The British Sitcom Thread!

[Si Hunt]

It's long since time we started a thread to chart our journey through the mouldy corners of British Sitcom. We've unearthed some dross, but also some delights. We're currently doing this...



You're Only Young Twice is a sitcom set in an old peoples home, pre-dating "Waiting For God" by some years, and stars the formidable and big-teethed Peggy Mount as battleaxe Flora Petty who looks after/patronises/darn right controls the terrifically named Cissy Lupin (Pat Combs). There is support from double-act theatrical old dears Dolly Love (!) played by Lally Bowers (!!) and Diana King's Mildred Fanshaw (!!!!). Also Charmian May is the woman in charge of the home, who is steadily trying to cultivate her catchphrase every episode, "What are you telling me, what are you saying to me??".



We'll add more observations as we finish the series, but it's definitely improving. Flora is just horrible to Cissy, but Cissy is such a retard it's rarely possible to feel sorry for her. What's evident is that TV at the time still had a generation of great theater actresses - all the old dears in this are just playing it like the stage, sweeping in and being very lovey. It's great! Lally Bowers especially milks the script for all it's worth!

Si.

[Mike Saville]

It was a decent enough sitcom. I remember watching it as a young 'un as it was one of my grandad's favourite shows.

[Si Hunt]

Really? That's amazing, we didn't think anyone else would have heard of it! It's very comforting once you get into it!

Si.

[SiHart]

I've been watching Waiting For God.

[Si Hunt]

But do you get...

[Nyder]

I used to watch this sitcom too! I remember being quite scared by Peggy Mount, and Pat C was delightfully dotty. When I'm old and crabby I hope I get up to all sorts mischief in a care home!

[SiHart]

No Lally, but plenty of Cole

[Mike Saville]

Pat Coombs was very henpecked, and kept getting dragged reluctantly into Peggy Mount's schemes. Other than it being old people, it had nothing in common with Waiting for God. Totally different style and different humour.

[Si Hunt]

The weird thing is, they're all in an old peoples home but none of them seem in the slightest bit infirm! I'm sure Peggy Mount could be a great shot put player! So why are they all in a home?

Peggy Mount and Pat Combs were best friends in real life, and ended their days in the same retirement home together. Isn't that sweet?

Si.

[Stuart Wallis]

I've been watching Waiting For God.

Hello Diana! Just got the tie-in novel from a charity shop, must give it a read in the very near future. Surprised it's considered for putting on an obscure sitcom thread, it was massive at the time. Librarians must have very long memories, as I remember You Only Live Once. Peggy Mount still effectively using her George And The Dragon Persona - now there's a sitcom that's not remembered much these days, and Sid James is in it.

[Dino]

What was the name of that series that was set on a space station?
Their only contact was with mission control (ingeniously) and all I can remember is the Mission Controller putting his autobiography "Up, Up and Away!" into a waste paper bin.
Any ideas? We're talking late 70's, possibly early 80's.

[Si Hunt]

I'll maybe change the thread title, as I didn't really mean it to be obscure!

Si.

[SiHart]

What was the name of that series that was set on a space station?
Their only contact was with mission control (ingeniously) and all I can remember is the Mission Controller putting his autobiography "Up, Up and Away!" into a waste paper bin.
Any ideas? We're talking late 70's, possibly early 80's.

That's not Come Back Mrs Noah is it? With Mollie Sugden?

[SiHart]

Surprised it's considered for putting on an obscure sitcom thread, it was massive at the time

I only mentioned it, as Si mentioned it in his post and I have, by co-incidence been watching it over the last few weeks.

[Mike Saville]

Want an obscure sitcom, how about Kinvig?

[Dino]

That's not Come Back Mrs Noah is it? With Mollie Sugden?

No, I'm sure it was an all male cast. I did some digging and... it seems to be this!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronauts_(TV_series)

And released on DVD... hmm...

