Transcript
Speaker: Two Ts please, Ray. Hannah, I didn't get where I am today without knowing an expression that indicates a yearning to create a new identity and get away from it all when I see one. What's up?
Speaker: This episode's viewing has helped me reach an important decision. I'm going to disappear into the 1970s. Permanently. oh I'll affect my own death, pick a new name, and build new life for myself.
Speaker: Next week I plan to head out, leave my clothes on the bridge over the river, and... not ah not on a beach? That'd be a bit more traditional, isn't it? Well, we live in the West Midlands, Pete. The nearest beach is a hundred miles away.
Speaker: Anyway, I thought I might open a novelty collectible shop. Maybe find some collies with catchphrases. You know, I think you'd fit right in with that. I'll miss you, but bit of a coincidence, actually, because I've also felt inspired to start a new life.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to row away from here. I'm planning for a new job. i feel I need the change. Somewhere with mildly despairing corridors, slightly peculiar stuff, everyone behaves as if they're living in their own quiet nightmare, it could all leave you none the wiser. But a modern Midlands university, where information is stored on floppy disks,
Speaker: That's fantastic, Pete. It sounds right up your street. Mm-hmm. Just one tiny thing. What? Don't you currently work for university here in the Midlands?
Speaker: Tricky fellows, Midlands Universities. Unpredictable geography. Financial troubles. Bit of a blitz going on, you you could say. to be honest, mate, I'm not that sure I do want to run away from my entire life here.
Speaker: Same for me. i rather like you and Ray, and our friends who come to visit in Ray's cafe. do I! The nineteen seventy s is a nice place to visit, but probably am there living full-time present.
Speaker: Great. Super.
Speaker: Welcome to Cathode Rays. Each episode we pick a theme and use it to discuss three episodes of British television. The only rule is we must have been able to watch the programme on a TRT television set.
Speaker: This episode's theme is Running Away From Life. I'm going to chat about three series looking at people who've had enough. The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.
Speaker: A very peculiar practice. And Goodnight Sweetheart.
Speaker: good- night sweetheart
Speaker: so pete have you ever had the kind of day at work where you think i'd like to run away from all this and start a new life somewhere As I gaze out the window looking at the ah the sewage works on the and the abattoir on the other side of the road. Yeah, once in a while, once in a while. Who hasn't? Especially when you're an elderly grandfather in his early 40s.
Speaker: The grand old age of 46. How I'm a tad even older than that. so like just I guess I should tell people who haven't seen Reggie Perry what it's about because you hadn't seen it. I was amazed. Yeah, that's that's right. Yeah, no, i've I've never seen it properly, but I've seen clips of it since the adult. It's one of the things that always comes up. It's always cited. and talked about a very yeah reverential tones by people people in the business as being a cleverer class of of sitcom with something profound. And even even calling it a sitcom, i mean, it is a sitcom. It's got studio audience. But...
Speaker: it's an It's an adaptation of a book, isn't it? He learned today. Well, yeah, three books altogether. So one for each series. um So the original book came out in 1975 and then the first series comes in 1976.
Speaker: And so they follow Reggie going gradually mad. I think we just say burned out, like i these days. um and deciding eventually to as the opening titles will is show you leave all his clothes on on the beach and go i'm i'm off and try to live a new life because he's trying to escape from everything he feels but he's not really quite specific about it um and the whole first series pretty much leads up to him deciding to do this gradually sort of becoming more bizarre and odd i think it's it's probably because it's a serial
Speaker: um and there is an ongoing story to it. um i think it's one probably because I know it well now, I'm quite happy to revisit individual episodes and they do kind of, there is a certain amount of yeah plot that makes them self-contained.
Speaker: And one of the things I love is that we have Reggie's thoughts as a voiceover and because it's it works it's a really nice way of adapting a book.
Speaker: because it be we're there in his head in the way he can be and a with the book. But it's also that part of us as well that although although we are watching Reggie seemingly sort of losing it, and we're so on his side. i am anyway.
Speaker: He could fully justify his reasons for all of his things, pretty much. We have three very interesting protagonists in these shows that we're comparing, because, yeah, they're all slightly differently drawn, and you might sympathise them to different extents, because he's no Victor Meldrew, although Victor Meldrew is actually a sympathetic character, but he's definitely no Basil Fawlty. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. um So the two episodes we watched were... episode Episode two. Yes. And six. but Yes. ah Is.
Speaker: Yes. that is I guess two is where it really starts to sink in one, two. And and so that's that's all I've seen so far. i've I watched a couple more as well. But and and it's but it is clear you're watching.
Speaker: a single story progress. It is not an episode of The Weak Thing. He's a different, he's literally a different person by the end of the show than he is at the series than he is at the beginning. How much of that, how much should development do you need? um So, and i I thought from the clips that I'd seen that that shot of him running off into the sea in the beginning and then coming and then you just note, but I thought that was, I thought that was him actually killing himself or something because I hadn't quite paid enough attention to what happened and that he does, you do, you do just glimpse him turning around and coming back again in the opening credits. Yes. But also that i that's the film of him imagining it. That's not how... When he actually... Spoilers.
Speaker: It's the thing he's really famous for. He obviously does fake his own death. It's not really a spoiler. That's the whole point of the of the story. It's slightly different, I thought. ah But um i don't think it was the exact same footage that was used. Yeah. Yeah. So it runs in strange... The thing with the mother-in-law, where every time he thinks of his mother-in-law, a picture of a hippo appears. And the audience pictures...
Speaker: Nice long quiet weekend. Don't forget we're going to see mother on Sunday.
Speaker: Yes, well never mind....themselves. What are they actually seeing? Because that's not happening in the studio. Or is someone holding up a big picture of ah of a hippo or something? suppose they must be, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, the in-law jokes were popular in the period, I believe. they were and it's like Yeah, and but and I'm thinking, is this... But it's that that dash of surrealism.
Speaker: unusual for a because sitcom has stabilized although you've got wild comedy shows like the goons on the radio where you know dick the which has got whether each episode has a plot it's not gag it's not just gags each episode has a plot but there's also lots of loads of surrealism in there by the mid 70s i guess people have got pretty comfortable with what they expect a sitcom to be like and they don't expect a sudden little monty python-ish burst in the middle of a sitcom and that's why like it gets such a big laugh It is quite like a normal, like a sort sitcom-ish world. He's, you know, got... He's he's middle class in you know the suburbs. He's got a wife who sees him off to work every day. he comes home to his cats. He's got what is...
Speaker: I suppose it's often, haven't they tried to portray it as quite a dull job in many ways? um Yeah, don't dull and pointless, and yet he has this woman sat there for him to lust over in a very creepy way. um But it's all presented as sort of, he and but he admires her, he looks she's um she's unobtainable, so he's not actually molesting her, I suppose. Yeah, it's very much to fantasise about it. There is episode where and he does decide to invite her over. and whilst his wife's away within the series. But various things seem to get in the way of it. And i think we kind of get hints probably more like by, in that episode six, that he's trying on all these different identities. And when he gets propositioned, you know, he's pretending to be this lord and he gets propositioned by another rather posh woman who basically says, you want to come back to my place? Yeah.
Speaker: it ah I love Elizabeth, his wife. yeah And he just thinks he wants something else, but that that's not actually whens what he does want. He just wants to be happier in his old life.
Speaker: Mr. Karen? Yes? I've worked for you for eight years. Do you mind if I say something? That sounds rather ominous, Joan, what is it? I think you need a holiday. God!
Speaker: Everybody seems to think I need a holiday! Good evening, here is 9 o'clock news. Today Russia invaded China, Richard Burton married Elizabeth Taylor for the seventh time, and in the Commons the Prime Minister told the House that Reginald Iperin was in need of a holiday.
