004 Historical Comedy – Old
Wow, did I really listen to thirteen weeks of The Fosdyke Saga by Bill Tidy and John Junkin
from 1983? Based on the newspaper cartoon of the same name by Bill
Tidy, which is a parody of The Forsyte
Saga, I do think it would have been better transmitted live with an
audience, but never mind. Instead of
being about upper middle class people, The
Fosdyke Saga is about the poor and working class, and instead of being set
in London, it’s set in . . . Salford!
Josiah (Philip Lowrie) and Rebecca (Stephanie Turner) Fosdyke are
penniless when they are given a helping hand by Mr Ditchley who owns a
tripeworks. I missed the episode in
which Mr Ditchley dies and leaves the tripeworks to the Fosdykes instead of to
his wastrel son Roger (Christian Rodska), who seduces the Fosdykes’
not-too-bright daughter Victoria (an early role for Miriam Margoyles). Under the direction of the Fosdykes, the
tripeworks becomes an example of High Industrial Age success, not stopped even
by the coming of the First World War.
Albert Fosdyke (Enn Reitel) becomes a flying ace—indeed, the cliffhanger
for the final episode is whether he has survived. Tom Fosdyke (an early role for David
Threlfall) becomes a guard at the POW camp where he meets sausage-maker
Schmidt, with whom he wants to set up an alliance for sausage-making after the
war ends. Instead, he gets taken as a
POW himself. And the dastardly Roger
Ditchley keeps showing up like a bad penny to torment the Fosdykes. There are some gentle if amusing gags, my
favorite being the rivalry between Albert and the Baron von Rippendorf who
escalate the stunts they pull off while flying their planes (such as putting
grand pianos on the wings, taking a bath, and so on, getting more and more
outrageous). The Fosdyke Saga also starred David Timson, Nick Maloney, Nick
Revell, David English, John Dougall, Christopher Barr, Larry Lamb, John
Westerbrook, and David Ross, and was produced by Alan Nixon.
I was very impressed with King of Bath by Arnold Evans, originally from 1999, though it took
me awhile to settle in. A playful comedy series about the life of Beau Nash in
Bath, it won me over pretty quickly (and by the episode in which Nash’s Welsh
origins are jokingly teased out, I was starting to look forward to each new
episode). It also demonstrates what a
charming actor David Bamber can be (I’d heard him in at least one other radio
drama, but I’m sure I and most of the world know him best as the excruciating
Mr Collins from the 1995 Pride and
Prejudice). Naturally, King of Bath is also set in the
Regency, but it has quite a silly side to it.
Beau Nash is Master of Ceremonies in Bath but also the great
fixer-upper; he and his friends are constantly getting into scrapes out of which
he has to then extricate them. In the
first episode, he has to help his friend (?) Fanny (Alice Arnold), a young
actress and singer, deceive the aunt who pays for her upkeep that she isn’t, in
fact, a scandalous actress and singer.
Nash is often aided and abetted by Dr Cheyne and his maid Annie,
wonderfully played by Eiry Thomas (and who reminds me an incredible amount of
the maid Mercy in Sky Atlantic’s Jamestown,
one of the best TV dramas I’ve seen in a great long time). The Welsh episode is probably my favorite,
when Nash’s Welsh relation Pryderi (Isteyn Jones) comes visiting. Nash is quite keen to downplay his Welsh
origins and so will do anything to satisfy talentless painter Pryderi, who ends
up marrying the landlady of a coffee shop.
Things always end up all right for Nash, but he’s usually out of
pocket. There was also the story where
his nephew appeared, trying to set up a school, and Nash had to convince his
nephew’s father that the nephew had children so he would pay for the school,
and the child-labor-procurer that the children were dead with contagious
disease. The final episode was also
quite good, in which Nash finds out that his Methodist servant Ned has been
taking his cast-off clothes and once a year riding around as highwayman the Avon
Avenger. A very amusing series, once you
get into it. It was very ably directed
by Alison Hindell.
On the Ceiling was
an amusing and well-written (if simple) story about two plasterers
(fresco-ers?) named Lapo and Loti (who coincidentally sound just like two
London builders) who are working on the Sistine Chapel with Michelangelo (who
coincidentally never actually appears in this play). Lapo and Loti are played by Phil Daniels and
Bryan Dick, respectively, and they don’t think much of the elusive
Michelangelo, anyway, as he doesn’t know how to paint or properly fresco. He also has airs and graces. In the end, Pope Julius (Gary Waldhorn) has a
look at the chapel before and after, and indeed approves, as Cardinal Alidosi
(Roger Lloyd-Pack) liaises with the difficult Michelangelo. Originally from 2012, it was written by Nigel
Planer and directed by Mary Peate.
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