The British Sitcom Spinoff Film 3031412214, 9783031412219

Table of contents :
Acknowledgments
Contents
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Are You Being Served? The Sitcom Spinoff Film and Academia
1.2 Ever Decreasing Circles: Specifying Methodologies and Defining Parameters
1.3 Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width: Thematic Explorations
1.4 As Time Goes By: Genre Cycles and Study Structure
1.5 Mixed Blessings: Academia and Fandom
Bibliography
Part I: The Primitive Phase
Chapter 2: Precursors and Pioneers: 1940–1960
2.1 The Radio Sitcom Spinoff Film Pioneer: Band Waggon (1940)
2.2 The Radio Sitcom Spinoff Film Cycle
2.3 The Television Sitcom Spinoff Film Pioneer: I Only Arsked! (1958)
2.4 Television Takes Over: Families and Institutions
Bibliography
Part II: The Mature Phase
Chapter 3: The ‘Golden Age’: 1969–1980. Part 1: Racists, Romans, and Randy Busmen
3.1 Sparking the Sitcom Spinoff Film Revival: Till Death Us Do Part (1969)
3.2 Alf’s/ALF’s Legacy: The Sitcom Spinoff Film Stampede
3.3 Hammer Time and Spinoff ‘Gold’: On the Buses (1971)
3.4 Hammer Horrors
Bibliography
Chapter 4: The ‘Golden Age’: 1969–1980. Part 2: Soldiers, Shopping, and Sexual Frustration
4.1 Cycles Revisited: Institutions and Families
4.2 Cycles Continued: Institutions (Commercial and Correctional)
4.3 Cycles Continued: Families (Potential and Patriarchal)
4.4 Genre Maturity: The Likely Lads (1976)
Bibliography
Part III: The Decadent Phase
Chapter 5: Revival and Revisionism: 1986–2007. Part 1: Global Destruction and Domination
5.1 Explosive Returns / Global Destruction
5.2 Silent Success / Global Domination: Bean (1997)
Bibliography
Chapter 6: Revival and Revisionism: 2009–2021. Part 2: Schools, Legacies, and Mockumentaries
6.1 Confirming the Sitcom Spinoff Film Revival: The Inbetweeners Movie (2011)
6.2 Cycles Revived: The Legacy Sitcom Spinoff Film
6.3 Meta-Cycles: The Mockumentary Sitcom Spinoff Film
Bibliography
Untitled
Chapter 7: Conclusion
7.1 Never the Twain: Popular Versus Critical Standings
7.2 Second Thoughts: Summary of Genre’s Formal Characteristics
7.3 Joking Apart: Genre as Social History
Bibliography
Appendix A: World Gross Box-office Receipts for British Sitcom Spinoff Films—Top Ten (Figures in US$ from IMDb Pro / Box Office Mojo—as of 1 September 2023)
Appendix B: The British Sitcom Spinoff Film—Viewers’ IMDb Ratings [as of 1 September 2023]
Most Popular British Sitcom Spinoff Films on IMDb: Top Twenty
Most Popular British Sitcom Spinoff Films on IMDb: Top Twenty [Open Entry]
Best Known / Most Commonly Rated British Sitcom Spinoff Films on IMDb: Top Twenty
Viewers’ IMDb Ratings: All Films [Rating Average + (Number of Ratings)]
The British Sitcom Spinoff Filmography
Primitive Phase: (12)
Mature Phase: (26)
Decadent Phase: (15)
The British Sitcom Spinoff Filmography: Alphabetical from Original Series
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

The British Sitcom Spinoff Film Stephen Glynn

The British Sitcom Spinoff Film

Stephen Glynn

The British Sitcom Spinoff Film

Stephen Glynn De Montfort University Leicester, UK

ISBN 978-3-031-41221-9    ISBN 978-3-031-41222-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41222-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Acknowledgments

This isn’t all about me: no book is a solo venture. My thanks to Lina Aboujiab at Palgrave Macmillan who, time after time, has proven supportive of my proposed monographs on British cinema. My thanks to Steve Chibnall for access to the goodies in his stash of rare trade magazines, and to the staff at the brilliant BFI Reuben Library, open all hours (well, almost) to help me access newspaper and film journal reviews. My thanks to Laura and Ian for their hospitality in putting up with another man about the house during my research trips to London. Above all, not least for accepting my penchant for British sitcom spinoff films, my love as ever to the absolutely fabulous Sarah and Roz.

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Contents

1 Introduction  1 1.1 Are You Being Served? The Sitcom Spinoff Film and Academia  1 1.2 Ever Decreasing Circles: Specifying Methodologies and Defining Parameters  5 1.3 Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width: Thematic Explorations 11 1.4 As Time Goes By: Genre Cycles and Study Structure 15 1.5 Mixed Blessings: Academia and Fandom 19 Bibliography 20 Part I The Primitive Phase  23 2 Precursors  and Pioneers: 1940–1960 25 2.1 The Radio Sitcom Spinoff Film Pioneer: Band Waggon (1940) 26 2.2 The Radio Sitcom Spinoff Film Cycle 32 2.3 The Television Sitcom Spinoff Film Pioneer: I Only Arsked! (1958) 47 2.4 Television Takes Over: Families and Institutions 52 Bibliography 60

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Contents

Part II The Mature Phase  63 3 The  ‘Golden Age’: 1969–1980. Part 1: Racists, Romans, and Randy Busmen 65 3.1 Sparking the Sitcom Spinoff Film Revival: Till Death Us Do Part (1969) 66 3.2 Alf’s/ALF’s Legacy: The Sitcom Spinoff Film Stampede 72 3.3 Hammer Time and Spinoff ‘Gold’: On the Buses (1971) 86 3.4 Hammer Horrors 96 Bibliography110 4 The  ‘Golden Age’: 1969–1980. Part 2: Soldiers, Shopping, and Sexual Frustration113 4.1 Cycles Revisited: Institutions and Families114 4.2 Cycles Continued: Institutions (Commercial and Correctional)123 4.3 Cycles Continued: Families (Potential and Patriarchal)133 4.4 Genre Maturity: The Likely Lads (1976)142 Bibliography155 Part III The Decadent Phase 157 5 Revival  and Revisionism: 1986–2007. Part 1: Global Destruction and Domination159 5.1 Explosive Returns / Global Destruction159 5.2 Silent Success / Global Domination: Bean (1997)181 Bibliography191 6 Revival  and Revisionism: 2009–2021. Part 2: Schools, Legacies, and Mockumentaries193 6.1 Confirming the Sitcom Spinoff Film Revival: The Inbetweeners Movie (2011)193 6.2 Cycles Revived: The Legacy Sitcom Spinoff Film201 6.3 Meta-Cycles: The Mockumentary Sitcom Spinoff Film211 Bibliography231

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7 Conclusion233 7.1 Never the Twain: Popular Versus Critical Standings233 7.2 Second Thoughts: Summary of Genre’s Formal Characteristics235 7.3 Joking Apart: Genre as Social History237 Bibliography239  Appendix A: World Gross Box-office Receipts for British Sitcom Spinoff Films—Top Ten (Figures in US$ from IMDb Pro / Box Office Mojo—as of 1 September 2023)241  Appendix B: The British Sitcom Spinoff Film—Viewers’ IMDb Ratings [as of 1 September 2023]243 The British Sitcom Spinoff Filmography249 Bibliography255 Index263

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3 Fig. 3.4 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3 Fig. 6.4 Fig. 6.5

George and Mildred—Cheap as Chips Band Waggon—Spinoff Comedy Lays the Golden Egg Life with the Lyons—Dancing with the Stars I Only Arsked!—Army Versus Harem Till Death Us Do Part—The British Sitcom Spinoff Film Rises Again Steptoe and Son—Saucy Fare On the Buses—Booze, ‘Birds’, and Blakey Love Thy Neighbour—Hammer Time for Race Relations Dad’s Army—A Spinoff ‘Banker’ Porridge—‘An Occasional Little Victory’ The Lovers!—‘As a Fever, Longing Still’ The Likely Lads—‘Regret for Things Past’ The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse—When Worlds Collide The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—Lost in Space (in Wales) Bean—The British Sitcom Spinoff Film Takes Off The Inbetweeners Movie—Failing to Score Dad’s Army—The Write Stuff In the Loop—Ministry of Offence David Brent: Life on the Road—Equality Street (Not) People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan—Crunch Time for the Bang Boys

12 30 45 51 70 82 90 101 117 130 136 146 173 179 183 197 208 217 222 227

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1.1   Are You Being Served? The Sitcom Spinoff Film and Academia A popular British pub-quiz question (until rendered obsolete from overuse) would ask: what was the biggest ever box-office success of Hammer Film Productions (1934–1979)? From the studio synonymous with Gothic horror, the expected answer would have been something with Peter Cushing and/or Christopher Lee. If inflation warned against choosing the ever-menacing Dracula (Terence Fisher,  1958) or Britain’s first colour horror film The Curse of Frankenstein (Terence Fisher, 1957), one might have ventured the updated Dracula A.D. 1972 (Alan Gibson, 1972); the Lee-centred Scars of Dracula (Roy Ward Baker, 1970) perhaps, or Cushing’s saga-concluding Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (Terence Fisher, 1974)? Maybe something more exploitative like the sexed-up Lust for a Vampire (Jimmy Sangster, 1971)? No, no, and no again. The answer was far removed from Transylvania, insane asylums, or Castle Karnstein. Far more terrifying for some, the correct response was the cheaply made feature-film spinoff of a popular ITV television sitcom and Hammer’s first return to comedy in over a decade. The answer to the pub-quiz question, and to Hammer’s then seriously declining fortunes, starred Canning Town-born music-hall entertainer Reg Varney in On the Buses (Harry Booth, 1971), a comedy feature film which reworked the ‘great life’ adventures of bus driver Stan Butler and his depot workmates, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 S. Glynn, The British Sitcom Spinoff Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41222-6_1

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a set-up which had, for over a year, been keenly followed most Friday nights by UK (and later Commonwealth) television audiences.1 The tagline for the film’s publicity materials, ‘From Telly Laughs to Belly Laughs’, could (but for its medium specificity) serve as a subtitle for this volume, which explores the intermedial phenomenon of comic creations such as On the Buses. The Varney vehicle is a prime example of the British sitcom spinoff film, a low-budget domestically marketed and commercially successful production strategy largely associated with the 1970s but which, like its source texts, has proven a persistent and important component of British popular entertainment from the 1940s to the present day. Any investigation of these films risks being adjudged, rather like Stan Butler’s working and amorous activities, as somewhat insalubrious, taking as it does a route through the more blatantly commercial and coarse byways of the film industry. Indeed, given their near-total absence of any pretence to artistic merit, the sitcom spinoff film has largely been seen, by both press critics and academia, as less the ‘belly’ than the ‘armpit’ of British cinema production, an unpleasant, even gross area resistant to prolonged examination. For instance, Hammer historian Sinclair McKay wrote of On the Buses that ‘It is gob-smackingly mortifying. And it makes any one of the Carry On films look like Richard Brinsley Sheridan’ (2007, p. 146). This ‘mortification’ or (to overwork the body metaphors) ‘cold-­ shouldering’ of the genre has been a prevalent response. Pioneering early works on British film history, produced at the outset, end and after the sitcom spinoff’s perceived 1970s pinnacle/nadir, simply ignored the genre (Durgnat, 1970; Armes, 1978; Curran & Porter, 1983). This was a common response to ‘low’ and popular genres as UK academic film criticism, seeking to establish the same medium legitimacy and significance enjoyed by literature, focused on the twin bastions of realism and quality (hence Sheridan before Carry On). As the importance of British film history as an area of critical enquiry gathered momentum from the mid-1980s, it began to explore the body of films this dominant realist discourse had marginalised, famously termed by Julien Petley (with a different metaphor) the ‘lost continent’ of British cinema (1986, p. 98). The next two decades saw this bias rectified, with myriad genres such as melodrama, the musical, crime, horror, and science fiction, once intellectually derided, now fully re-evaluated, while within the British comedy film, its music hall, seaside, and indeed Carry On traditions all came to benefit from the new revisionism (Medhurst, 2007; Kerry, 2012; Gerrard, 2016).2

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One area, though, has remained relatively unexcavated, still seemingly unworthy of concerted academic attention or recognition in screen culture’s dialogic democratic processes—the sitcom spinoff film. As Brett Mills observed in his pioneering studies of its source text and small-screen staple, ‘the academic community seems much more comfortable writing about … “comedies of distinction” rather than “traditional sitcom”, and does so using criteria which foregrounds those aspects of such programmes which most actively distinguishes them’ (2009, p. 134). The same holds true for the sitcom’s film spinoff versions, rarely commended while often additionally vilified for their ‘nakedly’ economic imperative (as if this constitutes a difference in kind rather than degree from other genres)—that is when not again ignored in economic/industrial histories of British cinema (Baillieu & Goodchild, 2002; Barber, 2013). There have been tangential appreciations from fan culture, celebratory and anecdotal volumes on specific British sitcoms aka ‘Britcoms’ with, where relevant, a short treatment of ensuing film versions (Webber, 1999, 2001; McCann, 2001; Galton et  al., 2002; Walker, 2009; Fisher, 2010). There are also concise (and accomplished) critical compilations of television comedies, list books with plot summaries, yet these add only cursory personal assessments and/or quality ratings to any spinoff iteration (Taylor, 1994; Lewisohn, 1998). Even the first academic treatments of specific (and incontrovertibly ‘distinctive’) British sitcoms give but brief attention to any ancillary cinematic exploitation (Hunt, 2008; Wickham, 2008; Walters, 2016; Weight, 2020). There have been tentative and isolated academic incursions to the big-­ screen versions of small-screen favourites. Andrew Higson significantly noted how the television sitcom film adaptation was an ‘important if under-valued’ strand in British cinema and ‘a means of maintaining a stake for British film-makers in production and for British films in exhibition’, but then straightaway joined in the habitual kicking by terming it ‘a rather desperate strategy’ (1994, p.  233). Such disparagement has continued largely unabated. For example, Dave Rawlinson decries 1970s British cinema as being bogged down in ‘sitcom spin-off hell’ (cited in Harper & Smith, 2012, p. 97), while Andrew Roberts notes how, in the period, ‘the British sitcom spinoff soon became synonymous with utter grimness’ and with ‘relentless levels of tat on display’ (2018, p. 78). So much for academia, but Britain’s national press has also been—and remain—equally dismissive. For instance, one of the earliest British spinoff films, the wartime morale-rouser Happidrome (1943), caused P.L.  Mannock to rage against what he termed ‘a real fillip to my celluloid-saving campaign. So

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amateurish and puerile is this effort that it made me uncomfortable to watch it … To me the picture lowers the prestige of British studios’ (Daily Herald, 8 May 1943). Advance to the height of the 1970s spinoff boom and Gerard Dempsey, amidst a review of The Lovers! (1973), decried how ‘There is something desperate about 30 minute television comedies trying to be full-blown, widescreen feature films. At best, they are loosely strung episodes hopefully looped along a sagging story line. At worst, a tired little sketch stretched to breaking point’ (Daily Express, 15 May 1973). Move on another 40-plus years and Camilla Long opens her review of Ricky Gervais’ David Brent: Life on the Road (2016) with a complicit hatchet-­ job on the genre: ‘I guess we’ll have to agree that most sitcom films are a mistake—dreadful, ugly, sprawlingly self-interested sewers of comic neediness featuring angry past-it comedians who hate you because they have failed in Hollywood, and whom you’re not sure you ever liked anyway. The sitcom film is the preferred medium of the small, disappointed middle manager: it’s like watching tennis played on sand by one of your dad’s furious pub mates’ (Sunday Times, 21 August 2016). Not a fan then, Camilla? Amidst the academic brickbats and bad press (and myriad metaphors), the British sitcom spinoff film has twice received discrete (and skilled) academic attention, from Adrian Garvey (2010) and Peter Waymark (2012). These, though, came via single chapters in edited collections, and remained firmly focused on the genre’s ‘heyday’ in the 1970s. There has, in short, been little sustained engagement with the spinoff genre. Thus, this volume presents the first full-length single-authored study devoted to the British sitcom spinoff film, a study that explores the genre’s longevity both before and after the infamous 1970s zenith/nadir, and thereby proposes a comprehensive and nuanced counter-argument to the prevailing reductive (and sometimes ridiculing) view of its place in film history. With due democratic process, all qualifying examples will be investigated, and while the study will show itself at times partial to the preferred practice observed by Mills in highlighting distinctively progressive examples of the genre, it will be emphasised that even these retain a dependency on ‘traditional’ sitcom tropes, differing largely in degree of application rather than kind.

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1.2  Ever Decreasing Circles: Specifying Methodologies and Defining Parameters The above caveat with regards to ‘qualifying examples’ indicates that empirical parameters need to be drawn for this undertaking, both for practical and methodological reasons. The British Sitcom Spinoff Film is open to several analytical frameworks and, when deemed appropriate, will venture into the domains of television, radio, and adaptation studies, teasing out the specificities (the similarities and differences) of the different media in industrial and aesthetic terms. Overall, though, the work is intended to sit firmly within the field of film studies and to operate as a discrete genre study. This specificity still needs attention, though, since film genres are notoriously ‘easier to recognise than to define’ (Bordwell & Thompson, 2010, p. 91). Attempted definitions and explorations (such as this one) habitually adopt a textual approach, but any taxonomy is beset by problems of circularity, seeking to delineate recurring features in films assumed a priori to belong to the category. Helpfully, Christine Gledhill sees genres functioning as a ‘conceptual space’ where ‘issues of texts and aesthetics— the traditional concerns of film theory—intersect with those of industry and institution, history and society, culture and audiences—the central concerns of political economy, sociology and cultural studies’ (2000, p. 201). The British sitcom spinoff film, with its explicit financial imperative, yet re-presenting popular tastes across several decades, offers such a conceptual space and is here understood as a work of cross-media adaptation, one that takes the blueprint of a British-made radio or television sitcom and extends it, without great expenditure, to feature-film length for cinema exhibition. This blueprint will comprise the main characters (and habitually their associated actors), their sitcom situation (at least initially), and (for the most part) all associated names, topographies, musical motifs, and writers. This study will contextually demonstrate the British sitcom spinoff film’s economic imperative (especially in the industry’s financially difficult 1970s), with textual analysis employed to focus both on genre development—how/if the films delivered their popular appeal over time— and also on how the films function as vehicles for social history. The ‘conceptual space’ of the British sitcom spinoff can thus be assessed both for form and for function. These concepts, though, work across axes

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of fluidity and fixity. Another issue with film genres, as Steve Neale emphasises, is that they are ‘inherently temporal’ (1990, p. 56): they are dynamic entities that develop across the years through reaction between the text, its producers, and its audience. While such shifts will be evident across this study, the films’ source texts, the television sitcom, retain an influential core of commonly agreed characteristics. How, then, to define the sitcom? One important characteristic is the shooting style, the ‘sitcom aesthetic’, often referred to as the ‘three-headed monster’ and built on a three-­ camera set-up, usually with studio audience, that eliminates any stiff stage restrictions and allows close-ups both on speaker and responder/reaction shot, thus doubling any potential laughter (Putterman, 1995, p.  15). Regarding their structure, the sitcom is categorised by Larry Mintz as ‘a half-hour series focused on episodes involving recurrent characters within the same premise. That is, each week we encounter the same people in essentially the same setting. The episodes are finite; what happens in a given episode is generally closed off, explained, reconciled, solved at the end of the half hour’ (1985, p.  114). This definition, of course, is not unique to the sitcom genre, nor consistently applied, and fails to register content and function, in particular the comedic imperative. Steve Neale and Frank Krutnik more narrowly offer up ‘a short narrative-series comedy, generally between twenty-four and thirty minutes long, with regular characters and setting’ (1990, p. 233). Rod Taylor, accepting that ‘there are grey areas all round’, looked succinctly for ‘continuity of situation and/or character in a work that intended to amuse through either’ (1994, p. 10). Indicatively, these continuities have a structuring economic base. The three-camera set-up and repetition of locations—and uncomplicated interpersonal relationships—are financially significant, allowing for the use of a handful of embryonic sets (and few, if any, film inserts), while a stable set of characters means the hiring of tried-and-trusted actors (and production crew) on extended cost-efficient contracts, all of which concurrently establish a reassuring familiarity for the audience, who immediately recognise the textual codes and conventions at play. After its radio popularity established in the 1940s, the UK television sitcom had proved its viability on both major channels, the licence-fee-funded British Broadcasting Company (BBC) and the commercial (advertisement-funded) regional companies grouped as Independent Television (ITV), with prime-time scheduling throughout the so-called Golden Age of the 1970s. It had also shown its malleability—and additional profitability—by forming a regular

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feature of Christmas scheduling, and by touring the nation (plus occasionally abroad) in seasonal stage versions. A similar modulation, all the while adhering to the same economies of scale, will be demonstrated in the filmed spinoff, almost invariably retaining the same cast and crew and, with contract extensions, being shot between series or soon after the source text’s radio or television run. This tight financial imperative underlies all that follows in this study. Thus, while one can factor in desires such as the early raising of wartime communal spirits and later realising of cine-literate creators’ personal ambitions, the core reason for the existence of sitcom spinoff films is commercial, predicated on exploiting the cultural viability of material already proven in the marketplace in order to secure audience attention and focus advertising targets. In this, I would again stress, it is no different to other forms of adaptation or remediation: with an in-built industrial logic of repetition and textual expansion, the move to feature-length spinoffs helps to ‘pre-sell’ a film through instant recognition, offering a pre-packaged genre signifier that both cushions against unwelcome surprise while presenting the intrigue of how the sitcom will be adapted to the big screen (Sheridan adaptations, as with Jane Austen and even Shakespeare, do the same). With sitcoms (as with more recent writers) it also increases the commercial reach of still-copyrighted material, creating (in its relatively minor British fashion) ancillary licenced domains such as records and novelisations for further exploitation. Indeed, as Sue Harper noted of the safe returns ensured by these ‘residual’ British film products,3 sitcom spinoffs can be read as ‘a sort of equivalent to the industrial product in high capitalism—with interchangeable components, predictable outcomes and long historical roots’ (2010, p. 25). Alongside its economics, the sitcom, in its television iterations, has proven a distinctively stable semiotic form across the decades. Mark Eaton, an early investigator of the genre, cogently argues that the sitcom is driven by an ‘inside/outside’ division of plot and characterisation, whereby outside influences can temporarily challenge or disrupt the situation but never fundamentally change the sitcom world, which always ends in reaffirmation. The narrative is always circular since, as Eaton emphasises, ‘it is clear that the narrative of each episode of the series must not allow for a resolution of the two sides or the problematic/hermeneutic of the show would be eliminated, another “situation” would have to be established, another series written’ (1978, p. 79). Mintz concurs, emphasising that ‘The most important feature of sitcom structure is the cyclical nature of the normalcy

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of the premise undergoing stress or threat of change and becoming restored’ (1985, p. 115). Here, as will be demonstrated, one can perceive a difference across media, since, as a linked but self-standing entity, the film spinoff need not slavishly subscribe to this rule, and new narratives, new ‘situations’ can be advanced for audience pleasure (and can be ignored by an ongoing television sitcom). Both Eaton and John Hartley posit an enduring ‘typology’ for the sitcom with two broad settings, the home and the workplace. Family or domestic sitcoms, for Hartley ‘perhaps the bedrock of broadcast television’, specialise in dramas of internal family roles or ‘family comportment’ and have consistently proven a training ground for viewers’ developing media literacy and broader life skills. Not always safe and gentle, the sitcom can explore what Hartley terms the ‘not-quietness’ of family life and its surrounding social issues: e.g. the Garnett family in Till Death Us Do Part (BBC, 1966–1975). (Evident here is a degree here hybridisation/ overlap with soap operas’ coverage of neighbourhood comportment). By contrast, workplace sitcoms are frequently driven by dramas of sexual exploration, with the workplace largely a pretext for risqué dialogue and suggestive actions, and typically a site for ‘sexual chemistry rather than occupational specificity’ (Hartley, 2001, pp.  66–67): e.g. the Grace Brothers’ department store in Are You Being Served? (BBC, 1972–1985). This binary is partial as with all such categorisations (especially as the genre developed), and one could offer up anomalous British sitcoms without a stable family or workplace setting, such as the student-house locale for the ‘alternative’ comedy movement’s The Young Ones (BBC, 2 series, 12 episodes,  1982–1984), or else hybrid sitcoms that combine family dynamics with workplace relationships, as with the (rare) female-centred Absolutely Fabulous (BBC, 1992–2004). Nonetheless, the twin locales of home and workplace have proven enduring contexts not only for the sitcom but especially for the sitcom spinoff film and the division will be employed, when pertinent, as a structuring factor in this study. That said, the extra length of the sitcom’s cinema versions has consistently encouraged excursions to new topographies. It is a strategy Guy Lodge summarises in his review of The Inbetweeners 2 (2014): ‘Sitcom spin-offs are always a risky proposition for film-makers. There’s a vast difference between what audiences are happy to watch for 25  minutes and what they’re willing to sit through for four times that length, particularly when they’re paying for the privilege. Time and again, then, they resort to the old “let’s go abroad” trick: by placing familiar characters in unfamiliar surroundings, usually ones with a little more widescreen appeal, the risk of

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self-repetition is reduced’ (London Evening Standard, 8 August 2014). The point is well made, especially as the spinoff films from The Inbetweeners (E4, 2008–2010) had the gumption to employ the ‘old trick’ twice. However, whether the transposition gains more than is lost by vacating the source text’s habitually claustrophobic setting will prove a frequent point of debate in this volume. Whether focusing on home or work dynamics, or else departing on holiday, it remains important to differentiate the sitcom from the comedy sketch show which, with its short and usually single-scene structure leading to a humorous ‘payoff’, has a different set of generic criteria lengthily rehearsed elsewhere (Neale & Krutnik, 1990, pp. 176–208; Neale, 2001, pp. 62–65; Hunt, 2013, pp. 98–127) and which, because free of an overarching narrative or defining situation, has a less restricted relationship with any feature-length transfer. Given this significant difference in both source text and shaping expectations, there will be no discussion here of the films created by the cast of Monty Python’s Flying Circus (BBC, 4 series, 45 episodes, 1969–1974),4 works that in any case have already received extensive academic treatment (Smith, 2012; Egan & Weinstock, 2020). Nor, though their influence will be acknowledged, will it explore sketch show spinoffs such as the sole film outing for all four Goons in Down Among the Z Men (Maclean Rogers, October 1952), the Dick Emery vehicle Ooh… You Are Awful (Cliff Owen, December 1972), Harry Enfield’s cult success Kevin and Perry Go Large (Ed Bye, April 2000), or the various films emerging from Sacha Baron Cohen’s characters in Da Ali G Show (C4/HBO, 3 series, 18 episodes,  2000–2004).5 Nor, for the same reasons, will there be treatment of film vehicles for television stand-up comedians, hence inter alia the absence of the films that tried (and failed) to make movie stars of Morecambe and Wise, again examined elsewhere (Archer, 2017, pp. 41–44), nor Cannon and Ball’s Will Hay remake The Boys in Blue (Val Guest, 1982), nor comedy presenters Ant and Dec’s Alien Autopsy (Jonny Campbell, 2006).6 Alongside this generic proscription there remains an opening epithet in need of attention. The notion of what constitutes ‘British cinema’ has been much debated, ever since Raymond Durgnat began his pioneering study of post-war cinema A Mirror for England (sic) by stating that, in choosing films for discussion, ‘our criterion has had to be rather arbitrary and subjective: is it about Britain, about British attitudes, or, if not, does it feel British?’ (1970, p.  5). While a firmer prescription will here be applied, with an avowed focus on films textually/aesthetically derived from British-based sitcom content, and that contextually/industrially

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present British film-defining contribution levels to both cast-and-crew and production finances—hence no discussion of the Irish-made Mrs. Brown’s Boys D’Movie (Ben Kellett, 2014)—Durgnat’s more nebulous definition cannot be totally dismissed. Discussed hereafter are 50-plus films that, in setting, attitude, and outlook, are shown to be—to look, to sound, and importantly to feel—quintessentially ‘British’, not least in the sense of humour on display. Humour is perhaps the most indeterminate component of the ‘conceptual space’ treated here, considered so personal in nature that, as Simon Critchley notes, ‘when it comes to what amuses us, we are all authorities, experts in the field’ (2002, p. 2). Nonetheless, humour can also be treated as culturally and historically specific, as ‘rooted in social processes’ (Billig, 2005, p. 32), and thus, in the context of situation comedies, a conception of British humour can profitably be approached via (broad) comparison and contrast with American modes and models. Admittedly a sweeping generalisation, the American sitcom has long remained primarily gag-­ centred and slapstick in nature; the British version, swiftly growing away from music-hall influences, has foregrounded not just its titular situation but especially character. These (mostly male) individuals have tended to be unsuccessful, unaware of how others see them, unable fully to communicate their desires, stuck in troublesome family and/or workplace relationships, and whose pretentions to move up Britain’s rigid social ladder are considered laughable (cf. Basil Fawlty and Fawlty Towers (BBC, 2 series, 12 episodes,  1975–1979)). By contrast, the American sitcom character has predominantly been witty, intelligent, articulate, able to reflect comically on their predicaments, and with friends and family a strong support structure (cf. Chandler Bing and Friends (NBC, 10 series, 236 episodes, 1994–2004)). As Brett Mills cogently summarises, ‘while the American sitcom often invites us to laugh with its characters, Britcom instead offers pleasure in us laughing at them. This may say more about British and American assumptions about people and society than any amount of complex social and cultural analysis’ (2005, p. 42). It does not, though, confine such assumptions to (disposable) home consumption. While this study’s focus will predominantly reside on domestic reception of these ‘cheap and cheerful’ film products, it will be acknowledged that the British sitcom spinoff has, to varying degrees, always enjoyed an export potential. Until its later versions, the genre may have had negligible impact on the contrasted US market, but it was regularly successful in Europe and the Commonwealth, especially Australasia, where the source sitcoms were already well known.

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1.3  Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width: Thematic Explorations The British sitcom spinoff genre has its champions. For fanzine writer Matthew Coniam, ‘A frame of mind informs all of these pictures, rendering them as discrete a unit as the films of German Expressionism or the French New Wave, the only difference being that these are lowbrow movies for mass audiences, not part of any artistic or cultural movement’ (2003, p. 5). Though no claim will be made here for personal ‘artistic or cultural’ statement in the manner of Robert Wiene or Jean-Luc Godard, one could argue, if only provocatively, that the viewing of British sitcom spinoff films, especially in their 1970s ‘heyday’, can on occasion resemble the experience of avant-garde cinema, with their dreary spaces, unsubtle lighting, and narrative meanderings: not quite Robert Bresson On the Buses, but a body of work similarly shorn of classical cinema’s compositional grammar and stylistic ‘polish’, drawing the viewer’s attention, if not to the films themselves and their ontology, then to the socio-economic context in which those films were made and seen. It is more cogent, perhaps, to pick up on Coniam’s ‘lowbrow’ indicator and consider the sitcom spinoff a (very) British exemplar of exploitation cinema, a term which, as Pam Cook notes, connotes ‘an economic imperative—very low budgets; tight production schedules; … minimal production values; sensational selling campaigns; and widespread saturation bookings at specific markets, … all in the interests of making a quick profit’ (2005, p. 56). The ‘bargain basement’ films studied here are (sometimes) A-list earners for British studios but (almost always) made with B-movie timetables—and aesthetics, the source of much critical ire. Cook adds that exploitation films ‘seem to revel in their own trashiness and aura of immediate disposability’ (ibid.) and I would contend that there is at times, in the British sitcom spinoff, a quasi-awe-inspiring audacity (and hence perverse source of pleasure) in a work’s total disregard for its television source, cinematic integrity, or basic verisimilitude. For example, the spinoff of Rising Damp (1980) insouciantly relocated landlord Rupert Rigsby’s situation-­defining lodging house from the North of England to an entirely different building in Notting Hill. In Man About the House (1974), conniving estate agent Morris Pluthero hails a taxi for Thames Television, Euston Road, having just emerged from that very building with its distinctive tower. In the follow-up George and Mildred (1980), layabout husband George Roper’s choice of anniversary restaurant is patently a residential

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property with a few lights slung around the front door and windows (Fig. 1.1). Heritage cinema this ain’t. This blasé attitude to situation is perhaps equalled by characterisation, with familiar pleasure derived from the sitcom spinoff’s retention both of recurring motifs or catchphrases—‘you silly moo’, ‘stupid boy’, ‘I hate you, Butler’—and the pervasive presence of stereotypes that, playing on enduring (if problematic) cultural clichés such as the nagging wife and camp older male, are easily distinguished and had/have a proven popularity. That said, where the spinoff deviates from many exploitation films is in its personnel, not ‘inexperienced’ and evincing ‘bad’ acting (Cook, 2005, pp. 56–57), but a highly skilled and experienced cast (such as George and Mildred’s Brian Murphy and Yootha Joyce), perhaps engaging in what they considered hack work between rep or RSC bookings, but bringing finely timed ensemble playing, even if honed in a different medium, to the big screen.

Fig. 1.1  George and Mildred—Cheap as Chips

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The targeted selling campaign Cook references is distinctly relevant, given that a prime motive for the existence of these films was the chance producers saw to ‘exploit’ a ready-made audience. For instance, the trade pre-publicity booklet for the Sid James vehicle Bless This House (1973) ran with the headline ‘Pre-sold to Millions—Yes Millions’, and reprinted recent regional television viewing figures: ‘Over 15,000,000 people in one week alone watched Bless This House—Millions will want to see the BIG SCREEN version—cash in on the SUMMER RELEASE!’ In its marketing, family was stressed alongside finances: ‘like the television show it is geared for all-family entertainment and comes at a time when the industry has been criticised by many members of the public for “flooding” the cinema with “X” Certificate films’ (Bless This House press book). Good clean family entertainment, then? Perhaps not. The terminology of the exploitation film also implies a production objective to ‘exploit’ the basic desires of its audience to view more explicitly salacious depictions of human behaviour than available in other media, especially in the carefully monitored home-projected television schedules. This is again the case with the sitcom spinoff film. Regarding sexual content, the sensationalist marketing where scantily clad females dominated the publicity materials for myriad 1970s spinoffs in truth promised more than the films delivered. But the exploitation of common desires ran much wider than bedroom frolics, rendering the genre, while fully acknowledging its exaggerations and simplifications, a fruitful resource for exploring contemporary social history. As part of television networks’ Light Entertainment departments, the UK sitcom has always been primarily conceived as ‘escapism’, a generator of non-­ intellectual life-affirming humour. Nonetheless, as John Ellis notes, the sitcom also constitutes a potent example of television’s capacity for exercising issues and anxieties both big and small, with comic characters able to raise questions or express opinions that can be openly shared and discussed, all of which ‘enables its viewers to work through the major public and private concerns of their society’ (2000, p. 74). From its earliest incursions, by trying to ‘tap into the ways in which their audiences live their lives’ (Mills, 2005, p. 44), British sitcoms have traced social shifts, in particular providing a barometer of changes in the nation’s class system and social attitudes, and academic attention has emphasised the format’s more profound and less innocent hegemonic function. For instance, as a cultural practice Medhurst and Tuck propose that the often-proletarian context and canned laughter of the ‘prime-time’ televised sitcom has provided

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a rare collective experience for a now-fragmented working-class audience (1996, pp. 111–116). If so, the sitcom spinoff film has arguably allowed the physical reconstitution of this virtual community, since meeting within a cinema auditorium re-connected this audience with shared outlooks and confirmed their commonality with genuine rather than canned laughter. However, any collective’s definition is also reinforced by those that do not belong within it, and the sitcom spinoff film, like its source sitcom, operates textually as a hegemonic guardian, especially through its reiterated deployment of those easy stereotypes that not only fail to contest, but serve to confirm and legitimate dominant ideological discourse. This works to subordinate those social groups, mainly on grounds of race, gender, and sexuality, who are the butt of a ‘shared humour’, relegating them to marginalised positions both within the text and without it, as the textual response reverberates back into wider society (Woollacott, 1986; Bowes, 1990). More recent criticism has developed this concept: as Mills contends, the sitcom, playing to ‘stubbornly local’ senses of humour and drawing on specific (if shifting) social norms, ‘becomes not only representative of a culture’s identity and ideology, it also becomes one of the ways in which that culture defines and understands itself’ (2005, p. 9). All of this holds especially for the British sitcom spinoff film which, while a single extension, can also be seen as a cultural concentration with whole series’ worth of ‘worked through’ signifiers packed into 90 minutes maximum. Add in the less rigorous censorship of cinema releases, and the spinoff film thus intensifies the crudity of language, the sexual content, and the promulgation of stereotyped characters and attitudes, thus providing a ready index for the values then expected of the cinema-going public. There is, of course, a danger of ahistoricism when evaluating such values from a current critical position, and an added inflection of complexity when dealing with comic material and its deliberate exaggerations. Conscious of this danger, the films studied here will be firmly placed in the socio-cultural context of their times, with their popularity (or otherwise) evidenced from their critical and (when available) box-office reception.7 Nonetheless, the book adopts a double ‘then and now’ perspective since, reading from the present, it also aims to show how such spinoffs function effectively as what Arthur Marwick terms the ‘unwitting testimony’ that film can offer as an historical resource, with the medium often revealing less from any ‘witting’ or ‘deliberate message’ than from the ‘unintentional evidence’ encoded in the values of their time of production and exhibition (1989, p. 216).

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1.4   As Time Goes By: Genre Cycles and Study Structure This dual perspective of genre study and social history is reflected at a structural level in this study since The British Sitcom Spinoff Film, though informed by analysis of leading production companies and common thematic concerns, follows a broadly chronological progression while teasing out the overarching development of a generic ‘life cycle’. Theories of genre development often promote a three-part process, codified by Thomas Schatz as ‘experimental’, before the genre has a discernible self-­ identity; ‘classical’, when its conventions are stable and most coherent; and ‘mannerist’, when its original purpose has been outlived and its conventions are openly cited or even subverted (1981, pp. 36–41). Richard Dyer, labelling film genres as successively ‘primitive’, ‘mature’, and ‘decadent’, offers an equivalent if more biologically inflected trajectory (1992, p. 61). While aware of the further dangers inherent in any rigid delineation of development—excluding films that realise a precocious self-­identity or remain unstable when the genre has cohered—the paradigm retains a broad relevance to Britain’s sitcom spinoff films and therefore will be employed here, with the study divided into three chronological sections, each labelled with Dyer’s epithets. This framework will bring films into dialogue with one another where relevant while, within chapters, the book offers a four-part investigation of its qualifying filmography, first summarising the source sitcom, then for each film spinoff explaining the manoeuvrings of their production histories, thirdly surveying their commercial and critical reception, and finally analysing the film ‘texts’ themselves. It must be acknowledged that there are empirical issues here with the middle contextual sections. A film’s critical reception can be gleaned from available reviews in trade journals, national newspapers, and specialist film journals, but detailing the commercial aspect of British cinema history is notoriously more difficult due to the dearth of primary sources. There is no UK equivalent of Hollywood studio archives; Britain’s trade press had no consistent or precise record of production costs or national box-office returns until the 1980s; discrete archival records are distinctly patchy (Chapman, 2022, p. 3). Thus, faute de mieux, for most spinoff films examined prior to the genre’s late 1990s revival, recourse is made to (often generalised) financial information gathered from the annual ‘Box Office Winners’ or ‘Hits of the Year’ polls published in the various incarnations of Britain’s primary trade

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publication, Kinematograph Weekly, later CinemaTV Today, then Screen International,8 and/or from similarly indicative secondary sources, both academic and general (e.g. Swern & Childs, 1995).9 The final element, textual analysis, constitutes the main body of each film treatment and includes brief plot summaries since their narrative extension of the source text’s premise is important to aesthetic evaluation, and some works can prove hard to access. Mostly, though, the film analysis looks to situate generic conventions and narrative ideology, plus acting and visual styles, into the context of British society’s concurrent social and cultural preoccupations. (In the manner of a ‘trigger warning’, it should be noted that, as part of this examination, the study will contextualise but perforce reference examples of sexually explicit content and cite discriminatory language when pertinent to the textual analysis of these films). Across its temporal divisions, each chapter headlines a film deemed its section’s key contributor: these receive a fuller case-study exploring why they constitute an innovative and/or influential contributor to the genre. This chronological structure for examining the spinoff film of necessity runs parallel with the development of the source sitcom genre. The volume progresses as follows. After this introduction explaining the study’s methodologies and parameters, Part One explores the late 1930s to early 1960s, a period when the UK sitcom, as in America, emerged out of radio comedy. With weekly national broadcasts necessitating far greater fresh content than music-hall touring where a comedy star’s routine could last a season, radio programmers gradually developed story-generating characters and situations positioned on a spectrum between sketch comedy and situation dramas such as soap opera (Neale & Krutnik, 1990, p. 215). Beginning with Arthur Askey in Band Waggon (1938–1939), the BBC’s first expressly designed radio variety show, Chap. 2 shows the burgeoning genre’s first translations to film, and how, with works such as Life with the Lyons (BBC then ITV, 1950–1960) and The Army Game (ITV, 1957–1961), a tripartite system of exchange emerged as sitcoms also moved to the small screen with the spread of television ownership across the 1950s. Part Two explores the late 1960s to 1980, by far the most productive period for the sitcom spinoff genre. By the 1960s, the sitcom had become Britain’s primary form of small-screen comedy, outstripping both traditional sketch-based entertainment such as Morecambe and Wise’s Two of a Kind (ITV, 6 series,  68 episodes, 1961–1968) and The Morecambe and Wise Show (BBC, 9 series, 71 episodes, 1968–1977), and topical satirical shows such as That Was the Week That Was (BBC, 2 series, 37 episodes,

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1962–1963). While America’s breezy team-scripted ‘Hi Honey, I’m Home’ sitcom model regularly focused on married but childless couples as in The Dick Van Dyck Show (NBC, 5 series, 158 episodes,  1961–1966), Britain honed in on cynical and frustrated men, as in what is commonly considered Britain’s first significant sitcom (and a transfer from radio), Hancock’s Half Hour later Hancock (BBC, 1956–1961). Here, exemplifying high-quality authored sitcom writing from Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, was a dour naturalism conducive to the monochrome medium now appearing in most homes and crucial to attaining working-class audience identification. The show would set a pattern that continued across the 1960s and 1970s—and into the sitcom spinoff film—with similarly morose but hugely popular characters. Prime here were Harold and Albert Steptoe aka Steptoe and Son (BBC, 1962–1974), another Galton and Simpson creation and a sitcom whose success cemented the genre in the schedules, plus Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part (BBC, 1966–1975), a similar cultural touchstone reflecting provocatively on attitudes in a rapidly changing Britain (Goddard, 1991, pp.  75–89), and a show which launched the decade’s British spinoff film strategies. This Hancock-led temperamental template—later iterations include not just Basil Fawlty but Rupert Rigsby in Rising Damp (ITV, 1974–1979) and David Brent in The Office (BBC, 2001–2002)—generally received critical praise to match healthy viewing figures (and such sitcoms have been regularly revived for reruns). Running parallel to this ‘quality strand’, a more populist set of sitcoms including On the Buses, Are You Being Served?, Love Thy Neighbour (ITV, 1972–1976), and George and Mildred (ITV, 1976–1979) proved even more successful if less lauded (plus ideologically less conducive to reruns), and the differing characteristics of both strands have led to the 1970s being considered, if not critically then commercially, the ‘Golden Age’ for British sitcoms. This section examines how, with the 1960s American investment in British film drying up and UK cinema admissions dropping below four million a week, the success of these television sitcoms—many drawing regular audiences of close to ten million homes—presented a ready market for the British film industry to exploit. Chapter 3 provides an industrial reading, focusing on the two indigenous bodies that most productively mined this seam, Associated London Films and On the Buses’ Hammer Films. A period similarly prolific for spinoff films as for sitcoms, Chap. 4 adopts a thematic and topological approach, demonstrating how the genre’s multiple products provided the necessary ‘dialectic of repetition and difference’ (Neale, 1990, p.  48) within the established comedy

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situations of work institutions and domestic lifestyles—together with their regular holiday excursions. Part Three covers the period from the mid-1980s to the present day (2023). Again, twin strands can be detected in the sitcom genre. While there remained ‘old school’ popular successes, notably Only Fools and Horses (BBC, 7 series, 54 episodes + 10 specials,  1981–2003) and the perennial Last of the Summer Wine (BBC, 31 series, 295 episodes, 1973–2010), the sitcom lost its cultural prestige after its 1970s heyday, especially when compared to the vogueish ‘alternative comedy’ scene which, though spawning The Young Ones, largely saw a return to prominence for stand-up routines and sketch shows. However, in the 1990s the British sitcom saw a revival of fortunes, with works such as One Foot in the Grave (BBC, 6 series, 35 episodes + 7 specials, 1990–2000) and Absolutely Fabulous again becoming key cultural landmarks. The format, though, was evolving, dispensing with the three-camera set-up, studio laughter, and theatrical acting styles for further realism and the self-conscious use of concurrent television genres, for example docu-­ dramas in The Office, and (eventually) bringing greater diversity to a traditionally white male form, with outliers The Fosters (ITV,  2 series, 27 episodes, 1976–1977) and Desmond’s (C4,  6 series, 71 episodes, 1988–1994) latterly followed by works such as Chewing Gum (E4, 2 series, 12 episodes, 2015–2017) and Man Like Mobeen (BBC, 4 series, 17 episodes, 2017–present). This section examines how, in its later iterations, the British sitcom spinoff film can also be seen as entering a more openly self-reflexive, even parodic phase. Building on source texts that, at times, extend the traditional remit of both situation and character, the genre is shown both to explore depths of darker content and to enjoy unprecedented highs of international commercial success. Chapter 5 details the slow revival of the big-screen genre from the mid-1980s, beginning with a run of emergent films treating apocalyptic themes with postmodern knowingness, but finding global domination with the residual, indeed silent movie tropes spun from Rowan Atkinson’s Mr. Bean (ITV, 1990–1995). Chapter 6 examines the recent resurgence in the British sitcom spinoff film, grouping the films into three (at times overlapping) groupings, school-based (as with The Inbetweeners), legacy (as with Absolutely Fabulous), and ‘mockumentary’ spinoffs (as with The Office). While contemporary in setting, language and meta-fictionality, these films are shown to be often residual not just in their revival of defunct source texts but also at times, unfortunately, in their thematics and reactionary ideology.

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1.5  Mixed Blessings: Academia and Fandom One last (and important) counsel before this study begins. The British Sitcom Spinoff Film is, as with my previous books on popular British genres, written by a Janus-faced exponent (typical sitcom response: Ha! He said ‘Janus’!). This monograph is undertaken by a film historian and follower (at times even a fan) since childhood of British sitcoms and their film spinoffs. The historian aims, through precisely referenced contextual and textual analysis, to establish a viable British subset of the comedy film. The follower, while begging indulgence if aping reviewers’ penchant for redeploying sitcom titles,10 seeks to convey the enthusiasm, the ambivalence, the disappointment or indeed the rank embarrassment, even dismay, experienced in viewing these films, always remembering that, beyond the economic imperative, their central textual purpose was, and (if sometimes problematically) for many remains, a ‘primordial fixation upon pleasure’ (Herbert, 1984, p. 402). Game on.

Notes 1. The answer evidently precludes films such as The Woman in Black (James Watkins, 2012), made after Hammer’s brand-name resurrection in 2007. 2. On the critical transformation from ‘scarcity to abundance’, see Alan Lovell (2009), ‘The British Cinema: The Known Cinema’, in R. Murphy (Ed). The British Cinema Book. 3rd edn. London: BFI: 5–12 3. Sue Harper and Vincent Porter categorise 1950s British cinema as offering ‘residual’ and ‘emergent’ film types, ‘old and new ways of presenting the world and pleasing audiences’ (2003, p.  1). Useful terms, they will be employed throughout this study. 4. The Monty Python films comprise And Now for Something Completely Different (Ian MacNaughton, 1971), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, 1975), Monty Python’s Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979), and Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (Terry Jones, 1983). 5. Thus, there is no analysis here of Ali G Indahouse (Mark Mylod, 2002), Borat! (Larry Charles, 2006), Bruno (Larry Charles, 2009), or Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020). Other sketch show spinoffs spared academic examination are Keith Lemon: The Film (Paul Angunawela, 2012), The Harry Hill Movie (Steve Bendelack, 2014), Horrible Histories: The Movie—Rotten Romans (Dominic Brigstock, 2019), and Catherine Tate’s The Nan Movie (Josie Rourke uncredited, 2022).

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6. Rank’s Morecambe and Wise films comprise The Intelligence Men (Robert Asher, 1965), That Riviera Touch (Cliff Owen, 1966), and The Magnificent Two (Cliff Owen, 1968). Also exempt from exegesis here are Danny La Rue’s Our Miss Fred (Bob Kellett, 1972), Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown’s U.F.O. (Tony Dow, 1993), and Mitchell and Webb’s Magicians (Andrew O’Connor, 2007). 7. In the absence of admissions data, films can only be measured in terms of earnings at the box office. These figures are notoriously hard to find for films released before the 1980s. Where possible, trade magazine figures or studio-released information have been consulted. See also Appendix A. 8. A further complication: the trade publication long made a distinction between films on general release and films given special presentations, that is, longer films shown without a second feature. 9. Indicative of the problem, Phil Swern and Mike Childs, compilers of the still-frequently consulted Guinness Box Office Hits, admit that their annual Top Twenty lists prior to official chart statistics are based on trade magazines that, alongside available statistics, ‘used their knowledge and expertise of the business to rank movies according to their own judgement’ (1995, p. 4). 10. The penchant has been employed in the subheadings for this introduction: alongside Are You Being Served?, explored in Chap. 4, come Ever Decreasing Circles (BBC, 4 series, 24 episodes, 1984–1989); Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width (ITV, 1967–1971)—also explored in Chap. 4; As Time Goes By (BBC, 9 series, 65 episodes + 2 specials, 1992–2005); and Mixed Blessings (ITV, 3 series, 23 episodes, 1978–1980). It continues in the closing words, Game On (BBC, 3 series, 18 episodes, 1995–1998)— and in the concluding chapter.