Speaker: Yeah, and it kind of felt, and with the first, step with the earlier episode, episode two, because it's all about him, he's ah he's our viewpoint, he's our narrator, literally. We're getting to... the people, and particularly the women, are sort of just... that she's his wife. His wife is his wife. she's ah He comes home from work early. What's she doing? She's watering pot plants in the house. Apparently that's what she does when he's at work, because she's a sitcom wife. And to begin with, that...
Speaker: That's it. Very clearly, especially in in the final episode, which she did jump ahead and watch, she she gets her own interiority very much brought to the fore and their own choices completely shape things, but which is good. you If you will only watched episode two, you wouldn't have come up. You wouldn't have realized that that was where it was taking her. ah yeah yeah But the other characters are all really well drawn, really interestingly, although strange, especially CJ is boss.
Speaker: who do who's a proper sitcom boss isn't he Terry's boss in Terry and June as well he is isn't he I wasn't just imagining I've not seen Terry and June No, you know what, he isn't. I'm remembering now, it's someone similar. I'll edit that out so I don't sound stupid.
Speaker: I'll go straight to the point. I didn't get where am today by waffling. No, CJ, no. Never use two words where one will do. That's my motto, that's my axiom. That's the way I look at things. Yes, CJ, I wonder, CJ, while I was here... surprise you to learn, Reggie, that overall sales in April, across the whole spectrum, were down 0.1%?
Speaker: not point one percent No, not particularly, CJ. I don't say you, Reggie, pull your socks up. I say to you that overall sales in April, of course, the whole spectrum were down 0.1%. I leave you to draw your own conclusions and pull your socks off. Yes, you do. You kind of spend this first series getting introduced to all these characters and they do stick with this show throughout its run. And so you feel like you've kind of got to know them. And then when you stuff gets sort flipped,
Speaker: and they're doing totally different things that in toasted odd situations it that comedy side of it works well so um I always just like the little random references in this of every time he comes into work, there's a different absurd reason why his train's been late. um Oh, whats so good but yeah. what you I've now discovered why my 10 years older than me brother says this every time I'm late. He says something like, oh, what was it today? So you got the train stuck on the point. so And I was like, what are talking about? I drove. he's like, oh, it doesn't matter. You won't get it. can now actually...
Speaker: yeah and there's the where He was writing a letter and getting general secretary to take a letter. And the address is 75 Car Park Road, Birmingham, which says so much about how Birmingham was perceived at time. The reputation of our fair regional capital.
Speaker: Yes. But there's another nice period bits, actually, this I noticed this time, of he get hit one, the company has its own doctor who just apparently just sits around waiting for anyone to come see them. Reading salty magazines. Yeah. and and it And Reggie's kind of spilling the story about pretending and this friend of mine has this problem of, like, basically, Reggie's not being out ah able like to get it up for a long time and at this point. And the doctor says...
Speaker: Like, oh, well, if it was you, I could give you a month's sick leave. I'm like, hold on, you could have a month's sick leave from work just because you've not managed to shag for six weeks. That's absurd. Now, his wife's brother, played by Geoffrey Palmer, Jimmy, is a yes that military archetype, who but but twisted. Like, ah yeah, we just we don't have people like that anymore. we need to bring them back. He's weird and ah strange, but sort of...
Speaker: and Totally at home, but he's lusting over his niece, who literally is a box, a box and 30 year old. But yeah, um but I and it's not you you so you tell me it'ss it's more explicit in the book. Yeah. and um Uncomfortable. Yeah.
Speaker: And. It's one of those weird things where you and you can see what how was this acceptable? think You're presuming that another bloke is reading this because there's no way you'd write this. if ah Surely there's no way you'd write this if ah if ah if a woman and and was. Or is you know are you trying to be really clever and say something specific about Jimmy? because But otherwise, it never really kind of goes anywhere. Jimmy is this odd i say of character. but fact There's not enough characters in this who aren't. He went to public school, he went in the army, and he just now can't actually run his life but himself. He turns up at that house because he's run out of food and he yeah just just comes and and they have to give him some food to take home. A bit of a cock up on the catering front is his catchphrase. Yeah. And then later on, he's deciding to form his own um militia. and because the country's gone to pot and quite clearly he's he's waiting for his moment. but that That's a wonderful scene. One of my favourites that pops up on some clips quite a bit um of ready-go. What sort of people you think you're able to attract to this? Awkward Johnny's holidays.
Speaker: German barber at a camp I was at once, BAOR 23, didn't have a holiday for three years, went bonkers, became convinced he was a deck chair.
Speaker: I said to him, morning, Hans, short back and sides, please. And he said, no can do, but you can sit on me if you like.
Speaker: There's also the time period thing of their um when they're in the safari park. And they've got the two children in the back, and Reggie's son-in-law and his daughter are these awful hippie modern parents. i love One of the indicators that they're hippie and modern is that they've called their children Adam and Jocasta. Jocasta can get, but it's weird to think of Adam being a name that was ever... Yes, modern. But it's literally the oldest name. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah but Elizabeth says they're commenting about how the children speak and she's trying to correct correct their grammar. And she says, well, they should be held to speak correctly. They might want jobs with the BBC one day.
Speaker: And still, yeah, so these these two great sitcom things, if we cover more sitcoms, we need to keep a tally of these things. two this This hits two of the sitcom grapes, which is visit to a safari park. That's gone out. Why don't you get that anymore? Everyone knows that the safari park is ah is driving slowly around a safari park and breaking down halfway around is a hilarious situation that all comedies should do. And the other is tea office tea lady coming around with a trolley. I would love an office tea and coffee lady who brings around macaroons, even if you can't reserve one. And you can buy out her entire trolley for a fiver and tell her to keep the change and she'll be delighted.
Speaker: All that I learned about the French Revolution I learned from sitcom jokes, about and puns about letting people eat cake, which is all that I learned about the French Revolution. So I've never done an exam about that.
Speaker: Yeah, we're kind of left with Reggie by the end of his first series. as He's... When he goes off and decides to name himself, rename himself, finally, Martin Wellenborn, he's just, good but say bun say would go off I am free. i credit He's not at all. Anything but. He's got two more series to go. so Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's all these picturesque towns and oh as well. it It's... For me, it's odd. He's left a suburban place and then very nice suburban area, but really clearly wants to head off and be in the countryside. um And that then finds actually he's looking around at all these faces and it's just like, oh, another antique shop. And and i just as someone who like lives in a small town, and next in a semi-rural area, I'm always amazed by people who say this. to the countryside and then get surprised and go oh but there's not really very much here and I'm like yes it's a nightmare I've got some friends who did the whole kind of oh yes we're going to sort move out and away from this and you spend your whole life living in cities and then after a few years it's quite far to travel to work it turns out and I think we might move back
Speaker: So I look trying to ingratiate himself into the various pubs. and that Oh, that's the major seat. Yeah, it's he often it goes off and does it in rapid fire. You get the yeah the great British sitcom trope of someone trying to pretend they're a different class than they really are. And he gets do it multiple times in multiple directions.
Speaker: you Get back in your lower middle class spot. like yeah Oh, yeah, he's definitely not upper middle class. He's definitely lower middle class. Yeah, but but so kind of conclusion around this is him heading back to his so old life, but she can't because he's faked his death. So he's happy to he's trying to head back as Martin Wellborn. So she hears his wife.
Speaker: but so he I don't think he misses the children that much. um He's 46, so they're all growing up and they've left home. Yeah, yeah, it's paid off the mortgage. Children all grown up. Once you hit once you hit your mid-40s, you're pretty much done. I've watched this activity quite a few times um and I've read the books. And then the first time I saw it I'd probably been about 12, 13, and i quite like identified with Reggie. um There is a theme of a lot of my favourite shows around the teenagers are people basically running away from life. I was quite keen on this theme. And then when I read the books, i'm as as an adult, I was in a job that wasn't really going anywhere and really wasn't quite happy at all in life and just so trying to make way of it.
