Grace and Favour.
Created by David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd
Starring Mollie Sugden, John Inman, Wendy Richards, Frank Thornton and Nicholas Smith. 1992/3. All 12 episodes on DVD from Eureka Pictures!
The preservation of old jokes and comedy institutions is a noble pursuit. Let's give thanks to Leicester City whose underdog heroics saved the precious 50-year-long running joke of Tottenham's thwarted title ambitions (Spurs winning the league would've been like Charlies Brown finally getting to kick that football.) Seven years after the final episode of Are You Being Served? its creators, Croft and Lloyd, resurrected its most loved characters and jokes and sent them off to grow old gracelessly in a nice house in the country. The sitcom spinoff is usually an ill advised pursuit but by the first mention of Mrs Slocombe's pussy, (less than five minutes in) I was roaring with laughter, genuinely a little embarrassed by how much fun I was having.
It begins painfully though, with the news that Young Mr Grace has passed away - a tragic accident while out scuba diving with his young secretary Miss Lovelock (Joanne Heywood) in the Caribbean. My favourite moment in any episode would be when the geriatric Young Mr Grace would try to wave his walking stick in the air while telling the staff that, “You're all doing very well,” and then totter backwards alarmingly into the arms of his dolly bird nurse and secretary. I think that was one of the great recurring jokes of British comedy, right up there with Benny Hill slapping bald men on the head. After his funeral it is revealed that he has spent almost all the Grace Brothers pension fund (how very Robert Maxwell of him) and now all that is left is a nice country hotel. The five remaining cast members who made it through all ten series of the original programme – Mrs Slocombe (Sugden) Mr Humphries (Inman) Miss Brahms (Richards) Captain Peacock (Thornton) and Mr Rumbold (Smith) - head out to start a new life running a guest house hotel.
The new set up isn't particularly inspired. There's an anonymous, genteel theme tune that is especially unforgivable given how identifiable and distinctive the Are You Being Served one had been. The new supporting characters are a mixed bunch: Mr Moulterd (Billy Burden) is a country yokel so broad The Wurzels would have rejected him but his becoming daughter Mavis (Fleur Bennett) is a worthwhile addition, if only for her innocently amorous pursuit of Mr Humphries with whom she shares a bed. Another new aspect of Grace and Favour is that it has ongoing plot lines, that are developed over the series.
One aspect that it uses well is fancy dress. Back in the Grace Brothers department store there were often moments when cast members would turn up in some garish ensemble. Here they are always dressed to the nines, tottering around the farmyard in their best clobber to milk a cow or round up the pigs.
This DVD release has all 12 episodes from the 2 series that were filmed before the BBC canned it. The first series is genuinely entertaining. It's a nice change to have a silly comedy that it is only concerned with manipulating events towards the next joke: the legacy of The Office is that every sitcom I seem to see now is full of rich full characterisations, superb nuanced observation and sod all laughs. The quality does seem to dip in the second series though, particularly in an ill-advised and slightly desperate Rentaghost style episode.
It its there though for the purpose of squeezing a few more laughs out of some classic comic creations, and it succeeds. With apologies to Thornton and Smith who are endearing in their roles, watching Grace and Favour makes you savour how endlessly joyous the other three characters – Mrs Slocombe, Mr Humphries and Miss Brahms – were. Granted, a lot of jokes about Mrs Slocumbe are rather cruel, making fun of her size but there's considerable skill and grace in Sugden's ungainliness and her ever changing hair colours are a delight. Her “pussy” remarks and malapropism are endlessly funny – though they overuse the “And I am unanimous in that” line.
Mr Humphries is, I guess, writers Croft and Lloyd's attempt as straight men in a theatrical profession to reach an accommodation with the homosexuality they would encounter regularly. The original series benefited from the unique 70s double think where you could be overt and yet somehow coy simultaneously– like Mrs Slocombe's pussy, Mr Humphries could roll in on Monday morning after a weekend with some sailors beneath deck and yet somehow everybody colluded in the notion that his sexuality was ambiguous and that there was no other meaning than a concern for her cat. Here though he is a thoroughly neutered creature, shrivelling away from Mavis Moulterd's advances and yet somehow still more dignified and self aware than the other characters.
The revelation of this series though is how strong a character Miss Brahms is. Back in her shop days she spent her time fending off the advances of Trevor Bannister's Mr Lucas, backing up Mrs Slocombe or occasionally stabbing her in the back. Now her dolly bird days are gone and poignantly she is slowly growing into Mrs Slocombe. Some of the best moments are her attempts to put on airs with the country folk, and the moments when they slip. She is also the hero of the production because while the other cast members were all quite desperate for the work, she was thriving at the heart of Eastenders, but made time to join in the reunion of the show that made her famous, and did so enthusuaistically apparently.