[MacNimon]

I'd totally forgotten about You're Only Young Twice until I read this thread! I'm going to have to search out some episodes now, I assume it's available on dvd? I used to enjoy this as a kid.

Kinvig and Astronauts were two series which were really disappointing though, iirc. The first written by Nigel Kneale, the second by (Goodies) Graham Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor. I'd expected big things from them but soon gave up on both series. Maybe worth giving another shot nowadays?

[Si Hunt]

Back on "Keeping Up Appearances" last night. What a hack Roy Clarke is, and what a witless sitcom this is. The same beats are wheeled out relentlessly every single bloody episode: Emmet is quaking over Hyacinth, Elizabeth shaked when she holds Hyacinths best china, Rose is pining after some man, Hyacinth is ringing up someone in authority to make an unreasonable complaint.

From the title of yesterdays episode, something about Yachting, you knew the punchline would be a stuntman dressed as Mrs Bucket falling into a river. But as usual, the plotlines wern't even finished. Neither Onslow & Daisy nor Rose ever even turned up at the Marina, Hyacinth and Stuart Fell dressed as Richard fell in and it finished. She really is an awful character, and we often remark that there's so much scope for showing flashes of the tragedy in her life, maybe suggesting a lost child or something, but Roy Clarke never thinks beyond his little list of cliches that he shoehorns into every episode.

Si.

[Rob McCow]

Bloody hell... yet you keep watching?

How much KUA can you handle?

[Si Hunt]

We don't like to give up on something once we've started. It's not wholly terrible. As Roy Clarke no doubt knows, there's a certain comfort in familiarity and characters reciting the same catchphrases and tics; Hi-De-Hi works on this level. But there's room for pathos here and he isn't interested, that's what irritating. We keep watching just in case Sheridan turns up or something different happens.

SI.

[Mike Saville]

The Hyacinth Bucket character is a particular stereotype that most of us recognise to some degree- in fact my cousins used to nickname my mother 'Auntie Hyacinth' when she wasn't around- and as an observed set of characters I thought it was brilliant and could have been developed into a rather poignant black comedy. As a one off. Not as a run of however many slapstick episodes it stretched on for.

[Si Hunt]

"You're Only Young Twice"

It's taken three series and the nearest we've ever got to a bit of film was 10 seconds set in a Church earlier this series. Was it REALLY so expensive in 1980? However, the last episode of Series 3 promised an old folks outing, so hopes were high.

Things got off to a good start with some footage outside Paradise Lodge, albeit only a few grainy minutes. Then everyone piled into an amazing CSO bus for the next ten. Dolly Love's hat acquired some additional garish colour courtesy of the fringing.

Then - golly - the cast on an actual beach, albeit on the most rain-drenched day of the year. Don't get too excited though, as the next scene was of a - wait for it -studio beach with Scarborough's waves still rolling away in the background over a cloth. The next bit was a bit odd; a car that was on location, actually recreated in studio for the close-up shots. Maybe they run out of time as in "The Green Death"? As Pat Coombs tried to break into the car in studio, staggeringly a policeman approached menacingly on film. A pursuit and arrest being made over the divide between location and studio filming.

Oh well, it was a noble effort. I wonder if viewers at the time marvelled at this illusion of a trip to the beach courtesy of about four minutes of sparingly edited together location footage and some nifty back projection?

Si.

[Rob McCow]

I don't know if film was that expensive in the 80's, but sitcom budgets were notoriously small. Once you've paid for 3-4 locations with wood and paper walls, you've got everything you need. Why bother with outside broadcast?

Didn't 'Are You Being Served' subsist on only one set? Albeit a large one.

[Stuart Wallis]

From what I recall, they did for the most part. If they needed any others they'd raid the prop potted plants section (tongue-twister of the day!), dress up a spare corner of the studio and tell them to get on with it. That's the impression I got at the time, anyway.

[Perry Vale]

Really? That's amazing, we didn't think anyone else would have heard of it! It's very comforting once you get into it!

Si.

I remember it too!