Speaker: And again, really identified with Reggie. It was really nice to eventually come back and watch it and be in a happy place and be that bit more separate from him. And it feels that that way it's been rewarding in in multiple ways.
Speaker: But I think there is an attraction in that for like a lot of people for these kind of things so i I think but off the the grass is greener on the other side, which I said probably sums up. So I embraces a bit, you know, probably sort stress and burnout as well, i working with the CJ. But um yeah, ah it feels something that's probably slightly sort of eternally i attractive to me. And you being able to do it in a sitcom context, you can obviously push things quite a lot more.
Speaker: Yeah, that's what it's perfect for, isn't it? that yeah You can you could take things to extremes that you wouldn't do if you were just writing a drama about those issues. yeah
Speaker: think what we've got here is a whole new dimension of catastrophe theory. Jen, please go away. i don't want any more catastrophes. Catastrophe theory doesn't have to be bad. It's just what happens when you push steadily along in one direction. Everything's nice and logical.
Speaker: Then suddenly the whole thing flips inside out. Well, speaking of taking things to extremes, should we jump over to my um might my offering? oh Which...
Speaker: Or did you have more? Sorry, you got more? No, no, no. like I'm just bracing myself so for the nuns, for for all of this. So picture it it's ah It's a...
Speaker: probably gloomy spring evening and BBC 2 back in the days when it used to actually make television programs and dramas and comedies and things puts out this new series starring fresh-faced Peter Davison uh it's it was it was written very specifically as a seven episode story with a beginning and a middle and an end so quite so like like Reggie Perry although there wasn't a book first it's not a this week's episode situation it's a this is a seventh of the story each week And our young hero, Dr. Dacre, recently divorced from Wolverhampton, I mean, he's from Wolverhampton and recently divorced, arriving at his new job in the first episode, which isn't the one we're focusing on, but he goes to Lowlands University, which in fact is filmed a mixed mishmash of the University of Birmingham and Keele University, which was done because the BBC had previously filmed a controversial drama at one specific university. And that university did not like it at all. The history man, it was called. They did not like at all having this um drama about how awful it is going to university, being ending up being associated with them. So but they create a fictional university out by merging ah two real campuses, which leads to some very amusing tracking shots as he sometimes drives past the building in Birmingham and then drives past another one in Staffordshire.
Speaker: um Well, quite amusing. Yeah. So it's written by Andrew Davies, who goes on to write a million different costume dramas and other things, everything from Tipping the Velvet to every body stripping adaptation of ah of ah of a classic of literature and the Bridget Joneses as well and things like that.
Speaker: And directed by, and unusually for a comedy, every single episode all of both series and the sequel TV movie are all directed by the same director as well, David Tucker, who had previously done a um a lot of Tenko, but was very, very new to the scene at the time. um So Peter Davison plays Dr. Dacre, a fresh-faced, I don't know why they thought Peter Davison, fresh-faced, terribly nice, rather anxious young man. who bad freshface He's anymore by this point. mean by this he's he's a bit chiseled in by he matches dr daker he's He's moving out to this new university from his from his previous practice
Speaker: in woverhampton where he's from And but the characters and he's he's basically a Mr. Nice, Mr. Normal. The characters he meets there are larger than life andt and and it is. ah he He works at the University Health Service with three other doctors. The amazing pairing of David Troughton's Bob Buzzard, who is the most it was the thing that anchors it in the 80s. This could not have been made before the mid 80s because he's such a perfect Thatcherite spoof of of ah of a kind of neurotic money obsessed status obsessed. And and all a complete failure. He wants to be, he dreams of being a yeah a hugely successful businessman or something, and he's stuck at this place and he hates it. And his sort of counterpart, opposite in every way, is Rosemarie, played by the absolutely hypnotic Barbara Frinn. And she's, again, she's a sitcom character, she's a caricature, and yet she's got so many dimensions to her. took me watching this as a teenager, I'm...
Speaker: I was absolutely transfixed. Bit of a Jacqueline Pierce thing going on. Probably different types of guys like her for two different reasons. Probably some guys like her for both those reasons at the same time. And they're really getting their money's worth because she's sexy as hell. ah but ah but And she's cruel and and clever and cunning.
Speaker: And and she's they could have done a sitcom with a stereotypical, oh, she's a feminist doctor. She's going to crack the whip. and And she is a feminist doctor and she does crack the whip, but she's absolutely as hypocritical as Bob Buzzard is. And she's just cleverer than him. And she runs rings around them, but doesn't but so it doesn't always go her way. And to that's good. Yeah. Hilarious results.
Speaker: Presiding over them all is old jock played by Graham Crowden, giving one of his more subdued performances. but it um but But a subdued performance by his standards is a bloody big performance.
Speaker: Red marks? No, no. Freud and Melanie Klein every time for me. Now, let's get some light on this. Oh, I see.
Speaker: Red marks.
Speaker: Pretty man. You have acute blood poisoning. You're going to die.
Speaker: And it's usually drunk. And and he knows that he's yesterday's man. He's written a book about sexual frustration and the common cold was what he his main contribution to academia.
Speaker: And he reigns over this health practice. And so and the and the story is basically about those four characters and how they interact with each other. ah But the limelight is completely hogged by iconic in the truest sense of the word. These two nuns who were only featured initially, they're not in the script. They only feature in the opening montage of the very first episode. He drives past some nuns foraging through bins.
Speaker: And the director loved it so much that that becomes a motif that just keeps happening. They're stealing milk, they're breaking into, they're burgling in people's rooms. Every episode features at least one cutaway to the nuns. And I think it's like,
Speaker: presaging like the log lady and in Twin Peaks. This this is 1986, but this comedy feels ready for the 90s. It's doing stuff that a lot of 80s comedy wasn't doing yet, um which is another reason for loving it. And the episode that I proposed we watched is the final episode, because we're talking about getting away from it all, but this is the episode where...
Speaker: It gets flipped around and we meet these three auditors are sent in to investigate the university with because it's been announced there's going to be 25% cuts and we have a central cast of four. And and the four of them quickly realise that one of them is probably going to be for the chop and it becomes about them trying to wheedle their way out of that. And Mr Prettyman, the youngest of the three auditors, is ah very much ah a clone of Peter Davison's character as he was in episode one but um but maybe a bit more clued up. What did you think of it?
Speaker: So I'd seen, I think, the first episode before, and then we went and had an audience with Peter Davison, along with quite a few other people were there, and they did a whole clip montage of a peculiar practice, and I sat next to you, going, I have got to watch this show. So... Like, what the hell is going on here? So, I've done a bit of a random bit. I've done episodes one, two, five, and seven now.
Speaker: umm So, i felt I got my intro. ah i kind of had got to... felt like i was going to get to know these characters. And, yeah, I i do want to try and go back and fill in the gap gaps and and now. um And, yeah, I was trying to get that the measure ah of of them a bit. um' I...
Speaker: but I really liked Jock and yeah just pissed off all the time, basically. But yeah, I watched in the later ones. It is Rose that's caught me on more. And the file episode, for she has team with young Cathy Bates.
Speaker: Cathy Burke, not Cathy Bates. and Yeah, you get loads students. Basically celebrity cameos making their first experiences. Yeah, somebody had a few grants in episode two, which is just incredibly odd.
Speaker: And my question is, it turns around and going, well, like they're clearly sexually assaulting you. And they're more like... What? What? I think you should be going on this women's assertiveness training. ah By the end, she's managed to persuade this young to a age student that actually, yeah, she's great. She's wonderful. but then kind as that Yeah, it's all the other people that's wrong. and But actually just going out the door.
