THE SMELL of a Friday night. John Birt’s idea of a weekend curtain-raiser and RICHARD O’SULLIVAN’s idea for a pension plan, this was superlative sitcommage and no fooling. Rich works as a none-more-80s advertising executive in none-more-80s named firm Eyecatchers (replete with huge eye logo) struggling in none-more-80s way to bring up daughter single-handedly after the premature death of his missus. Only the likes of dippy mate TIM BROOKE-TAYLOR and crotchety mother-in-law JOAN SANDERSON kept throwing a none-more-80s spanner in the works. Sublime signature tune had Peter Skellern crooning wistfully (“Sometimes it seems/she shatters my dreams…”) over plucked strings and slap bass.
Matthew Rudd
July 17, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Joanne Ridley and Joanne Campbell. Aaaaah.
Joanne Gray
February 19, 2017 at 7:54 pm
Just heard of the sad passing of Peter Skellern, aged 69.
richardpd
July 12, 2020 at 11:02 pm
I mostly remember this on a Sunday night for some reason. In spite of the various “none-more-80s” aspects the theme seemed to be a bit of a 70s holdover.
Glenn Aylett
July 13, 2020 at 10:49 am
@richardpd, Friday nights, in the era before the damned soaps took over Friday nights and put the bed the old LWT idea of a Friday night being comedy, game shows and light drama. Apart from being well written, who could seriously not watch a sitcom where Joan Sanderson does her crotchety, ultra conservative old lady act and Tim Brooke Taylor does his amusing buffoon thing, although not in a Union Jack waistcoat. Me and My Girl is deserving of a repeat.
richardpd
July 13, 2020 at 10:38 pm
I checked the dates on the Wikipedia & the 3rd series was on a Sunday.
By ITV standards it was quite good from what I remember, funny enough to keep your attention for 30 minutes without being too demanding.
It was while this was being made that ITV had the debacle with Albion Market, with LWT & some of the other regions refusing to show it on a Friday night.