Created by David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd
Starring Mollie Sugden, John Inman, Wendy Richards, Frank Thornton and Nicholas Smith. 1992/3. All 12 episodes on DVD from Eureka Pictures!
The preservation of old jokes and comedy institutions is a noble pursuit. Let's give thanks to Leicester City whose underdog heroics saved the precious 50-year-long running joke of Tottenham's thwarted title ambitions (Spurs winning the league would've been like Charlies Brown finally getting to kick that football.) Seven years after the final episode of Are You Being Served? its creators, Croft and Lloyd, resurrected its most loved characters and jokes and sent them off to grow old gracelessly in a nice house in the country. The sitcom spinoff is usually an ill advised pursuit but by the first mention of Mrs Slocombe's pussy, (less than five minutes in) I was roaring with laughter, genuinely a little embarrassed by how much fun I was having.
It begins painfully though, with the news that Young Mr Grace has passed away - a tragic accident while out scuba diving with his young secretary Miss Lovelock (Joanne Heywood) in the Caribbean. My favourite moment in any episode would be when the geriatric Young Mr Grace would try to wave his walking stick in the air while telling the staff that, “You're all doing very well,” and then totter backwards alarmingly into the arms of his dolly bird nurse and secretary. I think that was one of the great recurring jokes of British comedy, right up there with Benny Hill slapping bald men on the head. After his funeral it is revealed that he has spent almost all the Grace Brothers pension fund (how very Robert Maxwell of him) and now all that is left is a nice country hotel. The five remaining cast members who made it through all ten series of the original programme – Mrs Slocombe (Sugden) Mr Humphries (Inman) Miss Brahms (Richards) Captain Peacock (Thornton) and Mr Rumbold (Smith) - head out to start a new life running a guest house hotel.
The new set up isn't particularly inspired. There's an anonymous, genteel theme tune that is especially unforgivable given how identifiable and distinctive the Are You Being Served one had been. The new supporting characters are a mixed bunch: Mr Moulterd (Billy Burden) is a country yokel so broad The Wurzels would have rejected him but his becoming daughter Mavis (Fleur Bennett) is a worthwhile addition, if only for her innocently amorous pursuit of Mr Humphries with whom she shares a bed. Another new aspect of Grace and Favour is that it has ongoing plot lines, that are developed over the series.
One aspect that it uses well is fancy dress. Back in the Grace Brothers department store there were often moments when cast members would turn up in some garish ensemble. Here they are always dressed to the nines, tottering around the farmyard in their best clobber to milk a cow or round up the pigs.
This DVD release has all 12 episodes from the 2 series that were filmed before the BBC canned it. The first series is genuinely entertaining. It's a nice change to have a silly comedy that it is only concerned with manipulating events towards the next joke: the legacy of The Office is that every sitcom I seem to see now is full of rich full characterisations, superb nuanced observation and sod all laughs. The quality does seem to dip in the second series though, particularly in an ill-advised and slightly desperate Rentaghost style episode.
It its there though for the purpose of squeezing a few more laughs out of some classic comic creations, and it succeeds. With apologies to Thornton and Smith who are endearing in their roles, watching Grace and Favour makes you savour how endlessly joyous the other three characters – Mrs Slocombe, Mr Humphries and Miss Brahms – were. Granted, a lot of jokes about Mrs Slocumbe are rather cruel, making fun of her size but there's considerable skill and grace in Sugden's ungainliness and her ever changing hair colours are a delight. Her “pussy” remarks and malapropism are endlessly funny – though they overuse the “And I am unanimous in that” line.
Mr Humphries is, I guess, writers Croft and Lloyd's attempt as straight men in a theatrical profession to reach an accommodation with the homosexuality they would encounter regularly. The original series benefited from the unique 70s double think where you could be overt and yet somehow coy simultaneously– like Mrs Slocombe's pussy, Mr Humphries could roll in on Monday morning after a weekend with some sailors beneath deck and yet somehow everybody colluded in the notion that his sexuality was ambiguous and that there was no other meaning than a concern for her cat. Here though he is a thoroughly neutered creature, shrivelling away from Mavis Moulterd's advances and yet somehow still more dignified and self aware than the other characters.
The revelation of this series though is how strong a character Miss Brahms is. Back in her shop days she spent her time fending off the advances of Trevor Bannister's Mr Lucas, backing up Mrs Slocombe or occasionally stabbing her in the back. Now her dolly bird days are gone and poignantly she is slowly growing into Mrs Slocombe. Some of the best moments are her attempts to put on airs with the country folk, and the moments when they slip. She is also the hero of the production because while the other cast members were all quite desperate for the work, she was thriving at the heart of Eastenders, but made time to join in the reunion of the show that made her famous, and did so enthusuaistically apparently.