Speaker: Terrific. Thanks a lot. We're going to take care of you, Alice. Oh, and by the way, I think it might be a good idea to go to some German lectures and read some books just in case.
Speaker: Yeah, right. Brilliant. Yeah. And it stops her from being two dimensional character that you would always cheer for. You know, she's she's she's a she's a bastard sometimes. And she's telling someone to go and accuse an innocent man of harassing her because it's because it's going to help Rosemary in her personal career aims if something like that kicked off. And she takes her seduction to the extreme with Mr. Prettyman in that episode, having introduces herself as bisexual, but also has absolutely no interest in actually having sex with anyone through most of the first series, because she's got much more important things to be doing, basically, is the gist of it. There is actually...
Speaker: It feels like there's a lot of sex going on, because there was also or an episode ah like about an epidemic of sexual chronic diseases outbreak. Yes, they make one don't they? Breaking out on campus, which is just wonderful, actually, of them having to try and trace this. um And then feeling, oh, we've got a really low like rate rate of it. And then that turns out to be a massive prompt for loads of students to come forward with any little bits and pieces. I was slightly amused actually the young student who's actually like a journalist as well if he goes to see Stephen and interview him refers to VD and then he refers refers to STDs whereas for me the VD is like the really old-fashioned term it's like it's the like
Speaker: It's what they warned American soldiers about and when they went overseas in the war. and And STD is the modern term that I grew up with. And and i but although I believe it's been taken over by infections. to We don't like the word diseases any anymore, apparently. Yeah, it's got a negative connotation as well. An infection is lovely. Yeah. yeah they talk A couple of the episodes of on the on the DVD have got commentary tracks and they they talk about that a bit, ah but also because it's this episode that talk about how straight people at this point, the that that AIDS awareness was just coming it through.
Speaker: while they were making this. And so when they do the STD episode, um that they're having to introduce students to the idea of condoms being a thing that they might need to use. yeah And everyone's like, oh, but what we're on we' it's still in that post-60s zone of as long as you're on the pill. it's It was a really odd one like thing to me because I was like, hold on, none of these students using protection. Because, yeah, by the time like I was a student in the 21st century and we had like um sexual health stuff at and at school.
Speaker: um but Yeah, it was very much. There are two reasons to to to use protection. And one of of them is ah ah such transgressive diseases. and ah is and And then, yeah, when you went to university, like, God, there was like giving them away around the freshest and fair, yeah.
Speaker: And I think by the time they get to series two in 88, because because this was this this was just made as ah as as a standalone thing. But then it gets nominated. It gets nominated for a BAFTA for best drama, not comedy, which is interesting. And I should have said the start that there's no it's not filmed before a studio audience. It's filmed like a like a drama. There's location shoot and then studio work.
Speaker: In 86, it's nominated for best drama series, but is beaten by Life and Loves of a She-Devil. So they hurriedly commission a new series. and But the new the second series is like a – it's said at the same place, but it's it's very much a sequel, and and and it's been a while. you know But what's missing from the the second series is the fantastic character of Lynn, Peter Davison's character's girlfriend, who is this – um extremely confident, sporty, intelligent woman who's everything he's not and she sort of rescues him in the first episode from his sort of anxieties and trying to cure his touch phobia. The other the thing of him being a doctor who has a phobia about touching people.
Speaker: She loves you, that big girl. I know about all this stuff. Chen, she's younger than I am. She's cleverer than I am. She's stronger than me. She can run faster than me.
Speaker: She's roundier than me. You know, when I dream about her, she's always ahead of me. Getting further and further away. When Lynne wasn't in the second series, I was really disappointed. She's replaced by a character called Greta, who's from who from Poland and is quite abrasive and is kind of the opposite of Lynne, which which is a good dramatic thing for Peter Davison's character to cope with. But um but yeah, I did really really miss that she wasn't in it anymore.
Speaker: Here we are, the two big successes. I don't want to be a big success, Lynn. I thought I did, but I don't. i just want to do my job and be happy. definitely put it down more as a comedy drama.
Speaker: But I suppose this is roughly the same period where you're you're getting those kind of... We want to do drama slightly differently.
Speaker: It's probably the same rough period of our feed as own pet. But I guess least the terminology to comedy drama may may not entirely sort of come about that way. Yeah, I'm not sure whether we had that quite as pinned down as a concept back then, which made it seem a bit odder. yeah Well, Dr Tiddle, it's quite straightforward as I see it.
Speaker: You've got the screaming abdabs and I don't blame you. What should I do, Dr Buzzard? Kate says i've got to go back into school teaching. Well, my wife Daphne gets these notions too. Just tell her to belt and keep taking the tablet. No, no, you don't.
Speaker: So and then I mean, this final episode of the first series, there we get to see a lot of Dr. Baker's flatmate, Chen, whose catastrophe theory that he's worked out is is the theme of the whole episode and the idea that things will just happen and everything will just get out of control anyway. So what's the point trying to control it?
Speaker: And as as a series, you can forget, you know it's a mid 80s sitcom. We've got ah a bisexual woman. we've got ah We've got ethnic minority characters whose ethnicity is treated as an interesting facet that they have. And occasionally they'll say something pertinent to it. But then often they won't. You know, it's not.
Speaker: Chen's a very... a very 90s character compared to what we would be used to seeing, if seeing at all, in sitcoms previously. um and And often you'll watch these things and think, oh, yeah, you wouldn't do that like that now. Even though you might think, well, they're doing their best, they're taking baby steps. with him But actually, with a character like his, it's like, oh, you would do that now, probably. um And there's episodes in the, there's a gay guy in the next series. And there's also, they do more, there's a safe sex episode in series two as well. Or at least I've said that addresses it a bit more because they felt bad about having failed to really address it properly if not in the VD episode. They still is still just treated as a nuisance. It's like, oh, dear, some of our students are getting sexually transmitted diseases. What a pain. How embarrassing. Which you stop doing that after 1985.
Speaker: but I felt like it really jumps to mind is the James Bond films where in 1985, Roger Moore is still Rogering his way around, frankly. i But by 1987, Timothy Dalton is much less put putting it about. um And it was very intentional for him to have a single lady. So there we go. 1986, we can count as the turning point That's it, yeah and this this yeah. This is definitely ah a Dalton-ready era, a comedy that belongs in the Dalton era of our culture rather than the Roger Moore era of our culture, yeah.
Speaker: Dr. McKannon? No need to tell me, pretty man. i know your errand and your fell purpose. The old king must be sacrificed so that the lowland may bloom again. ah no really, it wasn't that. Come closer, a pretty man.
Speaker: i want to see my executioner clearly i um i don't feel all that
Speaker: good god he disappeared
Speaker: If you really do want to escape from everything, though, feel like time portal is the way to It's how Gary Sparrow manages it in Goodnight Sweetheart.
Speaker: Wow, almost like some kind of segue. Yeah.
Speaker: Gary is a TV repairman in 1993. He is already aware that his job is on the way out in 1993.
Speaker: yeah who refers to in In the opening episode, he he's meets someone, introduces himself and says that yeah they seldom go wrong these days. So, and yeah. um And when he's out on one of his calls, he sort of stumbles on a passage um to the 1940s, London's and East End.
Speaker: And Gary's life in the 90s is not going great. He's got a job, he's not really that fussed to about. and me but His wife is quite like distracted and busy. She's really ambitious. He's doing doing an open university course and as a serious goes on, she ends up getting guide promotions, launches her own business. she and Gary is not that. He is not um i'm ambitious and he just failed stu feels, I think, a bit left behind. But he doesn't really have that many friends. And so when he's back in the forty s he initially kind of thinks it's a bit of a dream. um
Speaker: And Joe just says, I can do whatever I want here, really. And even when he kind of realises, no, this is real, it it is... He treats it like it is a fantasy. So...
