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Last Of The Summer Wine

Started by Custard, February 26, 2017, 04:14:40 PM

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Custard

So I've been watching this a fair bit recently, as it keeps popping up on the TV when I'm at work, and I gotta say, I'm surprised by how much it has been making me laugh.

And it's not like these are early episodes. The ones I've seen have Compo's son in them and the bloke off On The Buses

So now I'm thinking, were the early series of this actually quite good? And worth checking out?

If anyone can answer this, CaB can!

*INSERT PICTURE OF A RUNAWAY BATH HERE*

hewantstolurkatad

It's a show that's pretty much designed from the ground up to be very comfortable, an extremely light breezy watch, isn't it? I get why there might be some hate levelled towards it taken up a slot in the evenings when something better could be on, but as an early afternoon piece of TV filler it's extremely hard to fault.

Serge

It was better in the early years when it was just three unemployed (they weren't specifically 'retired' to begin with) men wandering around Holmfirth talking nonsense - the two Blamire series and Foggy's first run. The Seymour period is when it started slipping, which is nothing to do with Michael Aldridge, who is fine, but because he was an 'inventor', this is when it seemed like every week he would invent something that would end up propelling Compo through a hedge/down a hill/into the river, etc. Foggy's second run was ok too, mainly because Brian Wilde is always worth watching, but after that, I lose track and all interest.

As a kid (and now, to be fair), Clegg was always my favourite, he always had some gnomic comic utterance for any situation. Peter Sallis is now 96!

I always think it really started to suffer when Roy Clarke started to bring in 'comic characters' such as the nearly-blind Eli, penny-pinching Aunty Wainwright and of course, Howard and Marina. But then, that's always been there to an extent  - even in the first series, there were the librarians having an affair.

If you've never seen it, I recommend checking out 'Getting Sam Home', the 90 minute episode from the mid-eighties based on a novel that Clarke had written based on the characters a decade earlier (in the novel, the trio included Blamire, who was replaced by Foggy in the TV version.) It's full of killer lines and scenes, and shows why the show was so well regarded at one point.

Gulftastic

Mid-80's run, with the imperial phase line up of Compo, Foggy and Cleggy was a good time to watch.

Sadly, it soon gave way to wacky stunts and repeated catchphrases.

The prequel, 'First Of The Summer Wine', was partly filmed at the Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds. During the filming, I had a summer job at a video rental shop opposite. Some bloke claiming to be from
the crew came in and tried to buy a 'Howard The Duck' cardboard advertising thing from our window, but the owner refused to sell. To this day I've never been able to work out why.

Replies From View

The thing that always baffled me about Last of the Summer Wine is that they kept making them, when all you really need to do is repeat the same episodes over and over again and nobody would be able to tell the difference.


Quote from: Gulftastic on February 26, 2017, 05:02:33 PM
The prequel, 'First Of The Summer Wine'

Absolute arse, that was.

ASFTSN

"Compo finds body of child in burnt-out car"

Shit Good Nose

My dad's favourite program of all time.  Unfortunately.  And not that he had poor taste either.  He just fucking loved it.  Ergo, whenever it was on, I had to sit through it until I was old enough to go off and do my own thing.

I absolutely hate it, always have.  And, beyond Summer Wine, Roy Clarke's name appearing on screen always sends shivers down my spine - never liked Open All Hours either, and I think Keeping Up Appearances is the worst most hateful "A-list" British sit-com ever made.


What's interesting about the Michael Bates era is that Clegg quite often seemed to be the leader of the group.  That's the only thing I took away from millennia of Last of the Summer Wine.

Black_Bart

Most relaxing theme tune ever.

Open all Hours was better, if only for Linda Barron and her bosom.

Did anyone ever discover how Compo got his compo?

Captain Z

Quote from: Black_Bart on February 27, 2017, 01:28:31 PM
Did anyone ever discover how Compo got his compo?

He won it in a compo.

Black_Bart

You don't win compensation. Is it one of those things you never find out? (I watched most of LOTSW from the early 80s when I moved to Britain, yet can't remember if it's ever mentioned)

Custard

I thought his surname was probably Compost or something

Black_Bart

William Simmonite. He used to drink his tea from the saucer. As a young child, I thought this was anti-establishment at it's finest.

amnesiac

just used to remind me that it was school the next day

JesusAndYourBush

I've never seen any of the episodes with Michael Bates because the BBC doesn't seem to want to repeat them.  For some reason whenever they repeat any very-long-running series it's always the more recent episodes, when many people got into a series part-way through or perhaps weren't born or were too young to see the earlier ones, so it might be a good idea to repeat the earliest ones not the more recent ones we've seen umpteen times already.  The earliest episode I've seen is (after a quick look at wiki) is probably a series 5 episode.

Has anyone noticed that Still Open All Hours seems to have turned into Last Of The Summer Wine?

Custard

Did he ever actually get hold of Nora Batty?



