has got to be worthy of a place in this list. Fifteen-to-One was ace, and it would have been rubbish without him.

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Who, What, When

Posted in Dr Who by TV Cream | 1 Comment »

We doff a bigger-on-the-inside-sized hat to those shows from the 1990s that weren’t Dr Who but which kind of were and which fans thought definitely were even though they weren’t.

STARDATE: 1990

TITLE: JUPITER MOON

PREMISE: With £6 million making it the biggest telly investment since BROOKSIDE things augured well for JUPITER MOON, but what we didn’t know was that the series had to make that cash stretch to seemingly quintillions of episodes. Billed as CROSSROADS in space the storylines had been worked out in advance with the assistance of the University of Birmingham’s Department of Space, although what a bunch of Brummie professors were doing commenting on whether Chantal de Grecay should get it on with Eliot Creasy or Finbow Lewis heaven knows.

DR WHO IT: Fans rejoice as 260 new episodes of Dr Who are announced. However spirits sink when it becomes clear that the whole thing is going to be set on that crappy Ice World used in the Sylvester McCoy Dr Who story Dragonfire. Roger Walker plays the Doctor with comic panache and the companion is played by that Brummie ginger head girl who appeared in Crossroads: King’s Oak. Tony Selby and Bonnie Langford return to play Glitz and Mel, who are now a husband and wife club-singing combo (although Glitz manufactures moonshine on the side).

STARDATE: 1995

TITLE: BUGS

PREMISE: File under “enjoyable hokum” in your Radio Times Lexicon Pack, BUGS was a conscious throw back to the action series of the 1960s and 1970s. Featuring Jesse Birdsall, the lady from the Bill and Craig McLaugh-in, Bugs was high tech gubbins with secret agents climbing up sides of buildings whilst having nonchalant clever-clever chats, and appearances by the odd pretend heavyweight guest artiste who wasn’t really heavyweight at all (aka Charles Dance) as a knowingly over-the-top baddy.

DR WHO IT: Given that Bugs seemed to be borne from vague recollections about some episode of THE AVENGERS that the producer’s son might or might not have seen, then if it had indeed been Doctor Who we could have expected some floppy haired knob in the title role dishing out jelly beans to all and sundry, whilst making relatively dull comments about “I’m here to save the Earth… again”. Difficult not to think that someone like Richard E Grant or worse still Tim Curry would have bagged the title role. The last story of the first season would have been a Cybermen v Daleks two-parter that would have been given all the sheen of a big-budget production but without any of the expense.

STARDATE: 1996

TITLE: GULLIVER’S TRAVELS (and those other lavish Channel 4 and Hallmark co-production things)

PREMISE: Take an existing tale preferably set in the past, stretch it out to loads of hours, chuck tons of money at it and employ Americans to play key British characters. Actually we thought GULLIVER’S TRAVELS was pretty good really, kind of like a less naughty Terry Gilliam production.

DR WHO IT: The Doctor is an aristocrat who hobnobs with the court of French Kings called Charles. His companions are a cat that has been turned into a harlequin suit wearing man by a witch and a drippy woman played by Mary Steenburgen, who teaches both the Doctor and the cat man about things like morality and so on. The TARDIS is an old Catholic confessional box and the Doctor travels through time by moving the hands on a marine chronometer like that one in Longitude. Jeremy Irons plays Doctor Who, and John Bird and Robert Hardy play Dickens-eque accountants in an episode set on a planet that looks a bit like the film Brazil.

STARDATE: 1996

TITLE: NEVERWHERE

PREMISE: Comics writer Neil Gaiman attempts to bring his extraordinary vision to the small screen. And if this wasn’t challenging enough he seems to decide to make it a bit harder for himself by shooting it on video instead of film and replacing a budget with supposedly evocative characters names such as Waterloo, Tufnell Park and Wapping.

DR WHO IT: The first adventure “Doctor Who and the Seven Sisters” sees the Doctor (played by John Hannah) forced to take on fearsome underground agent to the stars – Fulham Broadway (played by Clive Mantle). The Doctor is aided on his adventure by a pretty, pale goth girl and meets lots of fantastical characters such as grown men with fake whiskers and party make-up. In the end he defeats the baddy by wrestling a goat.

