New BBC1 Sunday Evening Sitcom

We've been watching the new BBC1 sitcom, 'Hold The Sunset.' It fills the slot vacated by 'Still Open All Hours.' It stars John Cleese and Alison Steadman. They play a couple who are 'just good friends' and he's keen to marry her so they can sell up and move abroad to the sun. But just when she decides to take him up on his offer and they crack open the champaign, there is a knock at the door and her 50-year-old son arrives, having left his wife. This character is played by Jason Watkins, and once he appears he more or less steals the show. He's regressed to his childhood and has a temper tantrum when he learns that his mother gave away his precious collection of comics to a charity shop. Compared to the recently ended 'Still Open All Hours,' it's far more subtle and doesn't rely on a studio audience to point up the comedy. It isn't 'laugh out loud' funny and the characterisation is very detailed, not relying on stereotype which the David Jason vehicle relies heavily on. It's more than 40 years since Cleese wrote and performed in 'Fawlty Towers,' so it something of a surprise to find that this new comedy is totally different in style to that famous series. We will have to wait and see how the rest of the series develops and how it does as regards ratings, but all the signs are that it's good real potential and will be worth sticking with over the next couple of Sunday evenings. At least the BBC is trying hard to come up with new sitcoms. This has been the slot, over the years, which has been taken up by a succession of sitcoms, from 'Bread' to 'Keeping Up Appearances' so we will wait and see how it fares.

Reviving Television Comedy

We're currently watching 'Still Open All Hours,' the BBC1 sitcom on Sunday evening. I'm not sure whether it's as good as the original. I don't see how it could be, without the brilliant Ronnie Barker. David Jason is alright, but who can forget him as the down-trodden Granville, Arkwright's nephew. Now he's running the shop, but it's not quite as amusing. It's got the feeling of 'Last of The Summer Wine', which is bound to happen, seeing as it's written by the same writer, Roy Clark, who also wrote 'Keeping Up Appearances.' It's even in the same slot in the schedules as 'Summer Wine.' That ran for goodness knows how long, something live 42 years and near enough 200 episodes, making it the longest running sitcom in the world. That had to come to an end because most of the actors died and it they kept recycling the storylines and towards the end became very predictable and cliched. There's so much you can do with a group of old men in a northern landscape (which was actually an important part of it's success as the actors or scripts) doing crazy things in tin baths sliding down hillsides, and old women with wrinkled stockings. 

In some ways 'Still Open All Hours,' doesn't really make sense, because in reality Arkwright's shop would have been taken over by a large supermarket chain such as Tesco or Sainsbury's. And Granville would have retired years ago. You just wouldn't run a corner shop the way it's portrayed. It's a bit of an anachronism. For all that, it does have a sort of gentle charm. Non-offensive, and anything that has David Jason in it is going to be something that gets good viewing figures. I suppose it has something to do with being nostalgic. For a time long-gone. As someone said, and I don't know who precisely, that 'nostalgia's not what it used to be.' A sort of cozy, non-existent past, where people actually talked to one another, a world without mobile phones, social media and self-serivice supermarket checkouts. We watched a few of the original 'Open All Hours' episodes on Gold and David Jason looks about 18, or even younger in it. He's come a long way since those episodes were made and it's surprising that he would want to return to this sort of thing. Once you've done a particular show, why return to it? They've opened it out a good deal more than it was in the original 1970s show as well as adding more characters. This episode has scenes set in Scarborough, which I recognise, having been there. It's understandable that they would open it out somewhat as it gives more possibilities for storylines and characters.  Watching it, and listening, it seems as if the audience laughter has been mixed in after the show was recorded. Why does the studio audience for these shows always sound as if they've been prerecorded and then added as a sort of afterthought? Just sounds fake to me. Why do they have a studio audience in the first place? I can understand in one respect, as it gives the actors a sort of sounding-board to play off, but do they think that without an audience cackling in the background, we, the home-audience, won't realise it's comedy and so not get the gags and jokes? 

They did a series of one-off comedy revivals a few years ago, to mark the 60th anniversary of 'Hancock's Half Hour' transferring to BBC television, with the idea that they could revive some of them as complete series. One was a revamped version of 'Porridge.' (yet another former Ronnie Barker vehicle in the 1970's.) as well as a prequel to 'Keeping Up Appearances' which had Hyacinth Bouquet as a teenager. Another, a revival of 'Are You Being Served,' which was, frankly, really awful and unfunny. As it is, the original version of 'Are You Being Served' wouldn't pass the political correctness brigade, and certainly wouldn't be made today in the same sort of style. A bit like a lot of Benny Hill's shows or even 'Mind Your Language' or many other 1970's comedies, including 'Till Death Us Do Part.'

Unfortunately all this 'reviving' television comedy shows a complete lack of imagination and laziness on behalf of the television executives in charge of the various channels. Why not simply develop fresh stuff? Just commission a set of pilot scripts as they did in the 1960's with 'Comedy Playhouse,' which is where such shows as 'Steptoe and Son' originated and then, if those one-off pilots are a success, then make them into full series.