Speaker: He pretends to be secret agent, because well, it's also a very good way a man in his mid-30s getting away with the fact of, well, why aren't you in uniform and why aren't you away with the war effort? this is um um And yeah, falls in love with the first woman he meets yeah and behind the bar, of the first puppy goes into... And well this we looked at a couple of episodes from second series, and two-parter called and Wish Me Luck and and As You Wave Me Goodbye. And this is the point where so Gary has gone back to the 40s. He keeps finding himself drawn back there. Back in in the ninety s he's lost his job and there's not really much keeping him in there. And...
Speaker: Throughout it all, he's very much decided, you know, says like he loves both of these women in his his life, Yvonne in the present day and of Phoebe in the 40s. But he decided that really he he should make a go of it and commit to one of them. And Yvonne's got this nice high-flying life and in the 90s. He feels like she doesn't really sort of need him and he's a bit useless there. and So why wouldn't he go and make it full-time job in the 40s? The only person who knows that he can time travel is and his best friend, Ron, who also happens to be a printer, which is quite convenient when you need some ration books and ID cards and some money. I'm pathetic.
Speaker: fifty A pale shadow of a man. I am a weak-kneed eunuch. Do your staff know the intimate details of my personal life? You've told them, haven't you? Only like you've got two birds on the go.
Speaker: You've got some serious respect from the guys out there. So we've left to see Gary. He decides to leave clothes on a bridge and go off and have a go at living full-time in the 40s, because what could go wrong there?
Speaker: on ah Pete, you know that I really love this a whole whole sitcom, um all six series um' i'm of it. I've watched it multiple times and adore it. um But I know that a lot of people have and issues with it, at least of all the facts that and it's it's still it's it it is partly just a small part about sort a man having an affair. And yes that's frantically fun these days. It should always been found on fun to be honest, but i think now that's very much look back and go, what's the sake of going on, Pete, put me out of my misery. How did you find it?
Speaker: i yeah What the hell? that i finds as It's fascinating. It's intriguing. How did you Well, you asked the question, who walked into the BBC commissioning thing and said, here's the idea for you. It's the early We've got One Foot in the Grave. We've got we've got High Seams Bouquet. What we really need now is a time-travelling bigamist. And like what the BBC said yes. And but the answer is Lawrence Marks and Lewis Graham, the writers, who got a CV that they could have.
Speaker: ah proposed a sitcom about someone who collects caterpillars or something and it and it would have got a commission and and clearly it was a huge success ran for such a long time it's it is so straight it feels to me it feels more dated than either of the other two but is that because i But is that because I spend more time watching stuff from the 70s and 80s and don't actually watch that much? like His 90s clothes look more dated than his 1940s clothes. Is that because the 70s, 80s stuff has come back round now? The 90s is only coming around if you're like a Zoomer. Yeah, big two too big suit with not shoulder pads, but sort of pad shoulders that want to be shoulder padded he wears sometimes.
Speaker: um at the So I remember this starting. I remember watching the first episode when it went out, when I would have been, what, about 20? Yeah, what... yeah
Speaker: so I would have been about 20. So I was, um I think it was the year before went to university. They they liked my A-levels so much, they wanted me to stay and do them again. um And um ah from the beginning, I was so continually confused by the fact that the woman in the the woman in the present day is called Yvonne, which is a 1940s name. And the woman in the 1940s is called Phoebe, which I would think of as a more modern name. um That absolutely confused me from the off.
Speaker: But I thought it was a really fun fun fun prospect because it gives a lot of, you know, a lot of farcical situations can ensue. But also, but it's really tied down. And the difference so the difference the difference between this one and the other two is that they were all written with the beginning and a middle and an end. This is just supposed to roll and roll. and and And also it's got different writers coming in, whereas the other two were both written by their creator. this These episodes we watched weren't written by Marks and Grannies, but Marks and Grannies, their name is bigger in the opening credits than the title of the thing. It's Marks and Grannies.
Speaker: It's them and yet Nicholas Lindhurst. They pick him specifically for a reason when they're casting this, because they know he's a likeable actor that you know is clearly very familiar to audiences by and and this point, essentially for the Only Fools and Horses. And I do think that that that that's why it works, that Gary's not a fantastic person. He's not a a hero at all. He's quite ordinary and flawed, i'm but he does remain quite likeable. And picked these episodes because I think they're quite key in the story because...
Speaker: But it's up to this point, Gary's sort treated the 1940s like it is. It's somewhere to escape to. It's a bit of a theme park and he can kind of whatever he goes and does there doesn't have real consequences for him. It's why it's it's this little pocket universe. And it is partly how he morally justifies it to himself that he's got two different worlds and they two different women.
Speaker: and they will never meet, and spoiler, they will. and But um it works like that, and it what he does in the doesn't impact him, like in the 90s, and then that changes with this.
Speaker: The only thing the shops aren't short of at the moment is shortages. Never mind, I saw one in the garden of a bombed-out house, I'll go and get that. That's looting. It's only an old broken bedside cabinet, what can they do to me? Shoot you.
Speaker: He ends up there the 40s. He actually has to put up with the reality of rationing, um i'm of like sitting through crappy cinema that he doesn't want to watch. Of there not actually being a great deal to do, of having to queue for food for everything. Of like generally being that like for more like grim and miserable day to day. Turns out like if you've been in a war for living in a war on the home front for a while, it's quite grim. um and Then he, by the end of it, he decides actually he actually can't hack it. But he goes back and does fire watching, which is basically you live in a local area. I know about this because my nan did it. And you go onto the roofs. And when the planes come over during the blitz and drop incendiary bombs, these basically will drop and will explode unless you quickly can go and put some sand on them.
Speaker: um and your job is to put out fires before they become like big explosions ah and he comes back from that and is clearly like traumatised from it and I think it it's maybe it's not there like too obvious but i think it's yeah it But we kind of start to realise that Gary is just he starts to treat the forties like it is a bit more real. um And you say says that doesn't have plans, but they always planned it pretty much only last for the war. So it's six series and the first one is set in 1940 and the following are set pretty much in each year of the war and that it concludes when the war concludes. Because I would just contrast it with Aloholo and Dad's Army, the obvious other ones, to contrast it the way from previous generations, both doing wartime, both treating it as a situation for a bit of a farce and a background for a farce with characters that you get very fond of. But also with, you know, it's pretty much a recent... They have plot lines going, Aloholo does particularly. But still, you know, it's not the story of René's journey
Speaker: yeah that's How he became a different person through the course of the war, for example. They're the kind of classic sitcom set up of the characters are not changed by the end of it because you need full for the situation to work. It's got to be the same next week.
Speaker: whereas although it's is's technically sitcom it's got a half hour format i would probably class goodnight sweetheart as a comedy drama um it's it is serialized and stuff and i said it unlike say dad's army um and it it follows stuff in real time there's a lot of references to dates and what's going on and events um and and stuff so yeah at the start we're in the middle of the blitz and then we get to a point later on and there's interesting stuff like phoebe commenting about the fact that life's even more dull in the war now that they haven't got the blitz going on like i'd say well at at least when they were coming over you know we could have some fun we could watch the dog fights and cheer our guys on when they got one of their lockdown
Speaker: and Now it's just more shortages and bad news. um And we're with Gary because we kind of know that be it there there will be an end in sight one day.
Speaker: But they don't. And Gary's problem when he tries to live there, as he points to a out, is he wakes up one morning, looks in the mirror and goes, like oh, look, it's the moron who faked his own death in the 90s to come and live in the world of air raids and shortages. And you're the only one who knows they've got four more years of this.