STARDATE: 1996

TITLE: COLD LAZARUS

PREMISE: Science fiction written by someone who had never watched or read any, and therefore thought all his hackneyed and dated concepts were somehow original and futuristic. Lots of half-vegetable vehicles and heads somehow kept alive in fishbowls.

DR WHO IT: The Doctor (played by someone who resembles Dennis Potter) travels to the year 1,000,000 AD and teams up with a gang of rebels to overthrow a dictatorship that seems to have been suspiciously modelled on Ming the Merciless’ regime. Once the Doctor manages to navigate his way through countless corridors and passed hover cars (stopping to consume a food pill on the way) he comes face-to-face with Davros (played by someone who looks like Dennis Potter with psoriasis) and a dalek (voiced by John Birt) that mimes along to ‘Teenager In Love’.

STARDATE: 1997

TITLE: CRIME TRAVELLER

PREMISE: Michael French and Chloe Annett solve low-level crimes committed by – in the main – comedy criminals through the use of Annett’s dad’s time machine or something. French’s role as a loveable rogue is light years from his role in EastEnders as a loveable rogue, but only in that he doesn’t have to shag Michelle Collins in this one.

DR WHO IT: An Earth bound Doctor Who (Jonathan Morris) is back working for UNIT, only this time his new boss (played by Miriam Margoyles) holds the keys to the TARDIS and only lets the Doctor use it when it is essential to the mission in hand. Cue countless tiresome scenes in which Morris is allowed to show off his comedic acting skills when trying to steal back the TARDIS keys. Each episode features a boring bit about the Blinovitch limitation effect delivered by the Doctor to his companion (played by Daniella Westbrook) whilst the two of them are hiding in a lock-up waiting that week’s criminal to show up.

STARDATE: 1997

TITLE: JONATHAN CREEK

PREMISE: Mind-boggling cryptic puzzles, fantastically tight plots and excellent guest artistes – we liked this programme.

DR WHO IT: Nicholas Lyndhurst is the Doctor, and although the universe may be in great peril, all he cares about is trying to work out how the Sontaran General (Steve Frost) seemingly managed to be in two places at the same time. In a later episode the Doctor is sure that an upright toilet seat holds the key to working out how the Master (played by Hugh Laurie) managed to escape from a time vortex that had been locked from the outside.

STARDATE: 1998

TITLE: INVASION: EARTH

PREMISE: Series writer Jed Mercurio claimed in 1998 that “a certain Timelord should be consigned to the dustbin” (is he talking about the Meddling Monk, Castellan or someone else? Not the Rani anyway, as we are pretty sure she is a Timelady). INVASION: EARTH was an attempt to do science fiction PROPERLY. That inevitably meant it was humourless and rather too macho. However, it was also the first post watershed BBC science fiction series since QUATERMASS.

DR WHO IT: The Doctor (played by Ahsen Bhatti) is caught wanking in a massive aircraft hangar by Field Marshall Lieutenant Angela Fierce (Geraldine James). The military then go around blowing everything up and everyone is in a bad mood all the time, particularly the Doctor who appears to despise humans: “You petty bipeds don’t understand the first thing about Quantum Physics!” Each episode ends bleakly as alien races are either entirely wiped out by an over zealous military, or the Doctor’s companion (played by various) is killed by an over zealous military, or (in the season finale) a lethal bacteria is inadvertently unleashed by an over zealous military that wipes out all mankind.

STARDATE: 1998

TITLE: ULTRAVIOLET

PREMISE: Rather good vampire drama (although perhaps too much moody lighting), ULTRAVIOLET was a bit like a science fiction EDGE OF DARKNESS, in that it was snappily directed and featured a government conspiracy. Just managed to pull off being a bit cool too.

DR WHO IT: Rather like what the Doctor Who production team were trying to do in the last couple of years of the original series’ run – self-consciously snappy dialogue and storylines that purposely debunk standard sci-fi stereotypes. The Doctor is played by James Nesbitt as a trench coat wearing cigarette smoking Timelord with a grudge, whilst Luisa Bradshaw-White plays his shag-around companion. In the first story the Doctor has to kill three people he likes because it makes for an emotionally dramatic story.

STARDATE: 2000

TITLE: RANDALL AND HOPKIRK (DECEASED)

PREMISE: A drippingly post-modern attempt to turn a ropey old telefantasy series into a run around for Reeves, Mortimer and their comedy chums. Still the special effects were ace and Tom Baker didn’t look too fat in it.