Bibliography Archer, N. (2017). Beyond a Joke: Parody in English Film and Television Comedy. Bloomsbury Academic. Armes, R. (1978). A Critical History of British Cinema. Secker and Warburg. Baillieu, B., & Goodchild, J. (2002). The British Film Business. John Wiley & Sons. Barber, S. (2013). The British Film Industry in the 1970s: Capital, Culture and Creativity. Palgrave Macmillan. Billig, M. (2005). Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour. Sage. Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (2010). Film Art: An Introduction (9th ed.). McGraw Hill. Bowes, M. (1990). Only When I Laugh. In A. Goodwin & G. Whannel (Eds.), Understanding Television. Routledge.

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Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945–1985. Edinburgh University Press. Coniam, M. (2003). A User’s Guide to the Great British Sitcom Movie. Kettering: The Fanzine of Elderly British Comedy, 1, 3–9. Cook, P. (2005). The Pleasures and Perils of Exploitation Film. In Screening the Past: Memory and Nostalgia in Cinema. Routledge. Critchley, S. (2002). On Humour. Routledge. Curran, J., & Porter, V. (1983). British Cinema History. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Durgnat, R. (1970). A Mirror for England: British Movies from Austerity to Affluence. Faber and Faber. Dyer, R. (1992). Only Entertainment. Routledge. Eaton, M. (1978). Television Situation Comedy. Screen, 19(4), 61–90. Egan, K., & Weinstock, J. A. (2020). And Now For Something Completely Different: Critical Approaches to Monty Python. Edinburgh University Press. Ellis, J. (2000). Seeing Things. IB Tauris. Fisher, T. (2010). Man About the House—George and Mildred: The Definitive Companion. Deck Chair Publishing. Galton, R., Simpson, A., & with Ross, R. (2002). Steptoe and Son. BBC. Garvey, A. (2010). “Pre-sold to Millions”: The Sitcom Films of the 1970s. In P. Newland (Ed.), Don’t Look Now: British Cinema in the 1970s. Intellect. Gerrard, S. (2016). The Carry On Films. Palgrave Macmillan. Gledhill, C. (2000). Rethinking Genre. In C. Gledhill & L. Williams (Eds.), Reinventing Film Studies. Arnold. Goddard, P. (1991). Hancock’s Half Hour: A Watershed in British Television Comedy. In J. Corner (Ed.), Popular Television in Britain: Studies in Cultural History. BFI. Harper, S. (2010). Keynote Lecture. In P. Newland (Ed.), Don’t Look Now: British Cinema in the 1970s. Intellect. Harper, S., & Porter, V. (2003). British Cinema of the 1950s: The Decline of Deference. Oxford University Press. Harper, S., & Smith, J. (Eds.). (2012). British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh University Press. Hartley, J. (2001). Situation Comedy, Part 1. In G. Creeber (Ed.), The Television Genre Book. BFI. Herbert, C. (1984). Comedy: The World of Pleasure. Genre, 17(4), 401–416. Higson, A. (1994). A Diversity of Film Practices: Renewing British Cinema in the 1970s. In B.  Moore-Gilbert (Ed.), The Arts in the 1970s: Cultural Closure? Routledge. Hunt, L. (2008). The League of Gentlemen. BFI. Hunt, L. (2013). Cult British TV Comedy: From Reeves and Mortimer to Psychoville. Manchester University Press. Kerry, M. (2012). The Holiday and British Film. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Lewisohn, M. (1998). Radio Times Guide to TV Comedy. BBC Worldwide. Marwick, A. (1989). The Nature of History (3rd ed.). Macmillan. McCann, G. (2001). Dad’s Army: The Story of a Classic Television Show. Fourth Estate. McKay, S. (2007). A Thing of Unspeakable Horror: The History of Hammer Films. Amicus. Medhurst, A. (2007). A National Joke: Popular Comedy and English Cultural Identities. Routledge. Medhurst, A., & Tuck, L. (1996). Situation Comedy and Stereotyping. In J. Corner & S. Harvey (Eds.), Television Times: A Reader. Arnold. Mills, B. (2005). Television Sitcom. BFI. Mills, B. (2009). The Sitcom. Edinburg University Press. Mintz, L. (1985). Situation Comedy. In B. G. Rose (Ed.), TV Genres: A Handbook and Reference Guide. Greenwood Press. Neale, S. (1990). Questions of Genre. Screen, 31(1), 45–66. Neale, S. (2001). Sketch Comedy. In G.  Creeber (Ed.), The Television Genre Book. BFI. Neale, S., & Krutnik, F. (1990). Popular Film and Television Comedy. Routledge. Petley, J. (1986). The Lost Continent. In C. Barr (Ed.), All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema. BFI. Putterman, B. (1995). On Television and Comedy: Essays on Style, Theme, Performer, and Writer. McFarland. Roberts, A. (2018). The Double Act: A History of British Comedy Duos. History Press. Schatz, T. (1981). Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking and the Studio System. Random House. Smith, J. (2012). Making Ben Hur look like an epic: Monty Python at the Movies. In I. Q. Hunter & L. Porter (Eds.), British Comedy Cinema. Routledge. Swern, P., & Childs, M. (1995). Box Office Hits: No. 1 Movie Hits in the UK. Guinness Publishing. Taylor, R. (1994). The Guinness Book of Sitcoms. Guinness Publishing. Walker, C. (2009). On the Buses: The Complete Story. Apex Publishing. Walters, J. (2016). The Thick of It. BFI. Waymark, P. (2012). “From Telly Laughs to Belly Laughs”: The Rise and Fall of the Sitcom Spin-off. In I.  Q. Hunter & L.  Porter (Eds.), British Comedy Cinema. Routledge. Webber, R. (1999). Dad’s Army: A Celebration. Virgin. Webber, R. (2001). Rising Damp: A Celebration. Boxtree. Weight, R. (2020). Porridge. BFI. Wickham, P. (2008). The Likely Lads. BFI. Woollacott, J. (1986). Fictions and Ideologies: The Case of Situation Comedy. In T.  Bennett, C.  Mercer, & J.  Woollacott (Eds.), Popular Culture and Social Relations. Open University.

PART I

The Primitive Phase

CHAPTER 2

Precursors and Pioneers: 1940–1960

Comedy on film has always been a voracious medium, necessitating constant and multiple suppliers of fresh material. British cinema had traditionally drawn on the work and stars of music hall, the West End theatre, and regional comedians. However, a problem arose in wartime when these hitherto reliable suppliers, particularly their younger writers and performers, risked being called up to the armed services. Television was still a fledgling industry and so, as Anthony Aldgate and Jeffrey Richards note, it was at this point ‘in its constant quest for new blood, the cinema turned ironically to one of its greatest rivals, radio’ (1986, p. 89). There had been earlier radio raids on other genres, notably crime drama as with the BBC’s Inspector Hornleigh  Investigates series (1937–1940), which led to three feature films starring Gordon Harker.1 Comedy, though, in its radio iterations, had developed into a compendium format with individual acts and discrete routines devoid of overall continuity: this staccato structure had not been conducive to narrative screen adaptation and so cinema had fought shy of radio adaptations. The situation, however, was about to change, and this chapter traces the development of Britain’s sitcom spinoff film from its radio roots in wartime to a tentative late-1950s television trilogy.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 S. Glynn, The British Sitcom Spinoff Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41222-6_2

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2.1   The Radio Sitcom Spinoff Film Pioneer: Band Waggon (1940) UK comedy’s first purloining of a ready-made audience from a rival electronic medium came with Gainsborough Pictures’ Band Waggon (Marcel Varnel, March 1940). The pre-war patrician BBC led by Lord Reith had proven stubbornly resistant to American-style radio comedy, a stance which allowed continental-based stations such as Radios Luxembourg and Normandie to flood UK airwaves with commercial, London-made programmes (sic) whose popularity undermined the BBC’s avowed position as a national institution. This began to change with the BBC’s 5 January 1938 launch of Band Waggon, a deliberate attempt to reach a wider working-­class demographic. Co-produced by Gordon Crier and Harry S. Popper, this was also Britain’s first expressly devised radio variety show with a fixed weekly broadcasting slot, 7.15pm on a Wednesday (Wilmut, 1985, p. 130). Running until December 1939 (3 series, 53 episodes), the show initially made little impact, dominated by Phil Cardew and his dance band, though it did offer a regular slot for diminutive Liverpudlian comedian Arthur Askey who had worked in concert parties and music halls since the 1920s. While willing to speak truth to power, Askey did so without coarse language and, given national airtime, quickly ‘attained a national fame which transcended class barriers’ (Dacre 2009, p. 108). With the shackles loosened by Reith’s June 1938 departure from the BBC, Band Waggon’s second season return (5 October 1938–15 March 1939) heralded a livelier (quasi-surreal) format, raising Askey’s profile and that of his urbane sidekick, ex-Cambridge Footlights comedian Richard Murdoch. In what ‘represented a move towards a comedy of character and situation’ (Neale & Krutnik, 1990, p.  221), the show was newly structured around the pair supposedly secretly inhabiting a disused studio under the roof of Broadcasting House (opened in 1932), alongside characters such as Mrs Bagwash the charlady and her never-heard daughter Nausea, and animals including Lewis the goat, pigeons Basil and Lucy, plus a coop of chickens. It featured (old and new) running gags with the regular deployment of Askey’s gamut of catchphrases such as ‘Before your very eyes’, ‘Hello, playmates’, ‘Ah, happy days’, and ‘I thang yow!’ There were also residencies for a gamut of musicians, including the Bandwaggoners and Reginald Foote or Charles Smart at the BBC Theatre Organ. Band Waggon (2.0) not only became ‘pre-war radio’s biggest comic success’ (Took, 1976, p.  21), but in late 1938 the format showed its

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adaptability in transferring to the stage for a successful national tour, culminating with a run at the London Palladium featuring stage-rights holder Jack Hylton and his Band, plus (teenage) singer Patricia Kirkwood, dubbed ‘Britain’s Betty Grable’. Continuing this cross-media momentum, a film version of the Band Waggon ‘brand’ was soon agreed on license from BBC with Gainsborough Pictures, who had just signed Askey to a film deal. To help retain the show’s spirit for its screen iteration, Crier and Popper, plus show-writer (and later Academy Award-nominee) Vernon Harris, joined a script team including resident Gainsborough writers J.O.C.  Orton, Marriott Edgar, and (future director) Val Guest. With a show-indebted screenplay in place and Alex Vetchinsky brought in as art director, filming began on 25 August 1939 on the roof of the expansive Lime Grove plant at Shepherd’s Bush studios with a set recreating Askey’s renowned BBC flat. Just five days later, however, the declaration of World War II occasioned a three-week hiatus before shooting essentially started over, initially as planned at Gainsborough’s smaller Islington Studios before safety fears necessitated its closure and a return to Shepherd’s Bush (Warren, 1995, p. 115). By now, several cast and crew members had been called up for active service, while a rewrite incorporated the new wartime theme of enemy agents. Following a widely praised provincial trade-show tour, the film officially premiered in London on 23 March 1940 before touring the UK Gaumont circuit.2 Band Waggon follows ‘Big-hearted’ Arthur (Askey) and ‘Stinker’ (Murdoch), both unemployed performers, who are discovered and evicted from their hideaway atop Broadcasting House where they persistently seek a BBC audition. They rent a cheap castle in Sussex but, on finding it haunted, decamp to the nearby roadhouse run by Jack Hylton who, with singer Pat (Kirkwood), has also been rejected by BBC. All decide to investigate Droom Castle’s sinister goings-on, and find that the ghost is a ruse from aged caretaker Jasper (Moore Marriott) to ward off visitors. Jasper believes the castle is being used as a pirate television studio, but his paymasters are in fact Nazi spies broadcasting top-secret British military plans back to Germany. The performers make use of the available technology to put on an impromptu show which is inadvertently transmitted on the BBC wavelength and receives rave notices. In a chaotic climax, the spies are arrested and the artists all get their coveted BBC contracts. The film of Band Waggon pleased the critics. The trade press was almost ecstatic: ‘A comedy riot!’ with ‘Side-splitting farce sequences and situations’ where ‘Not a chance has been missed for gag or slapstick, and the

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script yields laughs, laughs, and then laughs. It’s a film for the millions— and they’ll come back yelling for more’, promised the Daily Film Renter (17 January 1940). Cinema hailed a ‘Unique popular entertainment’ where a ‘Frolicsome atmosphere of admirably presented scenes reaches wildly hilarious climax’ and concluded that ‘Band Waggon is evidently destined for even greater success on the screen than that which it has already achieved on the air, and showmen are warned against missing it’ (17 January 1940). The British Film Institute  (BFI)’s august journal found ‘the burlesque espionage topical and timely’ and opined that ‘This is a thoroughly enjoyable crazy entertainment. Big-hearted Arthur and Stinker seen on the screen will not disappoint their many radio admirers’ (Monthly Film Bulletin [MFB], 7, 73, January 1940: 1). The national press reviewers were more varied in their responses. The Times, rather underwhelmed at the ‘conventional’ criminals/haunted-house plot and setting, admitted that ‘there are some quite amusing scenes, which might well have been more elaborately developed’ and conceded that ‘Familiarity with the idiom of Mr. Askey and Mr. Murdoch, and with that of Mr. Jack Hylton and his band, will no doubt be of assistance in appreciating the rest of the entertainment’ (29 January 1940). Less condescendingly, the Star found it ‘a jolly hotch-potch of musical entertainment with an eye to broad comedy rather than subtle effect. It is not always so funny as it might be, but as it exhibits all the popular favourites doing their stuff it is sure of an appeal among all who enjoy Band Waggon over the air. And that means practically everyone’ (28 January 1940). In her weekly round-up, critical doyenne C.A. Lejeune, noting the project’s commercial acumen, headlined Band Waggon before a US import entitled The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) and predicted ‘a runaway certainty for the British box-office stakes this summer. Every Band Waggon fan—which means a fortune—will want to see it.’ She noted how ‘it was good sense, and good clinical timing, to make the picture, and no amount of faults in its construction will stop the thousands from crowding in’ (Observer, 28 January 1940). She, like the trade press, was correct: after its packed trade-show houses, the film performed strongly at the UK box office and was reported as still ‘marking up nice provincial grosses’ almost a year after its release (Variety, 19 February 1941). There is an ambivalence in the transition from an auditory to optical medium. Much as the study of radio has been eclipsed by the film and television media whose invention precedes and follows it, so has audio entertainment been eclipsed by its visual media equivalents (Hand, 2017,

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pp. 340–343). Radio may be ‘blind’ and, in many quarters, deemed inferior in a sensory hierarchy of popular media, but, as Tim Crook argues, audio fiction offers a participatory process at ‘physical, intellectual and emotional’ levels, and radio’s ‘imaginative spectacle presents a powerful dynamic which is rarely prioritised by alternative electronic media’ (1999, p.  66). Aesthetically, listeners can create their own worldscape, free of shoddy sets and poor lighting. Against this, industrially the live nature of radio broadcasting placed a heavy demand on production—there was no scope for repeats or reruns. In the case of Band Waggon this pioneering intermediality was undoubtedly facilitated by the intermediary of stage touring and, in the genre’s opening film iteration, Band Waggon follows stage practice and instantly hits on a winning formula, attracting a large ready-made audience who wants to see as well as listen to their idols. The film knows not to tamper with a proven formula and features many of the settings, personnel, and even plotlines familiar from the recently ended radio series. Not only are there regular numbers from Hylton and Kirkwood, plus hints of an unseen Mrs Bagwash and Nausea, but the narrative tension, with spies, police, and BBC officials converging on the castle, is ramped up when a time bomb is discovered by the comedians’ much-loved caprine companion, Lewis. It also knows not to stray too far from audience expectations, and thus ends with what is essentially a filmed (that is, ‘television’) version of a typical episode of Band Waggon the radio show. This comes complete with ‘Chestnut Corner’ (a shameless haven for well-worn wordplay), a comic song from Askey (‘A Pretty Bird Am I’), a romantic duet featuring Murdoch and Pat Kirkwood (‘The Only One Who’s Difficult Is You’), plus Murdoch with an oversized tenor and sopranos attempting a comic oratorio (using the nursery song ‘Old King Cole’). All are scuppered by Askey who offers instead a parody of Mikhail Fokine and Anna Pavlova’s short ballet piece ‘The Dying Swan’, before the de rigueur big band ensemble finale. However, amidst the transfer’s bustling energy it must be conceded that—despite the Daily Film Renter claiming he takes to the screen medium ‘like a duck to water’—the film debut shows that radio and stage-star Askey is excessive in his acting style, not yet attuned to the relative physical and tonal restraint needed in front of the camera. In its historical context, John Mundy rightly highlights how the Band Waggon film topically ‘harnessed both the need for cheery entertainment and more subtle propagandistic messages about possible infiltration by the enemy’ (2007, p.  90). But it also pinpoints a longstanding (if lesser)

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‘enemy within’, and its play with the rival medium of television renders it an especially effective starting point for this genre study. Askey’s mild irreverence regularly targeted the BBC that had brought him to national attention, and the spinoff film continues this ambivalent stance. In its radio version Askey and Murdoch’s BBC squat was the launchpad for weekly barbs aimed at the corporation’s upper-class out-of-touch mandarins: as Paddy Scannell and David Cardiff note, it ‘symbolised the occupation of that “damned awful erection”, that monument of Reithian sobriety, by the forces of innocent mayhem and fun’ (1991, p. 272). In the film, that ‘mayhem’ is augmented with ‘in jokes’—an added member of the comedians’ menagerie, Gerald the Cock, clearly references Gerald Cock, the first Director of BBC Television—but it is also uprooted and transplanted when the pair are evicted by BBC officialdom (Fig. 2.1). The key figure in this attempted constraining of the carnivalesque, and the embodiment of the Corporation’s impractical/unsuitable high-brow attitude, is pompous executive Claude Pilkington (Peter Gawthorne), a

Fig. 2.1  Band Waggon—Spinoff Comedy Lays the Golden Egg

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plummy-­voiced Reithian epigone. He arrives for work in a chauffeurdriven car and wearing a morning suit; porters remark how he ‘hates music’; his disdain for popular entertainment is proven when he ignores ‘Melody Maker Man’, the lavish (if long) audition number engineered by Hylton and Kirkwood at their Jack-in-the-Box restaurant, and instead reads his newspaper, later storming off in disgust. The entertainers’ pricking of this personification of BBC pomposity begins when a set of Arthur’s underwear aka ‘combinations’ falls from the clothes-line slung between rooftop aerials and lands straight on Pilkington’s head. It leads to their eviction, but is not the only time that Pilkington will ‘lose face’. When Arthur and Co. access the spies’ television transmitter, Arthur takes the opportunity directly to challenge the BBC’s elitist attitude. With Pilkington on air outlining the BBC’s future plans, Arthur is able to share the frame and answer back. So when Pilkington declaims that ‘all of us here are anxious to find new faces’, Askey can not only refute the claim but personalise the response: ‘Blimey, could you do with it!’ he quips demotically: ‘Did you ever see such a “clock” in your life?’ Arthur’s jibes continually debunk corporation cant until the exasperated BBC withdraws, leaving the airwaves to Arthur who makes the case for popular entertainers with the promise of a top-notch show that evening at 8.00pm. The enraged executive may arrange for the entertainers’ arrest, but the BBC finally succumbs to public demand and the gang get their television show. Jane Stokes notes a paradox here: ‘The film’s close suggests that the BBC will allow the chums on air as a result of their revolutionary demonstration of the popularity of their acts, whereas, in reality, the BBC produced the radio show that established the national reputation of the performers’ (2000, p. 132). Rather than ‘a disservice’ to the BBC, though, the film works to foreground its meta-narrative dimension, confident in the audience’s awareness of the show’s ‘reality’ as it plays with its multimedia existence. Though switching to the more visual diegetic medium of television, the film is understood as a fantastical origin story for Band Waggon the radio show, and as such can have fun mocking the upstart small-screen medium (which had closed down two days prior to the declaration of war). Here at its origins, one could argue, is the British sitcom spinoff film biting the hand that later would feed it. It is, though, a playful biting. Alongside the fictional Pilkington, the corporation is both advertised and undermined with cameo appearances from then-household BBC names such as early television continuity

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announcer Jasmine Bligh, radio gardener Mr. (C.H.) Middleton, and Michael Standing, host of the vox-pop outside broadcast ‘Standing in the Corner’, a regular early feature on the magazine and chat show In Town Tonight (1933–1960). Indicatively, on being ejected from Broadcasting House, Arthur and Stinker meet Standing in the lobby: when he declines the offer to join their new adventure since he is ‘under contract’ to the BBC, Arthur replies ‘Oh bad luck. Why don’t you try and get with a decent firm?’ The critique is declared but simultaneously diffused by Standing’s willing participation—the BBC is ‘in on the joke’.3 Two other features will prove germane to the sitcom spinoff films that followed Band Waggon, one aesthetic, the other economic. Firstly, Band Waggon overlays its origin story with a further ambivalence that will prove endemic to the spinoff genre. As will be regularly evidenced, the temporal expansion of a concentrated format to feature-film length will almost inevitably necessitate a concomitant spatial expansion, taking the comedy beyond the tight ‘situation’ that contributed to its initial success. Here, as the MFB reviewer remarked, the scenes in their haunted castle ‘are somewhat prolonged, and hold up the development’. Band Waggon’s cinematic move out of its familiar Broadcasting House hideaway may not exculpate the BBC, but it elongates, and further dissipates any sting to the satire. Secondly, the group’s grand finale, an ensemble performance of the novelty dance song ‘Boomps-a-Daisy’,4 sees the cast in Victorian dress and bumping bottoms with each titular refrain. Here, as with its debunking of ‘high art’ opera and ballet, the exclusive class-bound Reithian hegemony is undermined by the gang’s cohesive presentation of longstanding (music-­ hall inflected) working-class and popular entertainment. This ‘vulgar’ commercial success in the face of disdain from culture’s taste custodians will resonate beyond the screen to box-office and critical responses for the remainder of this study.

2.2   The Radio Sitcom Spinoff Film Cycle Band Waggon not only launched Askey on a successful acting career:5 it also paved the way for several successful 1940s (and early 1950s) comedy radio shows—and a cycle of their cinematic spinoffs. Aware that they had hit on a promising formula, Gainsborough bought up the film rights to Hi Gang! (BBC, 3 series, 101 episodes, May 1940–December 1942, March– July 1949). This was another US-influenced fast-patter and wartime morale-boosting radio show with musical interludes, guest spots, and

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featuring Vic Oliver alongside real-life married American stars Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon—a couple much loved by the British public and key players in the early years of this discrete comedy genre. Burlesquing films, stage plays, and pantomimes, the show’s popularity saw it quickly top listener rankings as it became the first BBC series to run consecutively for 52 weeks and the first comedy show to air on a Sunday. Concurrently, Daniels and Lyon also starred in a 47-week run at the London Palladium in a similar-styled stage show, Gangway. Hi Gang! (Marcel Varnel, December 1941), filmed across June to August 1941, again saw Gainsborough’s in-­ house writers joined by the radio show’s shapers—here Daniels and Lyon. Though the first wartime feature filmed at Gainsborough’s intermittently re-opened Islington studio, the screenplay transposed the majority of its action to America as ‘The Liberty Girl’ (Daniels) and ‘Her Other Half’ (Lyon), a married couple but reporters for rival New York radio stations (she the Liberty Broadcasting Company, he the General Broadcasting Company), try to outdo each other by obtaining scoop stories. With Lyon ‘assisted’ by ‘The Nuisance with Big Ideas’ (Oliver), their comic competitiveness culminates in a ratings stunt to adopt a young British evacuee live on air. The scheme goes awry as they end up with rowdy youth Albert Tomlin (Graham Moffatt) and his cantankerous Uncle Jerry (Moore Marriott again). Believing Albert to be the son of Lord Amersham (Felix Aylmer) whose castle has been bombed during an air raid (in truth his family run ‘The Amersham Castle’ public house), Bebe raises $50,000 for the building’s restoration through a radio appeal. The principals all fly to England, and after numerous complications including Oliver cancelling their variety show guest list, a joint broadcast is arranged with the BBC and New York stations, and the regulars stage a Hi Gang! performance for the RAF. However, when they inadvertently cause a ringing of the church bells, the signal for invasion, the three stars are sacked. Returning to America, the reunited couple ensure Vic is dumped when their Clipper is halfway across the Atlantic. Already the transposition to film for this ‘comedy extravaganza’ was seen as critic-proof by the trade press: ‘Sparkling presentation of one of radio’s biggest and most popular teams in just the sort of show their legions of admirers want to see them … Terrific box-office proposition inviting foregone public approval everywhere’, declared the Daily Film Renter (8 December 1941). Nonetheless, most critics, perhaps war-­ wearied, heaped (hyperbolic) praise on the venture. P.L. Mannock hailed the ‘Best-ever fun-and-music show from any British studio; ingenious

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story; fertile gags; a breezy pace that never flags; the whole thing’s an emphatic “click” for lively Bebe, Ben and Vic’ (Daily Herald, 5 December 1941). For Elspeth Grant ‘Hi Gang! is one of the brightest, slickest British comedies yet’ (Daily Sketch, 12 December 1941); A.E. Wilson found it ‘still funnier on the screen’ and ‘one of the best comedies made by a British studio for a long time’ (Star, 15 December 1941). The BFI agreed that ‘Those who like the radio feature Hi Gang will enjoy this film version’ where ‘All members of the cast play their allotted parts with zest and under competent direction’ (MFB, 8, 96, December 1941). Alongside the familial, Reg Whitley’s response offered a broader (even meta-)context for the effusion: ‘Hi Gang! makes good on the screen … 100 per cent entertainment. And what a tonic for the troops!’ (Daily Mirror, 12 December 1941). Two films in and one can already see a formula developing, as Hi Gang! apes Band Waggon by instigating a hectic plot with travel and character contretemps before concluding with a visualised version of a typical fan-­ beloved radio episode. Here the diegetic armed forces (and wider cinema) audience is treated to hefty sections of familiar broadcast material, such as ‘Auntie Bebe’s Advice Column’ and Vic Oliver portraying ‘Peep Keyhole, your radio reporter, bringing you the stars in the Hi Gang! programme’. In addition to the gag sequences, there are the expected musical interludes from show regulars Jay Wilbur and his Orchestra with the Three Greene Sisters, plus songs from Sam Browne (‘We Chose the Air Force’) and Bebe Daniels herself (‘I Am Singing to a Million’)—though the radio signature tune ‘I’m Just Wild About Harry’ was dropped for new titular number. However, while critics clearly warmed to the cross-channel in-house media shenanigans, this time round the film, while a sound performer across the country, did not prosper quite as expected (the News of the World had predicted ‘No greater box office winner for 1942’ (14 December 1941))— to the extent that a proposed, indeed trade-advertised 1943 sequel, Hi Gang Rides Again, never came to fruition.6 The narrative shift to America is a key factor here, both for comedy style and narrative message. The aim may have been to reproduce the popular screwball formula most recently seen with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell as formerly married rival reporters in His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940). However, not only are Hi Gang!’s studio sets by art director Walter Murton unconvincingly transatlantic, but more importantly, as Sue Harper notes, ‘the internecine battles between commercial American radio stations … were not inherently interesting to British audiences, nor did they make any impact abroad’ (1997, p.  90). As for

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message, Jeffrey Richards notes that ‘the radio show, the stage show and the film can be seen as an important means of cementing Anglo-American friendship in the early days of the war’ (2010, p. 71). Perhaps, but arguably the spinoff film’s emphasis on Americans coming over to ‘save the day’ would not have been particularly welcomed by an already war-­ hardened British audience (and one conscious that the previously reticent US had only just officially entered the European theatre of war on 11 December 1941, following Pearl Harbor). There is, though, a distinctly British slant (and daring) to the inscribed anti-climax, with a final bill shorn (thanks to Oliver) of ‘A-list’ stars George Arliss, Robert Donat, David Niven, and Richard Tauber. Also, the film arguably works best when at its most indigenously demotic, notably through the precociously libidinous Albert who leers at his adoptive mother as ‘a bit of alright’, while the uninhibited sound effects throughout his rendition of the traditional song ‘My Old Sow’ offer carnivalesque disruptions of decorum. Even the final-reel appearance of the audience-familiar compendium show (so beloved by the film critics) seems doubly anti-climactic after Albert. Britain’s third sitcom spinoff film again demonstrates that, while a safe bet for commercial success, these radio transpositions expose the aesthetic problems inherent in cross-media adaptation. It’s That Man Again aka ITMA (a reference to the ubiquitous news presence of Adolf Hitler) was the most popular radio show ever aired by the BBC. Running for 12 series, 310 episodes, from 12 July 1939 to January 1949, the show only really caught on when recalibrated on its relocation to Bristol after the declaration of war. Aired every Thursday 8.30–9.00 pm, listening figures peaked at a purported 22 million, roughly 40 per cent of the population, and is adjudged a major contributor to boosting wartime morale across Britain and the Commonwealth (Took 1976, p.  26). The show was expressly conceived as a successor to Band Waggon by BBC’s Director of Variety John Watt, who saw Liverpool-born music-hall wordsmith Tommy Handley as its optimum presenter (Foster & Furst, 1996, p. 30). Given a loose situational structure by its initial setting on the pirate broadcast ship Radio Fakenberg, run by Handley with Canadian actress Celia Eddy as Cilly his secretary (updates made him a government minister, town mayor, and Governor of Tomtopia), the half-hour show was filled with eccentric characters in discrete sketches with a multitude of catchphrases, such as incompetent German agent Funf (‘this is Funf speaking’) and lugubrious laundress Mona Lott (Joan Harben) with her much-copied ‘It’s being so cheerful that keeps me going’. The avowed aim of writer Ted Kavanagh

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and producer Francis Worsley was to fit 100 gags into each show, under 20  minutes when musical numbers were subtracted (Richards, 2010, p. 73): the ensuing rapid scene progression, puns, malapropisms, and verbal non-sequiturs broke with Britain’s music-hall tradition, but included eleventh-hour rewrites to ensure indigenous topicality. However, while satirising government departments and their strictures (notably when Handley played head of the Office of Twerps at the Ministry of Aggravation and Mysteries), the show carefully ‘never challenged authority but instead acted as a safety valve for the public’s irritation with bureaucracy, wartime shortages, queues and the black market’ (Dibbs, 2019, p. 126). As with Band Waggon, Jack Hylton bought the stage rights, and after ITMA undertook a six-month tour of the country to packed houses (including Windsor Castle for Princess Elizabeth’s sixteenth birthday in 1942), Gainsborough again negotiated a film transfer. Though the show’s producer was reluctant, feeling that ‘ITMA combined situation comedy, topical reference and puns, which were lacking in visual interest’ (Harper, 1997, p.  90), the BBC accepted the contract offer and It’s That Man Again (Walter Forde, February 1943) was shot in eight weeks from late July 1942 at Shepherd’s Bush Studios with a specially constructed revolving stage.7 With credits emphasising how it was ‘adapted from the original broadcast production (written by Ted Kavanagh)’, the film, this time largely eschewing war references, follows the disreputable Mayor (or ‘Mer’) of Foaming-at-the-Mouth (Handley) who gambles with the civic accounts and ends up with both the bombed-out Olympic Theatre and a rundown dramatic academy whose students are owed money. Hoping to clear his debts, Handley steals the rights to a new play which he stages with impresario C.B. Cato (Claude Bailey). On its opening night, however, the dramatic academy, all overlooked for parts, sabotage the performance and Handley’s mayor flees, his creditors in hot pursuit. The press were again mostly onside, but with reservations. P.L. Mannock was once more effusive, hailing ‘a smashingly funny British picture’ where ‘Mrs. Handley’s boy … brings his own cheery ITMA gang triumphantly to the screen in some breathless nonsense which will enlighten many as to the appearance and identities of the popular standard radio team’ (Daily Herald, 20 February 1943). The BFI similarly felt ‘The show [sic] will please all those who want to see what kind of bodies are attached to the voices on the air, and who like crazy, inconsequential material’ (MFB, 10, 110, February 1943: 13). By contrast, The Sunday Times felt that ‘the film

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suffers in comparison with the radio original by being occasionally rationalised; a story had to be rigged up, sense had to be slipped into the nonsense. The original characters too, elevated by the inward eye which is the bliss of broadcasting into screwball phantoms, turn a trifle commonplace when looked at from the stalls’ (21 February 1943). The trade welcomed a ‘Spectacular crazy comedy extravaganza’ but noted that, ‘in spite of its enthusiastic teamwork and ambitious technical presentation, it finds the going a trifle hard after the hilarious first half. Nevertheless, it is good wholesome fun’ and ‘Its title and vast ready-made public, gratuitously built up by the B.B.C., put it in the big-money category. It’s a box-office certainty’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 11 February 1943: 28). Box-office returns were indeed large, but not perhaps in keeping with the popularity of the source show. The main reason for this relative disappointment is that ITMA cannot be considered a successful film spinoff. William Whitebait’s contemporary review accepted that ‘by English film standards, It’s That Man Again has its funny moments’ but pinpointed a central problem for this particular format: ‘“A penny for the diver, sir?”, “Can I do you now?” and Funf combined eerily on the wireless to create a no-man’s-land of slapstick; spread out on the screen the surprises are as mechanical as trap-doors’ (New Statesman, 20 February 1943). Those involved came to agree that the transfer was not artistically accomplished. Director Forde (somewhat shifting the blame and shortening the shoot) admitted he made ‘a very poor film, because I had such a poor script … I had so many characters going that you lost track of them. There was no straight line in the film. And I made it in three weeks’ (cited in Brown, 1977, p.  47). Kavanagh (who shared scriptwriting duties with Howard Irving Young) more succinctly ventured that ‘the ITMA characters, unlike good children, were designed to be heard and not seen’ (cited in Calder, 1971, p. 417). These views have varying credibility. The contemporary appeal of its detailed topicality has led to accusations that the radio show has not aged well (Richards, 1997, p. 360), but that is not an issue with the film spinoff. Although the war is signalled by the Blitz-damaged theatre and a late appearance from Uncle Percy the soldier (Richard George), the rare contemporary references comprise instead parodies of well-established transatlantic stars, such as Handley’s turn as Big Tom Handbell, an impersonation of radio-regular Country and Western singer Big Bill Campbell. Rather, ITMA is here redefined as a timeless ‘putting on the show’ backstage musical—it builds to a chaotic finale redolent of a radio episode, with the

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added (if overplayed) visual humour of collapsing sets, opening trap-­ doors, and characters swinging across stage on wires. All the expected characters appear and deliver their well-known catchphrases—inter alia Ali Oop (Horace Percival), the Middle Eastern hawker of dodgy goods (‘I go—I come back’); Mrs. Mopp (Dorothy Summers), the nosey charlady (‘Can I do you now, sir?’); Sam Scram (Sydney Keith), Handley’s panic-­ stricken American minder (‘Boss, boss, sumpin’ terrible’s happened!); and Signor So-So (Dino Galvani), his English-language-massacring Italian secretary (‘Notting at all, notting at all!’). However, the spectacular and exuberant late padding serves largely to diminish the troop of characters and even drown out many of the anticipated slogans. Cinematic intricacy overrides radio intimacy. There are also (as previously seen with Arthur Askey) specific issues with the acting requirements of cinema. Though the regular cast is boosted with aspiring actress Stella Ferris played by Greta Gynt (Norwegian-born but marketed by Gainsborough as ‘Britain’s Jean Harlow’), leading man Handley’s previous film experience (as compere in 1930’s Elstree Calling) had played to his verbal strengths: here, though, in his ‘fictional’ acting debut, his fast-talking, wisecracking con-man is hamstrung by the demands of narrative continuity, while Handley’s limitations as a physical comedian restrict the (relatively rich) potential for sight gags.8 Aubrey Flanagan’s contemporary review found fault with director Forde, who ‘has not succeeded in persuading the artists to realise they are before a camera as well as a microphone’ (Motion Picture Herald, 27 February 1943) and, significantly for a radio-sourced piece, the most successful sequence features a series of encounters during the black-out. A corollary of this (and anathema to its radio source) is the perversely slow pace once we venture into the chaotic happenings of theatreland. The main issue, despite Forde’s own protestations, is precisely the imposition of a film-friendly through narrative: as Geoff Brown notes, the company ‘are stifled by the framing backstage story of aspiring young thespians’ (1977, p. 10), a story that never manages to integrate the characters and catchphrases so popular on air. In short, as Kavanagh noted, in this instance ITMA proved itself just too medium-specific, its succinct surreal imaginings not finding a workable feature-film format correlative.9 More accessible to adaptation, The Happidrome show replicated the less anarchic comedy-variety format of Band Waggon and, though originally scheduled for a mere six weeks, proved so popular it ran on BBC radio across three lengthy series and 200 episodes  from February 1941 to

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December 1947. Due to the variety department’s wartime evacuation from Broadcasting House, the show’s first two series were broadcast live every Sunday evening from the Grand Theatre, Llandudno in North Wales, in front of an audience of war workers and service personnel. It starred corpulent Manx-born, Lancashire-based comedian Harry Korris as J.  Sheridan Lovejoy, the grandiloquent but perpetually harassed actor-­ manager of the eponymous rundown ‘North-Country’ theatre, who was ‘helped’ by Cecil Fredericks as his suave stage-manager Ramsbottom, and Robbie Vincent as clueless call-boy Enoch.10 Their ‘muddling-through’ comic antics (Richards, 1997, p.  275) linked leading variety acts of the time, ranging from Yorkshire comedian Sandy Powell to Irish tenor Josef Locke. The show had already moved successfully to the stage before Aldwych Films’ definite-article-shorn big-screen transposition, Happidrome (Phil Brandon, June 1943), scripted by James Seymour and Tom Arnold, was shot at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith across October to midNovember 1942, and given high-profile summer distribution by MGM. Another origin story, the spinoff film’s flashback structure shows aspirational old-tragedian Lovejoy (Korris) first meeting up with his incompetent assistants Ramsbottom (Fredericks) and Enoch (Vincent) in the small provincial town of Westhampton, and struggling to put on a worthy play about the Emperor Nero. The inadequate efforts of stage-struck socialite Bunty Mossop (Bunty Meadows), promised the lead role in return for backing the show, turn the opening night into a farce. ‘I gave them the best I had and they just laughed me off the stage’, Lovejoy laments. Rebranded as a comedy, however, and with revue sections added, the piece instantly becomes a hit. So, to a lesser extent, did Happidrome. The BFI again noted the film’s ready-made audience: ‘Not to have heard the radio version would leave film audiences completely bewildered, but no doubt a large majority of cinema audiences will have heard Happidrome over the air, and so will be pleased to see its characters on the screen’ (MFB, 10, 111, March 1943: 25). With an early indication of the genre’s cultural capital, Britain’s trade press nuanced this appeal, thinking it too broad for metropolitan sophisticates, and counselled that ‘its obvious title and star values convert it into a potential box-office turn-up for the smaller provincial and suburban halls. Worthwhile quota gamble for the sticks’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 18 March 1943: 24). Not all were so yielding. Before commending the film ‘to [our] mercy’, C.A. Lejeune cited Chaplin in observing that ‘It is probably fortunate for our national reputation as humanists that the greatest

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comic actor the films have ever produced happens to be an Englishman. Otherwise we might have some difficulty in establishing our part in the comic heritage, on the evidence of material provided on the screen’ (Observer, 9 May 1943). The Sunday Post reviewer bemoaned how ‘If ever a man suffered, that man was me during the hour and a half I sat through the film version of the popular radio show. This is a perfect example of unimaginative adaptation for the screen … Radio diehards may be amused by the adventures of Ramsbottom, Enoch and Lovejoy, but my advice to them is—stick to the microphone’ (27 June 1943). Completing a quartet of wartime radio spinoffs, there are distinct pacing problems in this adaptation, with the Nero burlesque painfully protracted and the plot distinctly perfunctory. The narrative vanishes two-thirds through having largely served to recruit the acts that appear in the (expected) last-act visualisation of the radio-show format. Alongside the star trio’s crosstalk, Lovejoy’s hired artistes range from Leslie ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson performing two numbers on piano to the (extended) circus antics of the Cairoli Brothers. Nonetheless, Happidrome’s cinematic replication indicates how, in wartime radio comedy, ‘The old compendium format was never abandoned, but increasing reliance was placed upon the comedy programme with coherence, the situation comedy’ (Aldgate & Richards, 1986, pp. 89–91). Duly aired are the lead trio’s beloved catchphrases, such as Enoch’s ‘Let me tell you’ and Lovejoy’s ‘Take him away, Ramsbottom’, while the trio’s theme tune ‘We Three’ (‘we three in Happidrome, working for the BBC/Ramsbottom and Enoch, and me’) gets a ‘proper champion’ opening and finale airing. Above all, the film follows Band Waggon in debunking untimely pretention and rejecting ‘high art’ in favour of popular entertainment—in addition to the ‘Nero’ debacle, the finale’s ‘Napoleon’s Retreat’ sketch parodies historical romantic drama. Indeed, in working to create ‘Happidrome’ itself, the spinoff, despite critical reservations, unashamedly advances its credentials as a (welcome) wartime spirit-raiser. This trend for radio adaptation would pick up pace post-war. Hammer, later purveyors of the lucrative On the Buses film franchise, also jumped on the Band Waggon. With its distribution company Exclusive Films, the resurrected Hammer Film Productions, under James Carreras, determined to supply the industry with low-budget (£15,000) support features aka ‘quota quickies’ (aiming for 3.5 minutes locked footage daily) and, with ready-made narratives and known characters, acquired the film rights to several popular BBC radio series/serials such as PC 49 (1947–1953) and

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Dick Barton: Special Agent (1946–1951) (Chibnall & McFarlane, 2009, pp. 73–76).11 Hammer first ventured into (hybridised) situation comedy spinoffs with two adaptations of recent short-run BBC radio serials written by Dick Barton creator Edward J. Mason. Celia (Francis Searle, August 1949), part-financed with a loan from the National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC), was filmed across January and February 1949 at Dial Court country house with pragmatic rewrites needed to fit the rooms available for that day’s shooting. The 67-minute film featured Hy Hazell (another contender for ‘Britain’s Betty Grable’) as the eponymous out-of-­ work actress who—with the promise of enough money to buy a 25-­guineas new hat seen in a Bond Street shop-window—is persuaded by her private detective boyfriend Larry Peters (Bruce Lester) to investigate the disappearance of wealthy Aunt Nora (Elsie Wagstaff). Celia goes undercover as a Cockney housemaid in the country house where Nora is sequestered and thwarts the murderous plans of Nora’s new young husband Lester Martin (John Bailey) and his accomplice, the family medic Dr. Cresswell (Lockwood West). However, when Celia goes to buy the hat, she finds that Aunt Nora, already engaged to another young man, has got there first. While not advance-shown to the nationals, Britain’s trade press, aware of the strictures on production, felt that, ‘notwithstanding, it tells a good story and reveals a nice sense of humour and timing’ and termed it ‘a utility outfit with a smart West End cut’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 25 August 1949: 20); Lionel Collier similarly liked how, ‘Written around the popular BBC character, this neatly made melodrama has a good story and the advantage of well-timed humour’ (Picturegoer, 7 January 1950).12 These assessments seem generous for a slow-paced film with cramped acting space and several stilted performances, crucially including Wagstaff and Bailey, though Searle achieves an atypically concise and violent climax where Martin falls to his death from a balcony primed to collapse when his wife trod on it. Hazell almost saves the piece with astute comic timing, as when her charwoman schtick outside Larry’s office succeeds in humiliating his flirtatious secretary who steps into a water-bucket. Celia performed well enough to prompt a loose repeat with The Lady Craves Excitement (Francis Searle, August 1950), a 69-minute programme filler scripted by John Gilling and filmed in just over three weeks across late February and March 1950 (with future Hammer stalwart Jimmy Sangster as first assistant). Here Hazell played Pat, an adventure-seeking music-hall performer who, with fellow artist and boyfriend Johnny

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(Michael Medwin), gets embroiled with foiling a gang of none-too-bright thieves who try to smuggle a stash of valuable paintings out of the country. The film has incidental pleasures: exterior views to Oakley Court (the Victorian gothic mansion briefly used by Hammer before Bray Studios); early appearances from well-known character actors, notably debutant Andrew Keir as unhinged artist Septimus Peterson who tries to behead Pat when she agrees to pose for a portrait of Anne Boleyn’s execution; and intertextual references by Pat and Johnnie to Mason’s Dick Barton: Special Agent serial (complete with a snatch of Charles Williams’ theme tune ‘The Devil’s Gallop’). However, the acting style throughout is overblown, the accents excessive (cf. Sid James as Italian nightclub owner Carlo), and the humour distinctly laboured. The trade press again enthused, not least at the thrift: ‘Amiable nonsense, appropriately interleaved with tuneful songs, it earns full marks for making it snappy. Other British producers should take a leaf out of the Exclusive manual’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 3 August 1950: 22). This time, though, Picturegoer was less impressed: ‘Well, she may have her craving satisfied, but it’s awfully dull for those who have to look on’ (14 October 1950). Dull was not the reaction to Hammer’s next sitcom spinoff venture, which returned to wartime broadcasting, to Hi Gang!, and in particular to the American duo Barbara ‘Bebe’ Daniels and Ben Lyon. Retiring from long and successful careers in Tinseltown where they were labelled ‘Hollywood’s happiest married couple’ (Bebe began as a child star in the silent era, played opposite Harold Lloyd, and is, perhaps, best known as washed-up Dorothy Brock in 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933)), the pair came to England in the late 1930s where they stayed throughout the war, earning considerable acclaim for refusing to abandon London during the Blitz and instead, alongside spinoff filming, performing live for troops and civilians (Allgood, 1975). After a brief post-war return to America (where Ben helped to launch Marilyn Monroe’s film career), the pair settled permanently in the UK and starred as themselves in the BBC’s Light Programme radio series Life with the Lyons (11 series, 245 episodes + 3 Christmas Specials, November 1950–March 1961), a domestic situation comedy developed by Daniels and initially scripted with Bob Block which drew on real-life family events and included the Lyons’ real-life children, 19-year-old Barbara and (adopted) 15-year-old Richard. Pioneering (for British radio) in its focus on everyday family life, on the show Ben worked at a film studio, Richard was a neurotic teen, romantic Barbara became known for her catchphrase ‘If he doesn’t call, I’ll die, I’ll just die’ when

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another relationship went awry, while Bebe strove to keep all together as the core matriarch. It proved hugely successful, attracting over 11 million listeners weekly.13 Sensing a more secure undertaking—the show proved its adaptability with a 12-week summer season at the Blackpool Hippodrome in 1952 (with an early role for Diana Dors)—Hammer doubled their usual budget to £28,00 for the film spinoff Life with the Lyons (Val Guest, May 1954). Exclusive again acted as distributors, while Daniels and Lyon worked for half their radio fee, agreeing instead a profit percentage (Fellner, 2019, p. 254). Written by producer Robert Dunmar and Guest (also making his directing debut for Hammer), the screenplay reworked three episodes from the radio series, and, with the material and cast well-known, was filmed at Southall Studios, Middlesex in just three weeks from late September 1953. Although one of six pictures Hammer co-produced with American mogul Robert L. Lippert, the film was pulled from 1954’s US schedules—probably lacking sufficient (contemporary) star appeal or difference to indigenous ‘real-life’ sitcom fare such as I Love Lucy (CBS, 6 series, 180 episodes, 1951–1957) and Life with Father (CBS, 2 series, 66 episodes, 1953–1955): it was finally given a limited US release as Family Affair in spring 1955. The film shows the Lyon family moving into a new house in Marble Arch. Their repeated attempts to get the 75-year lease signed by their landlord, eccentric writer Gaylord Hemmingway (Hugh Morton), are dashed by a series of mishaps, including a broken chandelier, flooded basement, kitchen explosion, rocks dynamited in the garden, the kids giving a jive party, and Barbara’s suitor Slim Cassidy (Arthur Hill) blasting out ballads. Only the intercession of Hemmingway’s daughter Violet (Belinda Lee), who herself falls into wet concrete but grows fond of Richard, ensures that the lease is finally signed, allowing the Lyons to settle down to domestic ‘normality’. Initially intended as a second feature, the success of its pre-release dates (enhanced by personal appearances from the cast) prompted the raising of Life with the Lyons to a first feature. Not officially shown to the national critics (a strategy often repeated, especially by Hammer, so as not to jeopardise this otherwise audience-secured genre), the trade press enthused for a ‘capital British light booking’ with ‘Simple homely fun, expertly scripted, directed and acted’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 29 January 1954: 23); a ‘popular hundred percenter and a grand addition to the lengthening line of British comedy winners’ (Daily Film Renter, 28 January 1954); and a ‘ready-made attraction for stars’ fans’ that, with ‘high-speed backchat and