Speaker: But i the series goes weirder later on in that. Well, and I love that actually it changes from probably a out of series four, certainly by series five. And they start playing around with the time travel aspect of it far more.
Speaker: So ah Gary is the only one who can go through this sort of the time portal with early on is those rules. But then stuff got going wrong with it. so Some people can come through the Niners. Some people managed to get through to the Fortis. I really enjoy when it kind of starts going that bit stranger. Yeah, you've got to do that. if Yeah, if it's if it's lasting for years, you've got to start mixing up the the thing that seems like it's locked in, isn't it? He he is such an interesting character because he is... At one point, Phoebe just says to him, why don't you stop moaning for a bit? Because he's so suddenly so miserable to discover that he's trapped there. And this is their this is actually their lives that he's been popping in on for an entertaining diversion and to get to swan around with his fake money and... and
Speaker: ah and like luxuries that he's able been able to bring back with him. And yeah it at some points he reminds me a bit of Angus Deaton's character in One Foot in the Grave even, the peevish. Yeah, he's just really peevish sometimes, but then then he comes back to be. So and it's an interesting interesting to contrast contrast him and Peter Davison as you specifically younger men.
Speaker: who have gone to create new lives for themselves or or attempted by new lives for themselves. And Davison ends up loving it at the the university and is and is heartbroken when he thinks it might all come to an end. But he tries to be, well, not necessarily heartbroken, but but he because he tries to, he says, you know, he'd probably go and get a job in London or something. but you know you know he doesn't want to you know he he really feels that he belongs there where the place that he's gone to whereas gary in this um it's clearly cut between the two and that's something that's just going to stay as the case because he tries to make the cut and can't
Speaker: four hours i spent wandering around looking for razor blades you think i could find any thing that gets me is you know they've got some, but they're keeping them under the counter for the regulars. Tell me about it. And the queues. There's queues everywhere for everything. there I asked one bloke what he was queuing for, and he didn't know. he just saw the queue and got on the end of it. mean, what's happening to people?
Speaker: Yeah, i I think probably when I originally viewed it as well, i as always thought, maybe just because I enjoyed the difference of them being in the 40s, I always thought he would probably prefer the forties But actually, when I come back um and so re-watch it,
Speaker: it's it's clear actually just how much he does love Yvonne and in these episodes when he comes back he is he's not just pleased to be back in the 90s with football on telly and stuff it is like her and like as well that he's missed and he's so pleased to be able to see her again and spend time with her Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: There's some um in terms of saying that this feels more dated than the other two. This is the ah the only one that had a joke in it. Well, suppose there's there's the mother in law jokes in them and and in Reggie Perry, of course. and in that This one has um a joke. It's his friend's name.
Speaker: Played by the guy from who always be the guy from bread. Ron. Ron, thank you, Ron. koby now I had a bit thing for Ron in this first series. like I can see why. He's quite cute. um he um He has a line about, oh talk about how mad some people are, oh all gullible people are. and Anyone who believes in David Icke and who fancies Fergie And it's like, wow, that's you're making a joke about how ugly a famous woman is.
Speaker: That's just what we did in the 90s. was, you wouldn't have got that in in previous the previous decades and you definitely wouldn't get it now. That's a very 90s specific thing. It's on the bed art, like pepper, like.
Speaker: I guess what must have been really felt like present day references and still clearly not what the idea of thinking about this might be dated in three years again when it gets repeated. They gradually kind of fit in, the try and fit in more sort 40s ones. and There's ongoing joke that Gary hates George Formby. Oh, right. yeah but is that right Because that seemed a bit extreme when he like rushed out of the cinema just because George Formey came on. i's right Yeah, it's kind of perfect throughout where like he comes on the radio and he'll just instantly grab um no good to to and turn it off.
Speaker: i'm And done this concludes fantastic. there is ah There is a later episode where he meets George Formey.
Speaker: um where he reg the police ed admitted in the 40s and Phoebe kind of reminiscing about 30s days and Gary obviously can't really join in on this because he has no memories of of of of that and trying to get ah remember when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia And it feels just like a history nerds kind of thing. Like, yeah, I'm kind of here for that stuff.
Speaker: And I suppose and maybe they maybe when they were pitching it, there was a bit of they mentioned Back to the Future, as ah although there isn't it's not quite the same. that There's still that thing that that's how you can get the comedy. You know, the comedy is going to come from this modern guy. who's there and he's trying to bluff his way and he bluffs and sometimes he gets it wrong. And yeah, and and but Phoebe talks about um old King Edward being a bit of a dish.
Speaker: And like, that's the kind of thing that like, i've I've listened to podcasts where they get to great lengths to explain his popularity and um then she did it more, quite more concisely than they do. And how just completely shocking it was when the king suddenly abdicated out of the blue, as far as the public were concerned,
Speaker: The other is where you kind of really understand the veneration they have for royalty. And it's quite contrasted with so Gary's where they're on the cover of Hello and stuff. so they Whereas in the 40s, they clearly feel that bit more untouchable and still, don't know, mythical is probably not quite the right and i word. But it's certainly, I think, a kind of...
Speaker: pre-60s view of the establishment and there's a bit more respect for royalties politicians in general that like gary quite struggles to grasp initially
Speaker: life it's a funny thing isn't it son yes Oh, thank God, an air raid. Oh, like it. Thought they might give us a rest tonight. No, don't panic. It's the docks that get it tonight. Apart from one bomb that falls on Gibbons Furniture Warehouse. What?
Speaker: Well, I mean, that is, intelligence leads us to believe that a bomb might hit Gibbons Furniture Warehouse, you know, and that's nowhere near here, is it? Gibbons. Gibbons. Sure, I used to know where that is. It's just around the corner.
Speaker: Jimmy Knapp. There's a topical joke for you.
Speaker: I don't know who Jimmy Naples is. No, and why? and id mean, even in the 90s, he was like so he was he was um the leader of the Railwaymen's Union. union so they were and they were quite quite, they were quite strikey. They were one of the more strikey ones.
Speaker: in the TUC. and And then he became president of the TUC, the General Trade Union Congress, in the mid-90s. So he would be someone who would have been in the news quite a bit and around talking about strikes and things. So that's why it was if you had a very strong Scottish accent and and was very gruff.
Speaker: And so, yeah, you've got the communication skills of Jimmy Knapp is a ah joke. There's there's probably... harder to follow now than the jokes about the abdication crisis at a distance, because you at least you're more likely to have pick that up.
Speaker: You know what I thought? I would probably have got references to seventy s union visas, which are much better. Oh, you would, yeah. It's the 90s ones, it's like the tail end of it, to be honest. It's much more exciting in the 70s. Well, I see. would get slightly surprised that by the 90s you've still got those um as household names yeah i just kind presume that thatcher would really kind of put the nails in the coffin um and with that and by the midnight is no we're well past and i'm looking ahead for roll on new labor and new world yeah yeah yeah but i think you know think you'd get him on question time sometimes that sort thing yeah yeah i i'm hoping
Speaker: but i do feel increasingly come across more people who will appreciate goodnight sweetheart for what it is because it i think it's a good comedy drama um and it's certainly there's an i don't think there's going to be many things that would do this um whole aside from the whole bigamy affair sa sasha of things But it's the it's and it is part yet that attention to detail of doing it in real time of, you know, Gary visits 1st of May 1940 when it is of May 1993 or whatever. And yeah, they down to stuff like the daylight savings time changed during the war, which means that he managed to manages to do New Year at midnight in the 1940s and in the 1990s one Oh, that's really clever. Yeah. And there are other episodes where later on where they explore the impact of it all on Gary. And there's one that I was doing called Have You Ever Seen a Dream Walking? All the episode titles are based on 40s songs and 40s films and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker: But, yeah, there's just one where especially she Gary's having very vivid dreams and starts to be confronted by both the women in his life and by Ron, because though it's not really seen here. It's clear that it sort goes on that there's this not an equal friendship. Gary uses Ron for...