DR WHO IT: Mark Williams is the Doctor, a loveable doofus who has to be led through adventures by his far more intelligent companion (played by Arabella Weir). Adventures involve a battle against the giant sofa people and the Amusingly Named Aliens of the Obligatory Named Planet Zog. Also one adventure consists of a fantasy nightmare world created by a sinister evil genius, who in the end just turns out to be an over-intelligent kid from the year 4502.

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Butterflies

Posted in B is for... by TV Cream | 8 Comments »

Wendy and co prepare to tuck into another course of comically distasteful middle class guilt and gainsayingTHE PHRASE “BITTERSWEET COMEDY” used to turn up in listings mags and continuity announcements with alarming regularity, usually accompanied by a presidential motorcade of bad vibes. It’s one of those phrases where two words are unceremoniously lumped together, cancelling each other out completely in the process, like coupling “meal” with “deal”, or “special” with “bus service”. Any billings in Radio Times commencing with an excitable “8.30 NEW SERIES” had only to be scanned for the presence of such words as “housewife”, “solicitor”, “separated”, “single”, “Home Counties”, or the dread phrases “making a fresh start” and “coming to terms with”, for the reader’s ears to instinctively tune to the seductive call of DUTY FREE on the other side.

BUTTERFLIES was the exception that proved the chintzy home rule. WENDY CRAIG was the stockbroker belt everywoman Ria, failing to cook, failing to laugh, and failing to drop it all and have an affair with semi-loveable rogue BRUCE MONTAGUE despite regular abortive trysts in the park (chauffeured by the inimitable MICHAEL RIPPER). Failing to care, or indeed notice, were sarky teenage sons NICHOLAS LYNDHURST and ANDREW HALL, and eternally oblivious dentist hubby GEOFFREY PALMER, an amateur lepidopterist (hence the title) operating a permanent system of emotional half-day closing.

High octane wisecracks there were not, and for that reason the show has been ill served by the clip-show junta, reduced to ten seconds of pimply youths in camo jackets sniggering at blackened saucepans. But those round-table rounds of mirthless intergenerational banter were exceedingly well judged: a stream of underpowered snipes uttered at the far wall in lieu of proper conversation, perfectly capturing the communicative no-man’s land of familial last orders. This was something new and perceptive. (By the time MY FAMILY latched on to it, it had long become something old and bollocks.)

No subsequent sitcom introduced as “bittersweet” by the gentle-voiced man with the big blue globe for a head came close, and that goes double for anything else writer CARLA LANE came up with, which all falls neatly into two categories: volume knob-cracking regional stereotypes on benefits, and the stuff that lies at the very bottom of the bittersweet cracker barrel, wherein Felicity Kendall mopes wistfully around Hyde Park at sunset for all eternity.

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Murder Game, The

Posted in Time Capsule by TV Cream | No Comments »

BIG BUDGET LOW KEY play-along-at-home TV whodunnerin, parachuted into Saturday night primetime and promptly chuted further and further back in the schedule as viewers dropped faster than the show’s victims. Contestants were the middle management types who peopled THE KRYPTON FACTOR and who went on to dazzle the likes of CRISIS COMMAND: COULD YOU RUN THE COUNTRY? Their mission: find the person who killed a woman in the make believe village of Blackwater. Suspects will be eliminated each week, but so – USP Alert! – will the detectives. Yup, another show with an “eviction”, here taking the form of a supposedly chill-inducing face-off called The Killer’s Game, which in reality more resembled that bit in THE ADVENTURE GAME where the person always got trapped in a dark cupboard. Our sleuths whiled away each episode “writing reports” in their youth hostel-esque dormitories or doing painfully contrived ploddery, i.e. asking a teary suspect three loaded questions, or searching a bin bag for a carefully-placed crisp packet. Their efforts were then lugubriously appraised by Detective Bob Taylor, a real-life copper and least excitable front man imaginable for a programme about killing. “Good morning” he would sigh at the start of each briefing. “Good luck,” he would sigh at the end of each briefing, “I think you are GOING to need it.” George Dixon had more pep than this, and he was 95 years old. The series went on for ages and, rather than the case becoming clearer, somehow things became more convoluted and confusing. Shifting time slots didn’t help – if you missed one episode you were done for, like the ever-dwindling population of Blackwater. Turned out the builder did it. Or so it says here.