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knockabout’, constituted ‘Excellent entertainment for the masses’ (Today’s Cinema, 28 January 1954). Picturegoer commended how ‘The story sticks closely to the radio formula of heydays and high days in the Lyons formula’, noting that ‘The material is brash, unsubtle—but how these Lyons can handle it! Their technique is based on split-second timing, enthusiasm and slick showmanship … For light family entertainment this is the life’ (22 May 1954). Even the BFI had time for this ‘lengthened version of the radio programme of the same name’ where ‘The script is compounded of the same well-worn jokes and situations, but has moments of authentic fun and keeps up a commendable pace. The Lyon family have considerable charm, and seem to enjoy it all. On the whole, a pleasant and unpretentious film’ (MFB, 21, 242, March 1954: 41). Life with the Lyons constitutes British cinema’s most aesthetically successful sitcom spinoff to date. Unlike with earlier efforts from stage and radio performers, the leads’ prior experience with film ensures an effective, professional transition. The (relatively) calm demeanour and comic timing on show throughout the lively slapstick are reinforced with intertextual touches such as the early exchange when a heavy trunk is explained as containing ‘fourteen reels of Hell’s Angels [Howard Hughes, 1930]’. ‘That old thing!’ notes Bebe, rolling her eyes; ‘It’s a reissue’ retorts Ben defensively of his biggest Hollywood hit, the First World War epic where he starred alongside Jean Harlow and James Hall. The exchange offers the fan pleasure of an ‘in joke’; however, it also signals (and shows through the well-played exchange) that, though playing characters forged on radio, these are experienced film actors ‘coming home’ to a known medium. In similar vein, there are occasional flights of genre-hybrid fancy, as when (with vague echoes of Tommy Handley in ITMA) song-partial Slim, dressed as a cowboy, enters the Lyons’ house on his horse, a budding Gene Autry in Marble Arch. Unlike with ITMA, though, the domestic situation (and proficient acting) allows for more successfully realised (if slight) sight gags, expanding the comic range while, on occasions, highlighting their source medium, as when Ben rewires a faulty chandelier only for the radio to start playing. The film also works for a wider demographic pull both in its diegetic setting and in casting choices. From the opening shots of a team of taxis transporting the family luggage to the Lyons’ deluxe London townhouse, it is evident that this is scarcely working-class fare looking to disrupt the social status quo. But, with efficient ensemble playing, a social cross-­ section, imported from the radio series, are also given space to make their

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mark amidst the elegant decor, notably housekeeper Aggie (Molly Weir), general handyman Mr Wimple (Horace Percival again), and Bebe’s nosey neighbour Florrie Wainwright (Doris Rogers). Though Florrie is prone to argue with Ben, here deep down everyone gets on swimmingly (Fig. 2.2). The tagline that this is ‘The world’s most lovable family in a hilarious comedy’ may be hyperbolic, but the film’s box-office success—it was Exclusive’s top UK release of the year and made a reported profit of £70,000 (Daily Sketch, 11 February 1955)14—ensured a sequel was commissioned while Life with the Lyons was still in British cinemas. The Lyons in Paris (Val Guest, February 1955) reunited cast and crew for, in essence, more of the same. Though featuring stock footage of the Eiffel Tower and Folies Bergère, it was filmed across July and August 1954, again largely at Southall Studios, though now it opened in the West End at Piccadilly’s Plaza Theatre. Retitled The Lyons Abroad, US exhibition followed in the autumn of 1955. In what publicity materials termed ‘The further uproarious adventures of the world’s craziest family!’ Ben is suspected by Bebe of forgetting their 24th wedding anniversary and by his children of having an affair with glamourous cabaret singer Fifi le Fleur (Martine Alexis). But Ben has merely bought ferry tickets from Fifi and surprises the family with a celebratory trip to Paris. Though Ben’s old car plays up, they make it to Paris where Barbara develops a ‘pash’ for existentialist painter Charles (Pierre Dudin), while Bebe and Ben become embroiled with Fifi’s domestic affairs

Fig. 2.2  Life with the Lyons—Dancing with the Stars

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to the extent that Ben is challenged to a duel by her animal-trainer husband Captain le Grand (Reginald Beckwith) in the Bois de Boulogne. All confusions are, of course, amicably resolved. Again ‘Enthusiastically received at its try-out’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 6 January 1955: 20) and this time opened up for a press screening, Britain’s first sitcom spinoff sequel was (mostly) adjudged inoffensive, if perhaps less endearing fare. The People enthused that ‘Nothing Ben, Bebe and the two kids have done on radio comes up to their side-splitting misadventures at home and across the Channel. A laugh a minute’ (13 February 1955); Roy Nash admired ‘Homely, knockabout fun which Bebe, Ben and the youngsters put over with tremendous gusto’ (Star, 11 February 1955), while Peter Burnup felt ‘It was a pleasure to come across a modestly-made British movie, with no highfalutin pretence about it except its aim to make the customers laugh. And that it certainly does in no half measure’ (News of the World, 13 February 1955). Lionel Collier again admired a ‘corny comedy’ that was ‘just as funny’ as its predecessor and where ‘No sequence is allowed to overstay its welcome. I would like to go to Paris with the Lyons!’ (Picturegoer, 19 February 1955). The BFI, though, now had stronger reservations: ‘Once more it is demonstrated that a successful radio show does not guarantee an equally successful film—although there are some amusing moments in this naïve and cheerful romp’ (MFB, 22, 253, February 1955: 26). Less positively, Reg Whitley thought it ‘no comedy classic’ but a film offering ‘loads of laughs for the lowbrows’ (Daily Mirror, 11 February 1955). Dilys Powell curtly noted that ‘I have always recommended trying anything once, but I see my mistake now’ (Sunday Times, 13 February 1955), while Derek Granger aloofly bemoaned how ‘This dish may be Pommes Lyonnaise in the “small industrial halls” for which it was doubtless intended; but close by Piccadilly it tastes like very cold, old potatoes indeed’ (Financial Times, 14 February 1955). The adaptations’ strategy of piecing together three radio storylines is here more evident. Paris makes a delayed entry as the film’s discrete opening half-hour focuses on various mishaps with the painters hired to redecorate the Lyons’ London home. Still, the play with spilt paint and misbehaving ladders allows for proof of value-added medium-specific proficiency in physical comedy, a trait which continues in Paris, as when Ben, searching a phone booth, mistakenly ventures into a pissoir.15 Overall, though, the sequel, like Band Waggon, exposes the inherent weaknesses in an expanded version by removing the comedy from its trusted ‘situation’,

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here particularly diminishing the impact of the strong supporting characters. Instead, the final hour has recourse to blunt cultural stereotyping, including the clear declaration of populist intent with a ham-fisted satire on the modish cross-channel penchant for existentialism. It merely betrays not just how the film is on firmer ground when performing fast-paced slapstick (as in Bebe’s early Hollywood career), but also a regression to an insular isolationism previously spoofed by works such as Will Hay’s Paris sojourn in Boys Will Be Boys (William Beaudine, 1935). This would prove the final film appearances for Bebe and Ben Lyon, as plans for a third entry failed to materialise. It was not, though, their screen swansong: the format had proven pliable for visual interpretation and so, on 29 June 1955, Life with the Lyons made its television debut, complete with their much-loved supporting cast. After two fortnightly series (8 episodes) ended in July 1956, the show would switch to the new ITV network for three more series (32 episodes, September 1957–March 1960).16 With intermedial exchange now opening up, the sitcom’s move from small to large screen would soon follow.

2.3   The Television Sitcom Spinoff Film Pioneer: I Only Arsked! (1958) The Army Game (ITV, 4 series, 154 episodes, June 1957–June 1961) was the first-ever sitcom made by Granada Television, the Manchester-based ITV franchise for the North West of England. This was not, though, a unique undertaking: the BBC had begun screening The Phil Silvers Show aka Sgt. Bilko (CBS, 4 series, 143 episodes, 1955–1959) two months earlier, and British comedy already had an armed forces spinoff precedent when BBC radio’s absurdist and subversive The Goon Show (10 series, 238 episodes + 12 specials, May 1951–January 1960) transferred to the screen in E.J. Fancey Production’s bottom-budget Down Among the Z Men (Maclean Rogers, 1952).17 However, The Army Game’s creator Sid Colin (who served in the RAF during World War II) took his inspiration from Britain’s war-set film Private’s Progress (John Boulting, 1956), and his series follows the peacetime exploits of a set of National Service conscripts billeted in Hut 29 of the Surplus Ordnance Department at Nether Hopping, Staffordshire. The National Service Act of 1948, which ordered every able-bodied male aged 18 to serve in the armed forces for 18 months (rising to two years by 1957), had been divisive: some young men appreciated the structure and

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opportunity to visit foreign climes; many deeply resented the imposition and determined to do as little as possible. Colin saw the latter cohort as a far richer source for comedy and, with an American-style large writing team, The Army Game aired for four years (by when multiple cast changes had affected its popularity, while, crucially, the ending of National Service in December 1960 robbed the comedy of its topicality). The first series featured commanding officer and upper-class twit Major ‘Piggy’ UpshotBagley (Geoffrey Sumner), plus Company Sgt. Major (CSM) Percy Bullimore (William Hartnell), significantly surnamed and the nemesis of Hut 29 with his bellowing intolerance for lead-­swingers.18 Running the hut (very much in Bilko style) was spiv-like Cockney Corporal Springer (Michael Medwin), while conscripts included gormless Private Arnold ‘Popeye’ Popplewell (Bernard Bresslaw); Private Montague ‘Excused Boots’ Bisley (Alfie Bass), so called for his ability to convince his superiors that he could not wear army-issue footwear; delicate Private ‘Professor’ Hatchett (Charles Hawtrey), fond of knitting; and Private ‘Cupcake’ Cook (Norman Rossington), recipient of regular food parcels from his mother. The sitcom based on National Service proved much less divisive than the real thing. True, The Army Game met with opposition from the Army itself who objected not only to the depiction of insubordinate conscripts but especially to the incompetence of the commanding officers. However, the show proved phenomenally popular with the viewing public, quickly becoming the nation’s most-watched situation comedy. It moved after 14 episodes from a fortnightly live airing to a weekly Friday night slot, with the second series in September 1958 following just three months after the first closed. It showed its intermediality when a cast record release (by Medwin, Bresslaw, Bass, and Leslie Fyson) of ‘The Signature Tune of The Army Game’ reached number 5 in the UK singles chart in June 1958;19 one year later came a cast performance at the Royal Variety Performance before HRH the Queen Mother; also in 1959 a paperback novelisation and board game based on the show were released.20 This was clearly a gift that kept on giving, and cinema did not miss out. However, the show’s success first kickstarted an unauthorised—if significant—‘steal’. While initial treatments for this army-set rival can be traced back to 1955 (Gerrard, 2016, pp. 29–30), the successful sitcom alerted producer Peter Rogers to his project’s new commercial urgency and, purloining actors Hartnell, Hawtrey, and Rossington, plus Army Game writer John Antrobus, expedited his own feature-film comedy about National Service. This opportunistic cash-in raid on Granada led to the release of

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Carry On Sergeant (Gerald Thomas, August 1958), the third-­ highest box-office success of the year (£500,000 takings from a £78,000 budget), and the first in what would become a British cinema institution, the 31-film Carry On cycle/series (1958–1992). More germane to this study, Hammer Films, already experts in the adaptation field, also saw largescreen potential in The Army Game and negotiated with Granada an official spinoff version. Most of the first series’ cast were hired, with Hartnell’s shouty CSM taken over by David Lodge’s identikit Sergeant ‘Potty’ Chambers. A screenplay by Colin and future Oscar-nominee Jack Davies restricted the cast’s customary improvisation and gave greater prominence to the series’ breakout star Bresslaw, whose nationally known catchphrase ‘I only arsked!’ took over mid-production as the film’s title. Filmed at Bray Studios in five weeks across July and August 1958, British cinema’s first television sitcom spinoff swiftly premiered at London’s Plaza Theatre on 11 November, before national release on the ABC circuit from 9 February 1959, ready for schools’ half-term holidays. Late summer saw minimal US exhibition. The 82-minute film’s diegetic context is a threatened revolution in the potentially oil-rich British protectorate of Darawa, which necessitates the immediate deployment of British troops. Instead of the expected ‘crack regiment’, however, War Office incompetence posts out to the Middle East the inmates of Nether Hopping’s Hut 29, plus their CO Major Upshot-Bagley. The soldiers’ despondency at their posting disappears when they discover a secret tunnel to the harem of King Fazim (Marne Maitland). The boys try their hardest to stay there but, when Fazim’s rebel brother Prince Mahmoud (Francis Matthews) stages a revolution, it is only by arming the harem that Hut 29 can fight off the attackers. In the process they discover oil and the King offers to pay them to stay, but the promise of riches is dashed as they are ordered home. Offering audiences a last opportunity to see (almost all) the original Army Game cast working together, I Only Arsked! pulled in excellent box-­ office grosses, its opening two Sundays making near-record takes as it made the top dozen British releases of 1959 (Kinematograph Weekly, 17 December 1959: 6). It received mixed reviews, however. Margaret Hinxman felt that ‘As subtle as a sledgehammer, at least the film has no false pretences. You know what you’re in for when you take your seat in the stalls—and you really get it in good measure’ (Picturegoer, 6 December 1958). The BFI termed it a ‘modest and relaxed army lark. There is no departure here from the tradition of service farces, except that some, at

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least, of its humour is composed of private jokes inherited from the TV programme from which the idea is taken’ (MFB, 25, 299, December 1958: 156). ‘Funny, but not very witty’ declared the Sunday Pictorial (9 November 1958). Isabel Quigly was less accepting: ‘The Army Game boys, if you like them, headed by Bernard Bresslaw (whose half-witted air I find, on the whole, rather creepy than entertaining), carry on with what looks like a strictly family joke, not for non-military outsiders like me’ (Spectator, 14 November 1958). Nina Hibbin found an ‘up-to-date situation, but humour tends to be dated and tasteless’ (Daily Worker, 8 November 1958). The Times found the film ‘capable, every now and again, of giving an unexpected twist to old situations’: however, especially with ‘leading comic’ Bresslaw, ‘the cult of the moronic is here depressingly illustrated’ (10 November 1958). Dick Richards was also guarded: noting how the ‘dim soldiers … bring out all the old Army jokes relentlessly and with a naïve enthusiasm that defies serious criticism’, he still concluded that ‘I Only Arsked raises quite a lot of laughs, but surely we’ve had enough of the Army farce—in all its permutations—by now?’ (Daily Mirror, 7 November 1958). William Whitebait also found ‘this obsolete offshoot dispiriting. To go back in a series that has gone forward, to drag us off to a Sahara of farce about harems and potentates, whereas the lure of this gang is that they belong to a particular army hut at home, seems to me the denial of wit and entertainment. I’ve no doubt it will pass with the box-­ offices, and British films will drop yet another peg’ (New Statesman, 22 November 1958). Notwithstanding, the spinoff had sufficient traction to earn a (then rare) review in the US trade press, which recommended its ‘unabashed slapstick’ that ‘covers little new territory and is content to reap the yocks from a well-tried anthology of army gags’ and adjudged it ‘a sound booking for most audiences who are looking for escapist entertainment’ (Variety, 19 November 1958). Reviews were right to emphasise the ‘private jokes’ from its team of misfit privates: with its ready-made protagonists, the film dispenses with character exposition. Where this might have given room for character development (or even observation—a strength of the rival Carry On Sergeant), I Only Arsked! instead loads up the visual humour, though the overall pacing drags, much as the single tone of Popeye’s obtuseness soon tires. The pratfalls and cross-dressing at least include a couple of intertextual take-offs from scenes in the recent epic The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957). Again exemplifying the spinoff’s need—like all genres—to demonstrate dynamic variations on audience expectation and

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anticipation, that is, to create patterns of ‘repetition and difference’ (Neale, 1980, p. 48), it again takes the core characters out of their known situation. Here (and not for the last time) this strategy adds to the problems of narrative integrity and character interaction that of representational insensitivity. The film may, as reviews noted, be escapist fare, but it nonetheless exploits current geo-political shifts and works to console domestic audiences by rewriting history in the aftermath of Britain’s humiliation in the late-1956 Suez Crisis. The recourse to ‘othered’ racial stereotypes allows the filmmakers to introduce scantily clad and compliant harem maidens for the male gaze (Fig. 2.3), but the depiction of the mythical kingdom of Darawa trots out a lazy checklist of oil wells, palm trees, and souks with Nubian slaves, while the sabre-wielding Arab fighters are totally incompetent, entering the British quarters but stabbing pillows rather than the sleeping soldiers. This exemplifies what Ella Shohat and Robert Stam term the ‘infantilisation trope’ inherent in colonialism, an ‘unthinking

Fig. 2.3  I Only Arsked!—Army Versus Harem

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Eurocentrism’ that, especially given Hut 29’s known misfits, leaves no doubt where the racial superiority lies (1994, p. 140). Furthermore, the depiction of the Darawan enemy (bar Calcutta-born Maitland) by English actors such as Matthews and Michael Ripper (Azim), plus Michael Bentine as native guide ‘Fred’, robs the Arab characters of agency and (as with Ali Oop in ITMA) instances what Jim Pines terms ‘one of the characteristics of colonial and mainstream race relations discourse’ by ensuring that the colonised is ‘silenced’, a feature doubled since ‘the colonised subject does not have access to the means of self-­ representation’ (2009, p.  121). This was of little concern, though, to Hammer, or indeed Britain’s hegemony. A new national film genre was properly born.

2.4   Television Takes Over: Families and Institutions The commercial success of I Only Arsked! did not immediately instigate an enduring film cycle/series, as would Carry On Sergeant. It did, though, prompt a residual radio-show spinoff with The Navy Lark (Gordon Parry, December 1959). The source BBC sitcom (15 series, 244 episodes, March 1959–July 1977) concerned life upon a British Royal Navy Frigate HMS Troutbridge (a play on the real destroyer HMS Troubridge). Initially stationed offshore at an unnamed ‘Island’, the show’s first characters mostly shared their actors’ surnames (bar the multiple roles for Ronnie Barker), and habitually involved bemused Lieutenant Dennis Price, ladies-man Sub-Lieutenant Leslie Phillips, and scheming Chief Petty Officer (CPO) Jon Pertwee getting themselves out of scrapes without alerting the attention of their superior, Commander Povey (Richard Caldicott). During the opening series Herbert Wilcox negotiated film rights for his Everest Pictures and a screenplay was entrusted to Sid Colin and show-writer Laurie Wyman. Filming took place in June and July 1959 at Walton Studios, Surrey and West Bay in Dorset, and The Navy Lark, shot in colour and CinemaScope, was released in time for the Christmas holiday market.21 The film specifies the island as Boonsey (loosely based on Guernsey), where the ‘forgotten’ crew of HMS Compton file bogus reports on their continuous minesweeping activities while Commander Stanton (Cecil Parker) spends his time fishing, amorous First Lieutenant Pouter (Phillips) chases after his Wren secretary Heather Stark (Elvi Hale), and CPO

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Banyard (Ronald Shiner) with Leading Seaman Johnson (Gordon Jackson) run a smuggling racket. When Captain Povey (Nicholas Phipps) inspects the base and recommends its closure, the crew’s delaying tactics include disposal of a non-existent mine, a simulated outburst of yellow fever and encouraging the locals to revolt against British rule. When the latter is taken seriously at government level, Povey’s own career is put at risk: he agrees to scrap his report. The critical response to The Navy Lark was again mixed. Ivor Adams hailed ‘a jape that will have you rocking in waves of laughter’ (Star, 15 October 1959); for Margaret Hinxman the film ‘fills out the theme of the BBC radio show, with some nice comic touches’ (Daily Herald, 16 October 1959); even Dilys Powell found it, ‘after a rather obvious start, generally funny and occasionally uproarious’ (Sunday Times, 18 October 1959). For (Fred) Majdalany, however, ‘It’s as though someone had remembered the Ealing comedies, but did not remember the secret of their inventiveness and pace’ (Daily Mail, 16 October 1959). ‘The usual farcical situations are tamely explored’ noted the BFI ‘and a marked absence of gusto makes the transition from half-hour radio programme to feature-length film seem a rather wearisome business’ (MFB, 26, 310, November 1959: 150). Picturegoer thought it ‘all good and surprisingly clean fun’ that would have been improved if ‘it hadn’t hammered home its gags quite so mercilessly’ and concluded (perhaps redundantly) that ‘it’s just The Army Game with nobs on’ (7 November 1959). The British trade praised the technology, notably how ‘the curved screen artfully amplifies every laughter-provoking situation’ and predicted that ‘It’s sure to tickle the masses, family and troops’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 15 October 1959: 10). Erroneously: if critical reserve will prove a common feature, the film proved a rarity for a sitcom spinoff in being a disappointment at the box office (doubly surprising given its Yuletide release). A proposed sequel, The Navy Lark Again, slated for a late-1959 shoot (Kinematograph Weekly, 24 September 1959: 16), was quietly scuppered. The Navy Lark, like its Army spinoff predecessor (and the recent naval comedy Up the Creek (Val Guest, 1958)), offers another satire on incompetent Services bureaucracy with stock comic situations, and it keeps the radio show’s penchant for double entendres—when Johnson asks where to put a consignment of rifles, he is told to ‘Shove them in your arsenal, you idiot’. However, while the source series had quickly developed discrete characters with popular catchphrases, the screen transfer’s strategy was to change not only the ship and setting but, more radically, almost all

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the radio cast, replacing them with better-known screen actors—only Phillips, currently hot from the set of Carry On Nurse (Gerald Thomas, 1959), was retained for an identikit central role (while Caldicott settled for a cameo appearance).22 Perhaps motivated by playing safe for cinematic transfer (and all actors perform effectively), it nonetheless proved a salutary lesson for the burgeoning genre since situation comedy is predominantly character-based and this casting strategy only helped to sink the film. By straying too far from the crucial balance of ‘repetition with difference’, The Navy Lark lost its familiar diegetic emotional structure and hence much of what should have been its ready-made cinema audience. In Services spinoff terms it was Army 1 Navy 0. It would also lose out to that other sitcom locus, the foundational institution of the family. Following the Lyon family onto commercial television and offering a working-class Cockney corrective were The Larkins (ITV, 6 series, 40 episodes, September 1958–October 1960; November 1963–August 1964). Its first four series, produced by ATV, featured firebrand matriarch Ada Larkins (Peggy Mount), her put-upon husband Alf (David Kossoff) who works in a plastics factory canteen, and their adult children, Eddie (Shaun O’Riordan), daughter Joyce (Ruth Trouncer), and her ex-GI husband Jeff (Ronan O’Casey), all living together at 66 Sycamore Street, next door to their inquisitive neighbour Hetty Prout (Barbara Mitchell) and her family. A popular and unabashed celebration of enduring East End culture and values, after the first two series, a low-budget film spinoff was agreed with Hyams and Lloyd aka Film Locations Ltd. Keeping all its main cast members and scripted by the show’s writer Fred Robinson, Inn for Trouble (C.M.  Pennington-Richards, February 1960), Britain’s second bespoke television sitcom adaptation, was shot at Walton Studios in late August and September 1959. Distributed by Eros, it played in a double-bill with Brian Rix’s And the Same to You (John Paddy Carstairs, 1960) and toured the ABC circuit concurrently with the launch of the third television series. With onscreen Pa now a long-serving employee at Belcher’s Brewery, the film’s set-up sees the family (minus daughter Joyce, seemingly on holiday in Canada) take over ‘The Earl Osbourne’, an ailing country public house. Their efforts to build up business are impeded by local opposition: inadvertently by local young blueblood Lord ‘Bill’ Osborne (Glyn Owen) who distributes free and potent homebrew more to the community’s liking than Belcher’s ‘potato water’; more malevolently from rival brewery employee Percy Pirbright (Frank Williams) who continually (and incorrectly) informs the village policeman Sergeant Saunders (Willoughby

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Goddard) of drink infractions. Eventually the Larkins turn the tide and, with Belcher’s purchasing Bill’s ‘wallop’, make the pub a roaring success.23 If perhaps hyperbolic to claim The Larkins was ‘Acclaimed at the time, and with justification, as the funniest sitcom British TV had produced’ (Lewisohn, 1998, p.  388), its film spinoff indubitably disappointed the industry’s critics (Inn for Trouble, like Life with the Lyons, eschewed a full press screening). Picturegoer felt that ‘It’s too bad the film isn’t as lovable as Ma and Pa Larkins. The whole thing has a slapdash air about it. Some of its jokes dry up’ (2 April 1960). The trade press found that ‘an effective atmosphere is created, but excess footage dilutes its down-to-earth humour’ and termed it ‘a pint in a quart pot’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 25 February 1960: 20). The BFI at least acknowledged the economic imperative: ‘Though the general standard of humour is feeble, the film may still prove acceptable to the TV series’ doubtless loyal public’ (MFB, 27, 315, April 1960: 53). It did prove acceptable: Inn for Trouble performed well at the UK box office—Josh Billings placed it with Rix’s film as the ‘Best British Double Bill’ in the trade’s annual survey (Kinematograph Weekly, 15 December 1960: 8)—but it again showed endemic artistic weaknesses in extending a successful format. While keeping the formidable Ada/Mount as its prime mover, the film version not only displaces its core ensemble from their community setting (though refreshingly shows no romantic rural nostalgia in its depiction of venal village life) and adds an exotic romantic sub-­ plot (where Bill falls for stereotypically sexy French guest Yvette Dupres (Yvonne Monlaur)), but it also further dilutes the characters’ interpersonal dynamic by introducing a series of ‘star’ (and conversely frustratingly brief) cameos, including spinoff regulars Charles Hawtrey, Irene Handl, and Leslie Phillips. Indicative of its distinctly residual nature, the film also saw the final named appearance of Will Hay sidekick (and Hi Gang! adoptee) Graham Moffatt as Jumbo Gudge, an idiotic scout-leader companion for Eddie Larkins. Against this, the film’s title (as well as warning against messing with Ma Larkins) did topically reference the Trouble House Inn in Gloucestershire, well-known for having received (in February 1959) England’s only bespoke station stop for a public house. Thus the plotline, where a major road’s prospective rerouting past the pub leads rival brewery executive Harold Gaskin (Alan Wheatley) to undermine (through his nephew Percy) the Larkins’ promotions so Belcher’s will sell up cheaply, gives the transport link a tangential relevance. However, with such business skulduggery

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exposed, plus a pompous foxhunt sabotaged and local scepticism overturned, a final rendition of ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’ indicates, despite its large-screen relocation, a straight-up reaffirmation of the source sitcom’s traditional ‘honest working-class Cockney’ values. Bringing up the rear for the first wave of the British sitcom spinoff came Bottoms Up! (Mario Zampi, March 1960), a comedy hybrid of (younger) family members and the (ill-)discipline of a British institutional setting. This was adapted from the immensely popular Jimmy Edwards television vehicle Whack-O! (BBC, 7 series, 47 episodes, October 1956–December 1960; 1 colour series, 13 episodes, November 1971–February 1972), written by Frank Muir and Dennis Norden, where the failing public (i.e. fee-paying) institution Chiselbury School, though marketed ‘for the sons of Gentlefolk’, served predominantly as a motor for the ill-conceived money-making schemes of bewhiskered and cane-wielding headmaster ‘Professor’ James Edwards M.A. (applied for)—the series grew to function essentially as Phil Silvers’ Sergeant Ernie Bilko in gown and mortarboard. Whack-O! would again show its media malleability in shifting to BBC radio (3 series, 45 episodes, 1961–1963); before then, though, Zampi’s Transocean agreed a film version, shot in August and September 1959 at Elstree Studios, with Gilbert Taylor as cinematographer and scripted by Michael Pertwee with additional dialogue credited to Muir and Norden. It premiered at London’s Warner Cinema, prior to a national release aimed at capturing the Easter holiday market. The spinoff film finds Edwards faced with dismissal by new governors, so he claims to be hosting a refuge-seeking Eastern Prince, a role feigned by Chiselbury schoolboy Cecil Biggs (24-year-old Melvyn Hayes), free-­ loading son of the headmaster’s money-owed bookmaker. The plan goes awry when the real Prince Hassan (Paul Castaldini) is posted by the Foreign Office and Cecil is mistakenly kidnapped by enemy agents. Meanwhile Edwards must contend with an anti-caning pupil rebellion, organised with military precision by wily bishop’s son Wendover (John Mitchell).24 The rebellion is survived, the Prince’s safety secured, and Edwards is covered in glory. Resolutely residual for content and character, Bottoms Up! retains its source text’s setting, while its plot is an amalgam of the series’ opening 1956 episode, ‘The School Strike’, and the current vogue for post-­imperial exploitation/xenophobia as evident in I Only Arsked!. Its leads are an explicit throwback to British school films of the late 1930s, with Chair of Governors, Lady Gore-Willoughby (Martita Hunt), a reverse-named homage to the

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Colonel from Good Morning, Boys (Marcel Varnel, 1937), and Edwards a more hirsute—and flaggelomaniacal—Will Hay principal (Glynn, 2016, pp. 77–78). The film’s title reassuringly conveys the headmaster’s pre-existent penchant for canings and alcohol, and adds a sexual connotation impossible on television—publicity posters foregrounded, in basque and mortarboard, the school’s ‘blonde bombshell’ matron (Vanda Hudson)— but the film itself remains as chaste as anything from the Lyons or Larkins. Reception was mixed. Ernest Betts applauded the film’s ‘glorious lunacy’ (People, 13 March 1960), while the trade press mostly warmed to its ‘breezy, good-humoured fun’ that ‘debunks the snobbish English private school system without malice in circumstances that will evoke hearty laughter from both young and old’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 10 March 1960: 23). A more circumspect Dilys Powell noted that, ‘In spite of the general enlarging and roughening process, some of the rude fun of the original series is left’ (Sunday Times, 13 March 1960), and Alexander Walker felt that ‘you cannot really take it out on a film which has the nerve to rhyme “gaudeamus” with “pyjamas”’ (Evening Standard, 10 March 1960). Roy Nash could, finding it ‘more punishing than six of the best’ (Star, 10 March 1960), while Donald Gomery concluded that ‘Whack-O! changed into a full-length film with top billing is just a little too much. (One can’t laugh that long)’ (Daily Express, 11 March 1960). The Times expanded on this medium specificity in what constitutes the most considered evaluation of the genre to date. Adjudging that ‘The pitfalls awaiting those who try to turn a television series into a full-length comedy are clearly illustrated in Bottoms Up!’, the (unnamed) review proposed that ‘Television lends itself to farce, because it is a medium in which reality is readily submerged: the film, with its factual backgrounds and its penetrative close-ups, presents an atmosphere of realism with cannot easily be suppressed’. It saw Edwards as being of ‘the jumbo size, both physically and histrionically: he has never been one to underplay a scene’ and his headmaster ‘a caricature’ that ‘should only be taken in small doses. A plot is a burden to him, but a plot is essential to a full-length film.’ Here the kidnapping plot with its school riot ‘tends to push Mr. Edwards into the background. In television he always dominates the scene; and it is one of the curiosities of television that its small picture frame should fit so snugly around those who are much larger than life’ (11 March 1960). William Whitebait, clearly no admirer of the burgeoning genre, had similar objections but more emotively lamented a ‘primitive’ television transfer with Edwards typifying comedic ‘minor masters’ who are ‘bogged

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down in the push-over routines that will finally close cinemas’ (New Statesman, 19 March 1960). His was the view that came to hold dominance and with fresh narrative and economic sources appearing both at home and abroad, 1960s British cinema turned to social realism, then Swinging London, and stepped away from the sitcom spinoff film.

Notes 1. These spinoffs comprised Inspector Hornleigh (Eugene Forde, 1938), Inspector Hornleigh on Holiday (Walter Forde, 1939), and Inspector Hornleigh Goes to It (Walter Forde, 1941). 2. The film was supported by Monogram’s Boris Karloff vehicle Mr. Wong in Chinatown (William Nigh, 1939). 3. The sitcom, with Askey and Murdoch, would finally transfer to television as Living It Up (2 series, 9 episodes, 1957–1958), but made by Associated-­ Rediffusion for ITV, not the BBC. 4. ‘Boomps-A-Daisy’ had been written and recorded in 1939 (with the Joe Loss Orchestra) by Annette Mills, brother of John and now best-known as presenter of children’s programme Muffin the Mule (BBC, 1946–1955). 5. By the end of 1940 the Motion Picture Herald poll placed Askey as Britain’s fourth most popular star (behind George Formby, Robert Donat, and Gracie Fields). After Band Waggon wrapped, the younger Murdoch straightway joined the RAF, where he met fellow officer Kenneth Horne and together created the BBC radio comedy series Much-Binding-in-theMarsh (1944–1954). 6. The proposed sequel was listed, alongside British fare including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1943) and Arthur Askey’s Miss London Ltd. (Val Guest, 1943), in the trade press ‘Forthcoming Features’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 14 January 1943: 15). 7. The film was supported (perversely or pertinently?) by the Crown Film Unit documentary short Listen to Britain (Humphrey Jennings, Stewart McAllister, 1942). Unlike ITMA (or any other sitcom spinoff film), the documentary was nominated for an Academy Award. 8. His film acting notwithstanding, Handley’s national esteem was evident when his sudden death in 1949 led to a memorial service at St Paul’s Cathedral and brought ITMA to an end. Handley also features on the cover to the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). 9. The ITMA show can be seen as a direct influence on The Fast Show (BBC, 3 series, 21 episodes, 1994–1997, + 2 specials, 2000, 2014). Significantly, while this made two national tours (1998, 2002), it was never deemed suitable for a film spinoff.

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10. (Sergeant) Korris and (Private Enoch) Vincent had previous film experience appearing in the first three of Frank Randle’s low-budget Somewhere series (1940–1943). 11. Hammer’s spinoffs here were The Adventures of PC 49 (Godfrey Grayson, 1949) and A Case for PC 49 (Francis Searle, 1951); Dick Barton: Special Agent (Alfred J.  Goulding, 1948), Dick Barton Strikes Back (Godfrey Grayson, 1949), and Dick Barton at Bay (Grayson, 1950). 12. Celia supported Elizabeth Taylor in Conspirator (Victor Saville, 1949) on the ABC circuit. 13. The long-lasting cultural reach of the series can be deduced from the title, however ironically employed, of the avant-garde album of John Lennon with Yoko Ono, Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions (1969). 14. It proved a spinoff that travelled well. Moore Raymond noted that ‘British comedies are rarely shown in the cinemas of the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary because of the cosmopolitan audience. But Life with the Lyons is now being shown on all the big Cunarders’ (Sunday Dispatch, 23 May 1954). 15. The joke’s setting was clearly to Guest’s liking: he reuses the pissoir with Peter Sellers at the start of the multi-directed James Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967). 16. Life with the Lyons was also reissued in 1957 as a six-episode serial for Children’s matinees. 17. Down Among the Z Men (the titular ‘Z men’ were one of the classes of military reservists in the National Service era) is the only feature film containing all four original Goons, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, and Michael Bentine. While the Goons’ influence on British film comedy is extensive, especially through Richard Lester and Monty Python’s Flying Circus, their film work is not examined here since, with its surreal sketch show format, The Goon Show is by common consent not categorisable as a sitcom (Mills, 2005, p. 42). 18. Hartnell had played a similar role as Sgt. Sutton in the influential Private’s Progress. 19. Bresslaw’s single ‘Mad Passionate Love’, sung in the style of Popplewell, also charted, peaking at number 6 in November 1958. 20. There would also be a spinoff television series, Bootsie and Snudge (ITV, 4 series, 104 episodes, 1960–1963, 1974), based on the characters played by Bass and Bill Fraser returning to civilian life. 21. Site-specific film screenings are not a recent phenomenon. Distributors Twentieth-Century Fox gave The Navy Lark a triple premiere ‘at London’s Carlton cinema, aboard the aircraft carrier Victorious in Home Waters, and aboard the Centaur in the Far East’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 15 October 1959: 16).

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22. Homophobia has also been suggested as a cause, with Wilcox’s refusal to hire Price ‘because he was gay’ leading to the dropping of those who objected. See Jon Pertwee with David Howe (1996) I Am the Doctor: Jon Pertwee’s Final Memoir. London: Virgin: 20. In his autobiography, Leslie Phillips reminisces in glowing terms about the radio sitcom: the spinoff film is not mentioned. See Phillips (2006) Hello. London: Orion: 193. 23. The spinoff’s plotline anticipates the series’ 1963 return where, with their children having finally flown the nest, Ma and Pa Larkins leave Sycamore Street to run a café. 24. John ‘Mitch’ Mitchell would find lasting fame as drummer in the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Bibliography Aldgate, A., & Richards, J. (1986). Britain Can Take It: The British Cinema in the Second World War. Basil Blackwell. Allgood, J. (1975). Bebe and Ben. Robert Hale and Co. Brown, G. (Ed.). (1977). Walter Forde. BFI. Calder, A. (1971). The People’s War: Britain 1939–45. Granada. Chibnall, S., & McFarlane, B. (2009). The British ‘B’ Film. BFI/Palgrave. Crook, T. (1999). Radio Drama: Theory and Practice. Routledge. Dacre, R. (2009). Traditions of British Comedy. In R. Murphy (Ed.), The British Cinema Book (3rd ed.). BFI/Palgrave. Dibbs, M. (2019). Radio Fun and the BBC Variety Department, 1922–67: Comedy and Popular Music on Air. Palgrave Macmillan. Fellner, C. (2019). The Encyclopedia of Hammer Films. Rowman and Littlefield. Foster, A., & Furst, S. (1996). Radio Comedy, 1938–1968: A Guide to 30 Years of Wonderful Wireless. Virgin. Gerrard, S. (2016). The Carry On Films. Palgrave Macmillan. Glynn, S. (2016). The British School Film: From Tom Brown to Harry Potter. Palgrave Macmillan. Hand, R. (2017). Radio Adaptation. In T.  Leitch (Ed.), The Oxford Book of Adaptation Studies. Oxford University Press. Harper, S. (1997). “Nothing to Beat the Hay Diet”: Comedy at Gaumont and Gainsborough. In P. Cook (Ed.), Gainsborough Pictures. Cassell. Lewisohn, M. (1998). Radio Times Guide to TV Comedy. BBC Worldwide. Mills, B. (2005). Television Sitcom. BFI. Mundy, J. (2007). The British Musical Film. Manchester University Press. Neale, S. (1980). Genre. BFI. Neale, S., & Krutnik, F. (1990). Popular Film and Television Comedy. Routledge. Pines, J. (2009). British Cinema and Black Representation. In R. Murphy (Ed.), The British Cinema Book (3rd ed.). BFI/Palgrave.

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Richards, J. (1997). Films and British National Identity: From Dickens to Dad’s Army. Manchester University Press. Richards, J. (2010). Cinema and Radio in Britain and America, 1920–60. Manchester University Press. Scannell, P., & Cardiff, D. (1991). A Social History of British Broadcasting, Volume 1: 1922–39—Serving the Nation. Blackwell. Shohat, E., & Stam, R. (1994). Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. Routledge. Stokes, J. (2000). Arthur Askey and the Construction of Popular Entertainment in Band Waggon and Make Mine a Million. In J. Ashby & A. Higson (Eds.), British Cinema, Past and Present. Routledge. Took, B. (1976). Laughter in the Air: An Informal History of British Radio Comedy. BBC/Robson Books. Warren, P. (1995). British Film Studios: An Illustrated History. BT Batsford. Wilmut, R. (1985). Kindly Leave the Stage! The Story of Variety 1919–1960. Methuen.

PART II

The Mature Phase

CHAPTER 3

The ‘Golden Age’: 1969–1980. Part 1: Racists, Romans, and Randy Busmen

The next two chapters examine the results of a volte-face in the British film industry which had long looked upon television as the enemy: by the early 1970s it would become its saviour. The 1960s may have seen a cultural boom for British cinema, but while dominant phenomena such as the James Bond and Beatles films, plus Swinging Sixties successes such as Alfie (Lewis Gilbert, 1966) and To Sir, With Love (James Clavell, 1967) may have been ideologically British, they had been fully financed by American studio investment. With some late costly flops and the emergence of the New Hollywood, this funding disappeared by the end of the decade. Concurrently, the British government reduced its funding in the National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC), meaning safety-net support for loss-­ leading artistic productions was severely compromised (Chapman, 2022, pp.  274–277). Thus, with UK cinema admissions dropping below four million a week, the huge success of television sitcoms—many drawing regular audiences of close to ten million homes—suddenly presented itself as a ready market for Britain’s cash-strapped and risk-averse film studios to exploit. Given that this period mostly preceded affordable home-video viewing and recording technology, and that in 1970 only 2 per cent of homes had colour television sets, cinema runs of feature-length sitcom spinoffs potentially would allow for a value-added and accessible repeat-­ viewable product. This chapter is structured around industrial practice for

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the spinoff genre’s ‘Golden Age’, focusing on two bodies that took the initiative and most mined this cinematic seam, Associated London Films and Hammer Films.

3.1   Sparking the Sitcom Spinoff Film Revival: Till Death Us Do Part (1969) Till Death Us Do Part (7 series, 54 episodes + 3 shorts) is, depending on one’s viewpoint, a cause célèbre or bête noire of British television—not that its main protagonist would recognise the terminology. After a successful pilot (tx. 22 July 1965), the sitcom, scripted by Johnny Speight, ran initially on the BBC for three series from June 1966 to February 1968, and resumed for four more series from September 1972 to December 1975.1 It centred on the East End Garnett family, led by Alf (Warren Mitchell), a white Jewish working-class foul-mouthed bigot and ‘a “monstrous” figure who disturbs the conventional family order and expresses opinions which run counter to accepted middle-class decorum’ (Neale & Krutnik, 1990, p. 261). Living with him in their run-down terraced house (25 Jamaica Street, Wapping) are his long-suffering wife Elsie (Dandy Nicholls), daughter Rita (Una Stubbs), and her husband, left-wing Liverpudlian Mike Rawlins (Anthony Booth), a frequent catalyst for Alf to vent his reactionary and frequently racist prejudices. Immensely popular, viewers (and critics) instantly responded to a new domain of situation comedy that moved beyond domestic trivia (cf. Life with the Lyons) to dramatise realistic conflicts and explore major topical issues such as immigration, inflation, unemployment, and an ever-widening generation gap. It forewent established sitcom stereotypes to develop complex characterisation, especially with Alf, described by columnist T.C. Worsley as ‘a positively Falstaffian figure in its size and impact’ and ‘a major comic creation’ (1970, p. 68). Nonetheless, parallel with such praise the series also drew vigorous objections, mainly from right-wing moral guardians offended by Alf’s coarse language (and that their views had been put into the mouth of an evident buffoon), but also liberals—including latterly Speight (1973, p.  232)—fearful Alf would be seen by some as heroic rather than the intended figure of mockery. Thus, despite the programme’s continued popularity, its position was precarious: alongside the numerous complaints and court cases (for libel or blasphemy) encouraged by Mary Whitehouse and her National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association, the shift to a more conservative leadership at the BBC (Lord Hill becoming Chair of

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Governors in June 1967) led to the loss of influential supporters, including Head of Comedy Frank Muir. Add in internal problems such as its contentious pre-watershed broadcast (at 7.30pm) plus Speight’s objections to cuts and his lateness in delivering scripts, and it is no great surprise that the BBC, claiming the show had lost its inventiveness, pulled the plug after three series (Bebber, 2014, pp. 262–263). It is in this vacuum that Associated London Films (ALF) acted. It was a production company in tune with the sitcom genre, having grown out of the Associated London Scripts writers’ cooperative, which included Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Spike Milligan, Eric Sykes—and Speight. Sensing the commercial potential in Till Death Us Do Part and supported by distributors British Lion, ALF negotiated a spinoff film version with the BBC (Garvey, 2010, pp.  181–182). Till Death Us Do Part (Norman Cohen, January 1969), scripted by Speight and retaining the television series’ cast members, was filmed across the summer of 1968 at Shepperton Studios and on location at Stepney, London and enjoyed, for this type of film, a sizeable £300,000 budget—though it still overspent. If Speight hoped for a freer hand than at the BBC to push out the boundaries of the permissible, the film was still trimmed of two swear words (leaving gaps in the soundtrack when Mitchell mouths them) to qualify for the  British Board of Film Censors (BBFC)’s more family-friendly ‘A’ certificate (under 11s admitted if accompanied by an adult). With a new theme tune written by the Kinks’ Ray Davies, the film was trade shown in December 1968 and premiered on 10 January 1969 before running (and re-running) on the ABC circuit. In the wake of the source series’ hugely successful American reworking (and softening) as All in the Family (CBS, 9 series, 205 episodes, 1971–1979), the film was retitled Alf ’N’ Family for a brief US exhibition through (soft-porn specialists) Sherpix in late 1972. The film begins in 1939 with irascible and chauvinistic dockyard worker Alf Garnett (Mitchell), recently married to Elsie (Nicholls), confidently predicting Hitler will never go to war with Britain, then claiming the war will soon be over. With Alf excused military service because he is in a reserved profession, the film follows the couple’s adventures living in their terraced house during the blitz, and the birth of their daughter Rita. At a street party to celebrate the war’s end, Alf gets drunk. He does so again 20 years later, at the wedding party for Rita (Stubbs) and Mike (Booth). The arguments of father and son-in-law are temporarily suspended as together  they attend the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley Stadium. Finally, in 1968 when the Garnett house, bought for £1500, is condemned

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and compulsorily purchased for £300, Alf reluctantly follows his family to a new block of flats in Essex. After a decade’s hiatus, the return of the British sitcom spinoff film was recognised as culturally significant—all press outlets offered extensive and discrete reviews of Till Death Us Do Part. There were, as with the source series, objectors: ‘The familiar story of a successful half-hour television series expanded for the big screen and losing itself in the process’ scorned the MFB (36, 421, February 1969: 36). Richard Roud felt that ‘the film certainly sweetens the small screen acerbity of the Garnett family, if only by washing it over with a layer of nostalgia’ (Guardian, 13 December 1968). John Russell Taylor agreed, opining that, in comparison to the source sitcom, ‘The film is not so offensive verbally or ideologically; it is probably not offensive enough’ and its latter sections became just ‘a series of snippets from the television cutting room floor’ (Times, 12 December 1968). Margaret Hinxman, with tentative echoes of the reservations raised against Jimmy Edwards in Bottoms Up!, wrote that ‘I can’t quite place my dissatisfaction with the film, except perhaps in Warren Mitchell’s performance which is allowed to flourish too loudly and lushly’ (Sunday Telegraph, 15 December 1968). Most, though, were thoroughly impressed. Ian Christie was indicative in claiming how ‘all too often a series consisting of short comedy situations suffers badly when transferred to the wide screen and expanded into a full-length feature film. Director Norman Cohen has here accomplished the transition brilliantly.’ He found that ‘Warren Mitchell is superb in the part’ and concluded that ‘If you enjoyed the TV series you will love the film’ (Daily Express, 11 December 1968). New Society thought it ‘one of the best accounts of the war at home that the cinema has given us’ (12 December 1968), while Nina Hibbin’s review was simply headed ‘Garnetts are the best British comedy of the year’ (Morning Star, 14 December 1968). Ernest Betts agreed that here was ‘the most uproarious, riotous, bawdy and verbally bloody comedy of 1968 … It’s a belly laugh all right and its hero is a real person’ (People, 15 December 1968). The trade press averred that ‘There can be little doubt that this extended version of Alf’s typical goings-on in colour and with the same cast will appeal to the large following the character has on television. Certain success’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 14 December 1968). It was an accurate, if understated, prediction: the film enjoyed huge commercial returns, building on strong opening takings to gross £1 million and hit top spot at the UK box office’s general releases for 1969—beating comedy

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staple Carry On Camping (Gerald Thomas, 1969) into second place (Kinematograph Weekly, 11 December 1969: 12). If the series was irreconcilably divisive, here both supportive and critical viewpoints have validity: climaxing with its bonding football match, Till Death Us Do Part the film is very much a ‘game of two halves’. Initially, it is innovative in using its expanded format to extend temporally rather than geographically. The war scenes are not only carefully recreated physically (kudos to production designer Terry Knight) with leaky Anderson shelters, Bisto Kids adverts, Picture Post magazines, and wall posters of Ivor Novello in his West End musical Perchance to Dream—Clive Hirschhorn’s review praised ‘an astonishing sense of period and atmosphere’ (Sunday Express, 15 December 1968)—but they also offer a (pioneering) emotional recalibration. One of Britain’s necessary war myths had been of a nation united in selfless (and classless) service, but this is here undermined by Garnett’s fully-formed East End antagonism and egotism: he constantly complains at wartime impositions, does his best to avoid community action and, as rationing bites, even takes milk from his baby’s bottle to put in his tea. (Nor is he alone: the local sergeant in charge of the anti-­ aircraft station is only attentive to sleeping with Alf’s attractive neighbour while her husband is away fighting). It is a shift of context that Raymond Durgnat termed an ‘elegant and appropriate’ lower-class corrective to fare like This Happy Breed (Noël Coward, David Lean, 1944) and their depictions of stoical and selfless heroism (Films and Filming, 15, 6, March 1969: 54–5). The World Cup final does bring some unity not just to the warring Alf and Mike but the film’s two sections, with Alf’s continued German-baiting and explicit references back to the wartime victories in which he played so little part—‘Same as in the war, mate’, he tells the German fan behind him (Michael Wolf) after England concede an early goal: ‘Started off well but got clobbered in the end, didn’t ya’ (see Glynn, 2018, pp.  156–157). Nonetheless, the film’s second half is overall more episodic and, by contrast with the coeval television series, less nuanced (sic).2 Here everything is bigger and broader, cruder not just in language (spam for tea again is ‘crap’) or in incident (lavatory jokes and Alf standing naked in the bath to acknowledge the National Anthem (Fig.  3.1.)—an image that would never have passed on television and widely used in publicity materials with the tagline ‘Yer never saw Alf like this before’),3 but also in sentiment, as with a maudlin church visit and obsequious dream sequence where Alf fawns before a regal corgi-stroking hand. The (over-)late screen arrival of

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Fig. 3.1  Till Death Us Do Part—The British Sitcom Spinoff Film Rises Again

Rita and Mike fuels the sense that Alf is more carnivalesque than on television, less contested or constrained, as if the film’s main purpose was to test the limits of an enlightened censorship.4 Indeed, with the balance skewed and the film operating largely as a one-man-show, one can understand the MFB reviewer who noted a loss of the series’ ‘didactic purpose’ in its cinematic incarnation: ‘watching the film at a public showing one noticed that the audience consistently laughed with Alf rather than at him’ (February 1969: 36). * * * Whatever the audiences’ impetus, the film’s commercial success would help the recommissioning of the television series and lead to a cinema sequel. The two films addressed a separate continuity to the series where the Garnetts never left their Wapping roots. The top-floor tower-block rehousing that ended Till Death Us Do Part continued in Associated London’s The Alf Garnett Saga (Bob Kellett, August 1972), now co-­ financed by the US major Columbia/Warners and filmed in the spring of 1972 largely on location in London and Hemel Hempstead with a theme tune, ‘Bye Bye Old Town’, penned by Georgie Fame. Unusual for the genre, the sequel, deemed less family-friendly, received from the BBFC an ‘AA’ certificate (introduced in 1970 and limiting admission to 14 years and

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over). Here Alf, scared of heights, struggles with ‘living in the sky’, using the staircase (since lifts are frequently inoperative, a fact he blames on ‘striking miners’) and walking miles to the ‘local’ pub. The main plotline sees marital discord strike Rita who sees Mike in an embrace with another girl and, in spite, starts seeing black entertainer Kenny Lynch. After multiple mishaps the couple make up, and we learn that Rita is pregnant. The film did sound commercial business, but could not approach the success of its predecessor. Nor did it generate the extensive press coverage, principally because the producers, perhaps sensing an inferior product, bypassed an official press screening. In the specialist journals, Marjorie Bilbow tried to find positives: ‘Scattered up and down there are some very funny scenes and some excellent lines but the message the film puts over is that the only admirable people are those who are prosperous and successful. Which is exactly what Alf has been telling us for years’ (CinemaTV Today, 9 September 1972). Paul Madden was less forgiving in finding it ‘one long repetitive and unfunny diatribe’ and a completely ‘unsuccessful attempt to translate to the cinema what is on the small screen a marvellous larger-than-life comic creation’ (MFB, 39, 465, October 1972: 207). Though again penned by Speight, the sequel shows the strain of adaptation by resorting to increasingly outlandish plot elements, as when Alf mistakenly swallows one of Mike’s LSD-soaked sugar cubes and, amidst fantasies that he is (happily) helping Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath win a yacht race, or (hellishly) limbo-dancing in a pub full of West Indians (and turning black himself), walks dangerously across the handrail of his neighbour’s high-rise balcony. The film also reveals its lack of impetus by availing itself of several tacked-on ‘star’ cameos, a visit to the West Ham United VIP bar with Rita’s entrée allowing Alf to mix with international footballers Bobby Moore and George Best, model and actor Julie Ege, performers Max Bygraves and Eric Sykes, and sitcom spinoff pioneer Arthur Askey. Most harmful of all though, in this iteration Mike and Rita are totally (and literally) unrecognisable, their actions so out of character that Booth and Stubbs declined the parts and were replaced by Adrienne Posta and Paul Angelis. Mike is now a drug-taking lecher who also resorts to racist insults, while Rita’s dalliance with Lynch functions principally to instil gnawing doubt in Alf’s mind over the source of her pregnancy. These confounding activities not only distance Mike and Rita from their longstanding political engagement but, rather than skew, completely remove the containing family ballast of counter-argument, rendering Alf’s repeated and uncontested rants both more corrosive and, most damning of all, merely wearisome.