Speaker: not yeah yeah it's printing but emotionally i think he leans on ron far more and isn't there he's not he's not as good a friend um enough to to run because he's trying to run two lives basically and it's quite hard work and he's and he's confronted by all these things that clearly have been in the back of his mind so yeah i think it's sometimes he could be you know on the surface he's not might not be the greatest character but it's all sort of there and increasingly juggling difficult to try and keep his both of his lives happy as they become increasingly full so by the end of the second series Gary decides to open his own 40s collectibles shop because it's got quite a lot stock at hand. It's easily obtainable. And they're building over where the passage is, this Ducat's Passage alleyway down to the forties, and this will give him a route, and so he can just nip out the back of the shop, grab some forties stuff, come back quite unwell. Never entirely work out how that is a viable business model, as God knows how much he's actually opened. But it works quite well. Yeah, it was quite well for the that he gives him a job because he works for himself where he can just keep disappearing off to the forties to, you know, smooch in air raid shelters and that kind of thing. Meet Noel Coward yeah, they make Noel Coward a regular character in the latest series, which I just think is like the gore of you. Yeah. I really like him as well. Tried to teach Phoebe how to speak proper. And you get a bit of like difference there from her perceptions of class and what that means, you know, for the future. And Gary's ones are all egalitarian and stuff. Yeah.
Speaker: Am I remembering rightly that they recast both of the female leads? Did that at the same time? Yes, so after the third series, both women want to see the thing, and so, yep, come back, and we completely, yeah, just don't mention anything about the fact that these are entirely different women. And it's probably sort of down to cast changes and stuff, or which ones people prefer, yeah. They're both kind of at a point of their characters developing stuff where it's but i think around to the point where um
Speaker: no they gi at one point both case of Gary's women are pregnant and because ah wouldn't that be hilarious and and yeah she's launched her own business and and it does become very 90s on trend like later on like while series 6 she's going off for meetings with Tony Blair and and stuff and she's become this powerful businesswoman and they're preparing for the so turn of the millennium and Gary's preparing for the end of the war is it bad son go on I can take it
Speaker: I'm sorry. and looks like you've lost your leg. Oh, not another one. Gary, you lost that leg five years ago when he got drunk and fell down a coal hole.
Speaker: You'll be all right, Albert. You've just had a bang on the edge. so there was the one-off revival episode and after these sort of six in the 90s uh 2016 the bbc did this then sitcom season um where they um sort of revived a load of sort and old and sitcoms so um they did new versions of are you being served and porridge john said good night sweetheart and recreated lost episodes of Hancock's Half Hour, that's the two part, and also did pilots for some sort of new sitcoms, and a couple of them went off and got done. um And by the timings of that meant that it was now the 60s for Gary, um and the Beatles are about to come along and stuff, which is a bit of an issue for Gary, because he's been spending the last 20 years claiming he wrote load of their songs, and um along with many other pop artists and stuff. But,
Speaker: And ends up coming back to the and and present. And ed it it was really kind of well set up for um revival then. always be bitter and sad about it they revived bloody porridge instead and it was crap um but i' um nonetheless I'm very happy with with with with what we um get and I think yeah it it remains enjoyable for me across its run and it's quite
Speaker: satisfying conclusion it is a conclusion i say they were always planned to do you know if they could the six the six years of the war um and so it so sits and very nicely with things changing in gary's life and things changing with i say as as the war changes and things go on there yeah
Speaker: I went into it with the question in my head, could you swap? You couldn't probably, Leonard Rossiter is irreplaceable. You could make a show like that with someone else, but it wouldn't be anything like, it would just be different.
Speaker: Could you swap Peter Davison and Nicholas Lindhurst in their respective roles? Iron out the age difference, forget that. yeah Because they're not entirely dissimilar. though They're of a similar stature.
Speaker: But they do give, I think maybe Peter Davison, or at least the performance he gives in Peculiar Practice, is a bit is just a bit too nice to convey, do the bigamy. You think it's too nice to be... To pull off the bigamy. Gary Sparrow. Yeah, because Gary, you I mean, you know, when he's at the beginning of the episode, he thinks she's pregnant and they've been struggling to have, de' been trying for a baby unsuccessfully. And then he said and um when when when you realize he thinks she's celebrating being pregnant. And when he realises she isn't,
Speaker: he um He says, oh, well, don't worry about that. Any idiot can make a baby. And um it's like he's so insensitive. Whereas I don't think Peter Davison but was... I see what you mean in that even when, say, he's Tristan in All Creatures and he's... He's getting up to slightly nefarious things. you you all You always kind of believe that it's, you know, with good intent. He's being mischievous rather than actually being intending to do something outright horrible and nasty.
Speaker: Yeah, or even disregarding someone else's feelings. Like in this Gary, because the landlady annoys him by accusing him of having sex with Phoebe, he tells us she is. He goes, yeah, yeah, we are. We've been shagging all day up to words for that effect. Sexual acrobatic, sexual aerobics. Yeah, acrobatics. Couldn't swing a cafe and let alone do acrobatics. You put that news out about a woman in the 1940s and she is, you know, she's really angry at him because she says, you know, she's been getting shunned in the queue for the fish shop. It's all very well than thinking it, Rob, but you straight out confirming it is completely different. Yeah, that's a really big deal. And so he's got a bit, he does that because he's peevish and the landlady is annoying him. And he doesn't think of the effect it's going to have on her. But then that's and that's the thing that all these series deal with in different ways. And that's maybe what what Good Night, Sweetheart has more in common with with Reginald Perrin is that their main guy is doing his thing.
Speaker: and other people are kind of getting getting friendly fire or collateral damage as he's doing it. The harm that Leonard Rossiter's character does to his family, ultimately it sort of gets laughed off, but it's not really thought about. and He can be quite, I think, he's sarky in that way. yeah bit um hair a bit, I guess, so short-tempered, or at least...
Speaker: He's with short foresight. He doesn't plan these like enough of it ahead. He's just trying to cope with things day to day, which is partly why his attempts to go to the forties doesn't work out in that it hasn't really figured out what he's going to do when he gets there. and he's well at some point clearly he's going to run out of money and um i think he just thought he'd run the he'd he'd move in with phoebe and they'd run the pub as if that'd be it not kind of really thinking about the fact that actually like they're seeing one another but you know she's still married her husband's in a and prisoner of war camp um and um
Speaker: No, she's not going to let him move in on the fly straight away when they've not even discussed it. and and Although terms she she's she's well up for it, it isn't it, until it's pointed out that tongues will wag even if you say he's a lodger. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: We didn't talk that much about Reg. I would... Does Reg get less annoying or more annoying? I kind of feel like... He's grown up over time, but um he's always this kind of sort of dim-witted. They do kind of try and expand his character of um And the first episode is Gary asks a policeman in the 90s for directions. And it turns out that policeman is the grandson of Reg. um And occasionally the 90s one does pop up again. they're completely identical apart from the 90s one has a wig. and yeah It's the same actor. Yeah.
Speaker: I'll be kind know early on about sort of like residents in the fort is he's got a wife who's things is having it off with all the sailors basically. um And yeah yeah, he is quite dim and that and he's not really got much of a sort background. But as sort of time goes on, and we find out that um he and had ah a an e affair with a woman some years ago and has a little boy he doesn't know about.