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Singing Detective, The

Posted in S is for... by TV Cream | 6 Comments »
Gambon goes googly eyed; cue the musical fantasy sequence! "I can just 'bout see tha' plot from up 'ere"

THE PINNACLE of Potterism. Here, over six weeks on peak time Sunday BBC1, was childhood repression, physical degradation, casual racism, a profusion of breastage, village school bullying, turds in desks, runaway wheelchairs, runaway Underground trains, too too too much flaky skin, PATRICK MALAHIDE’s bare bonking arse in the woods, imaginary hitmen, pulp crime fiction, palm court dance bands, word games, ALISON STEADMAN – or maybe JANET SUZMAN – being fished naked out of the Thames, talking scarecrows, the tallest tree in the world and MICHAEL GAMBON getting his penis greased. All set to the swinging sound of 1940s popular music classics. “When I grow up, everything, everything will be all right.”

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Writer of Blackadder: Back & Forth pens Dr Who story

Posted in Dr Who by TV Cream | 1 Comment »

"I haven't been this excited since Rattle and Hum!"More details have emerged about the script Richard Curtis is writing for the next series of Dr Who.

At a press conference earlier today, Curtis unveiled the identity of the star who will be making a guest appearance in the episode.

Confounding those who were predicting a cameo from the likes of Martine McCutcheon, Bill Nighy, Simon Callow, Bill Nighy or Bill Nighy, the lead singer of 1980s rock band U2 is to feature in the story. He will be playing himself.

Bono, 62, said: “The Doctor is a wily bastard, and I’ve been wanting to screw him over for many years. When he arrives at a U2 concert, I get Edge [sic] to terrorise him with one of his endlessly echoing guitar riffs, then trap him inside a giant lemon.”

Laughing, Curtis corrected his friend by telling journalists the musician would be “turning up for only a couple of minutes” to deliver “a message about third world debt”. The episode will end with an on-screen caption inviting viewers to “make poverty history” and a voiceover from Emma Freud giving details of a number to call to pledge donations.

Curtis was reticent about other details concerning his script.

He did disclose the title: The Doctor’s Great Big Utterly Massive Adventure (Part Fifteen…Allegedly).

But he was tight-lipped about the location and the identity of the “monster” with which the Doctor and his companion will do battle.

“To do that would be more than my job’s worth,” Curtis chuckled, before dematerialising up his own arse.

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Mastermind

Posted in M is for... by TV Cream | 4 Comments »

Did he mention he comes from Iceland?THAT FAMOUS theme tune was called “Approaching Menace”, but we reckon it should have been “Fanfare for the Common Man”, as this teatime slice of austerity was television’s greatest ever platform for spod-u-likes and nerd-do-wells. Never before had an obsession with Polish pottery circa the 1930s been so richly rewarded. Presiding over the interrogation was fearsome question master MAGNUS MAGNUSSON, a man of gravitas and oft-spoken Nordic roots. His famous catchphrase “in my homeland of Iceland” featured less in MASTERMIND than most programmes in which he appeared, but he still made for a memorable, if overly formal questionmaster. Ironically, given the show was broadcast from a different educational institution each week, MASTERMIND’s most iconic element was its stark “set”, catalyst for many sketch-based “started so I’ll…” chicaneries. Most remembered champs are, naturally, men of the people: cabbie FRED HOUSEGO and engine driver CHRIS HUGHES. Latterly revived by the peerless JOHN HUMPHRYS.

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After Henry

Posted in A is for... by TV Cream | 2 Comments »

Prunella gives Joan's arm a tradingSYBIL FAWLTY lives one floor below the snooty one off PLEASE, SIR! and one floor above someone who looks and sounds like Lynda Day off PRESS GANG but, sadly, wasn’t. Except the biddy upstairs is actually her mum, and the tearaway downstairs is her daughter, and the gay bookshop owner round the corner is her best friend. Much moping and wordplay ensue. Granny obsesses about getting enough iron in your diet and the latest bit of gossip from Valerie Brown on the pension counter’s sister Mary. Mum cracks droll remarks and weeps about absence, through death, of titular husband. Sprog runs amok with crimpers and faded jeans. Studio audience unsure where the jokes are. Began life on Radio 4, where perhaps it should have stayed.