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3.2  Alf’s/ALF’s Legacy: The Sitcom Spinoff Film Stampede More importantly than misjudged sequels, the unquestionable economic success of Till Death Us Do Part proved a ‘gamechanger’ for British cinema and launched a cycle of sitcom spinoff films that would fill a decade. The early 1970s were particularly prolific: 1971 would see five such films score at the box office, ten (including The Alf Garnett Saga) follow in 1972, with a further six released in 1973. While these are all examined in this monograph, the rest of this chapter examines films from the two major players in the spinoff revival. It can take the film industry at least a year to notice that an unusual film has become a hit and thus  produce imitators: so too here. Once fully aware of their (unexpected) success, Associated London returned in concerted fashion to television sources. The next film (jointly) to enter British cinemas, Up Pompeii (Bob Kellett, March 1971), was a spinoff from the BBC sitcom Up Pompeii! (with exclamation mark) (pilot September 1969, 2 series, 13 episodes, March—October 1970, + 2 specials 1975, 1991). The show was essentially a vehicle for popular comedian Frankie Howerd’s well-known shambling yet saucy persona: growing out of his 1963 appearance as Psuedolus in the London transfer of Stephen Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, he here played Lurcio, a Roman slave in the household of senator Ludicrus Sextus and his sex-obsessed family. Filled with double entendres and dire puns, each episode’s farcical happenings, though temporarily threatening Lurcio’s secure lifestyle, were largely irrelevant: the comedy came from Howerd’s straight-to-camera asides, a sustained meta-commentary on the programme’s poverty of plot, decor, and acting. Relatively short-run but hugely successful, it was prime spinoff material and a film transfer was agreed with ALF—now in partnership with EMI. With Britain’s newly populist/pragmatic NFFC also contributing to a £200,000 budget, the film was shot over November and early December 1970 at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood on sets left over from the Charlton Heston-starring Julius Caesar (Stuart Burge, 1970), and included a (comparatively) high-profile cast including Barbara Murray, Patrick Cargill, and Michael Hordern.5 It also saw another scriptwriting credit for Sid Colin (co-writer of the sitcom’s second series with Carry On regular Talbot Rothwell). However, Up Pompeii was another early

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recipient of the BBFC’s restrictive ‘AA’ certificate, despite repeated objections from Anglo-EMI chairman Nat ‘King’ Cohen, ‘a central figure in supporting what remained of the British film industry after years of recession’ (Mayne, 2021, p. 35) and a prime mover in British cinema’s spinoff revival. For prospective American audiences an extra six minutes were shot, including an explanatory prologue from Lurcio.6 Set in AD 79, the film shows Roman house-slave Lurcio (Howerd) coming into possession of a scroll naming the proposed assassins of Emperor Nero (Cargill). When the scroll passes into the hands of Lurcio’s master Ludicrus Sextus (Hordern), its intended recipient Proconsul Prosperus (Bill Fraser) sets a honeytrap which Lurcio foils. The slave then survives a wrestling contest in the catacombs and being hired by both Nero and Prosperus to murder the other. Escaping the mayhem in the steam-filled Roman baths, Lurcio is chased to the Senate whereupon Vesuvius erupts. The lead’s performance was widely praised—Nina Hibbin noted that ‘It’s a bit disconcerting to find Frankie Howerd nodding and winking at us in Widescreen and Eastmancolor. But he’s on top form’ (Morning Star, 22 March 1971), while Christopher Hudson admitted Howerd ‘lumbers after double-enterndres like a crazy lepidopterist and savours them with such huge relish that you can’t help laughing’ (Spectator, 27 March 1971). The film itself had varying degrees of support. Fergus Cashin was ‘delighted to recommend Up Pompeii … It is juicily vulgar, and makes a fair old attempt at keeping some sort of a story running in belly-laughs through the orgy’ (Sun, 19 March 1971); Ernest Betts termed ‘this carnal carnival’ as cinema’s ‘Laugh of the week’ (People, 21 March 1971). More mutedly, Ian Christie felt that ‘a fairly amusing time is had by one and all’ (Daily Express, 19 March 1971), while for Dick Richards it was ‘Bawdy, blue and spasmodically funny’ (Daily Mirror, 15 March 1971). Elsewhere, however, the film was condemned, though without any consensus on its failings. For John Pidgeon ‘Up Pompeii is distinguishable only by its length from the TV series’ as ‘The jokes are not merely similar but in some cases actually the same’ (MFB, 38, 447, April 1971: 84). For John Russell Taylor (no fan of the burgeoning spinoff cycle) its cinematic difference was the issue: ‘The limitations of what may be shown on television at a family viewing hour mean that this modern evocation of the world of Plautus and Terence has to pick its words and visuals with some ingenuity to get its points over. On the big screen this no longer applies; but with

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permissiveness the whole joke of the convention vanishes’ (Times, 19 March 1971). The public were troubled neither way—Alexander Walker conceded/condescended that ‘Groan as we may with Frankie Howerd, shoot as many aghast glances and purse our lips in dignified distaste, it has to be admitted that most people who go for such fun will find Up Pompeii right up their street’ (Evening Standard, 17 March 1971)—and the film continued the rebooted spinoff genre’s considerable commercial success by becoming the ninth most popular release at the British box office in 1971 (CinemaTV Today, 9962, 8 January 1972). The contrasting condemnations of the film each have a degree of credence, since Up Pompeii provides both ‘repetition and difference’. The central conceit of the television series is retained: Lurcio alone is aware of the camera and audience, consistently breaking the fourth wall to critique proceedings while the rest of the cast pursue their vaudevillian ‘mimesis’. There are differences in the transfer, though, both in scale, as with the cack-handed ‘epic’ depiction of Pompeii collapsing, and the more prestigious cast, wittily listed in the closing credits ‘in order of disappearance’. Also detectable is a burgeoning comedy spinoff acting ‘troupe’, with parts for Bill Fraser (the treacherous senator intent on Lurcio’s demise), Bernard Bresslaw (Nero’s champion Gorgo who knows Lurcio from the galley ships and agrees to ‘throw’ their fight), Adrienne Posta (as nubile handmaiden Scrubba eager to bed Lurcio), and another showing for Julie Ege (as seductress Voluptua, wife of Prosperus).7 As the female characters’ very names indicate—one can add Madeline Smith’s far more wanton daughter Erotica (television’s Georgina Moon was relatively naïve)—the film version follows trend in accentuating its sexual content. Lurcio is here far more lascivious (in word but still not in deed), while the female actors display far more flesh than allowed on television (or the coeval Carry On franchise): in the film’s press release Howerd admits/boasts the girls are ‘dressed in little more than innuendos’. These flashes of nudity are diegetically lauded: at the film’s end, when the dead Pompeiians reappear as modern tourists, inspecting their own petrified remains, Howerd, now a tourist guide, informs them (and us) how the film has offered a much raunchier Roman reality than the tame Pompeiian murals on view (and by implication viewable on television)—and  with shameless advertising announces that ‘If you’ve enjoyed it, tell your friends!’ However, if the sexual politics are rendered even cruder, the general ‘ramping up’ for cinema offers occasional clever touches of intertextuality.

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‘Special effects’ such as a huge godly finger pointing down bring a Monty Python surrealism to the movie’s pantomime salaciousness; the frantic steam bath scene offers bathetic echoes of Roderigo’s murder in Orson Welles’ Othello (1952); for Robert Ross the opening panorama is ‘Like a tongue-in-cheek version of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes [1938]’ (2001, p. 138). The large screen transfer also offers comic benefits both for image and for sound. For instance, the Hitchcockian opening shot pans across the titular Roman city, its model recreation almost credible until it reaches Vesuvius smoking less than ominously at the top. At the very moment the illusion is fully broken, Howerd in his toga rises up from behind the maquette—‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ he nods straight to camera, before mocking the film’s ‘big budget’ effects: ‘“Copulatum expensium”, as we Pompeiians say!’ From the start he is thus revealed as (literally) above it all, the modern meta-commentator looking down on an ‘ancient’ cornball format. Later, after Lurcio has prepared mulled wine for a drunken orgy, the participants awake next morning with terrible hangovers. The soundtrack here carries a massive echo, so that every sound painfully reverberates—Ludicrus stepping across the floor then sitting down occasions ear-splitting crunches and crashes. It is a well-achieved comic synaesthesia. With the larger format already placing British music-hall comedy in a potentially accessible Broadway-style setting, a further (attempted) fusion is evident in the export-added prologue which, for Paul Moody, instances a ‘significant’ shift in co-producers EMI looking to the American market (2018, p. 104). This was true too of early (over-optimistic) hopes for the British sitcom spinoff genre—though when this example finally reached US shores it was considered ripe only for ‘rapid playoffs’ since ‘the comedy is too thin to catch on with discerning audiences’ (Boxoffice, 27 January 1975). Discerning or otherwise, audiences are here the issue, since, despite the star’s best efforts, the film transfer unquestionably loses Howerd’s intimate interaction (and improvisation) with audiences that the stage secured and that television studio recording could simulate. Even producer Ned Sherrin later admitted that the star’s ‘unique comic quality has never been captured on screen’: Howerd ‘thrived on the tightrope of live performance’ and in the cinema ‘he was robbed of his most powerful ally, laughter’ (2005, pp. 202–203). If, as Sherrin acknowledges, there is a central aesthetic loss, the film’s financial victory justified, as with Till Death Us Do Part, a (much quicker) sequel. With Beryl Virtue executive producing, ALF’s Up the Chastity Belt

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(Bob Kellett, January 1972), filmed in April and May 1971 again at Elstree and with a slightly enhanced (£215,000) budget, was now written by Colin alongside established sitcom writing duo Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. Despite halving an opening three-hour edit and concerted negotiations with the BBFC, the film again received the restrictive ‘AA’ classification (Moody, 2018, pp.  105–107), before distribution by producers Anglo-EMI.  This iteration took Lurcio into Medieval England where, now named Lurkalot (‘because I do’, Howerd informs us impertinently), he has lived his life as a serf in the castle of Sir Coward de Custard (Graham Crowden). Here Lurkalot makes and sells chastity belts, unaware he is the abducted twin brother of Richard the Lionheart. When the kingdom is threatened, Custard and Lurkalot seek out King Richard (Howerd again) in the Holy Land, only to discover the crusades are a desert orgy where Richard is currently besotted with Scheherazade (Eartha Kitt). Even Lurkalot fitting the harem with ‘Women’s Lib’ chastity belts fails to get Richard back to England and so, exploiting their physical resemblance, Lurkalot adopts the role of monarch and, with help from a camp Robin Hood (Hugh Paddick) and his Merry Men, defeats the machinations of wicked Sir Braggart de Bombast (Bill Fraser). Richard returns and Lurkalot, knighted, ends up in bed with Custard’s daughter Lobelia (Anne Aston). Like Lobelia, the film had its champions: David Robinson conjectured that, perhaps due to the Galton-Simpson script, ‘Frankie Howerd is rather more effectively used in Up the Chastity Belt than in any of his previous screen appearances’ (Financial Times, 17 December 1971); John Russell Taylor also thought the film ‘quite a bit funnier than its predecessor’ (Times, 17 December 1972). Most, however, were less convinced. Gavin Miller, though declaring himself a concerted Howerd fan, found the sequel only ‘marginally worth a visit’ (Listener, 23 December 1971), and Felix Barker declared that ‘This historical joke falls a bit flat’ (Evening News, 17 December 1971). Nina Hibbin felt the ‘whole basis’ for the sitcom and initial ‘cinema hit’ had been ‘jettisoned’ and so, ‘Having no particular comic structure to conform to, the film dissipates its energies in a miscellany of camped-up historical jokes, some good, some bad, but most of them disappointing’ (Morning Star, 17 December 1971). George Melly similarly concluded that, despite being ‘intermittently very funny’, ‘it’s less successful than Up Pompeii because it ignores the unities (a rather old-­ fashioned explanation but, I feel, the right one)’ (Observer, 19 December 1971). Weston Taylor found the film ‘leering, tasteless, and almost as

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entertaining as amateur night in the village hall’ (News of the World, 19 December 1971). The film retains its advocates. For Paul Moody it ‘is an improvement on the original, as by being unleashed from the locale of the television series, it feels like a film in its own right, rather than merely an extended episode’ (2018, p. 105). There are certainly merits: reworking Mark Twain’s Tudor England-set 1881 novel The Prince and the Pauper (most famously filmed with Errol Flynn in 1937), the shift in historical period is imaginative and potentially franchise-building, while the supporting cast, largely retained from Up Pompeii, is again skilled in comic timing—Paddick basically imports his Julien character from the BBC radio comedy Round the Horne (1965–1968), while Howerd constantly and comically bemoans how the villainous Fraser (‘I will not be trifled with, Custard!’) has ‘the best part in the film!’ Perhaps, though, Howard’s complaint is not without reason. The titular belt is the source of several quips—Lurkalot’s pride-and-joy is his ‘Knicker-Locker Glory (Mark Three)’—and the move from Latin times allows for fresh (deliberately dire) linguistic play—‘Oh, I dost, I dost!—I do all the dusting round here!’, Lurkalot notes, turning purse-lipped to camera in one of many Olde-English-peppered dialogues. But, bar a pre-­ credit ‘homage’ to Tom Jones (Tony Richardson, 1963), there is none of the lightly judged play with film history or medium specificity as exploited in Up Pompeii. Worse still, the sequel exposes how the constant danger in genre products of upsetting the balance between expectation and innovation is intensified in a spinoff film where character traits (rather than situation) are firmly pre-established. In The Alf Garnett Saga this affected two supporting characters: here the lead is transformed and diluted, indeed diegetically divided. Howerd was known, and appreciated, for performing as a ribald choric figure, a cowardly but vocally gifted epicene voyeur. It is already stretching credulity to view Howerd as King Richard playing a rampant philanderer—on bedding Eartha Kitt close-ups reveal both actors clearly ill-at-ease.8 But when the updated Lurcio also shows himself a knowing womaniser, the much-loved choric function is doubly undercut. As Sylvia Miller’s review noted, ‘As a jaded ironist and fruity commentator on the gap between sexual fantasy and life, Howerd is bitingly funny, and it belittles his comic gifts to make him an object of his own sarcasm’ (MFB, 39, 456, January 1972: 18). Nonetheless, the film again (though just) hit the year’s UK box-office top 20 (Swern & Childs, 1995, p.  187), and so a third iteration was

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quickly realised by ALF with Anglo-EMI. Up the Front (Bob Kellett, July 1972) saw Colin now share script duties with fellow Morecombe and Wise writer Eddie Braben. Determined to appease the BBFC, the sexual display was toned down and the film, after cuts, was granted the coveted ‘A’ certificate (Moody, 2018, p.  107). Further updated to World War One, Lurcio’s descendent Lurk (Howerd), cowardly under-footman in the Twithampton household, is hypnotised into enlisting by the drunken Great Vincento (Stanley Holloway). Believing he alone can save the nation, the spellbound Lurk is soon in possession of Germany’s master plan, tattooed on his backside. Pursued across France by enemy forces, he reaches Allied headquarters where, after unveiling seductive spy Mata Hari (Zsa Zsa Gabor) and dropping his trousers for General Burke (Robert Coote), Lurk is decorated, wins the hand of beloved maid Fanny (Madeleine Smith), and thus defeats the machinations of his rival, Twithampton’s butler then army Sgt Major Groping (Bill Fraser again). With diminishing returns, the third sortie did well financially but, despite its wider potential audience, failed to feature in year-best listings. Foregoing an official press release, it did not escape the (clearly anticipated) brickbats from cinema’s journals of record. The trade’s Lesley Astaire felt that ‘Howerd has his devoted fans and rightly so, but even he cannot get away with such an unfunny picture’ (CinemaTV Today, 22 July 1972). The BFI’s David McGillivray found it ‘the most threadbare offering in Frankie Howerd’s series, sadly short on wit and invention’ where ‘after ten minutes the script seizes up from a surfeit of strained puns’ (MFB, 39, 465, October 1972: 219). The comic invention certainly flags, with the brightest scene, Lurk’s late sparring with Mata Hari, brazenly reworking material from the television series. Its most impressive discrete feature is, similar to Till Death Us Do Part, the period recreation (from the trilogy’s production designer Seamus Flannery), here offering passable studio-built sets of No-Man’s Land, a French village square, and carefully decorated interiors such as Mata Hari’s boudoir. Again, though, cinema works against the Howerd persona who has now lost not just the close audience interaction, but the deliberately ramshackle diegetic world that he can credibly decry. His below-stairs employment is also largely eschewed and, bereft of secure textual positioning, Howerd/Lurk seems at best befuddled amidst the cross-dressing, double-crossing espionage-centred plot. It was the end for the Up sequels.9

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But not for Associated London Films. The older conservative values of Alf Garnett and the youthful Pompeiians’ search for sex and excitement combined in ALF’s third, again highly lucrative, sitcom spinoff venture, Steptoe and Son aka Steptoe & Son (Cliff Owen, April 1972). The source sitcom Steptoe and Son (8 series, 57 episodes) had proven a resilient and highly influential success for the BBC. Written by Galton and Simpson, fresh from their genre-defining 1954–1961 radio and television partnership with Tony Hancock,10 the sitcom had grown out of a 1962 BBC Comedy Playhouse episode (‘The Offer’, tx. 5 January 1962) into four series between June 1962 and November 1965. Staggeringly popular, it attracted weekly viewing figures well in excess of 20 million (Lewisohn, 1998, p. 638) and ‘enabled the sitcom to establish itself as the television genre on which channel controllers would increasingly come to rely in the coming decades as a major weapon in their scheduling armoury’ (Kilborn, 2016, p. 23).11 Even when the show’s prime movers decided to quit while ahead, it remained so strong in the public consciousness through television repeats and radio reworkings (BBC Light Programme, 2 series, 21 episodes, 1966–1967) that all were persuaded to return for four more BBC series, aired from March 1970 to October 1974. Now in colour it proved just as successful with the public.12 The sitcom, centred on a struggling rag-and-bone business in Shepherd’s Bush, London (its dichotomy inscribed in the location—Mews Cottage, Oil Drum Lane), channelled the inter-generational love/hate conflicts between widowed pensioner Albert Steptoe (Wilfrid Brambell), a ‘dirty old man’ set in his ways and happy with the junk around him, and his unmarried 30-something son Harold (Harry H. Corbett), socially and culturally aspirational (like Hancock), but expected to maintain the family business and care for his father. Striking a chord with a British public still attuned to post-war austerity, the show was pioneering in class, content, and casting. Its focus on the struggling working class had previously been the terrain of social realist dramas, and this bold situation for comedy allowed a ‘kitchen sink’ spill-over of tone as the naïve son’s desperate attempts to escape the emotional hold of his manipulative father added an inseparable pathos, greatly facilitated by the casting of classically trained lead actors rather than career comedians. An oblique trial run/sail for cinema adaptation had been essayed early with The Bargee (Duncan Wood, 1964): written by Galton and Simpson with Corbett as narrowboat operator Hemel Pike, critics could not see beyond a quasi-spinoff where ‘Steptoe casts off as the Casanova of the

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canals’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 19 September 1963: 14). The success of the sitcom’s 1970 revival made its addition to the roster of film spinoffs inevitable, and ALF moved quickly to secure a contract. With a script from Galton and Simpson and a budget of £100,000, the film was shot across October and November 1971, between series six and seven (generally seen as the show’s apex), at Shepperton (Lee International) Studios and various London locations. The BBFC’s new Secretary, Stephen Murphy, offered his support for an ‘excellent’ and ‘unchildish’ script, though some strong language and brief scenes of strip-show nudity were cut to secure the ‘A’ certificate (Moody, 2018, p.  111). Again distributed by co-­ producers Anglo-EMI, it hit UK cinemas between the second and third Up Pompeii! spinoffs. The film shows how, at a football club stag  night, Harold Steptoe (Corbett) meets exotic dancer Zita (Carolyn Seymour) and by the morning they are engaged. Despite the obstructions of Harold’s father Albert (Brambell), the couple are married and fly off to Spain on honeymoon— with Albert in tow. The next day Albert gets food poisoning and Harold reluctantly agrees to fly him home. Zita later writes informing Harold she has taken up with old flame and hotel tourist guide Terry (Barrie Ingham, uncredited). When they meet again Zita is eight months pregnant, but she soon leaves due to Albert’s unwelcoming behaviour. A baby boy is later left at the Steptoes’ yard: convinced he is the father, Harold arranges adoption, but the child soon disappears with a note explaining the mother now feels able to care for him. Harold tracks down Zita stripping in a local rugby club and is taken to her dressing room by Zita’s black piano player (Lon Satton), where he discovers in a cot their mixed-race baby. Knowing his relationship with Zita is over, Harold returns to live with his father. Steptoe and Son was another considerable financial success, bringing in over £500,000 and coming fifth in 1972’s box-office top 20—the most popular British comedy of the year (Swern & Childs, 1995, p. 187).13 It again showed that the genre had no need of critical endorsement—and, released without an official press screening, was bypassed by the national newspapers. Britain’s film journals, though, were not ‘buying into’ this new phenomenon. Peter Buckley began his review admitting to confusion: ‘Britain’s main artistic contribution to the film industry in the ‘70s seems to be the expansion of the television series into full-length features. The point of it all escapes me—why go out of your way to pay money for something you can suffer through for free in the comfort of your own home [?]’ Given the trend, he thought ‘those involved would at least have

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something new to say, something different to add to the film as opposed to its television origin, but no, invariably the big screen version is little more than an overblown copy of the weekly trick’. He felt that ‘Such is the case with Steptoe & Son—merely a trio of thirty-minute episodes with a clumsy flashback framework’. Consequently, ‘The only thing that has been achieved by bringing Steptoe into the cinema is that the principals are three times as disagreeable, everything looks three times as grubby, and everybody sounds three times as inane … I found the entire proceedings thoroughly distasteful’ (Films and Filming, 18, 9, June 1972: 54–55). Brenda Davies from the BFI was more forgiving, but still critical of the adaptation: ‘the film is a lively piece of entertainment, albeit no match for the best Steptoe episodes of 1962’ as ‘the mere scale of the larger screen spoiled the intimacy of the scene and coarsened the characterisations’ (MFB, 39, 459, April 1972, 78). The criticism, if in places severe, is not without foundation. While making irrefutable commercial sense, turning Steptoe and Son into a film presented distinct aesthetic difficulties and the bold innovations of the television series are (unlike with ALF’s earlier first-runs) largely sacrificed for copycat generic formulae. There are occasional imaginative touches: the integrated title credits self-deprecatingly list Galton and Simpson next to a ‘LITTER’ basket; the baby’s discovery in the Steptoe stables effectively parodies the Nativity, with the Magi here three rag-selling tramps, and the Guiding Star replaced by the lights of an airliner. More pervasively, like Till Death Us Do Part the film adaptation uses its longer format to extend the narrow temporal dimension of the sitcom format. Beginning outside the Divorce Court, the film is told in flashback as Albert and Harold reflect on events from three years previously: starting at the end structurally adds an intensifying ‘logic of inevitability’ and ‘philosophical fatalism’ (Turim, 1989, p.  17) to frustrate further Harold’s psychologically flawed attempts to escape the family ‘nest’. But while the sitcom was essentially a claustrophobic one-set two-hander on antagonistic mutual dependence, the film follows its spinoff forebears in opening out and away from the Steptoes’ shabby domicile, whose proletarian nature is (lazily) coded by the pickled onions and HP sauce bottle on the table (Fig. 3.2). Visiting pre-gentrified areas of London (e.g. Notting Hill) may have historical interest, but aesthetically it crucially dissipates the comedy’s core contained family situation. Added to this, the original was a distinctly male world, without the emotional stability—and domestic cleanliness—that (with enduring

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Fig. 3.2  Steptoe and Son—Saucy Fare

gender stereotypes) the matriarch traditionally brought to the sitcom family. Thus any ‘feminine’ softening and expression of sentiment is ‘replaced by a comically aggressive “masculine” conflict through which any problematic emotional and plot complications can be discharged’ (Neale & Krutnik, 1990, p. 256). This aspect is lost in the film spinoff where more time is spent on Harold’s relationship with Zita than with his father. While the son, though shorn of his habitual junk-trade environment, maintains his air of incorrigible optimism, the new dynamic lessens any exculpatory understanding for Albert’s actions: with Brambell also overplaying he descends into a two-dimensional figure, his spitefulness emphasised over any genuine fatherly affection, his winning worldly wisdom lost to baser slapstick. Thus the comic potential of the wedding scene degenerates into an extended joke where Albert, reluctant best man, ‘loses’ the ring in the yard—eventually found in a pile of horse manure, there is no time to tidy up before father and son hurry to the church to be met with reactions of disgust. The film apes Till Death Us Do Part with another kitchen bathing scene, but is cruder in execution as Albert washes himself in the kitchen sink (with the dish-brush) and inadvertently exposes himself to a neighbour before covering himself with a box of ‘Flash’ detergent. The BBFC’s stated understanding of the Steptoes’ character and context permitted not only far greater explicitness of language that the BBC

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would have tolerated—‘you’re worse than a fly round a cow’s arsehole’, Harold tells his father—but also extended to narrative and thematics, areas still considered troubling, though at times, I would contend, unfairly. Sue Harper and Justin Smith argue that the spinoff film ‘intensified the sexual distaste of the original’, though their character assessments seem harsh— Zita may strip and be quickly unfaithful, but she never ‘abandons her child’ (2012, p. 201). (In far more judgemental vein, Brenda Davies’ MFB review had seemed disappointed that Seymour ‘never really suggests the cheap little scrubber Zita’). Building on this reading, Paul Moody proposes that the film offers ‘a range of other distastes’ (the same term used in Paul Buckley’s review) which he adjudges ‘an evocation of the prevailing working-class attitudes of the period, epitomised by Albert’. He cites the transphobic incident where Harold lets his father think he has ‘pulled’ a woman, knowing (like the audience) that the object of his short-sighted affections is drag queen Arthur (Perri St. Claire aka Patrick Fyffe). But he also repeats the accusation from Harper and Smith that Harold ends his interest in Zita because her baby is black (2018, p.  110). This again strikes as unfair— Harold may be naïve in his love-life but his final disappointment is not at Zita’s miscegenation but the second loss of prospective fatherhood. Wherever the distaste was/is adjudged to reside, the narrative drive resembles the contents of Oil Drum Lane in being distinctly second-hand, recycling the paternity/pregnancy plot-motor from both The Bargee and series 5, episode 4, ‘Steptoe and Son—and Son!’ (tx. 15 March 1970, also directed by Duncan Wood). Overall, the filmed Steptoe and Son loses the secure emotive moorings of its progenitor, with a darker, even pessimistic middle act less integrated in the spinoff version, while Harold’s late beating up when trying to rescue Zita from a raucous scrum of Old Wendovian rugby players is painfully unfunny (and poorly constructed), a desolate ‘sit-trag’ moment as hard as any old iron. Despite its artistic shortcomings, the film’s box-office takings ensured all-round agreement for a spinoff sequel. Associated London’s Steptoe and Son Ride Again (Peter Sykes, July 1973) was filmed between series seven and eight in February and March 1973, again at Shepperton, plus London locations including the White City Stadium, Shepherd’s Bush. It now shared with Up Pompeii investment from the NFFC, indicative of what Alexander Walker (dismissively) terms the increasing necessity for Britain’s loss-making principal film bank ‘to invest in commercially safe (well, “safer”) but culturally negligible movies’ (1985, p.  217). Less sexually explicit, the sequel received the desired ‘A’ certificate without cuts

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(Waymark, 2012, p.  150) and enjoyed, through Anglo-EMI, a summer holiday release on the ABC circuit. The film shows how Harold, seeking to replace their ageing horse Hercules, is conned by local gangster/loan-shark Frankie Barrow aka ‘the Godfather of Shepherd’s Bush’ (Henry Woolf) into making a down-­ payment on a short-sighted greyhound. Hercules II fails to finish in his maiden race, and Frankie threatens retribution if the remaining debt is not paid. Albert is persuaded to feign death so they can claim the insurance, but at the funeral party they discover his policy is no longer valid. Albert falls asleep in the coffin, and Harold is knocked out: he makes it to the churchyard in time to see Harold rise from his grave, and the mourners flee in terror. They learn that the policy will now pay out: Harold buys a new cart-horse and, from Frankie, shares in a racehorse, owned by a certain H.M. Queen.14 Again released straight to the public without a press screening, the extant reviews in Britain’s film journals once more rode roughshod over the Steptoe spinoff. Eric Braun, who admitted never to finding the Steptoes ‘even remotely funny’, saw the film as a (very) poor man’s Joe Orton, ‘a kind of Carry On Mr Sloane that contains more moments of embarrassment than laughter’. He explained that, ‘Where Orton could wring the essence of black comedy out of horrible but always human characters—and Albert Steptoe is blood-brother of the “Dadda” in Entertaining Mr Sloane [filmed by Douglas Hickox, 1970]—Galton and Simpson, by concentration on the repulsive for its own sake only succeed in being messy’. Filming too was criticised as, amidst ‘the almost very funny wake sequence’, the frequent cutting to Steptoe in the coffin ‘reawakens one’s senses of distaste’ (Films and Filming, 19, 11, August 1973: 56). The BFI’s Clive Jeavons, more predisposed to the sitcom, bemoaned a ‘second Steptoe film, which—like the first—retains the trappings but none of the subtlety or intimacy of the original TV series’, and seemed particularly remorseful that the writers’ wit, gift for dialogue and ‘their genius for barely perceptible exaggeration of character and situation, have all been sacrificed to the demands of the basic British screen comedy with its emphasis on lavatories, booze, breasts and (curiously enough) the hilarity of death’ (MFB, 40, 475, August 1973: 176).15 This time the public seemed in agreement, and the film performed poorly, reportedly failing to cover its costs: ALF and EMI dropped plans for a third spinoff. Why the fall off? In retrospect, one could argue that the Steptoe films were released in the wrong order, and together show the dangers in

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straying too far from audience expectations and source formulae. John Walker, unimpressed by the whole decade’s spinoff industry, noted (with echoes of Paul Buckley’s review) that, while an invested television audience can soon forget a below-standard episode, ‘In the cinema, such indulgence is uncommon because audiences have to make a conscious decision to leave their homes and pay for their cinema seat’ (1985, p. 68). It was a conclusion that writer Alan Simpson also reached when speculating on the sequel’s relative failure: ‘The only thing I can think is that everybody who had flocked to see the first film didn’t like it so they didn’t bother to go and see the second one’ (Galton et al., 2002, p. 194). Considered by Simpson ‘a far superior film’, Steptoe and Son Ride Again would certainly have enjoyed more popular goodwill: wakes and coffins notwithstanding, it is far lighter in tone, its extortion plot dialling down the pathos and beneficially reinstating more two-hander insult-filled interaction between the titular leads. Thus, the sequel more fully maintains the core genre dynamic outlined by Stephen Wagg, that ‘successful sitcom in Britain has always hinged on ideas of authenticity and pretension in class identities: one central character may be pompous/aspiring/convinced s/he is better than all this, only to be trumped, time and time again by a doggedly unreconstructed companion’ (1998, p. 2). While eschewing filmed spinoffs’ penchant for distant travel, Harold’s ‘totting’ trips offer comically accessible images of early-1970s austerity Britain, with visits to run-down markets and stadia, plus stair-climbs of vandalised high-­ rise flats redolent of Alf Garnett’s new film domain.16 The sequel did employ the genre’s habitual recourse to ‘guest star’ appearances. Here, however, Irish actor Milo O’Shea gives an excellent turn as local Doctor Popplewell, ‘pissed as a fart’ and so myopic that he can be tricked into signing a death certificate for a shop-dummy placed over Albert. There is also an early, more gratuitous appearance for ‘blonde bombshell’ Diana Dors—also a recent sitcom star in Queenie’s Castle (ITV, 3 series, 18 episodes, 1970–1972)—as a new widow eager to offer Harold more than the old clothes she has lured him in to collect. Bending over a drinks cabinet in her short red dress and asking Harold ‘Can you see anything you like?’ sets an early benchmark. Harper and Smith, again exemplifying the spinoff’s increased sexual distaste, note that Dors’ ‘extremely buxom charms … impel Harold into a frenzy of sexual terror’ (2012, p.  201), but the diegetic  context is also important here: she makes her advances with her freshly deceased husband still in the bed beside them. As Harold flees, she sits frustrated on the bed, lights a cigarette and, looking

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down at the corpse—and straight at the audience—moans, ‘what are you bleeding grinning at?’ The scene signals how the film will henceforth focus on black rather than blue humour, on death rather than Dors. The funeral itself, if not quite ‘an epic of situation comedy’ (Galton et al., 2002, p. 192), is skilfully orchestrated, admittedly not Ortonesque but exploiting motifs from rival studio Hammer as Albert’s laboured rise from the coffin is backed up by concussed Harold, bedecked in white hospital bedwear, emerging from a nearby crypt. (The sequence also offers a roster of character actors to be terrified, including Bill Maynard and the ubiquitous Yootha Joyce). The reprised royal ending also shows the sequel’s more conciliatory, upbeat, and (potentially) crowd-pleasing nature. In Steptoe and Son the duo had turned round on The Mall to offer V-signs to the impatient vehicle behind them, only to be answered in kind by an overtaking Prince Philip: here, suitably attired they drive down the track at Ascot, respectfully following the Royal procession. ALF, with less pageantry, would also soon leave the screen, terminating production work a year later.17

3.3  Hammer Time and Spinoff ‘Gold’: On the Buses (1971) Alongside ALF was Hammer. As with the Steptoes, a rival workplace irreverence and rising sexual terror were strong plot motors in the apogee of the 1970s sitcom spinoff revival, the answer to many a pub-quiz question on British cinema, and the vehicle for Hammer Studios’ triumphant return to the genre, On the Buses (Harry Booth, August 1971). The source sitcom (ITV, 7 series, 74 episodes, February 1969–May 1973) was created by experienced writers Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe. Though ‘the two Ronnies’ had prior sitcom success on their CVs with The Rag Trade (BBC, 3 series, 36 episodes,  1961–1963) and Meet the Wife (BBC, 5 series, 39 episodes, 1963–1966), the Corporation had passed here, sensing little comic potential in this workplace-homelife synthesis. Frank Muir, now Head of Entertainment at newly founded London Weekend Television (LWT), was much more receptive and, despite an uncertain opening, the show became an enduring ratings-topper. With its bawdy ‘seaside-­ postcard’ humour and resolutely working-class outlook, a combination categorised by Leon Hunt as ‘permissive populism’ (1998, p. 2), the sitcom centred on Stan Butler (Reg Varney), middle-aged but unmarried and still living at home with his over-protective but impecunious widowed

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‘Mum’ Mabel (season one Cicely Courtneidge, then Doris Hare), his dowdy unemployed sister Olive (Anna Karen), and her workshy husband Arthur Rudge (Michael Robbins). Stan, the family wage-earner, drives the green and cream Number 11 bus for the Luxton & District Motor Traction Company, accompanied by his friend and neighbour, scheming conductor Jack Harper (Bob Grant). The duo are forever chasing an unending supply of beautiful and obliging bus conductresses aka ‘clippies’, and forever at loggerheads with their depot nemesis, by-the-book Inspector Cyril Blake aka ‘Blakey’ (Stephen Lewis), audience-beloved with his ‘Hitler’ toothbrush moustache, facial gurning and ‘I ‘ate you, Butler’ catchphrase.18 Three seasons in, Hammer came calling. The studio had not made a comedy since Watch It Sailor! (Wolf Rilla, 1961)19 but, with its waning horror output and lost US distribution deals, needed a new direction. Eager to put upstarts ALF (Garnett and Co.) in their place, they trumpeted their rightful return to the renewed British sitcom spinoff market. A pre-release statement set out their revived comedic modus operandi: ‘We believe in giving the public what it wants. On the Buses has toppled Coronation Street [ITV soap opera, 1960—present] from the top of the TV ratings more than once. By making this series into a film, we are continuing Hammer’s policy of providing the public with first class entertainment’ (ABC Film Review, June 1971). This was not a complete operational opposition, however, since the venture’s momentum came from a (brief) partnership between Hammer and EMI Films’ Nat Cohen. Wolfe and Chesney’s draft screenplay was vetted by Stephen Murphy’s predecessor, John Trevelyan, who, with his BBFC team, demanded several amendments/cuts to ‘sex jokes’ and ‘some sexy visuals’ before granting the desired ‘A’ category pass (Kinsey, 2007, pp.  268–269). The storyline diverts from the source text with a different bus and depot (still No. 11 but now with a red livery for Town & District Bus Company), plus Arthur and Olive becoming parents (despite their seemingly sexless marriage). There was also a new ‘knees-up-style’ titular theme song from Quinceharmon, released as a (non-charting) Columbia single. Retaining all key actors, the film was shot in four weeks (8 March to 7 April 1971) on location in Hertfordshire, plus London Transit’s Chiswick Works, and at Elstree, with Stage 5 used for bus depot exteriors. Continuing the strategy employed for Life with the Lyons, Hammer would eschew an advance press screening for its sitcom spinoffs (again, one can conjecture wariness of bad reviews or, more likely here, confidence in a critic-proof product).20 In this instance also avoiding the habitual London launch, On the Buses

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premiered at Manchester’s ABC Ardwick and Studio 2 cinemas on 1 August 1971: its national release a week later secured a school-holiday audience (in what proved a particularly wet UK summer).21 US release rights were again picked up by Sherpix, but the planned early-1972 American opening never materialised. The film shows Inspector Blake (Lewis) seeking to resolve a Town & District staff shortage by revoking a longstanding agreement and introducing women bus drivers. While the company welcomes the move, its male employees, including driver Stan Butler (Varney) and his conductor Jack Harper (Grant), object because this restricts their opportunities to work overtime. In retaliation they wage a sustained ‘dirty tricks’ campaign to sabotage the new drivers’ efforts, including spurious diversion signs, placing spiders in the cab, and dousing their tea with diuretics. Stan’s sister Olive (Anna Karen) takes up a position in the works’ canteen—with disastrous results—but leaves when, to everyone’s surprise, she becomes pregnant. After a frantic rush to hospital, she gives birth to a (13lb 12oz) son. The work feud is resolved with the women drivers being sacked—then reassigned as inspectors. While Jack threatens to quit, Stan is assuaged when paired with attractive new clippie Sandra (Caroline Dowdeswell). Though withheld from the national press, extant trade and journal reviews for On the Buses demonstrate that objections to the era’s gender depictions are no retrospective phenomenon. Marjorie Bilbow condemned the film’s ‘tomfoolery’ as ‘crude, spiteful and misogynistic’ (Today’s Cinema, 9921, 9 July 1971: 9), while James D.  White found that ‘the attitudes informing the script—of idiot sexuality and rabid anti-­feminism— are unpleasant in the extreme’: meanwhile the whole film signified ‘a new low in British production standards’ (MFB, 38, 451, August 1971: 168). Less severely, Christopher Hudson dismissed ‘a dullish adaptation of the ITV series’ (Spectator, 20 August 1971), while the trade saw only a ‘simple, crude, farcical comedy’ that constituted a ‘Good quota prospect for the uncritical’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 10 July 1971: 16). The (minority-­ viewed) criticisms mattered not: bearing the tagline ‘From telly laughs to belly laughs’, On the Buses laughed all the way to the bank as it became not just a good prospect but a British box-office sensation. Though made for just £89,000, its opening five days at 244 screens on the ABC circuit brought in £400,000, it broke 88 individual cinema records in its first week, and it became 1971’s highest earning domestic release in British cinemas—beaten only by Disney’s The Aristocats (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1970) (CinemaTV Today, 8 January 1972).22 By March 1973 it had

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earned £1.5 million domestically and £1 million overseas, making it one of the top ten best-selling British films for the entire decade. In all, On the Buses made back near to 30 times its original budget, bringing EMI a profit of £106,000 and Hammer £530,000, rendering it their most commercially successful film ever (Johnson & Del Vecchio, 1996, p. 343). The financial returns for On the Buses cannot be explained in aesthetic/ stylistic terms. As the MFB noted, little care was taken with big-screen production values: edited with scant regard for feature-length pacing, the film consists largely of scenes shot in medium (there are admittedly fewer close-ups), flatly lit and, given that many viewers had not yet progressed to colour television sets, processed with disappointingly washed-out colouring. Where it had an advantage over its spinoff competitors, though, was in its ready-made variety of situations—the domestic sphere, workplace, and on the road—meaning that, to attain feature film length, there was no necessity to ‘open out’ the source text and thereby sacrifice the elements that had ensured its small-screen popularity. Bruce Crowther and Mike Pinfold may have assessed this television formula as ‘thin on character, heavy on situation, and filled to the brim with noisily unlikeable stereotypes’ (1987, p.  71), but the film largely ‘sticks with the programme’, maintaining the sitcom’s plot and character motor, depicting the 1970s mature working-class male’s persistent (and parodic) attempts to access that much-discussed but seldom experienced 1960s phenomenon, the sexual revolution. In one shift from television, the film dials up Stan and Jack’s endless quest to ‘get their end away’: modern young women aka ‘crumpet’ again exist only for their sexual function, but cinema allows for the display of (not here naked but) more scantily clad bodies for diegetic and extradiegetic male consumption. The opening credit sequence to the film extols this greater exhibitionism.23 As ‘lecherous layabouts’ Stan and Jack arrive at the depot one clippie climbs up to adjust a bus number (Fig.  3.3.); another asks for help adjusting the ticket-machine straps across her (large) chest. As their bus sets out the newly written theme tune promises that ‘you can get it on the buses/Upstairs or down inside’. Supporting this, women in miniskirts take the stairs with come-hither looks, or lean over the bonnets of cars to clean them, the latter so distracting Stan that he drives straight into a puddle, ‘sending an ejaculatory spray over Blakey’ (Hunt, 1998, p. 40). It sets the tone for a film replete with scenes of Stan and Jack looking down cleavages and up miniskirts, or rushing to

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Fig. 3.3  On the Buses—Booze, ‘Birds’, and Blakey

assignations like ‘Turn-around Betty’ (Andria Lawrence) who, forever in a negligée, ‘services’ Jack in her home by the bus terminus. In tandem with this, however, the film also ‘extends’ the sitcom’s ethos with near-hysteria concerning women’s bodies in the workplace, and the working of women’s bodies. The issue with the implementation of women drivers is not only that they deprive the men of overtime bonuses but, unlike the clippies, they are not conventionally attractive: middle-aged (not a problem for the men), overweight, excessively masculine in appearance, they are clearly coded as lesbians. When Blakey notes the women drivers ‘won’t waste time trying to pick up the clippies’, Jack retorts ‘By the look of them, I’m not so sure!’ The move’s resultant shop-floor tensions render the film a mash-up of the sex-wars back in Carry On Cabbie (Gerald Thomas, 1963) and union-bashing in the imminent Carry On at Your Convenience (Gerald Thomas, 1971) since the change in working practices undermines not just salary potential but the depot’s sexual economy. When Stan starts dating (attractive) woman driver Sally (Pat Ashton), the depot’s male workers insist on union sanctions and she is adjudged off limits: only when she changes to clippie does Shop Steward Jack give Stan permission to resume the relationship—‘she’s crumpet, mate—she’s available’.