Bet he pulled those tights off with his teeth

And the tights underneath those tights

BlodwynPig

It just reminds me of the ghosts in my grandparents house in Shipley.

BlodwynPig

To clarify. A long weekend stay at my grandparents in Shipley...the era of Sutcliffe just passed but still looming large in the minds of West Yorkshire.

Last of the Summer Wine on the TV, crumpets by the fire, grandfather in the shadows puffing his pipe, grandmother early-stages of dementia.

Now the comedy is over.

The mantlepiece clock strikes the hour, the china bulldog gazes mournfully towards the door.

It's time for bed. It's time for the ghosts to emerge in my nightmares. All is still in the house. Just a creaking sound from beneath the bed.

Serge

Quote from: Black_Bart on February 27, 2017, 01:34:48 PMIs it one of those things you never find out?

Like whatever is in the matchbox that he gets out to show people? Most people gasp in shock, only Clegg smiles indulgently.

I always assumed it was short for 'Compost' as he was a scruff....though I supposse that doesn't really make sense.


Replies From View

Quote from: Black_Bart on February 27, 2017, 01:28:31 PM
Most relaxing theme tune ever.

It's the "dead soon" tune as far as I'm concerned.

Everyone dead soon.


As a tune.

Uncle TechTip

Quote from: Shameless Custard on February 27, 2017, 01:50:34 PM
Did he ever actually get hold of Nora Batty?



Bet he pulled those tights off with his teeth

And the tights underneath those tights

She had to ward him off with a brush. That's how much of a sexual predator Compo was.

Replies From View

Quote from: Serge on February 27, 2017, 04:25:47 PM
I always assumed it was short for 'Compost' as he was a scruff....though I supposse that doesn't really make sense.

I always assumed it was short for "Compost" because of dead soon.

Glebe

It's strange, it was a childhood staple, and while the characters where great and there was an appealing gentleness to it, it actually used to really depress me. Not knocking the performances or Roy Clarkes writing, though. And I'd absolutely love to go down-dale in a bathtub.

SavageHedgehog

I thought the final trio of Russ Abbott, Brian Murphy and Burt Kwouk was pretty good and I quite enjoyed catching the odd episode in this era. So I would say it was cancelled too soon.

Glebe

Quote from: SavageHedgehog on February 28, 2017, 07:27:42 AM
I thought the final trio of Russ Abbott, Brian Murphy and Burt Kwouk was pretty good and I quite enjoyed catching the odd episode in this era. So I would say it was cancelled too soon.

I didn't see the last episode, but apparently they made a reference to Google - very modern!

Jockice

I can remember Foggy's first ever appearance. He said he was going to sort someone out and appeared in the next scene shaken up and with his glasses all skew-whiff, which I thought was pretty funny. Mind you, I was about ten.

Norton Canes

Quote from: Serge on February 27, 2017, 04:25:47 PMI always assumed it was short for 'Compost' as he was a scruff....though I supposse that doesn't really make sense

Compo Simmonite

QuoteDressed in scruffy trousers and Wellington boots, Compo rarely (if ever) worked for a living, preferring the lazy life. The name probably derived from the term 'compo' a shortened version of the word 'compensation', sometimes used to refer to people living off compensation from an on-the-job injury.

Gulftastic

Long after it had stopped being any good (in my eyes), I did tune in for the one with Compo's funeral. That was very touching. The theme tune had lyrics, which Bill Owen wrote. Sadly, youtube nor Daily Motion can provide a decent clip.

Replies From View

Quote from: Gulftastic on February 28, 2017, 01:02:33 PM
The theme tune had lyrics, which Bill Owen wrote.

QuoteThe Last of the Summer Wine

The last of the summer wine,
The sweet bouquet of memories,
Of you and I, as time goes by,
I still remember these.

The last of the summer wine,
When passing shadows still recur,
Of golden days, so young in love,
And that's the way we were.

We had our dreams,
To change the world,
As people rage,
But now we're known as the folk,
Who die of old age.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Gulftastic on February 28, 2017, 01:02:33 PM
Long after it had stopped being any good (in my eyes), I did tune in for the one with Compo's funeral. That was very touching. The theme tune had lyrics, which Bill Owen wrote. Sadly, youtube nor Daily Motion can provide a decent clip.

I think Owen wrote the lyrics quite a while after the show had been going. He also co-wrote Nora Batty's Stockings – and was an experienced songwriter.

*edit* Three different lyrics for the theme song: https://www.ephotozine.com/user/roelf-21479/blog/last-of-the-summer-wine----the-lyrics-512

The first were written by Roy Clarke, the next by Owen, which was later adapted by Alan Bell.

Gurke and Hare

I don't buy the compensation thing. Was he called Compo in First of the Summer Wine as well? I think that would be set before 'compo' as shorthand for compensation - if not the very idea of significant compensation for industrial injuries - was a thing.