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Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way

Posted in T is for... by TV Cream | No Comments »

A well-tempered bitch, yesterday“ECCENTRIC” BITCHY old maid BARBARA WOODHOUSE found brief early 80s fame as a result of this semi-documentary poke around her dog owner school. Much harassing of owners and crying “walkies” etc. made for ghoulishly terrifying viewing. One about horses followed, in similar “indomitable” vein. “Get your dog IN, Mr Bagshaw! Scoop it! HALT! You were too slow, doctor! You’ve got to do it – BANG! When I say ‘Face your dog!’ you will turn around and face her. Don’t be a leg-clinger.”

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Play away!

Posted in A bit of business by TV Cream | No Comments »

"Oo going to show me your lovely bubbies?"One of the many benefits of upgrading TVC to this new site is that, whenever we’re done cutting and pasting something from tv.cream.org, we can make a big show about it.

So, everyone go nuts as we unveil – with added extra bits (like screengrabs etc) – TV Cream’s complete guide to Play For Today (and, yes, our stuff about The Wednesday Play will follow soon).  See if you can leave a comment before Glenn Aylett does!

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Who’s Who

Posted in Play For Today by TV Cream | No Comments »

A departure from Mike Leigh, centring on the social mores among a firm of stockbrokers. Obsequious junior partner Alan (Richard Kane) is the main focus – a pathetically insecure creep obsessed with status, both class-based (he idolises the royals) and celebrity (he collects oleaginously solicited signed photographs of everyone from Russell Harty to Petula Clark, Dr Christiaan Barnard to fingerless pianist ‘Rhythmic Roberto’). Two of the posher brokers, slobbish Giles (Adam Norton) and uptight Nigel (Simon ‘Imitation Game’ Chandler), live together in an Odd Couple-esque relationship of mutual dislike.

A dinner party they throw for two girlfriends, loud Samantha (Catherine Hall) and timid Caroline (Felicity ‘Shooting the Chandelier’ Dean) plus another office colleague, predatory Anthony (Graham Seed). The dinner descends into a loud orgy of half-baked chat (‘the punk thing’ is oafishly discussed), clumsy seduction and boozy incoherence. Senior partner Francis (Jeffrey Wickham) discusses the financial woes of Lord and Lady Crouchurst (David ‘Country’ Neville and Richenda ‘Nuts in May’ Carey), who offer up insufferably plumy non-sequitirs and hopelessly complicated organisational news respectively, in a round robin of escalating obtuseness and confusion.

Alan, who crawls to everyone in the office save young, sarcastic Kevin (Phil ‘Quadrophenia’ Davis), annoys his eccentric, cat-loving wife April (Joolia Cappleman), when he co-opts visiting cat photographer Desmond Shakespeare (Sam ‘Grown Ups’ Kelly) into touring his collection of autographs from the great and good and even the rejection slips from the secretaries of the ones that got away – nothing is beneath proud display). He also interrupts her efforts to sell a prized puss to moneyed Miss Hunt (Geraldine James), intruding into the private life and bloodline of this genuine member of the aristocracy in his very home, and furtively looking up her mother’s surname in a handy copy of Debrett’s.

This description seems rather convoluted and directionless even by Leigh’s standards, and to be fair it does have the feel of a loose collection of ideas and scenes more than any of his other entries in the strand (even the bitty Hard Labour). Series producer Margaret Matheson had encouraged him to do something beyond what, after the success of Abigail’s Party, had come to be characterised as his trademark milieu of lower middle class suburbia. Matheson’s initiative to push writers away from their familiar areas, which worked so well in 1978’s ‘Social Issues’ season, was less successful here here.

The nearest thing to a central performance is Alan’s wonderful Rigsbyesque creation, and scenes without him suffer, with the exception of the spiralling Crouchurst interview. Like Abigail’s Party before it, this was a quick commission by series producer Louis Marks, after an ambitious Anglo-Israeli co-production authored by David Mercer fell through. Leigh himself admits that illness and the birth of his first child interrupted the shoot, and an extra few weeks could have helped iron out the rougher element – in particular the dinner party scene, which sails as close as Leigh’s work has come to the alleged vices of improvised caricature and loud, repetitious cliché his harshest critics have levelled at him, but even here there are the pockets of great character work and observation characteristic of even Leigh’s weakest work.