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The film’s misogyny is equally focused in the domestic sphere. Olive, as throughout the sitcom, is seemingly funny because frumpy, a Bakhtinian carnivalesque grotesque with straggly hair and bottle-neck glasses, but the narrative ‘enlargement’ of her film pregnancy is depicted as, well, a Hammer horror. The ‘monstrous feminine’ is fully unveiled in a different bedroom context as (surrogate viewer) Arthur looks on with disgust while Olive, hair in curlers and face bathed in cold cream, indulges her new craving, crunching loudly (like Albert Steptoe) on pickled onions. The birth itself is preceded by Olive’s enlarged body being wedged by the men into Arthur’s motorcycle sidecar. For Harper and Smith, the scene, for all its comic schtick, instances ‘a defensive panic’ and ‘should be read as an attempt, on a symbolic level, to reposition Olive herself back into the womb, where she can embarrass no one’ (2012, p.  200). It enacts the film’s variant on the whore/Madonna binary: On the Buses women are pretty and undressed, or pregnant and repressed. And yet. While one could drive a bus through any attempted defence of the film’s sexual politics, the momentum is not all one-way. Adrian Garvey notes that ‘there is an air of desperation about the men’s behaviour’ (2010, p. 184), and this is certainly the case with Stan, also readable as repressed. At home he is still consigned (like Harold Steptoe) to a claustrophobic family environment, enduring arguments over washing and poor food, while Mabel and Olive agree punitive hire-purchase commitments that Stan feels he must honour (hence his need for overtime payments). Meanwhile, his amorous desires are habitually frustrated, never getting further than a night out at Wimpy’s or interrupted cuddles on the family sofa. One date, God-fearing Bridget (Brenda Gogan), flees on the entry of pregnant Olive, divining a warning not to sin and leaving Stan to cry out dejectedly ’It’s always the same’—a moment of rare pathos amidst the postcard raucousness. The contrast with his more sexually successful partner is underlined through an early scene of parallel editing, Jack enjoying ‘breakfast in bed’ sucking on Betty’s shoulder, while Stan, stuck on the bus, bites into a consolatory orange. Even when Betty’s husband (Nosher Powell) comes home unexpectedly it is Stan that is wrongly suspected, his destructive bus escape necessitating a humiliating driving test for insurance cover. Jack then beats Stan into bed with the newly ‘available’ Sally and, typically, it is Stan the women drivers gang up on, attacking him with an air-pressure hose repeatedly blasted up his trousers: Jack just looks on laughing at the symbolic castration. * * *

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So did sufficient members of the public to justify a swift Hammer sequel. Mutiny on the Buses (Harry Booth, June 1972), keeping all main cast and crew and working to a similar £90,000 budget, was filmed over five weeks (21 February to 1 April 1972) at Elstree, Borehamwood and Royal Windsor Safari Park, Berkshire. With its title chosen from a competition run in the Sun newspaper (and won by a bus driver), the film had less sexual content and therefore less difficulties with the BBFC, attaining its ‘A’ certificate without cuts. It was released to the ABC circuit on 30 July 1972, between the sitcom’s series six and seven.24 The film begins with Stan (Varney) agreeing to marry young clippie Suzy (Janet Mahoney), much to the anguish of his family who worry where the money will come from if Stan leaves. When Arthur (Robbins) loses his job, Stan, having agreed to defer the wedding, secretly teaches his brother-in-law to drive a bus. Arthur eventually gets a job at the depot, but the new General Manager Mr Jenkins (Kevin Brennan) causes shop-­ floor tension with his plans to improve the workforce’s appearance and punctuality. Discovering that Jenkins is having an affair with clippie ‘Nymphy’ Norah (Pat Ashton again), Stan blackmails his way to the better-­paid driver’s post on the company’s proposed Special Tours Bus. However, his hopes of earning enough to get a flat with Suzy are dashed when, on a Safari Park trial run, he and Inspector Blake (Lewis) allow the bus to be overrun with monkeys and a lion, thus losing the Tour. On learning that Olive (Karen) is again expecting, Suzy refuses to move in with Stan and breaks off the engagement. Jenkins is sacked and Blakey demoted to Arthur’s conductor, but Stan meets a new clippie Gloria (Jan Rennison) and is soon again engaged. Though not matching the original’s success, Mutiny on the Buses proved another financial winner, clocking in at 17th position in the 1972 UK box office—and beating ‘rival’ sequel Up the Chastity Belt (Swern & Childs, 1995, p.  187). While again bypassing a national press screening, extant reviews matched its diegetic shop-floor discord. The trade thawed, slightly, finding it ‘More tightly written and plotted than its predecessor’ and ‘also less spiteful in his humour’, though ‘the jokes are too obvious and the performances too exaggerated’. It acknowledged, however, that ‘the unsubtle comedy style is manifestly very much to the taste of millions and even the ranks of Tuscany must cheer the expertise with which the writers and the director have made precisely the film they set out to make’ (CinemaTV Today, 9987, 1 July 1972). Against this, the BFI’s Paul Madden bemoaned a film that is ‘shot in the same flat, one-dimensional

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style as its predecessor and appears even more hard up for humour’ as ‘baby’s toilet habits are assumed throughout to have inherent comic qualities’ (MFB, 39, 464, September 1972: 192). Continuing the discrete narrative arc of the first film (notably the Rudges as parents—hence literal potty humour), Mutiny on the Buses offers much the same ‘A’ certificate slapstick and sexist fare, with Stan and Jack getting into (and out of) various scrapes and offering plentiful innuendos while Olive is regularly decried as a ‘stupid great fat lump’. However, the sequel betrays a ‘creative strain’ in its generic move to fresh locations. Potentially more interesting, the battle of the sexes is here transferred to more class-centred industrial disputes with Jack and Stan’s sabotage now squarely aimed at management. This involves the literal interpretation of Jenkins’ dictum to ‘only wear the company uniform as supplied—nothing else’ (allowing the Press Book disingenuously to promise clippies without ‘knickers’): other Luddite ploys see Jack’s tampering cause the newly imposed two-way radio system to interfere with police and airline frequencies and thus close. Wagg notes that the source sitcom ‘made no pretence to social or political realism’ (1998, p. 10) and, while broadly true also of the spinoff films, such union schemes can resonate with contemporary shifts in working (and moral) practices. If the first film emphasised anxiety arising from the sexual revolution, Mutiny on the Buses re-presents (again in its parodic ‘seaside postcard’ way) the turbulent industrial relations of its time. Amidst strikes and power cuts and growing ‘social anxiety’, cultural theorist Stuart Hall et al. claimed 1972 as ‘a year of sustained and open class conflict of a kind unparalleled since the end of the war’ (2013 [1978], p. 157). Jack and his mutineers may foil the modernising moves of technocrats like Jenkins, but Edward Heath’s Conservative government was soon to implement a ‘three-day week’ to curb the effects of a miners’ strike. Stan is not so bothered. No longer the involuntary celibate, he now enjoys the worktime trysts, on the top deck while Jack offers excuses to waiting passengers. He even occasions (an achieved moment of) irony, as Suzy’s departure prompts a mother’s crushing consolation: ‘Let her go, son. She don’t love you. I know that sort of girl. All she thinks about is sex, sex, and more sex. What sort of a life would that be!’ With Stan’s swift engagements echoing Harold in Associated London’s Steptoe and Son, Mutiny on the Buses also features touches of Hammer intertextuality. As Blakey emerges from a fire drill’s misfiring foam machine, Arthur laughs that ‘He looks like The Abominable Snowman [Val Guest, 1957]’. Looking

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forward, the prominent bus-side adverts for ‘Pontin’s—carefree family holidays’ and ‘Go Pontinental to the sun!’ clearly suggest a synergistic financial arrangement, since Mutiny on the Buses performed well enough to prompt a third Hammer spinoff, mostly set at Pontin’s Prestatyn Sands Holiday Camp in Denbighshire, North Wales. Holiday on the Buses (Bryan Izzard, December 1973) shows the problems when spinoffs run behind time. Actors Robbins and Varney, though again contracted to Hammer, had respectively left before and during ITV’s seventh season—decisions that helped end the sitcom. Alongside a change of director, the principal cast were now supported with guest cameos, including fellow sitcom stars Wilfrid Brambell, Arthur Mullard, Queenie Watts, and Kate Williams. Filming took place in May and June 1973 on location at Prestatyn and Rhyl, with interiors shot back at Elstree. The censors were again busy, though Stephen Murphy remained lenient in his demands for cuts (Waymark, 2012, p. 150), and Holiday on the Buses was released to Britain’s sun-deprived public on Boxing Day 1973.25 The film shows that, after a bus crash at the depot, Stan (Varney), Jack (Grant), and Blakey (Lewis) are all sacked. Stan and Jack find work running a tour bus at Pontin’s: noting all the ‘birds’, they think they have struck lucky—until they meet the holiday village’s new Chief Security Officer, Blakey. Stan invites his family down for a week, but they lose their luggage en route and cause havoc in the camp. While Stan’s attempts to get time alone with Mavis (Maureen Sweeney) are frustrated by her mother’s constant presence, Jack has more success with Blakey’s new girlfriend, the camp’s nurse Joan (Williams). Blakey’s efforts at revenge lose him his job, while Stan and Jack are also fired when their bus is swallowed by the tide. Back at the employment exchange, the job-seeking duo find that Blakey is now in charge. With the film again eschewing national press responses, it was left to the BFI to express critical appalment. ‘Dire third spin-off’ wrote Keith Alain, bemoaning how the lead males ‘all grunt, groan and emit dirty sniggers every time a “piece of skirt” comes into view’ (MFB, 40, 479, December 1973: 251). David McGillivray was (slightly) more conciliatory. Though accusing the writers of all but ‘compiling the entire scripts from old Carry On situations’, he conceded that ‘Holiday on the Buses never quite sinks to the appalling depths plumbed by Love Thy Neighbour and Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width [see later and Chap. 4]. The jokes are dirty but not anti-social, Izzard appears to be a competent enough director for this type of film, and as I remember, I snickered twice … This is not, however,

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supposed to be any kind of recommendation’ (Films and Filming, 20, 5, February 1974: 44). Though failing to hit the top 20, the film again did well: however, diminishing returns and a reluctant cast meant that a projected fourth outing (with location filming in Sicily) never materialised. ‘Much as before’ noted the trade press (Cinema TV Today, 10061, 8 December 1973: 30), which is both correct and incorrect. The main characters are unchanged, with Stan again cutting a frustrated figure—not only does he fail to make out with Maureen (seasickness on a boat-trip his final undoing), but Blakey believes that Stan is his rival for Joan’s affections, and sets on him the camp’s belligerent Italian cook Luigi (Franco Derosa). However, there are also clear signs of the franchise struggling for momentum and losing its ‘family-friendly’ sitcom dynamic. Not only is there the copycat generic recourse to a holiday location and guest star cameos but, while in On the Buses Jack retained his trousers in bed with Betty, Holiday on the Buses joins Up Pompeii in spicing up the product with brief (‘A’ category-allowed) moments of nudity. And then there is Olive. Sue Harper notes a crucial difference in Hammer’s return to its 1950s ‘entrepreneurial roots’ in sitcom adaptation: ‘its original sources were now crude, socially and sexually divisive, and cruel; the Hammer films merely intensified them’ (2000, p.  132). That extra level of cruelty is most evident in Holiday on the Buses’ treatment of Stan’s sister. Not only does the storyline insist Olive lose her glasses and follow a kilt-wearing Scotsman into the gents, then wander into the wrong chalet and get into bed with Arthur Mullard. Worse still, like Maureen and others she dons a flesh-revealing bikini, but the camera’s slow vertical pan offers her body to the male gaze not for sexualisation but humiliation. Inevitably, when she dives into the pool the bottom half comes off—to general hilarity: ‘o my gawd, it’s like the moon coming over the mountains’, Blakey comments of her (shown) exposed rear. This ‘aesthetic of ugliness’, which Leon Hunt adjudges crucial to the sitcom’s formula (1998, p. 43), is also brought to bear on the holiday camp’s sunlit modernity. The whole family are agents in this befouling—the Rudges’ son Little Arthur (Adam Rhodes) spraying the chalet with ink leads to a botched clean-up operation where petrol, deposited by Olive down the toilet, is ignited by Stan’s discarded cigarette butt: this sets off a series of explosions, destroying the camp’s waste system. While following generic patterning, it is as though the film realises that this luxury seaside setting (afforded the rarity of expositional long-shots and crane shots) is inimical to the dour mise-en-scène and desperate ethos of its earlier incarnations,

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which is recalibrated with closing jets of sewage. Whether or not such humour can be construed as ‘dirty but not  anti-social’, this sitcom had evidently reached its spinoff terminus.

3.4  Hammer Horrors Far from being a misguided and retrograde step, the stupendous success of On the Buses proved to be ‘part of Hammer’s short-term salvation’ and helped to keep the company solvent during the industry-troublesome early-1970s (Barnett, 2022, pp.  28–29). It unsurprisingly led Hammer back again to the small screen, but now, alas, with more alacrity than acumen and, as with Holiday on the Buses, the timing essential to sitcom adaptation was sorely missing in their next two signings. First up was That’s Your Funeral (John Robins, December 1972), taken from the same-­ named short-lived BBC sitcom (1 series, 6 episodes, January-February 1971). The show was commissioned after a well-received March 1970 Comedy Playhouse pilot (named ‘Last Tribute’), and centred on bombastic North of England funeral director Basil Bulstrode, played by sitcom/spinoff regular Bill Fraser. Exploiting undertakers’ apocryphal tales of mislaid, mislabelled, or not-yet-dead bodies, the show was indifferently received and, despite negotiating a film version, the BBC vetoed a second series.26 Hammer’s spinoff, mainly filmed at Pinewood in four weeks across June and July 1972 and penned by the series’ creator (and Daily Mail theatre critic) Peter Lewis, retained the TV actors (minus David King) but expanded the premise and cast list. In the film Bulstrode (Fraser) and his boss Emanuel Holroyd (Raymond Huntley), concerned that the ‘Holroyd Funeral Home’ will be undercut by new rival ‘The Haven of Rest’, agree to handle the funeral of local dignitary Ezra Taylor, whose coffin is returning from France to the local railway station. Haven’s boss Roland Smallbody (John Ronane), whose business is a front for drug smuggling, is also awaiting a coffin (full of cannabis cigarettes): naturally, the wrong coffins are picked up. Without a body, Holroyd’s borrow a waxwork model for Mr Taylor’s lying-in-state. After various swaps and substitutions, both coffins are accidentally incinerated, but not before Taylor’s body is recovered and converted into a bronze statue for the town square. Cited by Adrian Garvey as perhaps best exemplifying ‘the establishment of a trend’ in British cinema towards sitcom adaptation (2010, p. 182), That’s Your Funeral nonetheless proved an inglorious undertaking. The

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Rank Organisation, the film’s distributors, felt the subject matter to be distasteful and dragged their feet over its release: when it did appear the sitcom was long gone and largely forgotten. Poor box-office returns only confirmed Rank’s concerns. One could advance the view that allowing national press reviews might in this instance have generated much-needed publicity: such a view would have to be withdrawn after reading Clive Jeavons’ response which announced ‘Another nail in the British film industry’s coffin’ as ‘this grey comedy is depressingly unfunny even by TV-spinoff standards, with a script which staggers from pun to pun, pole-­ axing even hardened mummers like Fraser and Huntley with its bludgeoning double entendre’ (MFB, 40, 474, July 1973: 155). Hardly cutting-edge in its use of the film medium, there are clumsy imitations of silent comedy as with its speeded-up action of a car chase. That these vehicles are rival hearses indicates the film’s overall darker tone than its source material (adding to Rank’s reservations).27 Attempts are made to instil fresh life with cameos from Hammer regulars including Dennis Price, Roy Kinnear, and On the Buses’ Michael Robbins, plus added sex-appeal with Sue Lloyd as Haven’s secretary Miss Peach. The best cameo instance, however, comes over the opening credits where the film’s main creators, including Lewis and producer Michael Carreras, all appear as funeral mourners—plus serial sitcom spinoff director Robins as presiding vicar (Kinsey, 2007, pp. 342–343). An effective studio in-joke, it was also arguably too apt in its ‘gallows humour’, an unwitting presage of the company’s ultimately lifeless product. Affairs of the hearth swiftly followed in Hammer’s adaptation of Nearest and Dearest (John Robins, June 1973). This was taken from the ironically titled sitcom, created by ITV’s prolific Vince Powell and Harry Driver for Granada Television (7 series, 45 episodes + 1 special, August 1968– February 1973), that featured feuding unmarried middle-aged siblings Nellie and Eli Pledge, constrained by their father’s will jointly to run the outmoded family pickle factory in Colne, Lancashire. With brother and sister basically hurling insults at one another across each episode, the strength of the show, strongly derivative of Northern music-hall routines, was centred on its lead actors (who also reputedly hated each other), with prudish hard-working Nellie performed by diminutive Hilda Baker with her malapropisms, unwitting double entendres and celebrated catchphrase ‘He knows, you know’, while (incomprehensibly successful) womaniser and booze-hound Eli was played by veteran comic Jimmy Jewel. However residual in form and function, the sitcom was hugely successful with

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audiences, reaching 20 million viewers in 1971 (Sellers, 2021, p. 26). It had again proved its potential for adaptation when road-tested via a soldout summer 1970 season at Blackpool’s Grand Theatre, before Michael Carreras oversaw its film spinoff, produced by Hammer in conjunction with Granada and, in conveyor-belt style, filmed immediately after That’s Your Funeral wrapped, again taking just four weeks (July and August 1972) at Pinewood and on location (with Southend doubling up for Northern seaside resorts). Written by Tom Brennand and Roy Bottomley and keeping all main players, the spinoff replays the sitcom’s origins. Here prodigal son Eli (Jewel) returns to his father’s deathbed and receives a half-share in the family business, Pledge’s Purer Pickles. Sister Nellie (Baker) strongly opposes Eli’s plans to make a quick profit by selling up or modernising. Eli then schemes to marry off Nellie to Vernon Smallpiece (Norman Mitchell)—or Vermin Bigpiece as Nellie terms him, a colleague in the pickle business. Courting proceeds slowly until, on the day of the wedding, Vernon is snatched from the alter by bailiffs for unpaid debts. Hammer again revealed a poor sense of timing and Nearest and Dearest, only released as the television series was flagging, was another relative box-­ office disappointment (scuppering a proposed sequel, Nearer and Dearer).28 For Richard Combs the spinoff ‘manages to come out as an interminable compilation of dirty seaside postcards, and the cosy domestic smuttiness of it all looks very tatty when hammed up over-large for the big screen’ (MFB, 40, 477, October 1973: 209). Though accompanied by their sitcom-regular relative Cousin Lily (Madge Hindle) and her incontinent husband Walter (Edward Malin)—allowing Baker her back-up catchphrase ‘Has he been?’—the film again takes the comedy out of its source situation as the factory’s annual summer closure sends the Pledges on holiday to Blackpool. The change of scenery allows for another strong entry from sitcom doyenne Yootha Joyce as Mrs Rowbottom, the widowed boarding-house landlady with designs on Eli—who only has (uncomfortably leering) eyes for the nubile Freda (Pat Ashton)—but it instances how not just timing but tone was now failing Hammer. The seaside shift loses the sitcom’s domestic setting that, far from cosy, had suggested a darker quasi-desperate Steptoe-like sense of entrapment to the ageing Pledges’ mutually dependent yet internecine interactions.29 The film of That’s Your Funeral may have been deemed too dark, but Nearest and Dearest was transformed into a pallid ‘southern softie’.

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The internecine was also central to Hammer Films’ next spinoff venture, Love Thy Neighbour (John Robins, July 1973), adapted from a sitcom very much a product of its time. If On the Buses had explored male working-­class anxiety at women’s position in the workplace, Love Thy Neighbour (ITV, 8 series, 53 episodes, April 1972–January 1976) presented, in avowedly exaggerated form, white (male) working-class reactions to immigration. Another Powell-Driver creation, now for Thames Television, the sitcom was set in Twickenham, South-West London, and featured the weekly conflicts between Maple Terrace neighbours, number 65’s white trade-unionist bigot Eddie Booth (Jack Smethurst) and number 67’s West Indian Tory-voting fellow-factory worker Bill Reynolds (Rudolph Walker): meanwhile their wives, Joan Booth (Kate Williams) and Barbie Reynolds (Nina Baden-Semper) get along fine. A blunt-edged heir to Till Death Us Do Part, episodes inevitably featured foul-mouthed racist slanging matches between the male leads (‘sambo’ and ‘nig-nog’ versus ‘honky’ and ‘snowflake’), with Eddie Booth particularly Garnett-­ like in his ignorance and bigotry and invariably outwitted by his more intelligent nemesis. Controversial from the outset, the sitcom’s problematic depiction of race relations has, in tandem with Till Death Us Do Part, received sustained academic attention. For Stuart Hall ‘the comic register’ of such shows ‘protects and defends’ viewers ‘from acknowledging their incipient racism’ (1990 [1981], p.  17). Sarita Malik observes how, at a time of uneasiness over mass migration, such ‘comedies about race’ essentially concerned ‘blacks signifying trouble’ (2002, pp.  97–98). Nora Plesske, treating Love Thy Neighbour in particular, notes how the ‘circularity of the narrative’ not only dampens the humour but renders it ‘impossible that the ideological conflict between black and white neighbours finds a resolution’ (2016, p. 86). On its release the show was poorly reviewed, but still proved highly popular with audience figures consistently reaching 14–17 million, and so, two seasons in, Hammer, now with Roy Skeggs producing, agreed another big-screen transfer. Scripted by Powell and Driver (reputedly in just seven days), retaining all the main players, and filmed across January and February 1973 at Elstree and London locations, the BBFC granted an ‘A’ certificate after cuts to instances of ‘bawdy dialogue’—indicative of the social climate, the racist slurs were all waved through (and even featured in the ‘U’ certificate trailer) (Moody, 2018, p. 97). The move, via Anglo-EMI, to exhibition was here expedited, a sign of Hammer’s greater confidence in both the project’s commercial

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potential and, unlike with That’s Your Funeral, the broad social acceptance of its subject matter and treatment. In a reverse of the sitcom’s usual transmedia flow, a post-filming stage transfer sold out its 1973 summer season at the Winter Garden, Blackpool—extra publicity for the imminent spinoff film release on the ABC circuit.30 Love Thy Neighbour (re-)establishes the dynamic between the Booths, Eddie (Smethurst) and Joan (Robinson), and their West Indian neighbours, Bill (Walker) and Barbie Reynolds (Baden-Semper). While the wives are good friends, the animosity between the husbands, who work at the same factory (with ubiquitous Bill Fraser now manager), is exacerbated when Bill and his fellow  black workmates refuse to join a strike called by shop-steward Eddie. When Eddie’s mother Annie (Patricia Hayes) and Bill’s father Joe (Charles Hyatt) come to visit and strike up a close friendship, both their children are alarmed. Meanwhile, by lying about their true situation, Joan and Barbie discover that they have won a newspaper ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ competition. All four enjoy the prize—a Mediterranean cruise—until Eddie meets ship’s steward and Joan’s brother Cyril (Dad’s Army’s James Beck) who reveals that he has married Bill’s sister: Eddie, horrified, realises he is now related to Bill. Hammer (and Rank) were (financially) vindicated with Love Thy Neighbour coming in at number 15 in the UK box-office ratings for 1973 (Swern & Childs, 1995, p. 192). Also vindicated was their indifference to press reviews, since  the film’s few responses offered a critical mauling. Marjorie Bilbow spelt out her objections: ‘Theoretically, this pokes fun at racial prejudices by bringing them into the open and making us see how ridiculous they are. Theoretically. But there is so much malice in the characters that I cannot see it modifying the views of any racist, black or white’ (CinemaTV Today, 21 July 1973). For David McGillivray it was ‘Another example of domestic farce every bit as asinine and charmless as the TV series from which it derives. The staging, pacing and vaudevillian caricatures appear to be of roughly the same vintage as the jokes’ (MFB, 40, 475, August 1973: 172). Perhaps, but the film version follows the contemporary generic spinoff model in both widening out the narrative, including the de rigueur holiday adventure, and reworking events from the television series. The film opens ambitiously with a mock ‘state of the nation’ exposition: shots of quintessential Englishness—Buckingham Palace, Dover, cricket—accompany an RP recitation including Richard II’s ‘this sceptre isle’ speech and claims of ‘a land where all men are equal, irrespective of race, creed or

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colour’. Cut to Eddie accusing Bill of being a ‘bloody black troublemaker’, Bill countering with ‘you racialist poof!’, and behind them a street-long chain reaction of racial in-fighting—an ideological partner to the female-reifying opening to On the Buses—and the difference is explicitly registered between Establishment myths and the 1970s ‘reality’ of a downtrodden nation plagued by industrial and racial disputes. These are further exemplified in storylines that build up conflicts from the source text, as with the strike-busting of Bill and his fellow (pointedly named) ‘blacklegs’ (‘Factory Dispute’, Series 1, episode 4), and the early scene where Bill and Co. remove their shirts, don towels, and dance around a canteen pot containing a kidnapped and naked Eddie, as if in preparation to cook and eat him (‘Limbo Dancing’, 1, 2) (Fig. 3.4). This scene offers a prime Garnett-like conundrum. It shows Bill in the ascendency, openly mocking Eddie’s ignorance of Afro-Caribbean culture—and comes as a pay-back response to Eddie terming the black workers ‘a bunch of savages’. But it also maintains the sitcom’s fixation on ‘blackness’ or rather,

Fig. 3.4  Love Thy Neighbour—Hammer Time for Race Relations

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as Selina Malik notes, ‘television’s interpretation of Blackness’ (limbodancing, voodoo, and cannibalism) that fed into troublesome quasi-hysterical UK stereotypes (2002, pp. 97–98). In addition, the soundtrack’s non-diegetic drumming arguably exacerbates the latter reading. Nonetheless, Mick Eaton’s dictum that the sitcom format cannot resolve ‘the two sides of its problematic/hermeneutic’ or ‘another “situation” would have to be established’ (1978, p. 79) can be (lightly) questioned in its film spinoff version. That Eddie’s return home from his cooking-pot ordeal contains less nudity than in its television iteration is indicative of how the film mostly eschews the genre’s habitual bigger, brasher, cruder ethic/aesthetic (all is relative here). The competition plotline instils an emollient on the leads’ expected discord, with Eddie and Bill having at least to pretend they are best of friends to win their cruise (though on shaking hands a caption appears stating ‘No, this is not the end’). Furthermore, parental and sibling subplots offer potential role models of racial reconciliation—the final shot, as Bill welcomes his neighbour to the family, shows a freeze-frame of Eddie’s face, now presented as half-black, half-white (and another caption reading ‘That really is the end’).31 However, against any progressive reading of this ‘final “fantastical” mutation’ (Mather, 2006, p.  80), the film is permeated with Eddie’s monotone insults and ‘jokes’ at Bill’s expense—‘why are you always looking on the black side of things?’ is indicatively lame, while shovelling unwanted dog excrement over the garden-fence and just missing Bill is (given the regularity of similar deliveries through letter-boxes) uncomfortably loaded. Moreover, relatively moderate workmates like Arthur (Tommy Godfrey) implicitly share Eddie’s values and employ similar language (‘That’s because he’s a Paki’), while casting white actor Norman Chappell as a Sikh bus conductor again denies any level of ethnic agency. Elsewhere, the film retains the sitcom’s C/conservative socio-political stance, with Eddie’s union activity ostensibly motivated by bigotry against the non-­ white workforce, but also, like On the Buses, driven by inherent proletarian idleness. For Hammer the final vote proved a closed shop since, despite its top-20 ranking, the film’s profits were deemed insufficient to realise a proposed sequel, Love Thy Neighbour Again.32 That really was not the end, though, for Hammer (or Eddie and Bill) as the studio returned with one more sitcom spinoff film, Man About the House (John Robins again, December 1974). The source sitcom (ITV, 6 series, 39 episodes + 1 special, August 1973–April 1976), penned by Brian Cooke and Johnnie Mortimer for Thames Television, covered the

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adventures and interactions of young flatmates Chrissy Plummer (Paula Wilcox) and Jo (Sally Thomsett) who, unable to find a suitable female to help cover the rent for their Earls Court flat, agree to share with male catering student Robin Tripp (Richard O’Sullivan). The potentially daring subject matter was rendered palatable through plotlines that, while featuring Robin’s increasing attraction to Chrissy, remained chaste with longstanding farce-style motors of misunderstanding and ‘timely’ interruptions undermining any ménage à trois realisation. Plus, despite the afghan coats and flared trousers, farm-reared Chrissy (‘I wouldn’t know an orgy if I fell over one’) and provincial (Southampton-born) Robin, as Leon Hunt notes, ‘aren’t exactly swingers’ (1998, p. 49). In addition, Robin’s basic decency is underlined by the more laddish promiscuity of his friend Larry (Doug Fisher). Increasing importance was also accorded to the older-­ generation contrast of 6 Myddleton Terrace’s live-in houseowners, petty-­ minded and parsimonious George Roper (Brian Murphy) and his flashily dressed sexually frustrated wife Mildred (Yootha Joyce again). Skilfully written and acted, the show proved very popular, and its format was sold internationally: Three’s Company (ABC, 8 seasons, 172 episodes, 1977–1984) became that rarity, a successful US refit of a British sitcom. Hammer soon came calling and their film spinoff, keeping the television cast and writers, was shot, between series two and three, in March and April 1974 at Elstree Studios and various London locations (with Alma Square in St John’s Wood, NW8, standing in for the titular house). A strong supporting cast included faces familiar from earlier spinoffs, with brief roles for Dad’s Army’s Arthur Lowe and Bill Pertwee, On the Buses’ Michael Robbins (again), and a cameo from Goon and Z Man Spike Milligan as himself. Confident in the end product (and again foregoing a press screening), Man About the House, complete with ‘A’ certificate, reached cinemas in time for the Christmas holidays. In the film version, George and Mildred Roper (Murphy and Joyce) learn that, with the six houses in Myddleton Terrace earmarked for development, Spiros Holdings’ agent Morris Pluthero (Peter Cellier) is keen to buy their building. To stop the buy-out, flatmates Chrissy (Wilcox), Jo (Thomsett), and Robin (O’Sullivan), with Mildred’s support, circulate a petition which, with over 1000 signatures, is supported by publicity-­ seeking Sir Edmund Weir MP (Patrick Newell). The politician backs down, though, when Pluthero threatens to reveal that Weir’s mistress Hazell Lovett (Aimi MacDonald) occupies one of the Terrace houses. Pluthero’s trickery enables Spiros to acquire the other five houses, but his

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ploys for the Roper residence fail until, with George ready to sell and Pluthero preparing for a television interview, George’s signed document of sale is accidently ripped up, saving the Terrace. The film’s reception gave Hammer a last hurrah, with strong box-office returns matched by (broadly) positive reviews from the specialist press. Marjorie Bilbow recommended ‘A must for fans of the series; ideal for families and others in search of good clean innocently naughty fun’ (CinemaTV Today, 7 December 1974), while for Margaret Ford ‘the script manages to produce some good laughs and a few sniggers’ and ‘in the main, the film acquits itself better than most movie spin-offs from TV series’ (MFB, 42, 492, January 1975: 11). As these reviews signpost, Man About the House (moderately) succeeded by playing it safe. The film’s plot motor, the standoff between unscrupulous property developers and canny residents, is really the pretext for a comic battle of the sexes which, by exploring residents from adjacent houses, allows an extrapolation of the source sitcom, but not greater explicitness. All remains at the level of prime-time television innuendo and inaction—a potentially risqué game of strip poker between Robin and Chrissy only results in the eponymous lodger bidding to ‘raise your skirt with my trousers’. Robin remains essentially respectful in his courting, and George is continually castigated by Mildred for his marital inadequacies (Joyce bringing a real bite to her bedroom barbs).33 Added—sadly as broad stereotypes—are the kept mistress Miss Lovett at number 5, ordering gymslips to cater for Sir Edmund’s fantasies; man-mad Amelia Bird (‘Turn-around Betty’ Andria Lawrence) at number 4 with her procession of visitors; plus an overplayed gay couple with Mr. Gideon (Michael Ward) and his ‘lodger’ Nigel (Melvyn Hayes) at number 3. The film’s most intriguing—and troubling—scene comes towards the end as, with Pluthero preparing to give a (face-saving) interview explaining that Spiros are withdrawing for ‘environmental reasons’, George, determined to sell, hastens to the Thames Television (actually Elstree) studio. The rest of the house in hot pursuit may channel car chases back to silent cinema, but the scenes at Thames potentially offer cutting-edge meta-textuality. Wandering around the studio before joining the audience for a recording of the magazine programme Today (1968–1977) with anchor Bill Grundy (pre-infamous Sex Pistols interview), George comes across Love Thy Neighbour actors Jack Smethurst and Raymond Walker, as themselves, relaxing in the Thames studio bar and discussing a chess problem (white versus black, naturally). When George recognises them and

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excitedly hails Walker as ‘sambo the nignog straight out the jungle’, Smethurst intervenes and a chastened George is sent on his way.34 The encounter suggests that Hammer, aware (unlike George) of the sitcom’s provocative exaggerations, is offering a knowing but insulating division between the ‘fiction’ and ‘reality’. But no: when Smethurst then asks what his ‘mate’ wants to drink, Walker’s reply, ‘I think I fancy a White Lady’, prompts a swiftly lowered pint and double take. The film has its ideological cake and chokes on it—the imported race anxiety remains undiminished. There is a coda to Hammer’s sitcom legacy—a one-remove endgame. The Man About the House sitcom was sufficiently popular to occasion two Thames Television spinoffs, again penned by Cooke and Mortimer: Robin’s Nest (ITV, 6 series, 48 episodes, January 1977–March 1981) followed Tripp into marriage and opening a bistro; before it George and Mildred (ITV, 5 series, 26 episodes, September 1976–December 1979) moved the titular couple, in-fighting intact, to a modern, up-market housing estate in Hampton Wick.35 Here, with a dynamic similar to Love Thy Neighbour but now class inflected, George’s presence horrifies next-door’s snobbish estate-agent Jeffrey Fourmile (Norman Eshley), while Mildred and Ann Fourmile (Sheila Fearn) get on fine. For Mark Lewisohn ‘Without question George and Mildred was, for the most part, a funny sitcom’ (1998, p. 266) and it achieved the highest ratings of all three shows. It even followed the standard route of a stage production, enjoying a record-­ breaking 1977 summer season at Bournemouth’s Pier Theatre and 1978–1979 national tours of the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, before the sitcom featured in its own film spinoff, George and Mildred (Peter Frazer-Jones, July 1980). This was picked up, after the fifth season, by recent ex-Hammer producers Brian Lawrence and Roy Skeggs and their new Cinema Arts International—budget costs and distribution rights were agreed with Lew Grade’s ITC Entertainment. Shot at Elstree from February to April 1980, the show’s cast, all retained, were supported with guest stars including Stratford Johns and Kenneth Cope, though writing duties uniquely passed to Dick Sharples, who had no previous ties to this sitcom franchise—and it shows.36 The spinoff film focuses on George (Murphy) and Mildred (Joyce) celebrating their 27th wedding anniversary. Despite George’s objections to the cost, Mildred insists they book a weekend’s package holiday at the posh London Hotel. On arrival, though, George is mistaken for a contract killer hired by shady businessman Harry Pinto (Johns) who wants to

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eliminate a gangland adversary. Harvey (Cope), a rival heavy, sets out to shoot George while Pinto’s sidekick Elvis (David Barry), aware of their mistake, courts Mildred so he can retrieve George’s written contract. After much confusion and fluctuating fortunes at the hotel casino, George and Mildred head for home, unwittingly losing their various pursuers on the way. The film did not go down well. A modest performer at the box office, for Martyn Auty it ‘is flaccid entertainment even by routine sit-com standards, and amounts to no more than one attenuated music-hall joke: the boorish husband’ (MFB, 47, 559, August 1980: 158). Its reputation has not improved with age. For Lewisohn it is ‘an embarrassment’ (1998, p. 266); for John Upton (not holding back) George and Mildred is ‘one of the worst films ever made in Britain’ and ‘so strikingly bad, it seems to have been assembled with a genuine contempt for its audience … Visually, it is an insult to the entire history of set design, blocking, cinematography, sound recording, editing, and mise-en-scene’ (2002). It is hard to build a case for reconsideration. Contextually, the death of Yootha Joyce (aged 53) between the film’s shooting and release not only put an end to the sitcom’s proposed sixth series, but added an elegiac, indeed melancholy tone totally at odds with the film’s frantic, flailing action. Textually, despite the wealth of prior warnings, George and Mildred ‘perfectly’ exemplifies the spinoff film’s reiterated weakness across the decade—removing the comic characters from their original situation. The transposition seems particularly perverse here. The television series, however simplistically, had offered a mild spooking of the bourgeoisie by using the Ropers’ move to snobbish suburbia to explore issues of class mobility and gender. In the very first episode, ‘Moving On’, socially aspirational Mildred may be instantly content (and tentatively accepted), but George, never a priapic proletarian yet further emasculated by the new chintz decor and decorum of Peacock Crescent, ends up destroying the Fourmiles’ pristine front lawn, an unforgivable and symbolic sacrilege. The film, however, barely features Hampton Wick or the Fourmiles (even then the estate is different), deciding instead on a hotel-set codgangster format, a situation that, for all the surrounding narrative’s ‘comic’ inadequacies of misrecognition and misfired weapons, still swamps the Ropers’ popular domestic-based characterisation. The indecently swift denouement and tired closing car chase back to the safety of Hampton Wick betray not just a badly misjudged film but a once-buoyant format now past its sell-by date. The film may end with Mildred winking out at

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the audience and turning off the lights to follow George upstairs, but there was no consummation here, just a sad anti-climactic end to the genre’s ‘Golden Age’.

Notes 1. The series would continue, way past its prime, as Till Death … (ITV, 1 series, 6 episodes, 1981) and In Sickness and In Health (BBC, 6 series, 47 episodes, 1985–1992). 2. The sitcom’s seeming demise had occasioned various panegyrics, including a Times editorial declaring that ‘Till Death Us Do Part is a justifiably angry outcry against the poverty of mind and spirit in which vast numbers of people spend their lives’ (17 February 1968). 3. In a reverse dynamic from John Lennon and Yoko Ono naming their 1969 album after Life with the Lyons (see Chap. 2), the publicity poster for Till Death Us Do Part has the lower half of a full-frontal Alf covered by a slogan reading ‘With acknowledgement to Mr John Lennon and his pioneering work in the field of display’—a reference to the controversial naked cover to the couple’s earlier Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (1968). 4. Dilys Powell felt that ‘Till Death Us Do Part runs the risk of being admired not because its irreverence or its iconoclasm has a point but merely because it is irreverent and iconoclastic: and I don’t find that enough in a film with at its centre a caricature without size or universality, a figure without humanity’ (Sunday Times, 15 December 1968). 5. Offering a cinematic nod to the sitcom’s origins, Hordern had featured in the film version of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Richard Lester, 1966). 6. A tie-in single release on Columbia of the film’s ‘Up Pompeii’ title theme, sung by Howerd, failed to chart. 7. Voluptua’s seductive voice was overdubbed by Sheila Steafel (uncredited). 8. The film featured a sultry (but non-charting) tie-in single ‘A Knight For My Nights’ sung by Eartha Kitt. 9. Howerd would finally progress to World War II as a workshy batman in Then Churchill Said to Me (UK Gold, 1 series, 6 episodes). Though made for BBC in 1982, the show was shelved due to the outbreak of the Falklands War and only aired in 1993. The period relocations of Howerd’s character can be seen as influential on the (spinoff film-free) Blackadder sitcom series (BBC, 4 series, 24 episodes + 2 specials, 1983–1989, + 2 specials 2000, 2020) starring Rowan Atkinson (see Ross, 2001, pp. 139–140). 10. Hancock’s Half Hour, seminal in the shift from variety-style sketches to situation comedy, enjoyed 6 radio series, 107 episodes, plus a Christmas Special (1954–1959); it moved to television for 7 series, 63 episodes

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(1956–1961). While not strictly a spinoff film (home and work situations are different), Galton and Simpson’s The Rebel (Robert Day, 1961) successfully transferred the Hancock persona to a satire on modern art, and included actors such as John Le Mesurier and Liz Frazer known from the television series. 11. The scheduling became political: Labour party leader Harold Wilson successfully pressurised the BBC to delay the evening transmission of a repeat episode on 15 October 1964, General Election Day, for fear Labour voters would watch the show rather than visit polling stations—Labour narrowly won (Galton et al., 2002, pp. 96–98). 12. Four more series of radio adaptations (30 episodes + Christmas special) ran on BBC Radio 2 from March 1971 to December 1976. After a failed pilot in 1965, an American adaptation Sanford and Son (NBC, 6 series, 136 episodes,  1972–1977), set in the Watts neighbourhood of Los Angeles with Fred and Lamont now black junk dealers, proved hugely successful. 13. As a British film it was only beaten by James Bond’s espionage thriller Diamonds Are Forever (Guy Hamilton, 1971) and Ken Russell’s headline-­ generating historical drama The Devils (1971)—these, though, are both technically UK-US co-productions. 14. In a clear rewriting of Steptoe history, Hercules, who died in season 5, episode 1, ‘A Death in the Family’  (tx. BBC, 6 March 1970), is here revived and pensioned off to a rest home for horses. Woolf’s local gangster Barrow would also earn a reprieve, reappearing in ‘The Seven Steptoeri’ (series 8, episode 4, tx, BBC, 25 September 1974). 15. The only extant newspaper review, from Virginia Dignam, seems prompted by product placement. ‘I was amused to see the Morning Star prominently placed in the loo. In spite of old man Steptoe being all wind and standing to attention for God Save the Queen, Harold, that inept Socialist, obviously reads the right newspaper’ (Morning Star, 27 July 1973). 16. The location-shot tower-block corridor includes the graffiti protest ‘Tory backrents must go’—with ‘Tory’ ineffectually overpainted by the production crew. 17. Bookending its sitcom spinoff cycle, Associated London Films had debuted successfully with the cameo-filled quasi-silent The Plank (Eric Sykes, 1967), the Galton and Simpson-penned The Spy with a Cold Nose (Daniel Petrie, 1967), and the Milo O’Shea-starring The Adding Machine (Jerome Epstein, 1969). It would briefly continue production and co-­production work after Steptoe with Spike Milligan’s Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall (Norman Cohen, 1973), the TV-movie mystery And No One Could Save Her (Kevin Billington, 1973), Frankie Howerd’s comedy horror The House in Nightmare Park (Peter Sykes, 1973), and the Kirk Douglas psychological thriller Cat and Mouse aka Mousey (Daniel Petrie, 1974). None particularly flourished and ALF ceased production in 1974.

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18. The show’s success led to its formula being sold to America: it was remade as Lotsa Luck (NBC, 1 season, 24 episodes, 1973–1974). Blakey’s popular character, now retired to Spain, featured in a Wolfe-Chesney spinoff sitcom Don’t Drink the Water (ITV, 2 series, 13 episodes, 1974–1975). Olive’s character resurfaced in the writers’ revived The Rag Trade (ITV, 2 series, 22 episodes, 1977–1978). 19. Amongst its roster of British comic talent, Frankie Howerd appeared as a church organist. 20. The view that Hammer had ‘little faith’ in their product was promulgated in the (bypassed) press (‘Record-breaking bus’, Daily Express, 13 August 1971). 21. Ronald Wolfe thought the bad weather a key factor in the film’s success: ‘everybody wanted somewhere to take their kids at the seaside’ (cited in Garvey, 2010, p. 181). 22. The film is often cited as (sensationally) beating Diamonds Are Forever at the 1971 box office (e.g. Lewisohn, 1998, p. 511; Kerry, 2012, p. 182). While technically true, the comparison is not entirely fair since the James Bond film’s UK premiere only came on 30 December 1971. 23. For Leon Hunt, ‘Few short scenes in British film history empower the male gaze quite like the opening of the first On the Buses film’ (1998, p. 40). 24. The film formed a double-bill with John Wayne in The Cowboys (Mark Rydell, 1972). 25. The film was supported by the thriller Fear is the Key (Michael Tuchner, 1972). 26. Yorkshire Television would later make more of the premise with In Loving Memory (ITV, 5 series, 37 episodes, 1979–1986), starring Thora Hird. 27. A bereaved family’s complaints of Hammer filming at New Southgate cemetery even prompted Rank to consider permanently shelving the film (Hearn & Barnes, 1997, p. 151). 28. A tie-in single release of ‘Nearest and Dearest’ from Hylda Baker failed to chart. 29. The success of the sitcom (rather than film) led to a short-lived American adaptation, Thicker than Water (ABC, 1 series, 9 episodes, 1973). 30. The film was supported by Bob Hope’s Cancel My Reservation (Paul Bogart, 1972). A full UK national theatre tour would follow in 1974 (Sellers, 2021, p. 83). Indicative of the show’s success, a US remake was commissioned: set in San Fernando, California, Love Thy Neighbor (ABC, 1 series, 12 episodes, 1973) toned down the language but quickly folded. 31. The image recalls Star Trek season 3, episode 15, ‘Let That Be Your Last Battlefield’ (NBC, tx. 10 January 1969), where two war-torn planet survivors are similarly half-black and half-white. The anti-racism sci-fi message and metaphor were criticised as over-obvious and ‘heavy handed’ (Solow,

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H. and Justman R. (1997) Inside Star Trek: The Real Story. New  York: Simon and Schuster: 400). 32. To cater to the sitcom’s Antipodean popularity, a spinoff television series, Love Thy Neighbour in Australia, sent Eddie Booth ‘down under’ where, tables turned, he became the unwelcome foreigner (Seven Network, 1 series, 7 episodes, 1980). 33. In a denouement development offering future promise but backstory inconsistency, Mildred meets old flame and Thames Studio doorman Norman Mitchell (Arthur Mulgrove): as they reminisce her maiden name is revealed as Asquith—though in the sitcom this had been established as Tremble. 34. The scene is now usually excised due to George Roper apeing Eddie Bishop-style racist slurs. 35. Both series also had their American remakes, George and Mildred becoming The Ropers (ABC, 2 seasons, 28 episodes, 1979–1980) and Robin’s Nest becoming Three’s A Crowd (ABC, 1 series, 22 episodes, 1984–1985). 36. Cooke and Mortimer were busy in America on their sitcom remakes: Sharples’ main sitcom credits were for In Loving Memory.

Bibliography Barnett, V. L. (2022). The Vampire Lovers and Hammer’s Post-1970 Production Strategy. Journal of British Cinema and Television, 19(1), 22–44. Bebber, B. (2014). Till Death Us Do Part: Political Satire and Social Realism in the 1960s and 1970s. Historical Journal of Film, Television and Radio, 34(2), 253–274. Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945–1985. Edinburgh University Press. Crowther, B., & Pinfold, M. (1987). Bring Me Laughter: Four Decades of TV Comedy. Columbus. Eaton, M. (1978). Television Situation Comedy. Screen, 19(4), 61–90. Galton, R., Simpson, A., & with Ross, R. (2002). Steptoe and Son. BBC. Garvey, A. (2010). “Pre-sold to Millions”: The Sitcom Films of the 1970s. In P. Newland (Ed.), Don’t Look Now: British Cinema in the 1970s. Intellect. Glynn, S. (2018). The British Football Film. Palgrave Macmillan. Hall, S. (1990 [1981]). The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media. In M. Alvarado & J. O. Thompson (Eds.), The Media Reader. BFI. Hall, S., Critcher, C., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J., & Roberts, B. (2013 [1978]). Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order. Macmillan. Harper, S. (2000). Women in British Cinema: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know. Continuum. Harper, S., & Smith, J. (Eds.). (2012). British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh University Press.

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Hearn, M., & Barnes, A. (1997). The Hammer Story. Titan. Hunt, L. (1998). British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation. Routledge. Johnson, T., & Del Vecchio, D. (1996). Hammer Films: An Exhaustive Filmography. McFarland. Kerry, M. (2012). The Holiday and British Film. Palgrave Macmillan. Kilborn, R. (2016). A Golden Age of British Sitcom? Hancock’s Half Hour and Steptoe and Son. In J.  Kamm & B.  Neumann (Eds.), British TV Comedies: Cultural Concepts, Contexts and Controversies. Palgrave Macmillan. Kinsey, W. (2007). Hammer Films: The Elstree Studio Years. Tomahawk Press. Lewisohn, M. (1998). Radio Times Guide to TV Comedy. BBC Worldwide. Malik, S. (2002). Representing Black Britain: Black and Asian Images on Television. Routledge. Mather, N. (2006). Tears of Laughter: Comedy-drama in 1990s British Cinema. Manchester University Press. Mayne, L. (2021). A World on his Shoulders: Nat Cohen, Anglo-EMI and the British Film Industry. Journal of British Cinema and Television, 18(1), 34–49. Moody, P. (2018). EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan. Neale, S., & Krutnik, F. (1990). Popular Film and Television Comedy. Routledge. Plesske, N. (2016). “Sambo” and “Snowflake”: Race and Race Relations in Love Thy Neighbour. In J.  Kamm & B.  Neumann (Eds.), British TV Comedies: Cultural Concepts, Contexts and Controversies. Palgrave Macmillan. Ross, R. (2001). The Complete Frankie Howerd. Reynolds and Hearn. Sellers, R. (2021). Raising Laughter: How the Sitcom Kept Britain Smiling in the ‘70s. History Press. Sherrin, N. (2005). Ned Sherrin: The Autobiography. Little, Brown. Speight, J. (1973). It Stands to Reason: A Kind of Autobiography. Michael Joseph. Swern, P., & Childs, M. (1995). Box Office Hits: No. 1 Movie Hits in the UK. Guinness Publishing. Turim, M. (1989). Flashbacks in Film: Memory and History. Routledge. Upton, J. (2002, January). Carry On Sitcom: The British Sitcom Spin-off Film 1968–1980. Bright Lights Film Journal, 35. https://brightlightsfilm.com/ carry-sitcom-british-sitcom-spin-film-1968-1980/ [accessed 16 October 2023] Wagg, S. (1998). At Ease, Corporal: Social Class and the Situation Comedy in British Television from the 1950s to the 1990s. In S. Wagg (Ed.), Because I Tell a Joke or Two: Comedy, Politics and Social Difference. Routledge. Walker, A. (1985). National Heroes: British Cinema in the Seventies and Eighties. Harrap. Walker, J. (1985). The Once and Future Film: British Cinema in the Seventies and Eighties. Methuen. Waymark, P. (2012). “From Telly Laughs to Belly Laughs”: The Rise and Fall of the Sitcom Spin- off. In I.  Q. Hunter & L.  Porter (Eds.), British Comedy Cinema. Routledge. Worsley, T. C. (1970). Television: The Ephemeral Art. Alan Ross.