Speaker: they get brought into the series and so there is a bit more to him um and you can kind of see that he's he's got a good heart even if he's completely um it's you know it's it's it's there for sort of comic effect um and i'm pleased when it's not overused too much um but i think partly he gets brought in a bit more because um in the first series um phoebe's dad's there and ah eric and then i think the sort of actor decides either if he decides to leave or he or he's got other work he couldn't can't come back but they get rid of him and so that means reg kind of can step into it's not the same role at all because um of eric was a sort of
Speaker: grumpy but like bloke he didn't like his daughter going off seeing Gary quite reasonably frankly and Roger's nowhere near that self-assertive or intelligent but um here busy eyes you don't need as many people in the scene basically had so here's a question.
Speaker: Of the the three shows we've discussed, they present four different worlds, really, two two in Goodnight, Sweetheart. If you were running away today, and you've got to you've got no choice, they're coming to get you. You've got to pick one. You've got fourth one. Which one are you jumping to? 1970s suburbia? Are you jumping to nineteen eighty s academia?
Speaker: Are you jumping to 1990s television repairing and fraud? Or are you jumping to 1940s? I'm being cruel. I'm splitting that into two choices. you can't but You can't be Gary. You can't be jumping back and forth in the 1940s. Because then you would just, obviously you'd choose that. That would be the most fun. but if you had to pick one of Gary's two or one of the other two, get where are you going?
Speaker: I don't think I'd cope in the 80s academia world. No, because otherwise that really should just be the obvious and option. and The 90s world Gary's in, i think I've realised that it hints at these ah um economic issues at the time. Yvonne and Gary are struggling to so move off their estate and start a home. Yeah, this is the John Major recession era, isn't it? Yeah. Cool Britannia is not there yet, maybe by the end, but not yet, yeah.
Speaker: i mean, I'd have to be insane to go live in the forties, really. I think, like Gary, I think it's a nice place to visit. um But as much as I also so frequently acknowledge that the 70s is not an ideal place to permanently reside, um Reggie's life is...
Speaker: quite nice and he's 46 the kids have left home and he's got a you know a nice house in suburbia with or can walk to the station um it seems ideal um and he's got a a job for life of there with sunshine desserts
Speaker: i'm sure it's got a good pension Yeah, I'm sure he's paid off his mortgage. there's ah There was ah a line in that episode about somebody having um driven, crashed his car or something. He said, oh, crashed it into the front of a house that was worth £40,000 or something like that. so Everyone sort of is... your mansion um yes i'm very much if i'm ready in this i have definitely paid off my mortgage um because i know it's 1976 i know what the inflation was and at that point in the secondies so yeah i def i've definitely paid off um and the mortgage and i want to go live with elizabeth and the cats um and i like i really like red roster shirts oh no oh yeah yeah yeah
Speaker: he's nice striped he's got He's got a really nice pink and white one or and at one point. And it seems to be permanent summer there. that helps too. So yes, i'm I'm very much... so but i shouldn't really be a surprise. But with the realities of the Thirling Tears, I feel that suburban life Reggie's got will be pretty foolproof from it. How about you, Pete?
Speaker: I'm tempted in many ways. The 90s has its draw. The music scene is about to kick off the club nights that I was far too shy to go to when I was a teenager. And I've tried to make up for it subsequently. But that would be a draw. But likewise, ah i love the 1940s aesthetic. But yeah, people are constantly trying to kill you and there's not much food. So I would, while the 70s,
Speaker: thing is cool, I think I would go for 1980s academia, I think. As someone had the whole tone of very peculiar practice about the horrendous introduction of market forces in universities, and as someone who works in the marketing department of a university, I'd be ahead of that curve. i mean Me and Bob Buzzard would get together, and I'd be able to steer him in the in the direction that that Rosemarie would probably terrify him away from. But I would also definitely want to hang out with Rosemarie because she's just one of the coolest characters in the entirety of of of fiction, I think.
Speaker: So it's time for Artes card scale. Basically, pesleye if we're going to work through these shows. Zero being you'd rather watch Test Card. Five, you'd spend hard-earned money on a luxurious box set it. Where are you placing Reggie Perrin? Out out of five, it's... um um'm feeling I'm struggling to... just I haven't followed It's not love at first sight. i don I don't want to immediately go and watch it all, but I think it clearly is really good. ah
Speaker: I've taken it for granted, having seen so many clips. It's clearly a four. It's clearly four out of five for me. i would I probably wouldn't buy the Deluxe Collector's Edition box set, but I'd pick up a nice package of a dos with with all the episodes. here And you?
Speaker: i i i I'd get a job maybe four and a half so' i'm I'm half I'm I sometimes maybe I can get too close to Reggie yeah so he he also worked in sales and marketing I've realised I've been watching it recently I identify with vastly much of this even more now
Speaker: i am a very peculiar practice for me i I'm probably sitting more on a three at the moment I'm intrigued enough to watch more but I don't think I've watched enough of it to be as sort of completely sold um on everyone yet but you you talk about it continues to entice me even even more I've explained to you that you should have liked it more than you did I spent a lot of time doing that to people laughter laughter
Speaker: but How about you? Well, unsurprisingly, it is absolutely fine. For me, it's up there. easy to yeah shows I've watched in their entirety more times than any other show. at That and the reboot of Battlestar Galactica are probably the two shows I've watched the most of any shows ever.
Speaker: Well, no surprise that Go Night, Sweetheart is the easy five for me. It's my b blake desert island discs pick of DVD boxes. And likewise, I generally spend a lot of time, I feel, trying to convince other people how wonderful it is.
Speaker: I don't, I don't, I have no idea what you're talking about. I mean, it's better than the test card for sure. No, yeah.
Speaker: Don't, don't even tease. That was the final episode of Cathode, right? No, it's, it's. Pete fell off a bridge with his clothes on the air. It is clearly clearly in the upper echelons of what it is. Yeah, it's definitely I've got give it a four. I mean, yeah, I would definitely watch more episodes of it. I think it's something that I took for granted a bit as just being sort of background TV, although slightly quirky when it was really on.
Speaker: And it's the kind of thing where, I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't splash out on on a collector's edition box set, but if it was coming up on Talking Pictures TV, I'd seriously link that and i and I'd make my way through it. I think, yeah, that's that it's that kind of zone. Yeah.
Speaker: But think, All of these are pretty well available. um As I was recording this, Reginald Perry's on iPlayer. It seems to spend an awful lot of time on on there happily. um but The full thing, I think it's only Series 1.
Speaker: It might be, yes. But maybe more will come. It seems to come on repeats on gold. You can see the gold where I originally managed to catch it. And yeah.
Speaker: um don't think any of these are particularly rare dvds or i think at the moment and crop of funds and certainly special pairing goodnight sweetheart crop of one repeats a fair bit Yeah, Peculiar Practice. um It's not up on any of the official streamers at the moment, but you can find it if you just Google it and it's filter my video, you will find it. But um but the the DVD set is great. you get all You get both series plus the movie and there's a couple of commentary tracks on it as well. And it's it's ah it's and it's a nice um a nice use of DVD. It's well worth it.
Speaker: What about Goodnight Sweetheart? Because that's that's that in a big, big, big box. but it it It has a big and box everything, although I'm still with my individual DVDs that I saved up my pocket money for as a teenager in HMV and gradually built up M4. and for yes and it's on them of course, it's on you can get it on i watched it on Amazon via ITVX trial subscription.
Speaker: We're closing down for the night at Cafe Reyes, so thank you for listening to the Cafe Reyes podcast. This has been a HBTV production from the Midlands. You've been listening to me, Hannah.
Speaker: And me, Pete. And as some nuns are angrily hoovering around us, we definitely need to make make our way out of the cafe. We hope you'll join us again next time for another chat about CRT-era telly. For now, we wish you goodbye, and please do remember to turn off your set.
Speaker: Goodbye. i
Speaker: you
Speaker: Two, three, four, make them sweat outside the door. Five, six, seven, eight, always pays to make them wait. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
Speaker: ah reggie sit down thank you c j
