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Vintage classics, now available on various formats and platforms.

Started by Glebe, February 13, 2020, 06:15:32 PM

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Glebe



Sitcoms may come and go, but there's nowt so handsome as Royston Pumpcrofts' Behind Closed Veils, all episodes of which are now available on DVD for the first time - ever!

Running on BBC1 from 1979-1992, BCV (as it was known to fans!) was set in the fictional Northern town of Tiddlesleydale, and saw a fantastic cast eke out a series through sheer guile and determination, not to mention a bad script! The series came about when Pumpcrofts had a falling out with writing partner Jimmy Snedmeads, with whom he had co-created such classic comedy series as Mind Y'Prunes, Boy! and All Hands to the Jetstreams. Pumpcrofts had been mulling the idea of rum North-com for some time, and Tiddlesleydale was to prove the perfect setting for a host characters, some good, some bad, some fucking awful.

The show starred Kathy Staff as Jinny Batesober, Tiddlesleydale nosiest prude! Jinny had her hooter in everybody's business, and could often be found leaning out her window and yelling obscenities at passing townfolk! Jinny's best friend was Pithy Dungtwists, essayed with great affection by an effervescent Pat Coombs. The pair were a menace at the bingo hall, and could knock a Pakistani dead with an umbrella at fifty paces.

Lesser-known actor Putrid Barkers played Mr. Trubbletees next door, a man with a penchant for Pithy's "sumptuous" Lumsdens (kind of Northern teacakes) and an eye for gossip, be it spotting Mrs. Twigsworth buying ladies hose at the cornershop or "the Chinese man at No. 20" popping across to Mr. Cartwright's for "his morning seeing-to!"

Rounding out this cast of miscreants was a young David Morrissey as Pervis Narrows, the local entrepreneur with a nice line in binoculars. And is if all that wasn't enough to whet your palate, bear in mind the controversy over Staff's catchphrase, "Oh give over!", which was remarkable similar to the exact same catchphrase of her The Last of the Summer Wine character Nora Batty. Summer Wine inventor Roy Clarke threatened to sue Pumpcrofts for plagiarism, but Pumpcrofts placated him with a handy backhander of a rumoured cool ten bob.

Meanwhile - and surprizingly!, Staff was becoming something of a cultural icon of the '80s, with many homemade Jinny Batesober masks making an appearance at riots, happenings and protests around the country. All it all, it was a desperate time, the worst of times, and you can relieve it all on DVD (NOW!) priced £54.PP+postage and packaging.

Pingers


Glebe

Quote from: Pingers on February 13, 2020, 06:48:14 PMMarvellous

Thank you, Pingers!



Ask y'granddad about the 1970's, and he's highly likely to real off a list of crass, non-PC, healthy-and-safety defying things that were acceptable in those days. We're all wrapped in cotton wool now, but back then you couldn't move for offensiveness, and the TV schedules were crammed with the hideous likes of The Black and White Minstrel Show and Wheeltappers and Shunters.

But one particularly odious creation went a little too far, even by the standards of the day. Ronnie Shugworth's controversial sitcom Me Neighbour's a Darkie! has not seen the light of day since it's initial ITV broadcast in 1973, and with good reason. Shugworth, who had previously created such situation comedy disasters as She'll Be Coming Round the Tea Urn! and I'd Do Anything for a Fiver!, hit a new low with this incredibly nasty piece of tat, which made Love thy Neighbour look like a plea for multiculturalism!

The series starred Reg Varney as Horace Meddlebums, a grouchy traffic warden who took his bad moods home with him. His loving and attentive wife Deirdre (Yootha Joyce) has slaved away for years to keep Horace happy, but when West Indian man Charlie Delberts (Derek Griffiths) moves in next door poor Deirdre has her work cut out keeping things civil!

"Their sort ain't welcome here!" cries Horace in first episode, 'The New Arrival'. Comic mayhem ensues over the coming episodes, with gags about marijuana, reggae and witch doctors coming thick and fast! Horace's catchphrase, "There he is, the Wild Man of Borneo!" was, sad to say, briefly popular around the less salubrious pubs and clubs of Great Britain for a short time, but Charlies' classic comeback "Look at the big gammon head on you, mate!" earned uproarious cries of "Touché!" from Land's End to John O' Groats!

Varney, Joyce and Griffiths were the main stars of the show, but there were occasional cameos. Robin Askwith would sometimes pop up as rock raver Gary Nadsacks, while Paul Eddington made a memorable appearance as Doctor Bejams. Otherwise, the show has been largely forgotten, with everyone involved having good reason to leave it off their CVs. For while Varney himself allegedly considered it "Just a bit of a lark!", Joyce subsequently admitted in a 1977 interview with TVTimes that her decision to join the series had been "something of a miscalculation." Meanwhile, Griffiths confessed his grievances in a 2012 interview with Bodfans.co.uk, saying "It was a difficult period for me. I was getting paid fuck all for Play School and Play Away - even Jeremy Irons thought he'd never make it after that. It was actually Reg who introduced me to Stephen 'Blakey' Lewis, which led on to Don't Drink the Water the following year. After that, things started to pick up."

In any case all six episodes of this dreadful connivance have now resurfaced thanks to Network DVD, who frequently scour the ITV vaults for forgotten 'gems' to restore. "There was a Blu-ray release mooted, but sadly the video tape upscales were shite, to put it gently," explains technical adviser Roger Deakins. Ne'ertheless, one can now 'enjoy' this forgotten nightmare for the first time - on a digital disc format!

Pingers

Bless your heart for these Glebe.

Interestingly, my dad was recently in the Royal Free having gout removed from his chin, and Derek Griffiths was on the same ward having emergency toe reduction. He was beside himself as the pain relief wore off, and do you know what he shouted at the nurse? "Look at the big gammon head on you mate!". Incredible. The nurse was Asian mind, but morphine will do that to you.