CHAPTER 4

The ‘Golden Age’: 1969–1980. Part 2: Soldiers, Shopping, and Sexual Frustration

Julian Petley’s ubiquitous statement on the ‘lost continent’ of British cinema (1986, p. 98) could, until relatively recently, have been overlaid with a temporal metaphor, that of a ‘lost age’ or at least a ‘lost decade’. With Petley’s terrain now largely excavated (bar, I argue here, the sitcom spinoff film), a refocusing on periodisation has seen a steady examination of most decades of British cinema until, with the 1950s rescued from their ‘doldrums era’ reputation, only the 1970s remained. But no more: one waits and waits and then, like On the Buses spinoffs, several studies of ‘the decade that taste forgot’ come along at once (Shail, 2008; Newland, 2010; Harper & Smith, 2012; Barber, 2013). These works all show that, through various entrepreneurs and film genres, the British film industry battled its way with varying rewards through this ‘crisis decade’. While acknowledging such diversity, this chapter reiterates the prime significance, especially to early-1970s British film production, of the feature-length sitcom spinoff, examining eleven further works to accompany the fourteen productions from this decade studied in Chap. 3. Here, though, a more thematic approach is adopted, exploring how, again with differing degrees of financial and artistic success, the genre provided the necessary ‘repetition with variation’ within the standard comedy situations of work institutions and domestic lifestyles.

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4.1   Cycles Revisited: Institutions and Families As Alf Garnett and Frankie Howerd showed, wartime was proving a fertile setting for British comedy. Concurrent with the release of Up Pompeii had been the sitcom spinoff film Dad’s Army (Norman Cohen, March 1971). The source television sitcom (BBC, 9 series, 80 episodes, July 1968– November 1977), written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, concerned the World War II activities of Britain’s Local Defence Volunteers (LDV) aka Home Guard, a body of willing members ineligible for military service (largely due to age, hence the series’ title). Set in the fictional south-coast town of Walmington-on-Sea (thus on the front line should Germany cross the English Channel), the sitcom’s main characters included pompous but brave Captain George Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe), the LDV’s self-­ appointed leader; diffident upper-class second-in-command Sergeant Arthur Wilson (John Le Mesurier); local butcher and Boer War campaigner Lance Corporal Jack Jones (Clive Dunn); weak-bladdered octogenarian and former gentlemen’s outfitter Private Charles Godfrey (Arthur Ridley); dour Scottish undertaker and ex-CPO Private James Frazer (John Laurie); Cockney spiv Private Joe Walker (James Beck); and youngest member, gauche mother’s boy Private Frank Pike (Ian Lavender). After an uncertain start the sitcom’s superb ensemble playing and strong character-­ based interactive comedy became a national favourite, drawing weekly audiences of 18 million. It remains widely syndicated and, as Mark Lewisohn notes, ‘In Britain, few series have garnered such deeply entrenched and deserved love and affection’ (1998, p. 177).1 Differing in kind to The Army Game’s peace-time and purely internal hierarchical conflict, Dad’s Army mixed together creator Perry’s own Pike-like experiences in Watford’s LDV with various comedy influences that ranged from the Home Guard radio sketches of Lancastrian comic Robb Wilton (Richards, 1997, p. 356), to wartime films including George Formby’s Home Guard antics in Get Cracking (Marcel Varnel, 1943), and included closing credits (from series 3 onwards) that paid explicit homage to The Way Ahead (Carol Reed, 1944). Director Norman Cohen, after his success with Till Death Us Do Part, sensed the series’ multimedia potential—it would later transfer to stage (Shaftesbury Avenue then a national tour, 1975–1976) and radio (BBC, 3 series, 67 episodes, 1974–1976)— and his Norcon Productions agreed a film spinoff pitch with Perry and Croft which was quickly picked up by Columbia Pictures.

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The transfer, though, proved far from trouble-free. The original screenplay from Perry and Croft was reworked by Cohen (who confessed never to have seen an episode of the sitcom), opening it out to improve its cinematic potential, but he too had alterations imposed by Columbia executives, who ‘pumped up’ the script for a faster pace with more action (McCann, 2001, pp. 168–171). Filming was arranged for just six weeks from mid-August 1970, between series three and four. This took place at Shepperton Studios and on location, its principal site shifted by Columbia from the series’ seaside Thetford to inland Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire: other imposed changes (all unpopular with the cast) included Pike’s mother Mavis (Janet Davies on TV) being replaced by the ‘sexier’ Liz Fraser. Despite these tensions, the film’s gentle comedy is evidenced by its receipt of a ‘U’ certificate (suitable for everyone) without cuts from the BBFC. It premiered at London’s Columbia Theatre on 14 March, one day after Up Pompeii. Beginning in 1940 and Prime Minister Anthony Eden’s call-to-arms, the film shows the city fathers of Walmington-on-Sea rushing to join their local LDV.  The programme of self-appointed CO Mainwaring (Lowe) suffers innumerable setbacks, and his platoon are disgraced at Home Guard manoeuvres, arriving in an uncontrollable steamroller which flattens rows of tents, then setting horse-backed Major-General Fullard (Bernard Archard) adrift on a raft. However, when three Germans with vital photographs bail out over Walmington and hold a parish meeting to ransom, the full-time forces all pass on taking responsibility. Instead the local LDV overpower the enemy and Mainwaring emerges a hero. Though Perry, Croft, and several cast members later expressed their unhappiness at the result (Webber, 1999, p. 168), changes to the initial synopsis were made with medium specificity in mind and the film spinoff was a highly popular commercial success, coming tenth in the year’s UK box-office returns (Swern & Childs, 1995, p.  177). Critical responses were similarly divided. On the positive side, Dilys Powell, reviewing both Up Pompeii and Dad’s Army, praised them equally, ‘both adaptations and extensions of successful television programmes, both played in the best traditions of national farce, both uproariously funny’ (Sunday Times, 21 March 1971); for John Russell Taylor ‘Dad’s Army takes the transfer rather well’ (unlike Up Pompeii) and was ‘illuminated by the talents of some of our best comic actors’ (Times, 19 March 1971). In more neutral terrain, Michael McNay considered it a ‘rather clumsy but not entirely guileless attempt to translate a telly favourite into a movie money-spinner’

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with ‘our national propensity for fake, cloudy-eyed nostalgia aptly catered for’ (Guardian, 19 March 1971); for Dick Richards the film was ‘too episodic’ and ‘produces no belly laughs but a lot of reminiscent smiles and enjoyment’ (Daily Mirror, 15 March 1971); Richard Barkley found it ‘Not very substantial, but it is warm-hearted’ (Sunday Express, 21 March 1971). In the negative camp, Sylvia Millar found that ‘grooming for the cinema means the introduction of coarsening and inflating elements which overwhelm, almost to extinction, the fragile, nostalgic humour of the original’ (MFB, 38, 447, April 1971: 70). Nina Hibbin found ‘the transference to the cinema far less successful’ than in Up Pompeii, accepting ‘It’s got one or two amusing visual ideas, but in general it is a very square and homely film’ (Morning Star, 22 March 1971), while for Ian Christie the familiar actors ‘are in good form but are in desperate need of a good plot’ (Daily Express, 15 March 1971). Christopher Hudson advised that ‘it would be fair to say that if you have a television set you might as well stay at home’ (Spectator, 27 March 1971). As with Cohen’s Till Death Us Do Part spinoff, Dad’s Army is a broken-­ backed film. Its first two-thirds rework the series’ opening episode(s) and present (as with Alf Garnett) an origin story for the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard, progressing from their formation to the eventual arrival of uniforms, then weapons, and eventually a clear Home Guard camaraderie. For Robert Sellers ‘Dad’s Army may be the most perfectly cast comedy show of all’ (2021, p. 40) and (pace Mrs Pike) the spinoff’s major strength is to retain the sitcom’s main and subsidiary players, and allow them to carry over similar routines and repartee, both in service and in civvy street (Fig. 4.1).2 The series already rivalled wartime ITMA with its multitude of nation-engrained catchphrases—Jones’ fearful ‘Don’t Panic!’, Mainwaring’s exasperated ‘Stupid boy!’, Frazer’s pessimistic ‘We’re doomed, doomed!’—and these are all duly voiced, shorthand signifiers for already known character traits. Some alterations are small but jarring for the cognoscenti: Jones’ Ford van is mysteriously upgraded, and the bank where Mainwaring and others work is now Martin’s rather than Swallow’s.3 Some embellishments are beneficial: Walmington finally has sufficient budget for pedestrian extras, and the platoon undertaking a marching drill in their underwear adds an indecorous determination beyond the pale for television. Other changes are more alienating, however. There is the generic issue that a greater reliance on location shooting dilutes the much-admired close-knit atmosphere and subtle character interaction enhanced by

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Fig. 4.1  Dad’s Army—A Spinoff ‘Banker’

television’s cheaper and more claustrophobic studio shooting. The parodic/patriotic score frequently swamps understatement of gesture or line delivery, while Mainwaring exclaiming that ‘I must ask you to take your hands off my privates’ is out of character with the entire comic construct, far more Frankie Howerd than Home Guard (as evident in Lowe’s uncommitted delivery). And then there are the Germans. The film’s documentary montage of Wehrmacht war footage finally realised the notion that Croft had wanted for the television title sequence—but which the BBC (understandably) vetoed as ‘a psychological mistake’ for starting a comedy series (Morgan-Russell, 2004, p. 37). Here, fitted into a longer comedy vehicle, this sobering context can arguably add nuance and modulation. However, the final act with its shooting down of a Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft jettisons skilled character comedy for extended farce. It also jettisons a central premise (until then) of the sitcom, the contrast of Walmington’s mundane domesticity and its DIY defences against the menace of an unseen but reportedly ruthless military machine. This impressionistic approach to a monstrous adversary had added a degree of poignancy to the platoon’s antics: here, though, showing the ‘reality’ of the LDV’s opposition conversely removes the threat. The cross-Channel cross-cutting of invasion preparations—‘All divisional commanders will be in touch with me by shortwave radio’, notes a Nazi general (Paul Dawkins):

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‘All section leaders will be in touch with me by Boy Scout runners’, notes po-faced Mainwaring—diminishes the danger by comic association, and destroys the original’s recourse to a fearful imagination both for characters and audience.4 Plans were mooted for a sequel entitled Dad’s Army and the Secret U-Boat Base, but funding failed to materialise (Webber, 1999, p.  167; McCann, 2001, p. 177). Dad’s Army, though, has proven an enduringly popular spinoff and, ever-irrepressible, would return with a cinema remake in 2016 (see Chap. 5). Crucially, the show’s continued popularity is in-­ built with its historical situation—never topical, it was spared the swift dating of other sitcoms. This links to what, for Jeffrey Richards, is a core strength, its ‘politics of nostalgia’ and ‘a return to pre-existing ideas of national identity’ (1997, pp.  352–353). Successfully carried over from television, in the Dad’s Army big-screen spinoff the popular memory of war, undermined by Alf Garnett’s film selfishness, is comfortably re-­ established. Old England was not done. The late 1950s had seen a ‘trial run’ of sitcom spinoff films with institutional settings in the army-based I Only Arsked! and school-set Bottoms Up!. The early 1970s saw a repeat pattern emerging as the comedy of institutions shifted from the (reserve) armed forces to (state) secondary education with Please Sir! (Mark Stuart, September 1971). The London Weekend Television source sitcom (ITV, 4 series, 54 episodes + 1 Christmas special, November 1968–February 1972), written (until series 4) by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, was set in the beleaguered inner-city Fenn Street Secondary Modern School, London.5 It starred John Alderton as fresh-faced newly qualified teacher Bernard ‘Privet’ Hedges, and followed his early struggles and later empathy with his unruly class of 16-year-olds, 5C. After three highly successful series, a film version was uniquely created ‘in house’ by LWT’s film off-shoot LW International. Keeping the show’s writers, director, and almost all cast members, Please Sir!, shot in May and June 1971 at Pinewood Studios and on location in London and nearby Black Park, Slough, was granted a BBFC ‘A’ Certificate and distributed by the Rank Organisation on the Odeon circuit.6 The film sends Fenn Street’s 5C and their teacher Bernard Hedges (Alderton) to Woodbridge rural recreation camp and a fortnight of mischief, mishaps, and pitched battles with the refined pupils of Boulter’s School. When 5C learn that their presence is entirely due to Hedges’ advocacy, they turn over a new leaf and emerge victorious with most good

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conduct marks, while Hedges bonds with Penny Wheeler (Jill Kerman), the local barmaid who, after early antipathy, realises his true qualities. Please Sir! continued the trend of sitcom spinoff films in earning commendable commercial returns, reaching number 19  in 1972’s UK box-­ office top 20, just ahead of Up the Chastity Belt (Swern & Childs, 1995, p. 187).7 There was no argument with William Hall’s assessment that the film was ‘cashing in on the current big-screen success of popular TV series like On the Buses’ (Evening News, 23 November 1971), but adult critical opinion was divided on its depiction of Britain’s errant youth. Ian Christie, again apprehensive since ‘most television series suffer from amnesia and loss of wit when transferred to the big screen’, felt that this ‘highly entertaining’ film had made the transition ‘with ease’: ‘full marks—should do well!’ he enthused (Daily Express, 17 November 1971). Margaret Hinxman was also ‘pleased to see they’ve managed to salve an enjoyable if not too quick-witted film, instead of just a collection of TV jokes, out of Please Sir!’ (Sunday Telegraph, 21 November 1971). Others, though, felt sanctions were in order. Patrick Gibbs decried ‘a somewhat disastrous excursion into Carry On country, lacking the right sort of clowning’ (Daily Telegraph, 19 November 1971), while Arthur Thirkell declared it ‘In a comedy class of its own—and I do mean the dunces’ section—Please Sir! is a roll-call of all that’s worst in British low-brow comedy: it is pointless, witless, crude and grossly overacted codswallop’ (Daily Mirror, 19 November 1971). The latter judgements are harsh. In context, Please Sir! extended the source text’s overarching narrative by tracing Hedges’ first meeting with Penny—the two had married in the post-series three Christmas special (tx. 27 December 1970)—and signals the departure of the current 5C to their own television spinoff The Fenn Street Gang (ITV, 3 series, 47 episodes, 1971–1973)—while Please Sir!, also minus Hedges, would limp on for one further year. If the film, despite the habitual opening out of the series’ enclosed cadre, retains the interpersonal dynamics, this is largely because of their prime sourcing from diachronic school film tropes (Glynn, 2016, pp. 186–187). The superannuated staffroom dynamics, with its tensions between ineffectual headmaster Morris Cromwell (Noel Howlett) and formidable disciplinarian deputy Miss Doris Ewell (Joan Sanderson), amiably replay Carry On Teacher (Gerald Thomas, 1959), while the lynchpin of the school’s functioning being its caretaker, here self-serving former Desert Rat Norman Potter (Deryck Guyler), mines a tradition reaching back to the music-hall inflected School for Randle (John E. Blakeley, 1949).

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The whole premise, though, was inspired by the recent Sidney Poitier vehicle To Sir, With Love (James Clavell, 1967), and Hedges’ class, like Poitier’s North Quay Secondary cohort, contains the expected rebel ringleader, Eric Duffy (Peter Cleall), the girl with a crush on teacher, Maureen Bullock (Liz Gebhardt), and the academic struggler, Dennis Dunstable (Peter Denyer), written off by all staff bar the caring new teacher. The film’s opening out also offers a degree of depth in sketching how a troubled social hinterland contributes to academic deprivation. On leaving her tenement flat Sharon argues with her mother over her latest ‘uncle’, while Dennis is evidently often beaten by his drunken and illiterate father. However, the relocation to the carnivalesque Rural Centre predicates an ultimately reassuring evaluation of Fenn Street, notably through contrast with the ‘toffee-nosed red-blazered gits’ of Boulter’s Grammar. When Dennis, fiercely protected by his peers, is mocked by a Boulter’s bully, class warfare—or at least a canteen food fight—ensues. Fenn Street’s class unity, in all senses, extends to a healthy inter-generational respect with Hedges born aloft after helping Dennis to remain at camp. Please Sir! more synchronically aped its sitcom spinoff peers in taking advantage of the ‘A’ certificate to include more ‘colourful’ and risqué material than permitted in its television version—publicity posters featured a 5C ‘bottoms up’ from nubile schoolgirl Sharon Eversliegh (22-year-old Carol Hawkins), frilly knickers on full display as she writes on the blackboard—all while retaining a conservative stance on gender and sexual politics. Sharon cries ‘rape’ to purloin a Boulter boy’s fieldwork; Hedges is determinedly pursued in Joyce Grenfell style by drab and doeeyed Miss Cutforth (Patsy Rowlands), while even Penny wants Hedges to ‘order and force me to come to dinner with you’. Fenn Street reveals itself as co-­educational but not yet equal opportunity. Again following the pattern of the late-1950s cycle of sitcom spinoff films, family-based comedies also returned to the big screen. For the Love of Ada (Ronnie Baxter, August 1972) was adapted from the Thames Television sitcom (4 series, 26 episodes + 1 Christmas special, April 1970– December 1971), another creation by the prolific Vince Powell and Harry Driver.8 The show featured Ada Cresswell (Irene Handl), a Cockney widow prone to malapropisms who lives with her daughter Ruth Pollitt (Barbara Mitchell) and football-mad son-in-law Leslie (pre-Love Thy Neighbour’s Jack Smethurst), and follows her autumn-years relationship with Walter Bingley (Wilfred Pickles), the roguish Yorkshire gravedigger who buried her husband: much to Ruth and Leslie’s disapproval,

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companionship turns to romance and eventual marriage. Mild, mature comedy—for Mark Lewisohn ‘Rarely has ITV produced such a warm and enjoyable sitcom as this, and it ranks as one of the channel’s very best’ (1998, p. 252)—the show proved a ratings success. It is nonetheless surprising that this was the film chosen by Tony Tenser (‘the Godfather of British exploitation’) and his Tigon British Film Productions to launch their strategic match-up against Hammer in comedy spinoffs, hoping to ape what they had achieved in the horror genre with works like Witchfinder General (Michael Reeves, 1968) and The Blood on Satan’s Claw (Piers Haggard, 1971) (Hamilton, 2005, pp. 235, 239). With a full cast, a Powell-Driver script and a budget just under £100,000, filming was completed in January and February 1972 at Elstree Studios plus on London locations. Granted an ‘A’ certificate after cuts for sexual content, the spinoff had a late-summer  press showing, but its general release was postponed (by a renamed LMG Film Distributors) until Christmas. The film shows how, to celebrate the first wedding anniversary of Ada (Handl) and Walter Bingley (Pickles), Ada’s daughter Ruth (Mitchell) plans a large surprise party at the local Masonic Hall. Walter has bought a locket for Ada with his Post Office savings but has to dash out on learning that Ada has given his old jacket, with locket inside, to the vicar’s jumble sale. Ada is informed that Walter has been involved in a serious accident and the vicar (John Boxer) finds and gives her the locket, but Walter returns unharmed, the news of his accident mistaken. The couple slip away for a quiet celebration, only to encounter son-in-law Leslie (Smethurst) and join the Masonic Hall’s drunken celebrations to lead the ‘Anniversary Waltz’. Spinoff  films were never critics’ favourites, but Tigon’s entrée was greeted with near-total derision. The more emollient Arthur Thirkell thought that, ‘Designed for people for whom excitement might prove fatal, the film abounds in situations which have the relaxing effect of a warm bath’ (Daily Mirror, 11 August 1972). For Tom Milne, though, this was ‘a boneless jelly of a film, setting up pointless little heartbreaks and conflicts so that it can dissolve them in a flood of cosy sentimentality’ (MFB, 39, 464, September 1972: 189). John Russell Taylor found it ‘A patronising entertainment designed seemingly for senile rather than merely senior citizens’ and bemoaned how ‘round and about there’s a fair amount of acting talent, monstrously misused’ (Times, 18 August 1972). Dilys Powell’s curt dismissal claimed ‘It has the consistency of damp cotton wool’ (Sunday Times, 13 August 1972), while Ian Christie confessed

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that ‘Honestly, I’ve had more fun cleaning out a blocked-up drain’ (Daily Express, 18 August 1972). It is true that the sitcom’s pace and tone struggle in the longer (88-­minute) format, but this criticism is (a touch) harsh. Released after the source sitcom’s demise, For the Love of Ada has the ostensible merit of extending its narrative arc rather than offering a (Dad’s Army-style) retread—except it then reworks several series events and one-liners (Ruth—‘all you think about is sex and chips’; Leslie—‘Yeah, I don’t get enough bloody chips either’). It foregoes the regular (holiday) shift of locale (venturing only as far as Teddington’s cemetery) and determinedly stays with its domestic observational comedy—though its depiction of working-class households seems condescendingly to parody its intended audience.9 Gentle to a fault, the inert camerawork and lack of action (bar the repeated recourse to problem-solving cups of tea) could even be argued to render this pensioners’ pastoral a spinoff example of contemplative or slow cinema—except it then tries to ‘sex up’ proceedings (hence its run-in with the BBFC) via an out-of-kilter encounter between sexually frustrated Leslie and nymphomaniac hairdresser Sandra (‘man-mad’ regular Andria Lawrence): mini-skirted and centre-placed in the film’s publicity poster, she (disingenuously) suggests ‘I’ve got nothing on tonight’. The biggest surprise, though, comes on seeing Tenser listed as executive producer in the opening credits, especially as playing over them, and establishing the film’s enduring maudlin sentiment, is Gilbert O’Sullivan crooning the specially commissioned ‘What Could Be Nicer’—‘than two people young at heart?’10 Nothing, of course, is the answer, as geriatric romance conquers mistakes and misunderstandings, and climaxes with a direct rerun of Inn for Trouble via a rousing rendition of ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’ (plus straight-to-camera flashes of pensioners’ pink bloomers). The mere existence of For the Love of Ada prompted, to date, the fullest examination of the resurgent sitcom spinoff genre, from renowned film writer Penelope Houston. She also found the film execrable as the leads ‘go their gormless way, among so much stilted dialogue and in such lacklustre sets that the picture looks on the verge of collapse from sheer decrepitude’. It only merited mention, she wrote, ‘as further evidence of the present strange state of play between films and television. A few years ago, the notion was the TV was actually improving the movies—at least in the lowly sense that by keeping the conventional junk on the home screen, it was forcing the cinema to find some less conventional junk of its own.

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No-one would presumably pay to see what could be watched at home for nothing.’ But, she suggested, the box-office success of On the Buses and Up Pompeii had ‘turned that reason on its head’ and ‘The TV series spin-­ off is now just about the safest, flattest investment in British pictures, and the only puzzle is why’. Houston felt that ‘It can’t be merely a totally rabid appetite for the household gods, or the pleasure of watching them large and in colour’ and wondered ‘Is it that there’s a large, generally ageing audience which want to go the pictures again, but finds 1970s movie entertainment too daunting or erratic?’ (New Statesman, 18 August 1972). Struggling cinemas were indeed now mainly attracting a demographic aged 14–25, but For the Love of Ada proved no antidote to this trend. The film bombed, and Tigon—proving the ‘Sexy Sandra’ interpolation was more in its veins—ceded the field to Hammer and abandoned sitcom spinoffs for softcore sex comedy distribution.

4.2   Cycles Continued: Institutions (Commercial and Correctional) Workplace sitcom spinoffs continued with EMI Films’ Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width (January 1973), again with Ronnie Baxter at the helm. The source sitcom,  Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width (with comma), was another Powell and Driver creation and grew from an Armchair Theatre single play (tx. 18 February 1967)  into a successful ABC/Thames Television show (ITV, 6 series, 40 episodes + 1 special, November 1967–September 1971). It followed the working partnership between Irish-Catholic trouser-maker Patrick Kelly (Joe Lynch) and Jewish jacket-maker Emmanuel ‘Manny’ Cohen (John Bluthal) in their backstreet Whitechapel tailors business. Antagonistic on all matters religious, political, and broadly philosophical, the middle-aged pair remained mutually dependent for their business to function, allowing the show to provide fairly crude stereotypes but an effective arrangement to generate the human comedy of not being able to live with or without someone. Alongside a plethora of guest cameos (including sitcom regulars Bill Pertwee, Michael Robbins and Jack Smethurst), frequent visits from Father Ryan (Denis Carey) and Rabbi Levy (Cyril Shaps) were needed to placate the argumentative duo. Gaining consistent if moderate viewing figures, the series’ closure led to the agreement with EMI for a film version. With all main players in place, filming took place during the summer

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of 1972 at Elstree Studios and London locations, notably St. Mary’s College, Twickenham, formerly Strawberry Hill, the home of Horace Walpole, which was used for Vatican-based scenes (alongside some second-­unit shots of Rome). The ‘sexed-up’ Powell-Driver script was, despite appeals, given an ‘AA’ from the BBFC, its scenes of nudity outstripped by jokes about the Virgin Mary, the latter indicative of the BBFC’s continued fear of perceived blasphemy in a supposed ‘family’ film (Moody, 2018, pp. 109–110). Prohibited to under-14s, the film ran as part of a double-­feature on the UK’s Odeon circuit.11 Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width follows ‘Bespoke Tailors’ Manny Cohen (Bluthal) and Patrick Kelly (Lynch). Patrick hires young mini-­ skirted Rita (Wendy King) as their machinist—her repairs of Manny’s trousers keep coinciding with visits from his Rabbi (David Nettheim). The tailors have a major falling-out when Patrick takes the day off to attend a funeral and subsequent wake. On making up, they discover they have been robbed, including the money Manny has saved towards a trip to Israel. Friends rally round, only for Patrick to gamble the money on a horse— which wins. The pair’s religious differences prompt a full-scale pub fight, during which the money again disappears. Patrick arranges a cheap tour to Rome: as it is exclusively for Catholic priests the pair have to dress in cassocks. During their escape from amorous but married locals Maria (Vicky Woolf) and Gina (Hilary Labow) in the Vatican Manny appears to the crowds on the Papal balcony: to his joy the pair are deported—to Israel. The film, like the series, was a moderate commercial success (Moody, 2018, p. 109). It bypassed an official press screening, but did not escape the opprobrium of the trade or BFI.  Marjorie Bilbow found the film ‘Funny at first, but it becomes monotonous and contrived and at times verges on the malicious’ which ‘brings a sour note into knockabout farce’ (CinemaTV Today, 3 February 1973: 28); Paul Madden complained how ‘The film’s faltering plot is bolstered by its heavy reliance on Irish and Jewish caricatures’ and ‘As with many similar British comedies, the film’s farcical elements are not enhanced by the dull and dogged naturalism of its style’ (MFB, 40, 470, March 1973: 55). The criticisms are valid, though there seems more naturism than naturalism in the film’s determination to enjoy the less restrictive potentialities of cinema exhibition. The publicity poster (reminiscent of Please Sir!) sidelines Lynch and Bluthal to focus on buxom Wendy King removing her top, alongside the tagline ‘The very first DOUBLE-BREASTED COMEDY!’ Eschewing any gesture towards subtlety, alongside its undressed and sex-mad women the blunt male character stereotypes

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remain in place: Patrick puts up pictures of the Pope, drinks Guinness, and bets on horses; Manny closely watches his cash-box and treasured portrait of Israeli minister Moshe Dayan. Overall, though, the film is disjointed, less a classic three-act structure than three television-length episodes joined together, each consisting of self-contained sketches, including hoary sequences such as the funeral where a runaway hearse comes to rest by a river bank only for its coffin then to slide into the water. The opening out from the sitcom does not fully fit with the film’s title, however. The foreign travel and sexual coarsening are de rigueur for the more laboured spinoff, and the running gag of Rita being caught with Manny in compromising positions quickly palls. Nonetheless, the casting of comedy stalwarts Bill Maynard as a work-proud stonemason plus Yootha Joyce as travel agent and Manny-fancying widow Mrs Finch add a quality that (briefly) belie the threadbare narrative. Overall, though, it is not a good cut. The retail setting was revisited in Anglo-EMI’s Are You Being Served? (Bob Kellett, July 1977). The source sitcom (BBC, 10 series, 64 episodes + 5 specials, March 1973–April 1985), growing from a Comedy Playhouse pilot  (tx.  8 September 1972), was created and largely written by Dad’s Army’s David Croft, now with Jeremy Lloyd, and based on the latter’s late-1940s experiences as junior sales assistant for Piccadilly’s prestigious Simpson’s department store. The show followed the mishaps of the staff on the men’s and women’s clothing section of London’s fading Grace Brothers’ department store. Its large ensemble cast, each affected to ease identification, included, at management level, officious ex-forces floorwalker Captain Stephen Peacock (Frank Thornton), plus fussing manager Mr Cuthbert Rumbold (Nicholas Smith), the staff’s link to geriatric but still lascivious chairman ‘Young’ Mr Grace (Harold Bennett). On the shop floor were the head of ladies’ fashion Mrs Betty Slocombe (Mollie Sugden), complete with dyed bouffant and regular references to her ‘pussy’ (Tiddles), plus her ditzy young assistant Miss Shirley Brahms (Wendy Richard). Facing off against them the gentlemen’s outfitter was staffed by old grouch Mr Ernest Grainger (Arthur Brough), lecherous junior sales assistant Mr Dick Lucas (Trevor Bannister) and, the show’s breakout star, outrageously camp Mr Wilberforce Humphries (John Inman), ever-ready to shriek ‘I’m free’ and dash over to measure an inside leg. A show very much in the Carry On mould with double entendres aplenty and perfunctory plotlines, its critical brickbats were countered by tremendous ratings, reaching over 22 million, while Inman was voted BBC TV’s Personality of the Year for 1976 (Lewisohn, 1998, p.  42).12

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That same summer a successful stage adaptation, sending the staff to the decade’s staple venue of an unfinished Spanish hotel, played at Blackpool’s Winter Gardens and helped to convince Nat Cohen to pursue a film version. Employing the same writers, cast, and stage version storyline, filming took place over six weeks between series five and six in March and April 1977 at Elstree Studios—the nearest to genuine foreign travel being one day’s shooting at London’s Gatwick Airport. Approved for an ‘A’ certificate, it was released without an official press screening on the ABC circuit for the summer holiday market. The film shows how, with Grace Brothers’ department store due for redecorating, the management sends the staff on a fortnight’s paid holiday to the Spanish coastal resort of Costa Plonka (sic). On the first night, with their Palace Hotel rooms not ready, they think they have been allocated seven penthouses but they are in fact ‘tent-houses’ on the beach. After various misfortunes and amorous misunderstandings, including the infatuation with Mrs Slocombe (Sugden) by murderous revolutionary Cesar Rodriguez (Glyn Houston), the staff narrowly survive a gunfight between the revolutionaries and government troops. They are ultimately saved by a tank that arrives on the scene, commandeered by ‘Young’ Mr Grace (Bennett) who, wanting to visit his staff, had not been able to find a taxi. Box-office returns were indifferent; the few reviews were dire. John Pym vilified ‘This woeful spinoff’ where ‘The humour consists mainly of a withering selection of patent British puns; an inflatable brassiere, some let’s-insult-the-Germans jokes and a rickety thunder-box which bolts from the outside are thrown in for good measure’ (MFB, 44, 524, September 1977: 188). Cecil Wilson felt that ‘The general effect is of a watered-down Carry On comedy and, as on TV, Frank Thornton’s deadpan approach to Captain Peacock proves funnier than the frantic mugging of his staff’ (Daily Mail, 2 September 1977). Subsequent critical opinion has barely softened for what would prove to be EMI’s last venture into sitcom spinoff films. Paul Moody is relatively positive towards some ‘good fun’: admitting the format ‘by 1977 was feeling tired’, he nonetheless concluded that ‘What could have been another dispiriting affair is saved by the writing … and the strong performances of the ensemble cast’ (2018, p. 109).13 John Upton, though, decried ‘a truly desperate attempt to stretch a mildly amusing half-hour into 90 gruelling minutes’ (2002), and the film is most regularly cited as a prime example of the dangers in the spinoff genre ‘going on holiday’, removing the comedy from its tried and trusted situation, and stretching its sexual content

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beyond the acceptance levels of television (Waymark, 2012, pp. 146–147). It is hard to counter such a judgement. Even its original situation is annoyingly just wrong—the film’s Grace Brothers’ shop floor offers an uncanny valley of approximation to the well-­ known (if not beloved) television version.14 The series, for all its emphasis on innuendo, could (loosely) be read as a microcosm of British society, especially in the antagonistic interaction between the better-bred upper-­ floor management and basement stock-maintenance staff such as Mr Mash (Larry Martyn) and his replacement (from series 4) Mr Harman (Arthur English). All of that is quickly jettisoned in the film version which, a brazen retread of Carry On Abroad (Gerald Thomas, 1972), puts the cast on a Dan-Air Comet and makes fun of Brits abroad as it exploits the ‘seismic change’ in the reach of UK holiday destinations across the 1970s (Sandbrook, 2010, p.  141).15 Rather like the Carry On Abroad trip to Elsbels by Sid James and Co., the Mediterranean environment of Costa Plonka loosens up traditional restraints, and character consistency cedes to classless carnivalesque action as the staff dinner (of sausage and chips) is followed by a series of amorous notes falling into the wrong hands and a night of farcical sexual frustrations. Mrs Slocombe fails to seduce Captain Peacock much as Mr Lucas fails with Miss Brahms: the hotel maid Conchita (Karan David), smitten with Mr Humphries (much to his discomfort), mistakenly ends up in bed with Mr Lucas; meanwhile Mr Humphries, disguised as Mrs Slocombe, is pursued by Cesar until the real Mrs Slocombe appears and seemingly accepts Cesar’s advances. Alas, any Whitehall farce intent is undone by the painfully slow pacing. Equally, social differences are eclipsed as the film constructs a unified sense of British identity by emphasising the differences—and perceived superiority—to the nation visited, a common trope in British foreign holiday films (Kerry, 2012, p. 193). Here this typically covers cultural norms, with coarse jokes about foreign food and toilet habits, and stretches to scorn for the unruly ‘other’ with their everyday overwrought libidos— Conchita, for instance, is continually pursued by owner Don Carlos Bernardo (Andrew Sachs). This overlaps with British organisational superiority to unstable foreign governance—before Mr Grace arrives, the resourceful Brits work together and trap the rebel Cesar inside a privy which they hoist aloft with the hotel’s hot-air balloon. The spinoff Spanish are well and truly served. However, where the film arguably does make more positive use of the liminal holiday setting is in its depictions of sexuality. One of the more

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troublesome (but persistent) character stereotypes of British comedy has been the ‘camp man’, their sexuality signalled via ‘a repertoire of gestures, expressions, stances, clothing and even environments that bespeak gayness’ (Dyer, 1993, p. 19). This stock character was still strongly visible on 1970s television  (e.g.. Clarence from The Dick Emery Show (BBC, 18 series, 166 episodes,  1963–1981) with his ‘hello, honky tonks’ catchphrase, carried over to its 1972 sketch-show spinoff Ooh… You Are Awful). In the spinoff genre, the stereotype’s most ostentatious manifestation to date had been Hugh Paddick’s Robin Hood and his Merry Men in Up the Chastity Belt—for George Melly ‘as camp as a row of tents’ (Observer, 19 December 1977). Mr Humphries is similarly and unambiguously signalled as gay by the established codes of representation outlined by Dyer, including significantly his working environment—indeed, for Brett Mills he registers as the generic conventions’ ‘apotheosis’ (2005, p. 123). Nonetheless, at the time there were numerous disingenuous comments from Croft, Lloyd and Inman claiming that he was not written or played as homosexual in the sitcom but just ‘a mother’s boy’. Contemporary audiences, however, read the television character as gay, prompting objections to how the homophobic stereotype marginalised gay identity via derision, or else evoking a reluctant acceptance of partial progressivism in at least having a gay presence onscreen (Morgan-Russell, 2004, pp. 80–81). Here there is no obfuscation: more explicitly than in the source sitcom Mr Humphries is ‘allowed to acknowledge some sort of gay scene, a network of other gay men’ as he shares a drink ‘with some transsexual friends’ (Healy, 1995, p. 255). On holiday, away from Britain, he really is free. The lack of (literal) freedom was the premise for another 1970s institutional sitcom spinoff, Porridge (Dick Clement, August 1979). The source sitcom (BBC1, 3 series, 21 episodes, September 1974–March 1977), written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais and growing from a Seven of One playlet (tx. 1 April 1973), was set in the fictitious Slade Prison. It centred on Norman Stanley Fletcher (Ronnie Barker), a regular inmate aka ‘old lag’ and his paternalistic relationship with his young ‘first timer’ cellmate Lennie Godber (Richard Beckinsale) whom he tries to help adjust to life inside. Against an unbreakable system, episodes showed the prisoners’ daily fight for what Fletcher (in the film) terms ‘lift[ing] the heart with the occasional little victory’ over their guards, particularly the strict Senior Warden Mr Mackay (Fulton Mackay) and his more compassionate but gullible subordinate Mr Barrowclough (Brian Wilde), both regularly taunted by Fletcher for being just as much prisoners as he is. Hugely popular, the show attracted an average weekly audience of over 15 million

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and, in part cocooned by its setting from the vagaries of fashion, is regularly reshown and recognised as ‘one of the all-time greats, with memorable, believable characters, richly comic dialogue and cunning plots’ (Lewisohn, 1998, p. 547).16 It has also received detailed academic attention (Weight, 2020). Though it had spawned a follow-up sitcom Going Straight (BBC, 1 series, 6 episodes, February–April 1978) that focused on the post-prison lives of Fletcher and Godber, popular interest in Porridge remained high and Clement and La Frenais brokered a film version via their new Witzend production company. After Colombia passed, a £250,000 budget was backed by ITC Entertainment and assigned to their low-cost production arm, Black Lion Films: rights were granted to ‘rival’ Lew Grade on the understanding the BBC would have initial options for the film’s television airing. Boasting a completely new script (though some sitcom jokes were reworked) and retaining most of the original cast—plus players from non-­ league Chelmsford City FC for its football scenes—the film was shot entirely on location over six (snowy) weeks from late January 1979, mostly at HMP Chelmsford, emptied for refurbishment following a fire the previous year, plus escape scenes in Kent and Buckinghamshire (Webber, 2003, pp. 171–176). Porridge was passed uncut for ‘A’ certification and exhibited on the ABC circuit.17 With ‘porridge’ British slang for a prison sentence, the film was retitled Doing Time for a limited November US release—a rare transatlantic outing for a UK sitcom spinoff, but indicative of the now California-based writers’ growing reputation. Porridge follows seasoned Slade Prison inmate Norman Stanley Fletcher aka ‘Fletch’ (Barker) who, acting on orders from prison bigwig Harry Grout aka ‘Grouty’ (Peter Vaughan), persuades the authorities to allow a morale-boosting football match between the convicts and an all-star celebrity team. Fletch, the reluctant Slade team manager, is unaware that the match is a cover to facilitate the escape of newly arrived armed bank robber Phil Oakes (Barrie Rutter), but when Fletcher and cellmate Lenny Godber (Beckinsale) discover the subterfuge, they are forcibly taken along in the escape vehicle. Desperate not to jeopardise their forthcoming parole, the duo manage to break back into prison undetected and hide in the officers’ club storeroom, subsequently claiming Oakes put them there when they discovered his breakout. All bar Warden Mackay (Mackay) believe them, but he can prove nothing—even as they chomp on the apples stolen during their travels (Fig. 4.2). This was a time when domestic hits were rare in British cinema: James Chapman notes that, in the 18 months up to September 1979, only 9

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Fig. 4.2  Porridge—‘An Occasional Little Victory’

home-produced films grossed over £300,000, deemed in the trade the benchmark of ‘considerable success’ (2022, p. 302). Porridge proved one of these successes, taking £314,000 domestically and matching US competition to come fourteenth in the year’s box-office league tables (Screen International, 19 January 1980: 11). Commonwealth success added further to the coffers. The film’s critical reception was more divided. Margaret Hinxman applauded ‘a happy transference to the big screen, with a fair number of predictable prison jokes, an authentic setting, and a truly hilarious football-match climax’ (Daily Mail, 20 July 1979). Jennifer Selway found the film ‘unobjectionable and quite funny. Far funnier and better constructed than the dread phrase “TV spin-off” would imply’ (Time Out, 20 July 1979), while Ian Christie felt that ‘There is a lot of merriment to be savoured yet the film never loses sight of the grim realities of prison life that lurk beneath’ (Daily Express, 21 July 1979). John Coleman, by contrast, was dismissive, terming ‘the inevitable movie version’ of the sitcom ‘frankly gruelling’: ‘The plot is undernourished … and the good lines few and far between’ (New Statesman, 27 July 1979). Arthur Thirkell termed it a ‘Stodgy dish of Porridge’ which ‘serves up the familiar TV comic ingredients half cooked’ (Daily Mirror, 20 July 1979), while for the trade press ‘the film is never really more than a stretched-out episode of the series and is, quite frankly, rather a redundant exercise’ (Screen International, 7 July 1979: 17). Derek Malcolm, in a lengthier review,

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encapsulated the divide, initially bemoaning how Porridge ‘obstinately remains just a fattened-up episode’ and suffered from ‘the total lack of ambition that generally affects British television spin-offs. One would wonder why it was made at all if one didn’t know damned well.’ He then, though, praised a ‘very professional’ effort, especially from Barker and Co. ‘One shouldn’t underestimate this either, since British character-playing is the envy of much of the world, and is here dignified by a more than halfway decent script.’ He concluded that ‘What informs Porridge is a very good eye for the class underbelly indeed. What limits it is no real interpretation of what that signifies in other than comic terms, but one mustn’t ask for miracles’ (Guardian, 19 July 1979). Though coming at the fag-end of the decade, Porridge is now, in keeping with its source text, considered an adaptation apogee—for Richard Weight it is ‘one of the best cinematic versions of a situation comedy ever made’ (2020, p. 113).18 It has a plot that recalls British Lion’s earlier Peter Sellers vehicle Two-Way Stretch (Robert Day, 1960) and features (I would contend) an equally consummate comic actor in Ronnie Barker. Importantly, Clement and La Frenais retained creative control and strove to develop rather than reproduce the source sitcom material (alongside Clement helming the film, La Frenais was second-unit director). There are weaknesses: the need to reintroduce characters for potential new/overseas audiences slows the exposition, while the central football match is disappointing, cinematically afforded little care or choreography and narratively privileging broad on-field slapstick at odds with the surrounding repartee and realism (Glynn, 2018, pp.  101–102). For Sue Harper and Justin Smith Porridge operates firmly in the conservative pattern of Dad’s Army and Please Sir! as, alongside extending the narrative space of the original, it ‘focuses on hapless male protagonists, and returns them, grateful, to their point of origin. They are happy in their cages’ (2012, p. 202). The Porridge spinoff, though, is more narratively nuanced than this: their discussions show that Fletcher and Godber fervently want to be ‘free and clear’ (as followed through in Going Straight), but know this can only be obtained by serving the remaining months of their sentence. Fletcher in particular fears that his ostensible organisation of the match will implicate him in Oakes’ escape and lead to serving more time. Furthermore, though the film is, like many spinoffs, stylistically subdued, its script is visually literate. For instance, when Godber complains that Oakes is now Hardy Krüger—he glosses his analogy, The One that Got Away (Roy Ward Baker, 1957)—Fletcher retorts (topically) that he will

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soon be Googie Withers again—the star of ‘Within These Walls’ (ITV, 5 series, 72 episodes, 1974–1978), a drama set in a fictional women’s prison. Its football action aside, the film remains true to the sitcom in this sharpness of dialogue (and its refusal to compromise on parochial references for a potential international audience). In a trope reminiscent of Vic Oliver losing a top-notch variety line-up in Hi Gang!, Fletcher fails to land targeted ‘A-list’ celebrities such as comedy trio The Goodies or radio presenter ‘Diddy’ David Hamilton, and summarises the opponents’ star-bereft team selection as ‘a weatherman, eight small parts and a Widow Twanky’. Linking less to Please Sir! than Bottoms Up!, the equivalence of incarceration with a public-school education is adumbrated with ‘defrocked’ dentist Banyard (Philip Locke) admitting that ‘I’m used to this kind of food, I went to Harrow’. Indeed, as with the Grace Brothers’ store in Are You Being Served?, HMP Slade can be read as a carnivalesque microcosm of Britain’s class and power relations. If the likes of Banyard, isolated and intimidated, highlight internecine class divisions, the institution’s power dynamics place crime lord Harry Grout firmly at the top, with ‘snitch’ Bernard ‘Horrible’ Ives (Ken Jones) at the bottom, despised by all for breaking the prisoners’ code of honour. Elsewhere, the practicalities of cast availability reduce the diversity of Slade’s big-screen inmates—there is little of black Scottish prisoner Jim ‘Jock’ McClaren (Tony Osaba) and nothing of the openly homosexual Lukewarm (Christopher Biggins). The series suggested—perhaps too cosily—minimal institutional bigotry around race or sexuality, and while the prison’s  so-called ‘poovery’ remains with the (stereotyped) rouged inmates of ‘G wing’ (or as Mackay terms it ‘Married Quarters’), the film version appears unfeasibly monochrome in its ethnicity. Apart from that support cast lacuna, keeping the series’ main characters (and actors) allows for detailed if leisurely development. Godber is now a confident inmate, running the prison kitchen and ruminating on what Elizabeth David would add to the soup vat—in his stead new arrival Rudge (Daniel Peacock) assumes the role of frightened prison ingenu. Other protagonists can appear softened: for Clive Jeavons ‘Mackay seems almost kindly by comparison with his television persona while Fletcher’s cynicism has to struggle hard against encroaching sentimentality’ (MFB, 46, 547, August 1979: 183). If so, this character warmth operates as a counter-­ balance to the film’s opening out which, in this instance, recalibrates rather than renounces the source comedy’s motivations. The abandonment of the small screen’s situation-appropriate claustrophobia could be

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particularly troubling here, but the film’s isolated (and wintertime) location shooting serves instead to create a more severe prison cadre, adding a sense of realism (pace race) rare to the sitcom spinoff genre. Yes, it remains bordered by its comic mode, and the sitcom’s stark tuneless opening of slamming doors and jangling keys is here replaced by Nilsson’s ironically employed chart-topping power ballad ‘Without You’,19 but the film version still scrutinises an outdated penal system in ways only hinted at on television, broaching issues such as male rape, the ill-treatment of sexual offenders and middle-class convicts, plus the blind-eye turned by staff to inmate violence. Philip French objected that such treatment by the writers was conducted ‘in a mealy-mouthed fashion that salves their consciences without disrupting the easy comic tone or endangering the family audience “A” certificate’ (Observer, 22 July 1979). However, the BBC’s 1977 banning of Scum, Alan Clarke’s brutal study of borstal conditions for BBC’s ‘Play for Today’ series (Rolinson, 2005, pp. 74–97), indicates that, at this period in Britain, the openly comic approach could reach further than the over(t)ly controversial.20 Sadly, though, the film necessitates one further comparison. Textually, there is little in common between the eulogised Porridge and excoriated George and Mildred: contextually, though, the death of 31-year-old Beckinsale from a heart attack during the editing process cast a pall over the spinoff’s release similar to that caused by the death of Yootha Joyce. As James Upton noted, not only was this a double blow to British comedy: at the end of a decade of dominance, it ‘also seemed portentous of the fate of the genre itself’ (2002).