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Abigail’s Party

Posted in Play For Today by TV Cream | 3 Comments »

Obviously we could have found some better screengrabs than this, but... well, you've seen the bloody thing enough times anyway, haven't you?By Mike Leigh. Along with Scum, one of the few Play for Todays to have made a sizeable impact into popular culture. Alison Steadman gets grotesquely down to Donna Summer before hosting the half-hearted suburban drinks do from hell, revealing the proto-Thatcherite anti-social mores of the newly-minted suburban middle classes in the process. With Tim Stern as Beverley’s anti-social husband Laurence (whose weak heart condition eventually gets the better of him in the final confrontation) and meek Janine Duvitski as Ange (with thick husband Tone in tow). Add nervous teacher Sue – escaping from the titular party her daughter is holding next door – and a pentagon of mutual loathing and incomprehension is drawn among the Dralon.

Something of a cult these days (to put it mildly), rep companies up and down the land recreate it in minute detail – rare is the production, it seems, in which the leading actress will dare to move away from Steadman’s original swooping Essex intonation, or the decor away from the original MFI shelving/Tretchikoff painting/ice-and-slice chic. It’s a bit of an odd state of affairs, all told, that what began as a series of improvisations (the way Leigh always works with his actors) has become set in stone, as it were. This can tend to give the whole thing a seventies-in-aspic air that trivialises it if you’re not careful.

OK, the performances tend to grotesque characterisation, but the central thrust – of the dimmer-yet-forceful lower middle classes steamrollering the more reserved, thoughtful types on their way up, and disintegrating their own lives in the process – is more important than the oft-quoted Roussos specifics. Since these references litter the dialogue, and any major update would doubtless fail to match the wit of the original, this remains a problem for the play when seen today.

There’s also the problem that, in mocking the ignorant snobbery of the social arriviste, it panders to the entrenched snobbery of the inherited middle classes. Or, as Kenneth Williams, something of a snob himself but hailing from a working class background, put it: ‘Hampstead sophisticates knowingly laughing at all the bad taste lines. “Oh, a bottle of Beaujolais! How lovely! I’ll just pop it in the fridge…” And they fell about, loving their superiority.’ Any comedy of manners depends on a sense of superiority for the audience to some extent, but the use of snobbery to make a point about class aspirations puts the whole enterprise on ground as dodgy as poor Laurence’s ticker. To add to the confusion, many modern fans of the play (or those with broadsheet columns, at least) treat it as an illustration of how backward society was in the 197os. Ah, if only Play for Today were still about, we’ve got a great idea for an ensemble social satire. Let’s call it The G2-ers…

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Country Party, The

Posted in Play For Today by TV Cream | No Comments »

Brian Clark’s sequel to 1975′s The Saturday Party. Peter Barkworth has recovered from his redundancy, and now owns a country restaurant. When his daughter decides to spring a surprise party on him at the establishment, events begin to take a familiar turn. With Pauline Quirke and Linda Robson.

Screen-grabbery:
Vicar just out of shot (no, really) 1970s front room type VI: Rural, spacious, plus cheaply arched doorway Someone's got something to tell someone
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Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Posted in Play For Today by TV Cream | No Comments »

Dinner party awkwardness guaranteedBy Beryl Bainbridge. Two ‘singles’, Rosemary Leach and Michael Gambon, are ‘introduced’ to each other by well-meaning friends, but the encounter doesn’t go the way they intended. With Joan Hickson.

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Saturday Party, The

Posted in Play For Today by TV Cream | No Comments »

By Brian Clark. Stockbroker Peter Barkworth is made redundant but goes ahead with his planned Christmas party anyway, bringing a different air to the proceedings. A fine study of mid-life, middle-class manners and worries, which led to a sequel, The Country Party, in 1977. In 1979 Clark wrote the series Telford’s Change, telling of the abortive attempts of a very similar main character to set up a new life out of London, only for his wife to have an affair. The central character, Mark Telford, was again played by Barkworth.

Screen-grabbery:
Middle class shock! Middle class festivities ruined! Middle class drunkenness!
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