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End Of Part One: The Complete Series (DVD review).

I suspect I missed the two series of ‘End Of Part One’ because I was still coming home from work when it was on or something like that. Then again, I’m not sure if the target audience was adult or teenage. If you remember this television series from 1979-1980, then this is an entire piss-take of TV shows and such from then and nails it completely. Such work depends on good scriptwriters, which it had in the hands of David Renwick and Andrew Marshall, both of whom went on to even greater things.

It was also helped by a cast who were willing to take on anything that was asked for them and doing things that were totally against what they expect. Seeing Sue Holderness doing comedy here really does make me wonder why she wasn’t stretched further in her appearances in ‘Only Fools And Horses’. Denise Coffey is a veteran of such shows and the key player which doesn’t take away from the others here. Everything is taken literally. My favourite line from series one is Denise Coffey saying, ‘Do you take me for an idiot?’ Fred Harris deadpans, ‘That’s a fair swop.’ Totally priceless. This is really a hidden classic that really needs to be seen again if you are of an age to remember that decade.

EndOfPartOneDVD

Series Two progresses the madness with the Queen to be a secret bruiser of anyone taken to see her. They even spoof Hammer Films with ‘The Wigfinder’ and a cheap cartoon send-up called ‘Cheapo Cartoon Man’. The biggest eye-opener is episode four showing a Conservative Political Broadcast and realising that although the names have been changed, the policies are still the same and was scarily funny if it hadn’t had so much truth attached to it.

Although there was a little running out of steam in the last two episodes, I suspect it was more to do with running out of material to spoof than ideas, despite pulling on ‘The Great Escape’ from Hell to ‘Dead Of Night’ (1945). Saying that, watch in small doses of two episodes a day will restore your spirits and wonder where humour shows on the box have gone lately. I have several prolonged belly laughs with each episode and although youngsters today might not recognise the names, I suspect their parents will.

GF Willmetts

April 2015

(region 2 DVD: pub: Network 7953776. 2 DVDs 350 minutes 14 * 25 episodes. Price: about £10.60 (UK) if you know where to look)

cast: Denise Coffey, Tony Atiken, Fred Harris, Sue Holderness, David Simeon, Dudley Stevens and David J. Grahame

check out website: www.networkonair.com

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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