4.3   Cycles Continued: Families (Potential and Patriarchal) Beckinsale, like Joyce, had been a mainstay of the 1970s British sitcom, and he straddles the decade’s television product and their film spinoffs, which, despite the occasional false move, largely thrived.21 Learning from Tigon’s mistakes with For the Love of Ada, the next family-based spinoff, The Lovers! (Herbert Wise, May 1973), targeted a younger demographic. The source sitcom, The Lovers (without exclamation mark), from Granada (ITV, 2 series, 13 episodes, October 1970–November 1971), created and initially written by Jack Rosenthal with direction from Michael Apted, followed the on-off Mancunian courtship of 20-year-old bank clerk Geoffrey Scrimshaw (Beckinsale) and 19-year-old secretary Beryl Battersby

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(pre-­Man About the House Paula Wilcox). A warm and witty battle-of-thesexes battle over sex, Geoffrey is desperate (and inwardly scared) to lose his virginity, while Beryl is keen on a white wedding and therefore vetoes (for the present) anything resembling what she terms ‘Percy Filth’. For Robert Sellers ‘One of the finest sitcoms ITV ever made’ (2021, p. 46), The Lovers made household names of its excellent leads and proved both a ratings and a critical success (Rosenthal won the 1971 Writers Guild Best Comedy Series Award). However, its young-love deadlock had little room to progress and (rightly) closed after a second Rosenthal-less series. Scope remained, though, to revisit the start of Geoffrey and Beryl’s relationship and a film spinoff was agreed with Gildor Films. Scripted by a returning Rosenthal and retaining the main cast, the film, with a £62,000 budget, was shot mostly on location in Manchester (plus scenes at Windsor, Hampton Wick, and Shepperton Studios) between June and August 1972. Awarded the ‘A’ certificate (on appeal), it premiered at Manchester’s Odeon in May, before distribution by British Lion on the Odeon circuit.22 The Lovers! shows the first meeting for its eponymous young couple Geoffrey (Beckinsale) and Beryl (Wilcox) in Manchester during a Friday lunch-hour. They start dating, but Geoffrey’s frustrations at Beryl’s virginal-­until-married stance lead to them breaking up. Geoffrey thinks he has struck lucky with Veronica (Rosalind Ayers), but her young brother spoils the opportunity and wakes up her parents. His more sexually successful friend Neville (Anthony Naylor) agrees to marry when his girlfriend Sandra (Susan Littler) falls pregnant. At the engagement party Geoffrey and Beryl meet again, but her feigned indifference drops when he is taken off by Women’s Libber Enid (Pamela Moiseiwitch): however, Enid’s offer to smoke pot renders him incapacitated. Meeting again at Neville’s wedding reception, the pair then take a walk around the empty off-season Manchester United stadium, affirming how happier they are apart. Cut to the crowded stadium on matchday, the couple sitting together with the (ambivalent) caption ‘Not really—The End’. The Lovers! performed well at the box office, almost tripling its budget by bringing in £178,000 (Chapman, 2022, p.  357). Foregoing a pre-­ release press screening, it still found favour with Gerard Dempsey who, while professing to be no admirer overall of the genre’s sagging or over-­ stretched storylines, here offered us to ‘Meet an exception’ which ‘developed smoothly and naturally into a better-than-average film comedy’ and where ‘The action of the hit TV series is not so much stretched as amplified’ (Daily Express, 15 May 1973). It garnered little affection from the

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BFI’s Alistair Whyte, however, for whom it was ‘A lamentably unsuccessful spinoff from the TV series’ where ‘the overall effect is extremely laboured and curiously dated’ (MFB, 40, 473, June 1973: 128). The latter assessment strikes as extremely harsh. The Lovers! is, for this writer, one of the more aesthetically accomplished films to emerge from a television sitcom, offering a skilled fusion of both fidelity to its source text and a self-standing cinematic integrity. The film secures a coherence with the sitcom (and therefore most audience expectations) not only by adding an origin story but by remaining resolutely low key and local when most spinoffs systematically dialled up the sexual content and dashed off to exotic climes (or, with Holiday on the Buses, Prestatyn). Here, the title is again shown to be ironic and the only hint of ‘Percy Filth’ comes when Geoffrey tries his luck elsewhere: even then there is scant showing of the strip-club he visits with Veronica, while the camera is chastely placed behind Enid when she removes her bra for burning. Meanwhile, largely eschewing studio sets adds an authentic spatial—and temporal—anchoring (and gives the film an historical interest) as it captures early-1970s Manchester landmarks, notably with Beryl and Geoffrey’s first meeting outside George Best’s ‘Edwardia’ Boutique on Bridge Street, their heart-­ to-­heart atop the Hotel Piccadilly, and make-up date at Old Trafford cricket and football stadia. It works also as a self-standing film—indeed, in one scene it playfully indicates that the television alternative is, at least for the young, a frustrating, unfulfilling pastime (Fig. 4.3). Rosenthal was already developing as a skilled writer of longer-format television plays (cf. Another Sunday and Sweet F.A., ITV, tx. 9 January 1972) and his film spinoff, rather than presenting a series of episodic sitcom rewrites, stays with a young couple’s bitter-sweet relationship, employing the quasi-adolescent oscillations in their courtship as the film’s only (and accomplished) motor. Its frames of reference also transfer to the larger screen the source sitcom’s ‘metafictional commentary’ on how the media mould expected gender behaviour (Vice, 2009, p. 85). Thus the film begins in a cinema’s back seat, and Geoffrey’s first amorous rejection. His and Beryl’s first date is to see The Boyfriend (Ken Russell, 1971)—eating afterwards, Geoffrey tries to impress with pseudo-academic exegesis, arguing that Russell ‘wants to allow the images to provoke a moral response from our own aesthetic judgment’ (discuss): Beryl asks if Russell was the errand boy. An early scene of parallel editing shows Beryl kissing her photo of Paul McCartney—‘he doesn’t know you’ve been faithful to him since A Hard Day’s Night [Richard Lester, 1964]’, her mother (Joan

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Fig. 4.3  The Lovers!—‘As a Fever, Longing Still’

Scott) reminds her. Geoffrey meantime proposes to his wardrobe-sized poster of French film star Brigitte Bardot, its presence an indication to his parents of his screen-advanced permissive lifestyle—‘every day at it with some dolly bird’, notes his father (not impressed). Dad is mistaken, and a later parallel edit reveals the (generation) gap between such media images and Manchester reality: Geoffrey’s bewildered parents (John Comer and Stella Moray) watch a promiscuous play on ITV (Casanova is on the BBC) believing that ‘it’s just showing real life’; meanwhile Geoffrey and his cohorts conspicuously fail to ‘score’ at the engagement party. Even the ‘grass’ Geoffrey smokes is literally that, cut from the front lawn. (Mrs Battersby also knows the permissive society is real—‘it’s in all the colour supplements’, she tells Beryl). Do all these references make the film ‘dated’? Maybe: McCartney and Bardot can strike as more fitting to mid-1960s idolatry—but could be rationalised as indices of the leads’ enduring emotional immaturity. More productively, and in contradistinction to synchronic coarsened (largely southern) spinoff—and Carry On—fare, Martin Cater proposes The Lovers! as ‘almost like a late entry in the British New Wave’ (Network Blu-­ ray booklet, 2022). A strong case to support this reading can be built. The Mancunian topography gives an (Eastman)Colour update on A Taste of Honey (Tony Richardson, 1961), including the typical ‘Long Shot of Our Town From That Hill’, here courtesy of the Hotel Piccadilly rooftop

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which, the setting for the young couple’s central break-up, demonstrates ‘the paradox of the sure and centrally embracing view and the overwhelming vulnerability of the subject’ (Higson, 1984, p. 19). Overall Geoffrey and Beryl’s fragile on-off courtship offers a less caustic replay of A Kind of Loving (John Schlesinger, 1962)—with the forced marriage transferred to Geoffrey’s mate Neville; also the ambivalent attitude towards Swinging London permissiveness offers a late echo of Billy Liar (John Schlesinger, 1963). Even the (here gentle) opposition to the rival television medium recalls the antagonism evident across the film movement, as with the ‘looking at telly day in day out’ diatribe in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960). In these instances the sitcom spinoff’s low-­ culture status means that Wise’s film obviates accusations (levelled at New Wave fare) of constituting a condescending near-anthropological expedition into lower-class areas. This taxonomy is not entirely positive, however, since The Lovers!, for all its ostensible charm, also ultimately shares what are now seen as the New Wave’s more retrograde, indeed misogynist values (Hill, 1986) as its gender dynamics adopt traditional patternings. This is discernible in both mise-en-scène and narrative: Beryl waits for Geoffrey by a (deliberately placed) wall poster for The Taming of the Shrew (Franco Zeffirelli, 1968), while the light mockery of Enid and her ‘ballsy’ calls to freedom suggests an On the Buses-like anxiety about women’s liberation and role in the workplace (cf. the young bank clerks ritually watching short-skirted secretaries climb an adjacent spiral staircase). In all, the film offers a residually conservative discourse on the decade’s wider purported liberations: Beryl will ‘play ball’ with Geoffrey at supporting Manchester United but not at practising premarital sex, thereby replicating the television series’ reassurance to its mainstream (missing-out) audience that ‘despite the much vaunted 1960s “permissiveness” sexual mores have not much changed’ (Vice, 2009, pp. 107–108)—especially up north. Almost concurrent with The Lovers! was the release of Father, Dear Father (William G. Stewart, May 1973). The source series, penned by the sitcom-savvy Brian Cooke and Johnnie Mortimer for Thames Television (ITV, 7 series, 45 episodes, November 1968–February 1973), had varied the parental dynamic (and class setting) with its focus on divorced thriller writer Patrick Glover (Patrick Cargill) who lives with his late-teen daughters Karen (Ann Holloway) and Anna (Natasha Pyne) in their bourgeois Hampstead home alongside the girls’ Nanny (Noel Dyson). Patrick’s

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regular battles with his strong-willed offspring (and their boyfriends) are supplemented across the various series by the demands of his ex-wife Barbara (Ursula Howells) and her new husband Bill Mossman (Patrick Holt, then Tony Britton), the interventions of Patrick’s mother (Joyce Carey) and brother Philip (Donald Sinden), plus the hassles of his agent Georgie Thompson (Sally Bazely, then Dawn Addams) and publisher Ian Smyth (Michael Segal). His only solace comes from his sleepy St. Bernard dog, H.G. Wells.23 Between series six and seven a spinoff film was commissioned from (short-lived) Sedgemore-M.M.  Film Productions. With a £115,000 budget, a Cooke-Mortimer script (written in three weeks), and most main players in place, Father, Dear Father was predominantly shot at Elstree Studios in autumn 1972 and released by Rank on the Odeon circuit.24 The film follows divorced novelist Patrick Grover (Cargill) who, following advice to remarry, proposes to his literary agent Georgie (replacement Jill Melford) who eventually accepts. Patricks’ unhappy ex-wife Barbara (Howells) then reappears, hiding when her drunk and jealous husband Bill (replacement Jack Watling) appears. Patrick is particularly concerned that his daughters want to leave home: Anna (Pyne) is soon disillusioned with her dirty attic flat and returns home when Patrick mistakenly thinks she is ‘living in sin’ with her black ground-floor neighbour Larry (Clifton Jones). Karen (Holloway) decides to elope and marry her accident-prone boyfriend Richard (Man About the House’s Richard O’Sullivan), but when his car breaks down she changes her mind and also returns home. Similarly, at the church Patrick and Georgie agree not to proceed with their wedding, but announce they will enjoy the pre-booked honeymoon. With its broad demographic appeal, Father, Dear Father put in a steady if unspectacular box-office performance. Critics were just bemused: Eric Shorter found it a ‘slow witted translation’ and ‘another example of a series failing to shift from small screen to large … It has an “A” certificate for some obscure reason and may be safely recommended to under-­ twelves’ (Daily Telegraph, 25 May 1973). Or else incredulous: Sheridan Morley felt the film ‘has to be seen not to be believed: expanded or rather overblown for the big screen, it yet gives every impression of having been made in the original tv settings from offcuts that were considered too awful for home consumption’; adding that ‘The pace of the film is not so much slow as stopped’, he concluded that ‘At the risk of overstating the case, I would suggest that Father Dear Father redefines screen awfulness’

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(Times, 25 May 1973). Or even confessional: Stephen Maclean admitted that ‘It does have the distinction of being the first film I have walked out on in several years’ (Gay News, 30 May 1973). The critics have a point—Father, Dear Father is, from all angles, conservative filmmaking. It was shot in MultiVista, a grand sounding but cost-­ cutting shoot-and-edit technique that utilised three 35mm cameras containing electronic viewfinders and extra-long (1000 ft) magazines that a vision mixer could cut ‘live’. Not only did this process technologically match small-screen practice, but aesthetically it also gave the film the look of a television series, replicating the longer shot-lengths of sitcom production, which at least allowed actors to play off each other in real time. What they played, though, was problematic. Cargill was gay, and homophobia is about the one trait missing from Father, Dear Father which far outpaces The Lovers! in the breadth and depth of its reactionary ideology. Patrick’s ‘liberated’ daughters soon learn that they prefer the shelter of parental/ patriarchal authority, while the misunderstanding over Lenny’s (stereotypically played) appearance in Anna’s flat adds an unnecessary racist layer to Patrick’s protective outrage. Class is also treated as if proletarian assertiveness and the British New Wave (plus its spinoff acolytes) had never happened: Glover, the author of James Bond-style exotic adventure novels (his bookcase includes titles such as Matricide in Macao and The Naked Fandango), adopts the same patrician snobbery when forced to interact with comic milkmen or ‘char ladies’. At least his phoned proposal to Georgie, answered instead by her cleaner Mrs Stoppard, allows an Ada Cresswell-like Beryl Reid an accomplished reminiscence on her wartime temptations from nylon-bearing G.I.s—much to Glover’s sneering condescension. Narratively, though, the scene is typical in merely reworking scenarios from the first two (black-­ and-­white) series: the film is a compendium of episodes ‘The Proposal’ (series 1, episode 1), ‘The Return of the Mummy’ (1.3), and ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’ (2.3). Nor does the denouement display any initiative, labouredly following the television format by ensuring that, after its myriad (if not mirthful) confusions, all characters are brought back to their point of departure with a reassertion of the stasis essential to ‘the typology of situation comedy’ (Eaton, 1978, p. 62). A two-parent two-children nuclear family spinoff quickly followed with Bless This House (Gerald Thomas, June 1973). The source sitcom (ITV, 6 series, 65 episodes, February 1971–April 1976) was, like For the Love of Ada, another Powell-Driver creation for Thames Television, though most

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episodes were written by other hands. Expressly conceived as a vehicle for comedy star Sid James, it centred on events in Howard Road, New Malden, where James’ irascible yet endearing salesman Sid Abbott struggles to cope with modern life, embodied in the domestic dissatisfaction of his wife Jean (Diana Coupland) and the permissive attitudes of their late-­ teen children, hippieish dropout Mike (Robin Stewart) and scatty schoolgirl Sally (Sally Geeson): helping with plot machinations are the Abbott’s friends and neighbours Trevor (Anthony Jackson) and Betty Lewis (Patsy Rowlands). Standard domestic sitcom fare (the Abbotts resemble a down-­ market updated Lyons family), the show proved hugely popular, the likeable parental leads helping it to become a regular top-ten ratings winner and dominate ITV’s early-1970s comedy output (ending only with James’ sudden death in 1976). It also tempted over to the sitcom spinoff market Carry On creators Peter Rogers Productions, who bought the film rights and commissioned a script from the show’s regular writer Dave Freeman (another Associated London Scripts graduate). One major cast change saw the unavailable Stewart replaced as son Mike by Robin Asquith, while the introduction of Terry Scott and June Whitfield as new neighbours instigated a future staple sitcom double act.25 The spinoff was filmed between series two and three in June and August 1972 at Pinewood Studios and on location at Windsor and Burnham, Buckinghamshire. With the desired ‘U’ certificate, it was distributed by Rank on the Odeon circuit.26 The film (re-)establishes the Abbott family dynamic, rep Sid (James) just wanting an easy home life, but constantly put out by his wife Jean (Coupland), work-shy long-haired son Mike (Asquith), and cause-­ conscious daughter Sally (Geeson). Things worsen for Sid with the arrival of new neighbours, pompous Ronald Baines (Scott), his wife Vera (Whitfield), and their student daughter Kate (Please Sir!’s Carol Hawkins). Animosity quickly develops between the two fathers when Sid’s mantelpiece removal brings down their shared lounge wall. However, Mike and Kate fall in love and agree to marry. On the wedding day Sid and Ronald have to cope with the home-made (and illegal) brandy still in Sid’s garden shed catching fire: begrimed and dishevelled, they reach the church too late for the ceremony, on the back of a fire engine. With its four-quadrant audience appeal Bless This House brought in sound box-office takings, while its middle-class inoffensive nature seemed to draw the sting from most reviews. Not for Arthur Thirkell, who found that ‘The humour is broad, simple and as British as fish and chips. But served up soggy and cold’: only the presence of ‘Sid James’s smoked

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walnut face … saved it from being unspeakably awful’ (Daily Mirror, 6 July 1973). More indicatively, John Russell Taylor briefly summarised ‘another television spin-off/rip-off’ before begrudgingly admitting that ‘I suppose there are worse ways of passing the time’ (Times, 6 July 1973), while Derek Malcolm opined that the spinoff had ‘all the aplomb of a drunken ostrich. But it’s certainly no worse than the TV show upon which it is based’ (Guardian, 5 July 1973). The trade thought that ‘as an undemanding lark, the strength of the film is, of course, the cast with its profusion of familiar faces. When an audience is happily playing the game of spot the stars it doesn’t have time to notice whether what they are saying is hilariously amusing or not’ (CinemaTV Today, 7 July 1973: 16). Paul Madden explained the film’s modus operandi as ‘An essentially plotless collection of sketches’ that ‘trots out all the traditional ingredients of “harmless” family entertainment’ and ‘depends for its humour on contrived and prolonged bouts of funny business, in which fire, water, and do-it-yourself decorating provide the staples for some familiar slapstick routines’ (MFB, 40, 474, July 1973: 145). This is an accurate description. There are incidental pleasures, notably with James’ consummate timing and trademark laughter, but Bless This House fails to cohere as a feature film, its frantic farce and slapstick routines of hiding under tables, engaging in food fights, etc. exacerbating a centrifugal proliferation of subplots that include Sid’s illegal distillery (jeopardy added since Ronald works for Customs and Excise), Jean and Betty (Rowlands) setting up a market junk stall, Sally’s environmental activism (and much-publicised bikini-wearing), and Mike’s new job at a fastfood restaurant—where he meets Kate. The latter young love strand most fully stands outside the source text narrative, since series three would resume with Mike still unmarried and living at home. With the shift from generational to garden-fence battles further straying from its television iteration, Bless This House can, perhaps, be better appreciated if read as a Carry On film in spinoff clothing, retaining the Carry On mischief while taking the ageing franchise into more respectable middle-aged domesticity. Alongside the triumvirate of Rogers, Thomas, and Sid James (here swapping his coarse lecher for a more age-appropriate cardigan-wearing paterfamilias), surrounding cast and crew were predominantly drawn from the Rogers franchise: Scott and Whitfield (and Geeson and Rowlands) were joined by Carry On stalwart Peter Butterworth as Sid’s friend and fellow still-builder Trevor Lewis, while Eric Rogers’ musical cues (replacing the sitcom’s Geoff Love theme) are mostly recognisable as Carry On recyclings.

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The spinoff’s satire on the younger generation’s counterculture— Mike’s artistic pretensions and backfiring psychedelic Morris Minor, Sally’s tank-topped eco-campaigning with the Junior Anti-Pollution League— may strike as a soft and tardy target but, despite the film version changing the Abbots’ house and immediate environs, it is fully on point and in step with the ITV version in its gentle indictment of suburbia. This was a common ‘situation’ for comedy, especially from the mid-1970s, and significant both historically and generically. As Dominic Sandbrook noted, ‘the fact that so many sitcoms were set in greater Metro-land, from Bless This House and Happy Ever After [BBC, 5 series, 41 episodes,  1974-1979]  to Butterflies [BBC, 4 series, 30 episodes,  1978–1983] and George and Mildred, was a testament to its newfound place at the centre of Britain’s physical and imaginative landscape’ (2010, p. 331). For Andy Medhurst ‘The suburban sitcom represents British comedy’s most sustained attempt at embourgeoisement, its plots often concerned with the maintaining of genteel values against threats from outside or below’. One of the decade’s more achieved spinoffs, examined next, would share this thematic strand, plus the narrative drive of ‘suburbia having to accommodate the “wrong” kind of people’ (1997, p. 252).

4.4   Genre Maturity: The Likely Lads (1976) Suburbia—and an interrogation of its values—would dominate the sitcom spinoff film The Likely Lads (Michael Tuchner, April 1976). This grew from the television series The Likely Lads (BBC2, 3 series, 20 episodes, December 1964–July 1966) and its colour successor Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (BBC1, 2 series, 26 episodes, January 1973–April 1974 + 1 1974 Christmas special), both written by future Porridge creators Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. The studio-bound first sitcom, with limited audience range on the BBC’s new second channel, followed the friendship of Terry Collier (James Bolam) and Bob Ferris (Rodney Bewes), two early 20-somethings from the North East who work at Ellison’s Electrical components factory and struggle on their low income to indulge their passions for beer, football, and especially girls. The term ‘likely’ signifies both mischievous and promising: the former applied to Terry, cynical and savvy, the latter to Bob, conformist and aspirational, and much of the humour derived from Terry inadvertently leading Bob into a series of embarrassing scrapes. Superbly written and acted (like Steptoe and Son, the leads were renowned actors rather than comedians), the series ended with Bob deciding to join

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the Army: Terry, initially aghast, joins with him, only for Bob to be rejected with flat feet, severing their partnership. The follow-up sitcom, that rarity a superior sequel, has Terry returning from his five years’ Army travels to find everything in the North East changed. Even his old friend Bob is now white-collar respectable, working in the office of a building firm and engaged to his boss’ daughter, the even-more aspirational Thelma Chambers (Bridget Forsyth): together they have bought a new house on an estate in suburbia. However, as the title and theme tune emphasise, the follow-up’s comedy is imbued with an exploration of both lads’ feelings of nostalgia for their earlier carefree lives.27 This was a sitcom different in tone: for Phil Wickham the humour depends not on exaggeration but verisimilitude, with ‘the little ironies that can build up a realistic, but comic, parallel universe for the viewer … Nothing seems fanciful in the show and it frequently verges on naturalism’ (2008, pp. 17, 87, 86). Viewing figures were strong, with around 25 per cent of the population watching, and the show won the second-ever BAFTA for Best Situation Comedy in 1974.28 While the television iteration had ended, radio versions of Whatever ... were subsequently aired,29 and a film version was again brokered by Nat Cohen at EMI Films, part of a £6 million programme announced in July 1975 and ‘designed to create products of maximum audience appeal in both the UK and overseas’ (Moody, 2018, p.  138). Keeping all main actors, writers Clement and La Frenais sought, as they would with Porridge, to develop a fresh perspective, and their film script was realised in six weeks across November and December at Elstree Studios and on location in and around Newcastle and Whitley Bay. Complying with BBFC advice to show discretion in shooting ‘the sexy episodes’ and to remove selected adult language secured the advantageous ‘A’ certificate (Barber, 2011, pp. 93–94). The Likely Lads premiered at Newcastle’s ABC 1 cinema on 8 April 1976 before nationwide ABC distribution through Anglo-EMI. The film’s black-and-white prologue shows how Bob Ferris (Bewes) and Terry Collier (Bolam) are both conceived during a Second World War German air raid and grow up with identical class backgrounds. In the present day (in colour) Bob and Terry are friends. Bob is married to librarian Thelma (Forsyth) while Terry is a womanising divorcé. They watch the demolition of their favourite public house, the Fat Ox, and Bob starts questioning the direction of his life. This is compounded when Terry increasingly forsakes their nights out to spend time with his new Finnish girlfriend, Christina (Mary Tamm). Thelma suggests that the four of them take a long weekend caravan tour of Northumbria, hoping this will help

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Terry settle down. The reverse happens: the lads are bored and plan an early return, inadvertently losing the girls on the way. Terry and Christina end their relationship, while Bob sinks deeper into introspection and moves in with Terry to escape Thelma’s ire. When Terry decides to leave Britain and work on a cargo ship, he and Bob have a parting drink on board: Bob wakes up to see the ship has sailed and Terry, having changed his mind, is waving from the quayside alongside a perplexed Thelma. While financially the film can be adjudged as relatively successful (Wickham, 2008, p.  18), reviews were mixed. The tabloids enthused. With the heading ‘Great stuff, lads’, Arthur Thirkell noted that ‘Films based on TV series rarely transfer successfully to the big screen. The Likely Lads is an exception … It has crisp dialogue, real-life characters and it’s a treat for fans’ (Daily Mirror, 15 April 1976). The News of the World felt that ‘Bewes and Bolam, aided by yet another brilliant script from Clement and La Frenais, are certain to win new friends. Marvellous fun’ (18 April 1976). Ian Christie similarly declared that ‘The Likely Lads succeeds because the characters from the TV series are clearly defined and the script is written with wit and perception’ (Daily Express, 15 April 1976). Marjorie Bilbow’s trade review was also largely onside: ‘The two central characters were so well drawn from the outset (and allowed to mature and develop logically over the years) that the slimness of the storyline in the film version matters very little. It is very episodic; but, within the limits of situation comedy, true to life’ (Screen International, 10 April 1976: 14). The broadsheets were more reserved. For Eric Shorter ‘The contrast of character is amusing, and the supporting performances are good. The script, however … is uneven—rich comedy here, sheer farce there, and mere nonsense somewhere else’ (Daily Telegraph, 15 April 1976). Nigel Andrews found that, ‘Stretched out to feature length and padded out Alfie-style [Lewis Gilbert, 1966] with a series of abortive sexual encounters, the escapades lose their colour and individuality and end up just another pre-packed product on the assembly line of low-budget British comedy’ (Financial Times, 15 April 1976). Derek Malcolm thought it ‘not so much incompetent as desperately flat and uninteresting’ as ‘Its initial good idea of exposing the chronic sexual frustrations that underlie lives reluctantly dedicated to going along with petit bourgeois moral codes, and doing it through observation of character, is now buried beneath humour more fitted to an emasculated seaside postcard’ (Guardian, 23 April 1976). Dilys Powell termed it ‘a Carry On, but more

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genteel and far more boring’ (Sunday Times, 18 April 1976). For the football-­mad lads, a critical score-draw, perhaps. As with its source sitcoms, the reputation of the film has improved with age, and both iterations have now received discrete academic attention (Wickham, 2008; Williams, 2010).30 Indicative of its quality, the film bears an atypically complex relationship with its television versions, spinoff peers, and wider British film movements. Firstly, though following a linear chronological progression, The Likely Lads’ very title indicates a chain of retrospection as it revisits and recalibrates its earlier sitcom iterations. Whatever …, mirroring many of its original audience, had shown the lads constantly thinking back to the days of the first series and their lives of ‘birds, booze and the dancehall’. The film continues and completes this cycle, even reworking (and reversing) the first series’ ending where friendship leads to the ‘wrong’ lad leaving the area. In particular, as Paul Williams notes, it ‘invites audiences to rethink the series’ nostalgia for the vanishing working-class urban space of Newcastle’ (2010, p. 189). It begins in this vein as the lads play football with boys on a patch of wasteland, the Tyne Bridge firmly in view, until Bob goes to fetch the ball from a disused factory roof and freezes. Succinctly the region’s deindustrialisation and Bob’s personal stagnation are established, while the rescuing fireman’s irritated observation that some people ‘never grow up’ prepares for the plotlines that follow (Fig. 4.4). The razing of the Fat Ox triggers Bob’s ‘crisis of identity’, his perception that moving ‘straight from living with my Mum to living with my wife’ has robbed him of ‘that period of sexual excess’ still available to the single Terry. The regular recourse to cinema-specific longshots that dwarf the characters in both ‘grimy’ Newcastle and ‘the breath-taking grandeur’ of Northumbria add credence to this accelerating sense of deracination, rendering Bob and Terry, for Wickham, ‘figures in a ruined landscape’ (2008, p.  37). More discretely, though, the duo’s differing mind-sets, Bob’s neo-bourgeois vacillations versus Terry’s proletarian resilience, are envisioned in their domiciles. Bob is still in his sitcom’s identikit semi on the Elm Lodge housing estate and part of the badminton club; Terry, however, is staying at his holidaying parents’ new flat, the Colliers rehoused, just like the Garnetts in Till Death Us Do Part, in a lift-broken tower block (regularly filmed from a low angle to emphasise its dehumanising enormity). Nonetheless, Terry expresses his pleasure at the upgrade: ‘it’s got a modern kitchen, a lovely view, and an inside lavatory’. Here he differs from Alf Garnett, from the film’s critical mise-en-scène, and

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Fig. 4.4  The Likely Lads—‘Regret for Things Past’

especially from Bob who sees only ‘soulless concrete blocks’ and the destruction of local communities. The dynamic has evidently shifted from the sitcoms as Terry now resists Bob’s plea that he ‘must feel some nostalgia’—the very emotion that Terry had frequently and calculatedly employed in Whatever … to keep Bob in his sentimental and social orbit. The lads are on different emotional trajectories, and the suburban home that Bob had viewed as part of his social amelioration and personal maturity fails to hold. It may be by accident but not without significance that it is Terry now who stays, while Bob is off to Bahrain: in the final analysis, is Bob the ‘wrong’ kind of person for life in suburbia? Generically, The Likely Lads has a depth and development of characterisation and dialogue on a different level to most sitcom spinoff fare.31 Yes, the film version allows for more swearing—Bob’s ‘I couldn’t give a shit’ to Thelma’s request for dress advice surprises in its vehemence, but fits entirely with his current depression. However, rather than a catalogue of double entendres (a fate even foisted on Dad’s Army), it presents a (light touch) literate script to match its valedictory tone. When Bob says ‘I used to think I had forever, Terry. Now I’m not so sure—someone said that, not me’, he is citing the 1968 novel by William Saroyan. He then recites the third verse of John Masefield’s ‘Cargoes’ poem—‘Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack’: a recitation learnt at school, he recalls (and

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no doubt chosen for its region-rooting line on a ‘cargo of Tyne coal’).32 The film is atypically replete with such cultural references, including film. Bob is conceived as a result of his father’s wartime invocation of Walter Pidgeon’s carpe diem advice ‘at the Regal last Friday’; fantasising being on a tramp steamer in the Indian Ocean alongside Ava Gardner and Wilfrid Hyde-White, Bob illustrates the ‘social asset’ in knowing how to play bridge; shooing a herd of cows from an entrapped Terry, Bob jokes that this was how Clint Eastwood started. Beyond cinema, Bob’s holiday attempt at ‘illegal nookie’ with landlady’s daughter Dawn (Anulka Dziubinska) has her calling down for her ‘Romeo’, while he equates his mid-life crisis quest to Paul Gauguin finding his primitive island to paint nudes. Thus even that staple spinoff device of the holiday setting for once works, narratively justified and reinforcing overall mood and theme: the desperate and futile attempts by the lads to rediscover their youthful sexual freedom at an out-of-season fun-fair and deserted beach create an atmosphere of melancholy consistent with their superannuated actions, where they end up trouserless but frustrated by the B&B’s self-policing mother and daughter. The Likely Lads, cine-literate like the writers’ later Porridge, also offers a review of wider British film movements. Indicative of the spinoff’s critical rehabilitation, Wickham saw in the location shooting’s bleak landscape aesthetic and harsher studio-shorn character portrayals connections to the ‘tortuous’ Tyneside world of Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971), similarly exploring, though admittedly ‘in a subtler and more comic way, the realities of a culture built on machismo, alcohol, misogyny and violence’ (2008, p. 37). James Leggott, tracing a broader taxonomy, sees the film as revisiting and redefining the iconography and preoccupations of Britain’s New Wave realist tradition, notably the familiar signifiers of the industrial north and ‘the struggles of young men to escape the stifling domesticity of urban or suburban environments’ (2008, p.  96). There are star and source text linkages to support this reading. Bewes and Bolam both had New Wave film credentials;33 the original television series can be seen as replicating the film movement’s aesthetics and concerns, notably its monochrome explorations of the courting and leisure practices of northern working-class masculinity; in the film Bob’s domestic moves revisit the tensions played out by Vic (Alan Bates) in A Kind of Loving. There are, though, important differences. For Leggott the spinoff film’s removal of Bob and Terry from the city to the country and then seaside ‘neatly illustrates the impossibility of escape’. The rows of identical

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vehicles at the caravan park offer no New Wave-style rural respite as in A Taste of Honey, but only ‘a grotesque parody of suburban conformity’ (2008, p. 97). Beyond this, the two lads’ differing views on their childhood haunts also allow a meta-commentary on the very cinematic tradition the film is mining. It is the upwardly mobile Bob who rails at seeing his past ‘bulldozed away’ (though pointedly he wants nothing of the area for his own future children’s upbringing), while determinedly proletarian Terry labels such nostalgia a middle-class ‘indulgence’—the very charge levelled at Britain’s mainly middle-class New Wave filmmakers with their penchant for that wistful (but detached) panoramic ‘Long Shot of Our Town’ (Higson, 1984). However, unlike its television version (and The Lovers! spinoff film), The Likely Lads (pace Wickham) also more positively recalibrates its gender depictions, with women given a more fully endorsed diegetic voice and viewpoint. Yes, Thelma and Christina still cook a caravan lunch while the lads seek out the local pub, and Thelma may at one point equate their ‘full and exciting life’ in suburbia to visiting the carwash and dry cleaners, but ‘the lasses’ too express their desires for wider horizons, as with Thelma’s early urge to work in Morocco and Chris’ hiking out to Hadrian’s Wall. Harper and Smith note how, while the television Thelma was a ‘querulous, illogical threat to male bonding’, here she and Terry’s girlfriend are shown as ‘entirely justified and moderate’ and are accorded ‘the moral high ground in the shifting morass of social and sexual change’: they conclude that the film ‘proposes one of the most unpalatable possibilities of all: that women are right and men are wrong’ (2012, p. 201). Even there, though, there is a problematising self-awareness. Almost the final words are of Bob on the cargo ship fearing that, with Terry gone, his life will ‘slip into a steady routine of contentment and happiness’.34 ‘Don’t worry, kidder’, Terry promises: ‘I’ll be back to cock it up for you’. It is heartfelt and welcome. Deep down, Bob, like his mate, does not want always to be right. * * * Paul Moody writes of The Likely Lads that ‘this ode to a nation’s lost promise … was a fitting end to the sitcom film genre, and to this type of filmmaking in Britain’ (2018, p. 111). It is a persuasive formulation, but one that underestimates the stubborn endurance of the sitcom spinoff, which soldiered on to the decade’s end. Lost promise was certainly central to Cinema Arts International and Black Lion Films’ Rising Damp (Joseph McGrath, May 1980). The source sitcom (ITV, 4 series, 28 episodes, September 1974–May 1978) was itself an adaptation from Eric Chappell’s

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stage play The Banana Box that premiered at Leicester’s Phoenix Theatre from May to June 1971 with Steptoe Snr. Wilfrid Brambell as Rooksby, a dubious landlord. For a short tour in March–July 1973 culminating at Shaftesbury Avenue’s Apollo Theatre, the landlord role was assumed by Leonard Rossiter, with tenants played by Frances de la Tour, Don Warrington, and former Manfred Mann-lead Paul Jones. Its sitcom potential was seen by Yorkshire Television and a successful pilot episode launched a full series, retaining the stage cast bar Jones who was replaced by Richard Beckinsale from The Lovers. Leaving suburbia for a rundown Victorian townhouse (evidently) in Leeds let out as bedsits, the show’s focus is on unhappy, even dysfunctional lives—the mouldy house a metonym for corrosive 1970s Britain. The landlord Rupert Rigsby (Rossiter), long separated from his wife, has become mistrustful, miserly, and bigoted; Miss Ruth Jones (de la Tour) is a 30-something single woman desperate for male affection, but uninterested in Rigsby’s advances; top-floor tenant Alan Moore (Beckinsale) is an amiable medical student, but lacking in social skills and sexual experience: only black student Philip Smith (Warrington) seems more assured, feeding gullible and racist Rigsby exaggerated tales of his privileged and promiscuous life as son of an African chief, but who in turn fails to reciprocate Miss Jones’ romantic interest. An enduring sitcom and, for Robert Sellers, ‘arguably the finest that ITV ever produced’ (2021, p. 167), Rising Damp thrived on good scripts and excellent performances, notably from Rossiter who manages to generate sympathy for the ostensibly obnoxious Rigsby. The show grew in popularity to capture audience viewing figures of 18 million and won the 1978 BAFTA for Best Situation Comedy. Beckinsale’s death in 1979 scuppered further series, but the show’s film rights were picked up by regular spinoff producer Roy Skeggs, who persuaded all surviving main players to reconvene. Written by Chappell and reusing several television storylines, the film, with a £120,000 budget supported by ITC Entertainment, changed its setting from Yorkshire to a three-storey terraced property in London’s Notting Hill (82 Chesterton Road) where location shooting took place over six weeks beginning in September 1979, while (with Alan briefly mentioned as having moved out) Beckinsale’s part in the house dynamic was rewritten with Christopher Strauli cast as mature art student John (Webber, 2001, pp.  150–156). BBFC cuts were needed to gain an ‘A’ certificate for national release.35 The film follows landlord Rigsby (Rossiter) who courts Miss Jones (de la Tour) who in turn prefers the younger more sophisticated Philip (Warrington). Rigsby instructs Philip to share his room with a new tenant,

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John Harris (Strauli), while he installs the seemingly upper-class Charles Seymour (Denholm Elliott) in the prized vacant room adjacent to Miss Jones. Philip and John grow suspicious of Seymour, who woos Miss Jones and fails to pay his rent. Rigsby fails to believe he has a con-man in his house but learns that Seymour and Miss Jones plan to travel using her Post Office savings. The next morning Seymour is caught sneaking out alone by Philip and forced to hand over the savings. Rigsby regains Miss Jones’ favour—but immediately trips over his cat Vienna and falls down the stairs. Though work commitments had kept him from the final television series, the absence of Beckinsale casts a pall over the film of Rising Damp similar to Porridge and to Yootha Joyce with Cinema Arts’ subsequent George and Mildred. Nonetheless, the spinoff was well-received, winning Best Comedy, Director, Comedy Actor (Rossiter), Actor (Elliott), and Actress (de la Tour) at 1980’s (New) Evening Standard British Film Awards (Screen International, 29 November 1980: 20). Reviews were also predominantly positive. Arthur Thirkell again entered the common generalisation: ‘Comedies that are so good on television usually curl up and die when they move to the cinema. Not so this rib-tickling adaptation. It is a giggle or two above the usual leering small budget British caper’ (Daily Mirror, 15 February 1980). Alan Frank counselled that ‘Even if you’ve never seen the television series, don’t miss Rising Damp—The Movie. It’s comic delight all the way’ (Daily Star, 16 February 1980). Marjorie Bilbow explained why she found it ‘One of the better television spin-offs. Although the plot can be faulted as stretched very thin … it is not an irksome failing, because this is character comedy rather than situation’ with ‘very strong performances’ from its leads. ‘The script mixes low comedy with a sharper wit that is at times cruel in its mockery of Rigsby and Miss Jones, a cruelty of which the characters are unaware but is absorbed into the subtleties of the performances to give the touch of pathos that is the yeast of the best comedy’ (Screen International, 9 February 1980: 15). Even the US trade press, while noting it ‘too parochial to travel much’, commended ‘a fairly sharp little comedy’ (Variety, 12 March 1980). Not all, though, saw the funny side. John Du Pre was amongst the dissenters, opining that ‘It’s sad to see the rich talents of Leonard Rossiter squandered on such trivial nonsense’ (Sunday People, 17 February 1980). Alan Brien excused the lead, but found that ‘Unfortunately, almost everything, and everyone else here are sadly distended and distorted’, while ‘Somehow all the attitudes and mannerisms seem stuck in the Sixties, with well-­ trodden jokes about blacks, discos and hippies, long out of date’ (Sunday Times, 17 February 1980). For David Robinson ‘It is, like so much of

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British film comedy, a terrible waste of good material’. The issue was the spinoff genre’s proven formula: ‘Rossiter is a wonderful character comedian and Rigsby a truly original character, and the rest of the cast are all likeable enough. The danger and trouble is that success is so certain that there is no incentive to do better, to conceive a real film script, or to aspire to anything more ambitious than Joe McGrath’s haphazard and unpointed direction’ (Times, 15 February 1980). Robinson is harsh here: Rising Damp is proficiently executed, but it sadly adds little to the source text history. Thankfully foregoing the habitual holiday trope, the film version nonetheless expands its scope beyond the sitcom’s defining clammy claustrophobia by veering towards a reductive slapstick: at a rugby match Rigsby tries to humiliate Philip in Miss Jones’ presence by showing him—unsuccessfully—how the game is played; on a country outing in his beat-up Triumph sports car Rigsby and Miss Jones are chased by a bull which the landlord, professing to know all matters rural, had identified as a cow. It also essays (as with The Alf Garnett Saga) misjudged fantasy sequences, Walter Mitty-style daydreams with Rigsby as Noël Coward undertaking an intimate tango with Miss Jones and apeing John Travolta from Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978) as a leather-­ clad 1950s rocker. Other intertextual jokes work better, as when Miss Jones asks if Rigsby’s wife resembled Greer Garson, and he replies ‘No, more like Walter Pidgeon’. However, close to three-quarters of the material is directly reworked from the television series (unbeknownst to veteran director McGrath who therefore, if seeking positives, filmed it afresh). Philip’s advice that Rigsby burn wood of the African love tree as an aphrodisiac (a scrap off the wardrobe) revisits ‘Charisma’ (series 1, episode 4); the father of John’s girlfriend and nude model Sandra (Carrie Jones) on the warpath replays ‘The Permissive Society’ (2.1); the boxing match challenge between Rigsby and Philip—the prize a date with Miss Jones so Philip deliberately loses—takes from ‘A Body Like Mine’ (2.3); in particular Seymour’s con-­man extends Henry Cecil’s play in ‘The Perfect Gentleman’ (2.5); even Rigsby’s sports car misadventures rework ‘Clunk Click’ (3.3). Overall, the film plays safe with trusted material that at least facilitates the skilled ensemble playing. In addition, as with The Likely Lads it is not afraid to probe the more melancholic aspects of its characters’ lives—though the film version of Miss Jones loses much of the sitcom’s subtlety of portrayal, and John Coleman was right to question if ‘the harping on her plainness—more evident over 90 minutes—[became] distasteful’ (New Statesman, 15 February 1980).

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One ‘fresh’ revelation (in the original stage play but never shared in the sitcom) has Philip finally confess to being no African chief but from Croydon, adopting his new persona to start over and gain respect. Rigsby’s response is also indicative: perhaps, as in his dealings with Seymour, it is his refusal to concede he has been conned that makes him assert that Philip must have some royal ancestry. But also, as with Bob and Terry, arguably he knows that he needs this intimate enmity, a plausible character trait—and a necessary motor for all domestic-situated comedy. By now, though, the British film industry was suffering not rising damp but near-total collapse. Hammer had gone into liquidation in 1979; Rank pulled out of film production in June 1980; EMI was barely keeping its head above water with debatable US co-productions, unlike Grade’s ITC which was about to sink terminally with Raise the Titanic (Jerry Jameson, 1980). The newly elected Conservative government would offer scant assistance, eventually scrapping the Eady Levy which, introduced in 1950, had subsidised British film production through a percentage of all ticket sales,36 while the burgeoning home video boom was also playing its part in falling attendances and cinema closures (Hill, 1999, pp. 31–52). All contributed to an industry that, having made 96 films in 1971, ten years later produced just 33 (Wood, 1983, p. 115). The critics could relax: the future would be leaner, more heritage and arthouse, more middlebrow. The sitcom spinoff film’s ‘Golden’ decade was over. But the genre would return.

Notes 1. For Anthony Clark the sitcom constitutes ‘one of a handful of TV comedies that truly deserves its “classic” status’ (‘Dad’s Army’), BFI screenonline http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/449057/index.html  [accessed 17 August 2023]. 2. In an effective piece of casting, the minor role of Bert King was played by Fred Griffiths: his acting career had begun as one of the firefighters playing their real-life selves in the famed wartime film Fires Were Started (Humphrey Jennings, 1943). 3. Perry had labelled the bank Martin’s in his 1967 pilot script, but copyright issues with a real bank of that name necessitated the change for television (McCann, 2001, p. 172). 4. This was noted at the time: for David Robinson ‘The very essence of Dad’s Army’s comedy is that all the distracted White Rabbit rushing about is engaged against an enemy that is never seen but remains a monstrous looming presence in the unit’s communal imagination’ (Financial Times, 19 March 1971).

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5. An American reworking of the formula, Welcome Back, Kotter (ABC, 4 series, 95 episodes, 1975–1979), included a young John Travolta amongst its pupils. 6. Dependent on region the film was supported by the crime thriller Company of Killers (Jerry Thorpe, 1970) or spaghetti western Beyond the Law (Georgia Stegani, 1968). 7. It also did better with its tie-in single, Cilla Black’s ‘La La La Lu’ backing ‘Something Tells Me’ to a top three UK chart position. 8. The sitcom spawned a (short-lived) American remake, A Touch of Grace (ABC, 1 series, 13 episodes, 1973). 9. Virginia Dignam’s review was irate: ‘Allegedly working-class men shown as sex-starved, trousered apes, and working-class wives with a bingo card where their brains should be, and HP sauce bottle instead of heart, give me the shudders’ (Morning Star, 18 August 1972). 10. The song was released as the B side to ‘Clair’, O’Sullivan’s international chart-topping single. 11. The film ran alongside Maggie Smith’s Travels with My Aunt (George Cukor, 1972). 12. Most of the cast reunited for a spinoff sitcom Grace and Favour (BBC1, 2 series, 12 episodes, 1992–1993), set in a country house inherited from Mr Grace. 13. Moody erroneously cites the writers as Perry and Croft (2018, p. 109). 14. Jeremy Dyson, writer for The League of Gentlemen (BBC, 1999–2002), found this particularly annoying: ‘How hard could it have been to match the design? Was it wilfulness or sheer laziness that kept the producers from so doing? … It was poor’ (Guardian, 20 May 2005). 15. In 1971 British tourists took four million holidays abroad; by 1981 the number was 18 million (Sandbrook, 2010, p. 142). 16. To an indifferent reception, the sitcom was adapted for American television as On the Rocks (ABC, 1 season, 23 episodes, 1975–1976). 17. Porridge was supported by Clement and La Frenais’ Elton John concert short To Russia with Elton (1979). 18. For Richard Luck, Porridge stands as ‘the best ever sitcom-to-big-screen adaptation’ http://www.film4.com/reviews/1979/porridge [accessed 11 December 2016]. 19. ‘Free Inside’, the film’s end credit theme, written by Lem Lubin and La Frenais and sung by Joe Brown, was released on Acrobat as a (non-­ charting) single. Porridge: The Inside Story, a novelisation by Paul Abelman, was published by Pan Macmillan. 20. For those averse to the supposedly ‘mealy-mouthed’, Scum (Alan Clarke, 1979), remade for cinema release, appeared six weeks after Porridge. 21. Alongside the three sitcoms covered here, at the time of his death Beckinsale was filming Bloomers (BBC2, 1 series, 5 episodes, 1979).

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22. The film’s specially commissioned theme song, ‘Love and Rainy Weather’ performed by Tony Christie, was released as an MCA tie-in single, but failed to chart. In UK cinemas The Lovers! was supported by the US crime thriller Birds of Prey (William A. Graham, 1973). 23. An Australian sequel Father, Dear Father (in Australia) took Glover and Nanny to care for his brother’s teenage daughters ‘down under’ (7 Network, 2 series, 14 episodes, 1978–1980). The British show could also claim paternity rights for another Cooke and Mortimer-scripted sitcom and spinoff, with Richard O’Sullivan featuring in the 1970 episode entitled ‘(A) Man About the House’ (3, 6). 24. Dependent on region the film was supported by Googie Withers’ Australian comedy Nickel Queen (John McCallum, 1971) or Reg Varney’s Go For a Take (Harry Booth, 1972). 25. Scott and Whitfield would star in BBC’s suburban sitcoms Happy Ever After and the near-identical Terry and June (9 series,  65 episodes, 1979–1987). 26. The film was supported, in what publicity material termed ‘the complete family programme’, by (dubbed) French comedy The Five Crazy Boys/Les Bidasses en Folie (Claude Zidi, 1971). 27. The theme song ‘Whatever Happened to You’, written by Manfred Mann’s Mike Hugg with lyrics by La Frenais and performed by Highly Likely, reached number 35  in the UK single charts in 1973. Hugg would also write the theme song ‘Remember When’ for the film spinoff. 28. The inaugural winner was (somehow) newcomer My Wife Next Door (BBC, 1 series, 13 episodes,  1972) starring Please Sir!’s John Alderton with Hannah Gordon: it beat both Dad’s Army and Till Death Us Do Part. 29. The main cast returned for BBC radio versions of The Likely Lads (2 series, 16 episodes,  August 1967–July 1968) and series 1 of  Whatever … (13 episodes, July–October 1975), all adapted for radio by James Bolam. 30. The Likely Lads/Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? were voted at number 69 in a 2000 BFI TV 100 poll to identify the greatest works of British television. Dad’s Army was placed at 13, Porridge at 35, Steptoe and Son at 44, and Till Death Us Do Part at 88. 31. Moody cites the film as ‘pushing the boundaries of popular cinema and … problematising the notion of [Nat] Cohen as a crass commercial producer’ (2018, p. 122). 32. One of the film’s best lines comes when Terry, paired with Thelma in a campsite bridge game that is not going well, excuses himself and can be heard urinating against the side of the caravan, prompting Thelma to say ‘It’s the first time all night I’ve known what he’s got in his hand’. It is a superbly prepared and delivered line, but stolen—from a quip attributed to Algonquin Round Table member and unforgiving bridge player George

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S.  Kaufman (‘The Hitmaker’, Robert Gottlieb, New Yorker, 21 November 2004). 33. Bolam appeared as Jeff in A Kind of Loving and Mike in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Tony Richardson, 1962), Bewes as Arthur Crabtree in Billy Liar. 34. Medhurst saw the narrative drive of Britain’s social realist films as ‘The need for men to escape, to resist the closing, feminized jaws of domestic contentment’ (1997, p. 250). 35. Brian Wade’s titular theme tune was released as a (non-charting) single: the A-side featured dialogue between Rigsby and Miss Jones: the B-side version, ‘Damp Disco’, was sung by the Rigsbyettes. 36. The £250,000 budget for Porridge, for instance, had included a £120,000 Eady payment (Chapman, 2022, p. 302).

