Sorry

No new episodes of The B-Keeper this weekend. I know, I know, you’re devastated. To tide you over until the next instalment, however, here are a couple of repeats, a few bits and bobs I made with Bob Fischer over the last year or so which celebrate that most underrated and confusingly maligned of British sitcoms, Last of the Summer Wine.

The first two teeny videos were taken on our trip to Holmfirth (check out the excitment on my girlfriend’s face during the first vid in particular), while the third documents our viewing of the final ever episode of this behemoth of a series. Enjoy?

 

Two Blokes Not In A Bath

Last Of The Summer Wine

To break up the silence for you, here is another repost. This was originally written – overwritten perhaps – in response to this article from The Guardian. I care too much to be healthy:

At twenty-two years old, I don’t really like being tarred with the brush this sentence yields:

“If younger viewers think of it at all, they do so with derision.”

I’ve enjoyed Last of the Summer Wine on and off since I was a young child who looked forward to the adventures of Clegg, Compo and Foggy, and who looked to the show as a beacon of fun in an otherwise dreary Sunday schedule consisting of Songs of Praise and Antiques Roadshow.

As I’ve grown older I’ve gladly been able to look back at previous eras the series and appreciate it at it’s best. The first several series are bleak, darkly comic and, at times, brilliant. Three old men talk, try to make sense of what they have done with their lives and ponder their own mortality. Nowhere is this better handled than in the TV film Getting Sam Home – a really neglected entry in the canon of British television comedy.

All this being said, I am much less a fan of the show in it’s present form. Too often now do episodes feel like retreads of earlier situations and characters recently added to the line-up lack the depth that memorable characterisations, like Norah Batty of Norman Clegg, possess.

Still, as recently as 2000, Clarke was capable of moving tragicomedy in episodes in which the characters bid farewell to the popular Compo. Last year’s clip show, in which characters once again recalled the scruffy one, demonstrated to me that the writer still has it in him to produce something special when he puts his pen to the right kind of story. Occasional flashes of the old magic still shine through in almost every script. It may only be a scene or line here and there but to me it’s still worth it.

With the passing of Kathy Staff this year, Last of the Summer Wine once again faces a regular problem; how to continue on with a frail and elderly cast and how to explain the sudden absences of old friends. It isn’t enough to simply say Norah has gone to live in Austrailia; the character deserves more than that, as do a legion of dedicated viewers.

Last of the Summer Wine was at its best when dealing with the turning of the earth, the passing of time and the memories of youth, and deserves a chance to go out with dignity – Perhaps a final feature-length episode that eschews broad pratfalls in favour of the low key musings of yesteryear. Sadly though, I don’t see this happening.

Cleggy At The Customs

Today I fulfilled a bit of a dream of mine and got to meet Clegg from Last of the Summer Wine! That is to say I met the very talented and charmingly modest Peter Sallis. The occasion was An Audience With Peter Sallis at South Shield’s Customs House. Along with me was the cravat-wearing bohemian, Bob Fischer who poses with me in the photo below.

Despite being famous mainly for two roles – Norman Clegg from Last of the Summer Wine and Wallace from the animated Wallace and Gromit films – Sallis has had an amazingly varied career and was able to regale the theatre audience with tales of Orson Welles, Patrick McGoohan, Sir John Gieldgud and Dame Edith Evans amongst others. The second half of the show was given over to audience questions and so Bob and I, being the sad, sad people that we are, had to ask about his appearance in the 1960s Doctor Who story, The Ice Warriors. In response he told a very funny story about having to work with, and feign terror at, a baby bear when the scripted adult Grizzley proved too dangerous and expensive to have in the studio. 

After a two hour show the 88 year old still had enough energy to do a signing. Upon meeting him Bob and I were outed as the strange men who asked the Doctor Who question. I’ve known Sallis on television since I was very little so it was fantastic to have a chance to see him in person and find out he’s a very nice man.

Resolute Interviews

Happy New Year to all you lovely readers!

My new years resolution is simply to make this a productive year. I have a book to finish, a new project to get writing and a multitude of ideas brewing in the old noggin to get cracking with. As far as this blog is concerned I’d like to continue updating regularly and perhaps engaging a little more with the folk who visit; leave a comment and say hello!

One of my major plans for Illegible Me is to hopefully spice things up a little with a series of interviews. I’ve written a list of people who I would love to meet/speak to/interview this year and if things work out nicely the resulting fruits may be worth posting here. This is the list: 

Harold Snoad – writer/producer

Micheal Knowles – writer/actor

Dick Miller – cult character actor

Kevin McCarthey – another cult character actor

Nigel Plaskit – puppeteer

Anyone who saw Laurel and Hardy live on stage

Anyone who appeared in a silent film

Mike Quinn – puppeteer/animator/filmmaker

Rosemary Anne Sisson – writer

The Chuckle Brothers – children’s comedians

Matthew Corbett – children’s entertainer

Ian Lavender – actor 

Bill Pertwee – actor 

Peter Sallis – actor

Peter Serafinowicz – comedian

George Clayton Johnson – science fiction author

Bill Marx – Musician/Son of Harpo

Kevin Brownlow – film historian/documentarian

Delores Fuller – actress/song writer

Richard Cadell – children’s entertainer/magician

Tony Robinson – presenter/comedian/historian

Some of these people I have connections to. Others I have little or no idea how to reach but we shall see how things work out. I know how tempting it can be to try and locate oneself on google so please – if by some fluke of browsing you are reading this and have found your own name on the list – then get in touch!