Bibliography Barber, S. (2011). Censoring the 1970s: The BBFC and the Decade that Taste Forgot. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Barber, S. (2013). The British Film Industry in the 1970s: Capital, Culture and Creativity. Palgrave Macmillan. Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945–1985. Edinburgh University Press. Dyer, R. (1993). Seen to be Believed: Some Problems in the Representation of Gay People as Typical. In The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation. Routledge. Eaton, M. (1978). Television Situation Comedy. Screen, 19(4), 61–90. Glynn, S. (2016). The British School Film: From Tom Brown to Harry Potter. Palgrave Macmillan. Glynn, S. (2018). The British Football Film. Palgrave Macmillan. Hamilton, J. (2005). Beasts in the Cellar: The Exploitation Film Career of Tony Tenser. FAB Press. Harper, S., & Smith, J. (Eds.). (2012). British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh University Press. Healy, M. (1995, Autumn). Were We Being Served? Homosexual Representation in Popular British Comedy. Screen, 36(3), 243–256. Higson, A. (1984, July–October). Space, Place, Spectacle: Landscape and Town in the “Kitchen Sink” Film. Screen, 25(4–5), 2–21. Hill, J. (1986). Sex, Class and Realism: British Cinema 1956–1963. BFI. Hill, J. (1999). British Cinema in the 1980s: Issues and Themes. Oxford University Press. Kerry, M. (2012). The Holiday and British Film. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Leggott, J. (2008). Nothing to do around Here: British Realist Cinema in the 1970s. In R. Shail (Ed.), Seventies British Cinema. BFI/Palgrave Macmillan. Lewisohn, M. (1998). Radio Times Guide to TV Comedy. BBC Worldwide. McCann, G. (2001). Dad’s Army: The Story of a Classic Television Show. Fourth Estate. Medhurst, A. (1997). Negotiating the Gnome Zone: Versions of Suburbia in British Popular Culture. In R. Silverstone (Ed.), Visions of Suburbia. Routledge. Mills, B. (2005). Television Sitcom. BFI. Moody, P. (2018). EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan. Morgan-Russell, S. (2004). Jimmy Perry and David Croft. Manchester University Press. Newland, P. (Ed.). (2010). Don’t Look Now: British Cinema in the 1970s. Intellect. Petley, J. (1986). The Lost Continent. In C. Barr (Ed.), All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema. BFI. Richards, J. (1997). Films and British National Identity: From Dickens to Dad’s Army. Manchester University Press. Rolinson, D. (2005). Alan Clarke. Manchester University Press. Sandbrook, D. (2010). State of Emergency—The Way We Were: Britain 1970–74. Allen Lane. Sellers, R. (2021). Raising Laughter: How the Sitcom Kept Britain Smiling in the ‘70s. History Press. Shail, R. (Ed.). (2008). Seventies British Cinema. BFI/Palgrave Macmillan. Swern, P., & Childs, M. (1995). Box Office Hits: No. 1 Movie Hits in the UK. Guinness Publishing. Upton, J. (2002, January). Carry On Sitcom: The British Sitcom Spin-off Film 1968–1980. Bright Lights Film Journal, 35. https://brightlightsfilm.com/ carry-sitcom-british-sitcom-spin-film-1968-1980/ [accessed 16 October 2023] Vice, S. (2009). Jack Rosenthal. Manchester University Press. Waymark, P. (2012). “From Telly Laughs to Belly Laughs”: The Rise and Fall of the Sitcom Spin- off. In I.  Q. Hunter & L.  Porter (Eds.), British Comedy Cinema. Routledge. Webber, R. (1999). Dad’s Army: A Celebration. Virgin. Webber, R. (2001). Rising Damp: A Celebration. Boxtree. Webber, R. (2003). Porridge: The Inside Story. Headline. Weight, R. (2020). Porridge. BFI. Wickham, P. (2008). The Likely Lads. BFI. Williams, P. (2010). Class, Nostalgia and Newcastle: Contested Space in The Likely Lads. In P.  Newland (Ed.), Don’t Look Now: British Cinema in the 1970s. Intellect. Wood, L. (1983). British Films 1971–1981. BFI.

PART III

The Decadent Phase

CHAPTER 5

Revival and Revisionism: 1986–2007. Part 1: Global Destruction and Domination

In its more recent iterations, the British sitcom spinoff film can be seen as fitting with patterns of genre development by entering a more openly self-­ reflexive, even parodic final phase. Building on source texts that, in themselves, at times extend the traditional remit of both situation and character, this chapter explores how the genre bifurcates as the ‘new sitcom spinoff film’ both explores depths of darker content and enjoys unprecedented highs of domestic and international commercial success. The more explicit targeting of American markets also comes into play, as seen right from its initially tentative reappearance. With these late sitcom spinoff films potentially more accessible to and recognised by contemporary audiences/students of the genre, Part Three of this study offers extensive analysis of all relevant examples.

5.1   Explosive Returns / Global Destruction Late-1970s reports of the demise of the sitcom spinoff film would prove to be greatly exaggerated. The first attempt to revive the genre came with Whoops Apocalypse (Tom Bussmann, May 1986). The London Weekend Television serial from Andrew Marshall and David Renwick (ITV, 1 series, 6 episodes, March–April 1982), unique in the sitcom genre, forsook Home Counties suburban contretemps to treat the weeks leading up to a global apocalypse. A topical political satire formed in the wake of December 1979’s Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Whoops Apocalypse was rejected by © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 S. Glynn, The British Sitcom Spinoff Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41222-6_5

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BBC’s head of comedy John Howard Davies as ‘over-ambitious’ and ‘heavy-handed’ (Network  DVD viewing notes, 2010), but surprisingly found a home on the commercially driven ITV (though only shown late on Sunday evenings). With an impressive and indicative cast including Rik Mayall and Alexei Sayle, John Cleese and John Barron, the show, arguably Britain’s first ‘alternative’ sitcom, anticipated (by eight months) the freewheeling anarchy of The Young Ones which it meshed with the surrealism of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and the desperation of Renwick’s The Rise and Fall of Reggie Perrin (BBC1, 3 series, 21 episodes,  1976–1979)— Barron’s reiterated ‘The Lord wouldn’t have given us …’ reworks his Perrin catchphrase ‘I didn’t get where I am today …’. The sitcom followed the farcical path to the world’s end as naïve US President Johnny Cyclops (Barry Morse) takes counsel from his Christian fundamentalist security advisor The Deacon (Barron), who develops a super-powerful Quark bomb which he instructs arms-dealer Lacrobat (Cleese) to take to Iran to help the Shah (Bruce Montague) with his counterrevolution. News of this prompts an invasion by the Soviets, whose ageing Premier Dubienkin (Richard Griffiths) is in fact a series of short-life clones, and whose new ally is the British Labour Prime Minister Kevin Pork (Peter Jones). Lacrobat accidentally detonates the bomb, destroying Israel, while the Shah’s space shuttle crashes into the Kremlin. The Soviets launch missiles on the US, which retaliates, reducing earth to a nuclear wasteland. Distinctly cultish material in the UK, the show found a similar (limited) American audience, LWT striking a deal with the US Playboy subscription/cable channel. LWT’s deal exemplified a tactic that the post-1970s sitcom spinoff revival would also pursue, concertedly to target the American market. This is evident from the off when a film version of Whoops Apocalypse was brokered, a joint venture between feature-debutant Brian Eastman’s Picture Partnership and a rare production venture for the post-Grade ITC Entertainment which, now part of the Bell Group, funded the full £2.8/$4.1 million budget. Casting choices sought a strong US entrée with a presidential role for Loretta Swit, while Cleese was replaced as Lacrobat by American comedian Michael Richards: there were parts also for internationally known stars such as Herbert Lom and Peter Cook, while Mayall and Sayle remained, but with new characters. Completing a cast of comedians from all generations and comedy styles (and intertextually indicative of a genre reboot), the ‘Cabinet Minister who should have kept his mouth shut’ cameo was played by Richard ‘Stinker’ Murdoch, playmate of Arthur Askey in Britain’s inaugural sitcom spinoff Band

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Waggon. A near-complete rewrite from Marshall and Renwick was ‘set in the not-too-distant future’ and broadly reflected contemporary geo-­ political developments, notably the 1982 Falklands War, but pointedly increased American storylines. This was filmed in November and December 1985 at Elstree Studios, with location shooting in and around London, including the Queens Park Rangers football ground, HMS Belfast and Blenheim Palace, plus four weeks in the Florida Everglades. Whoops Apocalypse was locked just in time to be presented at Cannes in May 1986. Further editing, including cuts to a scene of forced bondage to gain a 15 certificate, preceded UK exhibition in March 1987: an uncut R-rated US release through MGM followed in early 1988.1 The film shifts the epicentre of destruction from the Middle East to Latin America and the fictional country of Maguadora whose dictator General Mosquera (Lom) invades the small Central American British dependency of Santa Maya, prompting Britain’s PM Sir Mortimer Chris (Cook) to launch a recapturing task force, under the command of Rear Admiral Bendish (Ian Richardson). Chris’ subsequent popularity only fuels his increasingly deranged plans such as eliminating unemployment by exterminating pixies, prompting his own Cabinet to enlist an unsuccessful CIA hit-squad. The peace-brokering efforts of America’s new and first female President Barbara Adams (Swit) are thwarted by international terrorist Lacrobat (Richards), in the pay of an arms company headed by Adams’ husband. When Lacrobat, hired by Mosquera, kidnaps Britain’s Princess Wendy (Joanne Pearce) who is serving in Santa Maya with the WRNS, and holds her as ransom to make the British leave, Chris threatens a nuclear attack, and Mosquera becomes a Soviet ally. Though Adams masterminds Wendy’s SAS rescue from London’s Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, Chris will not call off the attack and Adams fails to prevent Bendish, hypnotised in his nuclear submarine, from pushing the button. Despite its strivings for a wide appeal Whoops Apocalypse bombed, taking just £130,00 at the UK box office and negligible sales in the US (Network DVD viewing notes). The critical response was split. There were supporters. Iain Johnstone, in a review headed ‘Laughing All the Way to The Bang’, praised ‘a smart comedy, hardly satire—satire makes you think, this doesn’t—but a glorious gloss on yesterday’s headlines that is frequently sublimely funny. It has the paramount strength so often missing in comedy films—take away the humour and there is still an intriguing plot. The jokes are abundant, outrageous and much more disciplined than the final episodes of their television series’ (Sunday Times, 8 March 1987). David Butler also admired the transfer: ‘The television series of the same

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name was tacky and intermittently amusing in its underproduced 5th form way. Transferred to the larger screen with a bigger budget and its production values showing, it has gained immeasurably’ and, ‘with a quickfire succession of verbal and visual gags, it is genuinely funny, at times hysterically so’ (Daily Mail, 6 March 1987). For Brent Lewis ‘the result, while too ramshackle to be brilliant, is nonetheless agreeably irreverent—here impertinence is the better part of comedy’ (Films and Filming, 390, March 1987: 45). David Quantick concisely considered it ‘a rare example of a TV spin-off that doesn’t make a crap film’ (New Musical Express, 14 March 1987). Some critics retained a neutral/split position. Nigel Andrews felt that ‘After a beginning worthy of Airplane [Jim Abrahams, David and Jerry Zucker, 1980] the movie’s comic élan turns into a staccato clatter, as if the engines have all cut out, and the film starts falling headlong towards earth’ (Financial Times, 6 March 1987). Quentin Falk thought the series had been reworked ‘into a heavily-plotted big screen scenario—and unlike many other, even loose, small screen transfers, it utilises the greater ratio extremely well’, but also felt that its ‘scatter-gun’ humour ‘strikes and falls flat with almost equal rapidity’ (Screen International, 31 January 1987: 61). Many, though, were against. For Kim Newman ‘the film persistently falls flat’ and was ‘Another instance, finally, of how British television talent still finds it something of a struggle to make it on the big screen’ (MFB, 54, 638, March 1987: 92). Steven Goldman felt that, ‘Despite the potential, the film sticks meekly to a conventional framework, with gags that never manage to sink their teeth into the tenuous absurdity of international affairs’ (Time Out, 4 March 1987). Tim Pulleine deduced that ‘The audience at which this woeful entertainment seems to be aiming is one which finds the phrase “fucking dickhead” funny in itself and funnier still if reiterated at a shout several times over’ (Guardian, 5 March 1987). For Adam Mars-Jones ‘The material originated on television, and is nostalgic for it’ (Independent, 5 March 1987). Rather than nostalgia, the film version offers a thorough reimagining of the television original: indeed Eastman, perhaps fearing the spinoff genre’s critical reputation, stressed in pre-release interviews how the film was ‘a completely separate entity from the TV series’, only retaining ‘the kernel of the idea that a series of events around the world could escalate into nuclear war’ (Screen International, 21 December 1985: 28). Nonetheless, alongside the title there are several character carry-overs, notably ‘man of a thousand faces’ Lacrobat whose disguises here range from a black blind window-cleaner to sex-aids salesman,2  plus  a dying Soviet leader,

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hyper-­masculine CIA leader, and gay British militiaman, while Britain’s crazed Conservative PM Sir Mortimer Chris amalgamates aspects of Pork and Cyclops. Several jokes are recycled, including Chris crucifying disloyal party members in Wembley Stadium (the sitcom used the White House lawn), an (expanded) SAS attack (which parodies the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in London), and a shared mock news story about a woman selling a 1955 lock of Frank Sinatra’s hair back to the balding singer. The political references are also myriad, though their satirical barbs have been largely drawn, again predominantly to increase the film version’s transatlantic appeal. Adams succeeds a former circus clown as president, but making her, unlike the sitcom’s Johnny Cyclops, a well-meaning liberal bemused by Britain’s bellicosity (and played straight by Swit) removes any sustained critique of Ronald Reagan, the ex-entertainer currently holding sway in the White House (though, as Iain Johnstone noted, she potentially intimates what 1984’s Democrat vice nominee Geraldine Ferraro might have been like as President). Britain’s psychotic PM not only launches a vote-winning Falklands-style invasion, but apes Margaret Thatcher with his press announcements that ‘there is no alternative’: mostly, though, the special relationship is spared as Cook revisits his early-­1960s Beyond the Fringe satirical revue and channels his inner Harold Macmillan. The film does add a few (US-safe) swipes at the Royal family, with vacuous Princess Wendy a composite of Princess Diana and ‘active’ serviceman Prince Andrew. If the television version allowed a melding of the overarching sitcom format with sketch show-style set pieces, the spinoff film (as several critics complained), after a promising first act becomes labouredly episodic, the proliferation of one-point gags perhaps revealing feature-debutant director Bussman’s 20-year background in commercials. It sags with the frantic (and unconvincing) physical comedy of Richards’ Lacrobat, while Mayall, ‘Specialist Catering Commander’ of an inept SAS squad, is reduced to screeching (Guardian-upsetting) profanities for want of funny lines. Most contemporary critics cited Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War satire Dr. Strangelove (1964), a comparison that could only magnify the limitations of Whoops Apocalypse (which consciously apes Ken Adam’s war room design in its Kremlin Politburo room). Kim Newman in particular remained damning, noting how ‘By depicting world leaders and militarists as comic bungling idiots, Whoops! Apocalypse (sic) highlights what is in retrospect a truly chilling aspect of Dr. Strangelove, that all Kubrick’s warmakers are frighteningly good at their jobs’ (1999, p.  230). Lesser

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comparisons are perhaps more germane. Despite Mayall’s swearing, the film could profitably be evaluated alongside The Mouse That Roared (Jack Arnold, 1959) as a historically framed comically varied satire on the arms race and, in places, movies themselves. The sitcom spinoff may lack a Peter Sellers tour de force, but the topicality in Whoops Apocalypse is balanced not only by Cook’s SuperMac, but the well-played relationship between Rear Admiral Bendish and his chauffeur-companion Dickie (Tristram Jellinek) which, despite the nominative determinism, eschews the more flagrant gay stereotypes common to the genre and adds a meta-cinematic dimension in parodying the restrained domestic romances of British war movies, notably when the Admiral’s order to report to his ship by nightfall has the duo replaying the parting of Noël Coward and Celia Johnson from In Which We Serve (Noël Coward, David Lean, 1942). Rik Mayall would return in a further expletive-strewn sitcom spinoff film, the last before the Millennium, entitled Guest House Paradiso (Adrian Edmondson, December 1999). This starred Mayall and his comedy partner Adrian Edmondson who had extrapolated their anarchic alter egos through the Dangerous Brothers and students Rik and Vyvyan from The Young Ones into, respectively, pompous Richie Richard and ultra-­aggressive Eddie Hitler, the lead duo of Bottom (BBC2, 3 series, 18 episodes, September 1991–April 1995). As juvenile and scatological as its name suggests, the sitcom centred on the two immature, self-centred, and involuntarily celibate flatmates living in squalor at 11 Mafeking Parade in Hammersmith. Unemployed, they spent their time drinking, gambling, masturbating, trying unsuccessfully to get women into bed and, as their frustrations mount, fighting each other. This cartoon violence usually involved blows to the head and genitalia with heavy instruments, regularly culminating in fires and explosions. Developing a core audience, Mayall and Edmondson would tour an even cruder Bottom across five UK tours between 1993 and 2003. After the third ‘Hooligan’s Island’ tour in 1997, the pair decided to write a spinoff film (inspired by some of the hotels they stayed in while touring) which was picked up by PolyGram Films International who fronted a £3 million budget. Starring Mayall and Edmondson (the latter also debut directed), filming took place over seven weeks in April and May 1999 at Ealing Studios and on location on the Isle of Wight. Given a 15 certificate in the UK for its sexual content, violence, and profanities, it had a minimal US release through Universal. With a new situation and changed surnames, initially the writer-stars, probably like Brian Eastman with

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Whoops Apocalypse wary of the spinoff genre stigma, denied a direct link to Bottom.3 However, this stance shifted and for its UK and international home video release Guest House Paradiso was prominently subtitled Richie and Eddie’s Bottom Movie. The film follows Richie Twat (Mayall)—pronounced Thwaite, he insists—and Eddie Elizabeth Ndingombaba (Edmondson), grossly behaved proprietors of the titular damp-ridden hostelry on the edge of a cliff and adjacent to a nuclear power station. Business at the self-styled ‘cheapest hotel in Britain’ is slow, but all changes when world-famous Italian movie star Gina Carbonara (Hélène Mahieu) arrives seeking refuge from her abusive lover Gino Bolognese (Vincent Cassel), who quickly finds her. Rifling through the luggage of the impoverished Nice family (Simon Pegg and Lisa Palfrey), Richie discovers and tries on their exotic red rubber underwear. A violent altercation with Eddie causes Richie to fall from the hotel but thereby discover a haul of fish discarded from a military lorry. The clientele become violently ill—and Bolognese dies— when served the fish, which is contaminated from the nearby plant. To ensure their silence, government investigators provide Richie, Eddie, and Gina with money, new identities, and a new life in the Caribbean. Guest House Paradiso failed commercially—it recouped just £1.5 million in the UK, £300,000/$500k abroad—and was critically flayed. Even the trade press was vitriolic. For Allan Hunter ‘Those of an extremely generous disposition might suggest … an attempt to revive the anarchic spirit of the Three Stooges within the tradition of traditional English farce. Anyone in their right mind will recognise it as a hideous gargoyle on the cathedral of UK cinema’ (Screen International, 3 December 1999: 24). David Elley condemned it as ‘one of those movies that must have been a blast to make but ends up being about as funny as burning an orphanage’ (Variety, 20 December 1999). Britain’s national press were similarly appalled. Peter Bradshaw was not alone in proposing it as the worst film of the year, ‘Because the Mayall/Edmondson effort really is unbelievably bad. Horrifyingly unfunny, it is naff, smug, cynical, ugly and charmless’ (Guardian, 3 December 1999). James Christopher felt that ‘Years of barrel-­scraping could not produce a film more hackneyed and lacklustre than this celluloid toilet paper’ (Times, 2 December 1999). Philip French waxed philosophical: ‘Ludwig Wittgenstein loved the movies but, according to his friend Norman Malcolm, “was inclined to think that there could not be a decent English film”. Had he lived to see Guest House Paradiso he might well have amended the statement “Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent” in the

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Tractatus to read, “Of the unspeakable we should refrain from speaking”’ (Observer, 5 December 1999). Some critics seemingly acted on the advice. Alexander Walker opined that ‘Words (and space) cannot convey the dreadfulness’ of the film (Evening Standard, 2 December 1999), while David Gritten gave up on ‘this ghastly comedy’: ‘Don’t look for a plot synopsis here: I walked out after 17 minutes’ (Daily Telegraph, 3 December 1999). Against this, the film journals offered glimmers of grudging praise. For Ben Falk ‘The boys toil incredibly hard to make the whole thing work and, while there are some hilarious moments, it is far too patchy for a full feature film’ (Empire, December 1999). Andy Medhurst admitted that ‘it’s impossible not to have some sort of aghast admiration for this film’s single-minded devotion to the lower portions of the human body. Six-year-old boys of all ages will love it’ (Sight and Sound, 10, 1, January 2000: 50). Though it occasionally reworks television material—hitting the chef Lardy Barsto (Steve O’Donnell) with a frying pan then claiming it was self-inflicted recycles ‘Gas’ (series 1, episode 2), and the reference to making owl noises revives ‘s Out’ (2.6), the move from bedsitland to a Gothic pile shows Guest House Paradiso again trying to take the sitcom spinoff film in a fresh ‘decadent’ direction. For Ian Hunter this ‘update’ on the 1970s format results in ‘apocalyptic postmodern abstraction rather than any sort of heightened social realism’ (2012, p. 162). Also, given Richie’s propensity for aggressive moralistic judgements on his guests, the run-­ down B&B situation offers, as Hunter notes, ‘a microcosm of British snobbery, class terror, and sexual frustration’ (2012, p.  162). Thus, its grotesque hosts and events function less like extrapolations of Fawlty Towers—a frequent comparison for critics—or even Rising Damp, and more like an iconoclastic presage of The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse (discussed next). Even so, there are generic continuities: notably, amidst the bodily maimings and excretions, the ballast provided by pragmatic Eddie retains the core sitcom dynamic redolent of ‘trapped’ double acts from Steptoe and Son to The Likely Lads, renewing a relationship ‘hinged on ideas of authenticity and pretension in class identities’ with snobbish Richie regularly grounded by his ‘doggedly unreconstructed companion’ (Wagg, 1998, p. 2). While the film’s first half-hour exposition holds interest, the plot thereafter is cursory, an excuse to dial up the sitcom’s verbal and cartoon-like physical violence beyond BBC parameters (Richie and Eddie hit each other over the head with fire extinguishers, shove meat-hooks up noses and squeeze testicles in pincers), and to indulge an orgy of all-orifice

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ejaculations (the dining-room conclusion with its poisoned guests spewing by the gallon has, at close on 6 minutes, a claim to be cinema’s longest-ever vomit scene). Are there any redeeming features? For Wheeler Winston Dixon ‘Richie and Eddie represent the twin halves of arrested male heterosexual adolescence at their most immature and childish’ (2003, p. 123), and while the film operates largely at the/ir level of juvenile grossout humour—even the nearby nuclear power plant has the shape of a cock and balls—it nonetheless offers numerous meta- and intertextual titbits for aficionados of sitcom spinoffs and the more broadly cine-literate. While occasionally deducible in ‘Golden Age’ spinoff films such as The Lovers! and The Likely Lads, the growing recourse to this intensely reflexive strategy in the genre’s later years presupposes an interpretive act from an increasingly media-savvy and active audience aware of a work’s relationship to its generic form and function (Roche, 2022). Here the play with nationalities—the Nice family as British wannabe middle-class simpletons, Gino and Gina (played by French actors) as passionate and temperamental Europeans—can be adjudged a knowing exaggeration of over-worn generic tropes. Also, though Gina the star is known as ‘the Nipples from Naples’, the ‘real’ woman is shown as having agency and anguish, and the film foregoes the spinoff genre’s regular collusive misogyny as a source of humour. With regard to ‘standards of decency’, when Gino, seeking Gina, calls Eddie a ‘dead motherfucker’ he is asked to mind his language since, for all its excess, they are ‘trying to keep the film PG-rated’. Intertextually, the film’s title riffs on Hotel Paradiso (Peter Glenville, 1966), a Feydeauesque farce set in upper-class 1900 Paris—plus Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988), tendentiously relevant through its film star guests. Some allusions are popular: the tyre marks on Eddie’s face when run over by military vehicles reference Darth Maul from Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999)4: the escape of Richie, Eddie, and Gina from a huge ball of vomit reworks the opening to Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981). Other allusions are more recherché: the ‘boing’ sound of the dining-room door replicates the sound effect from Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (Jacques Tati, 1953), while the partnership’s homoerotic subtext moves beyond rubber underwear to blowing smoke at each other through a connecting wall, a homage to Un Chant d’Amour (Jean Genet, 1950). And (to risk accusations of extreme generosity) beneath it all, in a link back to the origins of Mayall and Edmondson’s double act, Richie and Eddie’s frantic futility arguably retains a punk-inflected air of Vladimir and Estragon from Waiting for

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Godot and other stranded Samuel Beckett existentialists.5 They can’t go on? They go on. And on. And on. This anarchic/survivalist (and intertextual) strain would continue with The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse (Steve Bendelack, June 2005). The source series, The League of Gentlemen (BBC2, 3 series, 22 episodes, January 1999–October 2002, + 1 Christmas Special, December 2000, + 3 Anniversary Specials, December 2017) was written by and starred Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, plus writer Jeremy Dyson, who appeared only in cameo roles. Developing through prize-winning iterations at 1996’s Edinburgh fringe and on BBC Radio 4 (On The Town, 6 episodes, 1997), the television show was set in the fictional town of Royston Vasey, and featured its three leads in close to 100 eccentric/ deranged characters and their macabre daily routines.6 A prime mover in the non-mainstream ‘dark comedy’ movement that came to fruition at the turn of the millennium, the show had modest ratings but became a cult success with lasting status and influence7—accolades included the 1999 Montreux Golden Rose, and 2000’s BAFTA Best Comedy Series and Royal Television Society (RTS) Best Entertainment awards, and it has attracted detailed popular and discreet academic exegesis (Thompson, 2004; Hunt, 2008). Leon Hunt’s monograph categorised The League of Gentlemen as ‘Part sitcom, part sketch show, part “kitchen sink”, part “Northern Gothic”’ (2008: rear cover) while, ripe with intertextuality, Ben Thompson saw its ‘influences range from Hammer Horror to the work of Alan Bennett’ (2004, p. 360). The show’s meta-compass is indeed wide: while its title comes from Basil Dearden’s cosy 1960 comedy-heist film starring Jack Hawkins, its setting used the real name of ‘Britain’s Rudest Comedian’ Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown (who made a cameo appearance as town mayor), and its principal narratives, characters, and references come not from other television comedies but from horror cinema, in particular British Lion’s cult film The Wicker Man (Robert Hardy, 1973), closely followed by the Amicus anthology film From Beyond the Grave (Kevin Connor, 1974).8 Successfully transferred to a 2001 UK tour, the decision was taken after its television run to realise a long-desired film spinoff.9 This was scripted (over 18 months from May 2003) by the series’ four writers and debut directed by Bendelack, experienced in helming television comedy shows. The casting of David Warner as a warlock offered a resonance with the writers’ passion for English Gothic, while guest cameos included comic stars Peter Kay, Simon Pegg, and Victoria Wood. Produced by Universal,

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FilmFour (not the BBC) and Tiger Aspect Films, who together put up a £4/$7 million budget, filming took place over six weeks from 14 September 2004, largely in and around Dublin, Ireland (which offered a variety of locations—plus generous tax breaks). The spinoff film premiered in London on 1 July 2005 before being pushed out to local cinemas for local people. The Pirandelloesque film begins with Jeremy Dyson (Michael Sheen) being confronted by his creations, Royston Vasey town’s shopkeepers Tubbs (Pemberton) and Edward Tattsyrup (Shearsmith), plus blackface circus proprietor Papa Lazarou (Shearsmith): Dyson’s desperate escape sends him over a cliff. The other three writers of The League of Gentlemen aka the League have decided to write a 1690-set Gothic horror film The King’s Evil and thus abandon their writing for Royston Vasey—whose existence is thereby threatened, evidenced by fireballs that start raining down. In Royston the Reverend Bernice Woodall (Shearsmith) has discovered crypt frescos predicting this apocalypse, and a portal to the ‘real world’ (Hadfield, Derbyshire, where The League of Gentlemen series was mostly filmed). Escaped convict and murderous/demon butcher Hilary Briss (Gatiss), together with his hostages, gay German Wolf Lipp (Pemberton) and habitual failure Geoff Tipps (Shearsmith), pass from Royston into reality and learn from Papa Lizarou that they are fictional characters. Finding the remaining sitcom writers at the London offices of the Tiger Aspect production company, the Vaseyites kidnap Steve Pemberton and replace him with Lipp. Also in possession of Pemberton’s computer, Tipps rewrites The King’s Evil, giving himself a big cock and lead role in thwarting the Catholic plot against King William III (Bernard Hill). The writers are taken to Royston where Pemberton is shot dead by blind plotter Father Halfhearte (Shearsmith). The townsfolk defeat the conspirators, but fleeing Shearsmith falls to his death and Tipps, momentarily the ‘real’ hero of the piece, accidentally shoots Gatiss dead. The town is not destroyed, though, surviving in the mind of the remaining writer Dyson, lying comatose in hospital. The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse was, like the sitcom, polarising. Derek Malcolm, admitting the sitcom was not to his taste, felt the spinoff was ‘well enough made, but only occasionally funny’ and ‘for the umpteenth time, proves how difficult it is to make a feature film out of a telly series’ (Evening Standard, 2 June 2005). For Peter Bradshaw ‘The result is unsatisfying’ as ‘It’s a chaotic and almost insanely self-indulgent film, though never quite boring, and sprinkled with decent lines and sight gags of the quality we have come to expect from the original show’ (Guardian,

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3 June 2005). By contrast, Tim Robey, while admitting to ‘a slight shortage of belly laughs as the movie goes on’, felt that to stress this was ‘to miss out on a good deal of twisted fun. Punchlines always played second fiddle to the show’s wonderfully sustained, blackly surreal, thoroughly English atmosphere of parochial menace, and, by taking that and running with it, this very decent spin-off delivers the grisly goods’ (Daily Telegraph, 3 June 2005). Kim Newman admired how ‘Ultimately, this manages the trick that defeated the Monkees in Head [Bob Rafelson, 1968]: of transferring a TV format to the cinema by simultaneously killing it off and keeping it (literally) on life-support’ (Sight and Sound, 16, 6, June 2005: 66). More practically, Anthony Quinn was not alone in highlighting the spinoff’s inevitable difficulties in finding an audience: ‘Those who know nothing of the TV series will be perfectly confounded by its through-the-­ looking-glass antics, while fans will perhaps wonder if these Gentlemen aren’t playing way out of their league’ (The Independent, 3 June 2005). The trade’s David Elley admired how ‘A smart idea pretty much goes the distance’ in this ‘bigscreen spinoff’ but agreed that it ‘won’t mean much to anyone unacquainted with the tube original’ (Variety, 6 June 2005). Such concerns proved well-founded as the film, barely registering overseas, recouped only £1.3/$2.4 million at the box office, less than half its budget.10 If a commercial failure, The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse is aesthetically ambitious, and ranks, for this writer, as one of the most accomplished British sitcom spinoff films. Its cinematic nature, conveyed through its preference for wide shots over close-ups, a strategy that enhances its elaborate costume, lighting, and special effects, is further signalled (similarly but far more successfully than Guest House Paradiso) by building on its source text’s knowing strategy with myriad fresh intertextual film references. Here again, what we could call the ‘new sitcom spinoff film’ echoes the ‘cinema of allusions’ favoured by earlier movements such as the New Hollywood, a highly self-conscious and postmodernism aesthetic whose exponents ‘delight in making us aware of the fact that it is film that we are watching, an artifice, something made in special ways, to be perceived in special ways’ (Kolker, 2000, p. 9). As noted by Jeremy Dyson in the pressbook, Lipp and Tipps effect an idiotic Abbott and Costello pairing, while Briss provides the narrative momentum and an edgy leadership reminiscent of Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin) in The Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich, 1967). Beyond this, the Vaseyites stay in The Overlooked Hotel, one of many visual cues to The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980). When

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they invade the writers’ Soho offices, a poster for Tiger Aspect’s earlier sitcom spinoff Bean (discussed later) is praised for its (US-only) turkey on the head scene, then used to knock out Pemberton. Lipp is unmasked when tricked by Gatiss into answering in German, a replay of the capture of Andy MacDonald (Gordon Jackson) in The Great Escape (John Sturges, 1963). Gatiss then excuses their belief in Lipp as Pemberton because of his ‘staying in character, like a Mike Leigh thing’. He later compares their inverted status in apocalyptic Royston to The Poseidon Adventure (Ronald Neame, 1972)—his tuxedo, tie undone and sooty face exactly replicate the disaster movie. Shearsmith accepts the analogy as long as he is not Shelley Winters (he is—both die). Briss retreating into a dark doorway and his London Eye talk with Lipp gesture to The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949). More generally, the whole Williamite world echoes with both Tigon’s The Blood on Satan’s Claw (Piers Haggard, 1971) and the deeply intertextual The Draughtsman’s Contract (Peter Greenaway, 1982). Even the choice of effects contributes here too. With the rise of CGI, Barry Purves has  noted that ‘Stop-motion would have to be used with some irony to work next to live-action today’ (2014, p. 38): cue the Ray Harryhausen-like homunculus, conjured by the John Dee-inspired occultist Dr Erasmus Pea (Warner), that appears in The King’s Lair segment and again at the film’s climax, its three-headed monster additionally offering a potential resonance with the television sitcom genre’s traditional three-­ camera shooting style, often termed the ‘three headed-monster’ (Putterman, 1995, p. 15).11 Elsewhere, though, the film profitably differs from its source sitcom. With the majority of village inhabitants played by just three actors, on television characters mostly appeared in discreet serialised sketches, rarely crossing into other plotlines where the actors would have to interact with themselves. This pragmatic strategy is abandoned in the film where, through digital compositing, the three actors’ 17 characters can intermingle more freely, opening up narrative possibilities. These increase exponentially as the characters also meet their ‘real-life’ creators/actors, a metatextual encounter most sustained with Herr Lipp and Pemberton. This in itself was not a new move—the film’s pressbook referenced Stephen King’s The Dark Half (George A.  Romero, 1993), while US reviewers noted the meta-slasher New Nightmare (Wes Craven, 1994)—though arguably a more germane comparison would stress the equivalence of the village portal to the door into the actor’s mind in Being John Malkovich (Spike Jones, 1999). If this rampant intertextuality risks the accusation of

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ludic self-indulgence, what is new here is the way such multi-­dimensionality alters the audience’s perspective towards the sitcom characters—and adds a potential existential dimension to the popular genre. A major difference is how the film version more fully sides with the Royston residents. In the sitcom their grotesqueness was accentuated by contrast with the first character we meet, audience-guiding ‘normal’ non-­ local Benjamin Denton (Shearsmith sans make-up) who arrives at Royston to visit his aunt and uncle—then cannot leave. The film allows the residents not only a more beneficial comparison with the murderous plotters from The King’s Lair, but the ‘normal’ characters, the three actor-writers, are here shown to be, in varying degrees, deeply unpleasant. Reece rails at his office staff and bemoans having to attend a charity benefit for ‘mongoloids’; Steve concentrates on work at the expense of his family; even Mark prefers finding film analogies to empathising with his creations and writes newspaper pieces blithely boasting it would be ‘great to kill them all off’. Instead, all three writers are killed off in the world they condemned to annihilation—it is, though, entirely by accident and not Royston resident malevolence. The spinoff film thins out the sitcom characters’ more aberrant aspects, and the film-within-a-film’s new characters, especially Dr. Pea, now obsess on less pleasant matters such as bodily functions and personal hygiene. These three metafictional worlds collide effectively at the conclusion, and help the spinoff film avoid the genre’s usual narrative clichés. However, most of the inhabitants of Royston Vasey—despite the resurrection of stranger-fearing fan favourites Tubbs and Edward (killed off in the third series)—can thereby seem less rounded simulacra of their original selves. This may be the point, exaggerating their salient features so they work as caricatures and thereby fit ill with ‘reality’, but the change has disappointed sitcom cognoscenti. The strategy can be viewed, though, as a continuation of the third series’ deliberate play against audience/fan expectations. The two teams sent into Hadfield would not be first choices for world-saving pioneers. Of the initial exposition-serving team, Edward notes with a new self-­awareness that ‘We are three of the more … bizarre characters’. The second equally unprepossessing trio become the film’s principal protagonists. Villainous escapee Hilary Briss may inadvertently lead his hostages through the church portal, but his solipsistic violence shifts into the protection of a sense of home (‘I belong here’ he informs Dr Pea), and he dies heroically in the defence of Royston Vasey (Fig. 5.1). Geoff Tipps is no longer ‘the big fat idiot who messes everything up’ with his prejudices and explosive

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Fig. 5.1  The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse—When Worlds Collide

anger issues: even Briss finally concedes that Tipps has ‘a good heart’ and entrusts him with saving the village. Most surprisingly, Herr Lipp, created as a double entendre-spouting fancier of choirboys, becomes a more emotional and affecting character, growing attached to the wife Lindsay (Emily Woof) and four children that Pemberton has been neglecting. Aware of his fictional nature, Lipp increasingly resents his status as ‘a pun, a one-joke character’, undergoes a (character-deepening) existential crisis, and determines to kill Gatiss, the sole surviving writer, since he feels he would rather die than lack free will: ‘What is the quality of life if we cannot change who we are?’ he asks. As well as adding a philosophical freight (and poignancy), it is a question with wider, generic relevance. Where works like Love Thy Neighbour tentatively tested expectations, the narrative here fully questions the dictum that the sitcom format cannot resolve ‘the two sides of its problematic/hermeneutic’ or ‘another “situation” would have to be established’ (Eaton, 1978, p.  79). Here a new situation is welcomed: the predatory paedophile becomes instead a family man, offering to care—without ulterior motive— for two children who lost their parents in Royston’s apocalypse.

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This indicates how, germane to this genre study, the film is of particular merit for directly confronting the challenge of how to adapt television comedy into feature-length format.12 When the writers are brought through to Royston Vasey, the waiting fictional characters present Gatiss with a list of ideas that could serve for a feature film and thus perpetuate their own existence. The plot summaries that emerge are exactly the sort of substandard notions that turned the spinoff film into a death knell for so many successful television comedies. Sadistic restart manager Pauline Campbell-Jones (Pemberton) proposes that ‘All the Vasey characters go on holiday together to Spain’—‘Imagine this lot checking in on an airplane? And when they get there the hotel’s not finished, no-one speaks the lingo!’ Though far from cine-illiterate—she earlier compared descending the church catacombs to The Name of the Rose (Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1986)—Pauline seems to be blissfully unaware of Are You Being Served?, commonly perceived (and here mocked) as the sitcom spinoff genre’s narrative nadir. The pitch from hapless vet Dr Matthew Chinnery (Gatiss)— ‘one of the characters is mistaken for someone in the Mafia and gets chased around with a bag of money’—broaches a more contemporary solution to the problems inherent in feature-length adaptation. Concurrent with the 1980s demise of theatrically released spinoffs, the extended television special, usually for Christmas, came to prominence. The prime example of this trend was Only Fools and Horses, which aired 13 extended Christmas specials between 1985 and 2003. Chinnery’s pitch closely replicates the plot of Horses’ 145-minute two-part special Miami Twice (BBC, tx. 24–25 December 1991).13 Soon after, when held at gunpoint, Gatiss offers Herr Lipp his own sitcom spinoff, Less of Your Lipp. Betraying the line of least resistance, he admits to Lipp he would be an easy character to write: ‘just you doing innuendoes. week after week after week’. This postmodern knowingness recognises the history of the spinoff format’s easy and unsatisfying solutions to extending the 30-minute format and foregrounds its own inversion of this trend, utilising a metafictional blend of expected and (from 40 minutes in) new characters via versions of the writers themselves, ensuring mutual survival by ‘Being Jeremy Dyson’, and hybridising comedy and horror in a fresh (and final) filmic multiverse. Alles klar? Geoff Tipps offers a further film pitch, suggesting that Pemberton try Carry On in Space: it could (just about) reference the concurrent release of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Garth Jennings, April 2005) for which the League had recently provided alien voiceovers plus a Steve

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Pemberton cameo. This is not a ‘pure’ television sitcom spinoff but a throwback, with Douglas Adams’ celebrated science-fiction comedy text beginning life, like the sitcom spinoff genre’s earliest exempla, as an acclaimed radio series (BBC Radio 4, 2 series, 12 episodes aka ‘fits’, March 1978–January 1980),14 and which for Mark Lewisohn was, though of more niche appeal, ‘to listeners of the 1970s what ITMA had been in the 1940s … unmissable and excellent comic entertainment’ (1998, p. 321). It had already been adapted into stage, double-album, and novel formats before its television iteration (BBC2, 1 series, 6 episodes, January– February 1981), which changed some members of the original cast. Again apocalyptic, the small-screen series begins with the earth being destroyed by a fleet of Vogon spaceships to make way for a hyperspace expressway, and the last-minute rescue of Arthur Dent (Simon Jones), still wearing his dressing-gown, by his friend Ford Prefect (David Dixon, new), hailing ‘not from Guildford’ as Dent thought but from ‘a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse’ and on Earth to undertake research for the titular guidebook. During the hapless Dent’s subsequent adventures across the universe he meets Ford’s two-headed semi-cousin and Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox (Mark Wing-Davey), Trillian aka Tricia McMillan (Sandra Dickinson, new), a girl he once failed to impress at a party, and Marvin the Paranoid Android, a manically depressed robot (voiced by Stephen Moore). He discovers that Earth was controlled by white mice, in reality pan-dimensional beings, and his home planet had been set up as a replacement super-computer to find the answer to Ultimate Question, previously (and unsatisfactorily) given by its predecessor Deep Thought as 42. Also, he cannot find anywhere a decent cup of tea. The series ends with time-travelling Dent and Prefect stranded back on a rebuilt prehistoric earth (Deep Thought mark 3) alongside abandoned sections of the Golgafrinhan race, including marketing consultants, telephone sanitisers, and lifestyle documentary-makers. Intrinsic to the television sitcom’s success (and fan acceptance) was the retention from the radio series of key actors Jones and Wing-Davey, plus crucially the voice of Peter Jones, who regularly intoned information from the Hitchhiker’s Guide book. Its cover instruction ‘Don’t Panic’ indicatively linked the series’ intergalactic inventiveness back to the sitcom paradigm of Dad’s Army. Winner of a 1981 RTS award and three BAFTAs, including Rod Lord’s hand-animated graphics, the series’ cult success led to runs (with different edits) on America’s PBS from December 1982. There had been

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immediate interest in a film version, but the ‘development hell’ which long consumed this potential sixth media format has been well documented (Hughes, 2008, pp.  196–215; Gaiman, 2009, pp.  117–122).15 Setbacks included the 1982 Adams option that collapsed when major crew and mooted cast members shifted to Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984); a new deal in 2001 and new screenplay, completed by Karey Kirkpatrick when Adams unexpectedly died of a heart-attack aged 49; plus further hirings and withdrawals before the final selection (after Jay Roach and Spike Jonze passed) of innovative pop-promo and commercials outfit Hammer and Tongs aka director Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith to complete the project.16 The film was finally produced by Touchstone Pictures, part of the Walt Disney Company, with an unprecedented sitcom spinoff budget  of £27.5/$50 million and a transatlantic casting strategy that ensured full access to American markets. Thus, alongside Britain’s risingstar Martin Freeman as Dent and ‘national treasure’ Stephen Fry as the book (Peter Jones had died in 2000), plus a cameo for original Dent Simon Jones as a planet’s welcoming/threating holo-message, American Sam Rockwell was brought in as Zaphod, Zooey Deschanel as Trillian and rap artist-actor Moz Def as Ford Prefect, while the grotesque 7ft tall Vogons were animatronically designed by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. Filming, centred at Elstree Studios but with location work in Hertfordshire, London, Wales, and Tenerife, took place between April and August 2004 and was followed by an elaborate post-production process, including CGI additions plus cameo voiceovers from ‘A’-listers Helen Mirren as Deep Thought and Alan Rickman as Marvin. After early test screenings delivered positive responses from both die-hard fans and a wider younger audience, distributors Buena Vista (who initially predicted an Anglophile cult product) launched a belated multi-media marketing blitz, and brought forward the release date by a fortnight, giving it a full three-week box-­ office run on the all-consuming Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas, 2005) (Variety, 11 April 2005). The 109-minute film held its world premiere at London’s Empire Cinema, Leicester Square on 20 April 2005.17 A week later, still in the summer blockbuster slot, it rolled out across the UK, Australia, and America, where it was given a 3100print release. Hoping to build on this momentum, highly publicised exhibition in European and Far East territories followed later in the year. The film version broadly follows the narrative of the same-named first novel, itself embellished from the first four episodes of the radio original. This differs in places from the television version, notably in its more upbeat

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ending where Arthur, Ford, and Trillian set out on further space explorations. Press reviews were widespread, as were the critical responses. Some were firmly in favour: Sam Davies hailed how ‘Jennings has delivered an ambitiously faithful and imaginative version of some treacherous material’ (Sight and Sound, 15, 6, June 2005: 61). Others were strongly against: Anthony Quinn thought it ‘Lost in space’ and moaned how ‘the to-ing and fro-ing of this intergalactic romp has the random clunk of pub pinball, and its squiggles of invention … are mere juvenile surrealism’ (Independent, 29 April 2005). Most, while relieved that the much-awaited film version was no dud, remained lukewarm, with the finger of blame for failings pointed across the Atlantic. For Britain’s Peter Bradshaw ‘The film is no disgrace, and honours the Guide’s gentle, low-tech BBC origins. But it doesn’t do justice to the open-ended inventiveness of the original. The inevitable Anglo-American accommodations of casting have muddled its identity and the performances of the new American stars can be uneasy … The savour and flavour of the Adams original, its playfully ruminative feel, has been downgraded in favour of a jolly but less interesting outerspace romp’ (Guardian, 22 April 2005). Aaron Hillis found that, ‘Reasonably reverent in its droll eccentricity but terribly Americanized in its comic delivery, the feature-length H2G2 is an enjoyable mess’ (Premiere, 28 August 2005). America’s Roger Ebert found it ‘tiresomely twee’ and ‘more of a revue than a narrative, more about moments than an organizing purpose, and cute to the point that I yearned for some corrosive wit from its second cousin, the Monty Python universe’ (Chicago Sun-Times, 28 August 2005). Anthony Lane concluded that ‘The problem is not that the film debases the book but that movies themselves are too capacious a home for such comedy, with its tea-steeped English musings and its love of bitty, tangential gags’ (New Yorker, 2 May 2005). The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a Hollywood-led blockbuster adaptation of a British mid-budget television sitcom (amongst other iterations), is inevitably pulled in opposite directions. As a longstanding cult product, the film version is understandably reverential to the tenor of its source text(s), keeping not just Adams’ rationalisations of science-fiction tropes such as the instant translator Babel Fish, but also many of Adams’ jokes, speeches, and one-liners (some pandering to stereotypes as when, faced by Vogon bureaucracy, Dent declaims ‘Move aside, I know what I’m doing here. I’m British. I know how to queue’). There are infelicities: for instance, the new subplot where John Malkovich plays Humma Kavula, Zaphod’s political opponent and half-torsoed leader of the

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giant-nose-­ worshipping Jatravartidian religious cult, is self-consciously surrealist and strives too hard to attain Adams’ consummate comic tone. Added material, however, is mostly in keeping with the work’s overall tenor, as when shots of panicking humans are intercut with sheep running across a field which matches the original’s moments of caustic misanthropy.18 The habitual generic demerits of sitcom spinoff films opening out their source text’s locale do not apply here, with Adams’ original canvas stretching from Little England to the end of the universe. Indeed, the BBC television show had exposed the essentially verbal nature of Adams’ humour, prone to fanciful details and lengthy digressions, and here there are practical improvements: Zaphod’s second head, a ‘throwaway’ joke with limitless potential on radio and in print, proved notoriously insoluble for the television series, but the film Zaphod is essentially an alien anthropophagus, his (extra) head placed in his chest and appearing just occasionally to voice id-like basic urges before being removed by Kavula as hostage material. Another positive for the film is that, despite the budget, it does not always resort to complex CGI for its comic effects: the scene where Dent and Prefect wait expecting to be blown into the vacuum of space from a giant door in the Vogon ship eschews the grandiose and instead has a floor-hatch suddenly open and dispatch them in a moment redolent of silent slapstick and British bathos. The film intersperses playful references to its small-screen predecessor, as with the staple BBC resource of a (South Wales) quarry standing in for the rocky Vogon landscape the crew must cross (Fig.  5.2). It makes a deliberate play of its visual superiority when, on Magrathea, Arthur meets Slartibartfast (Bill Nighy), a melancholic planet designer who invites the earthling to tour his factory-floor. Their journey starts with a rickety loading-­bay cage ride which explicitly recalls the low-fi special effects aesthetic on 1980s British television sci-fi, before suddenly shifting into a high-budget state-of-the-art CG spacescape as they enter a pocket dimension inside the planet. This latter recourse to spectacle, though, is far more prevalent: here is the UK-sourced sitcom spinoff genre’s first adoption by big-budget Hollywood cinema, and the money invested (against which all other films examined here were made for pocket change) evidently needs to be seen on screen. As Neil Archer notes, ‘Everything is consequently that much bigger than in the television series’ (2017, p. 190), not just Slartibartfast’s workshop but Deep Thought, the movement and mutations of Zaphod’s Heart of Gold spaceship19 and, above all, the exposition’s aesthetic-­establishing

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Fig. 5.2  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—Lost in Space (in Wales)

destruction of Earth where, rather than a single vessel hovering over Dent’s condemned cottage, the film cuts to three of the world’s panicking major metropolises before the perspective pulls back through a series of jump-cuts to reveal hundreds of black rectangular-shaped spaceships surrounding the entire planet. The pull here is away from the original sitcom’s Anglocentric lineage as the subsequent muffled explosion bears resemblance instead to the Death Star’s demise in Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977). This leads into the opening credits where, following the first (if freshly orchestrated) strands of the television series’ theme tune, the Eagles’ ‘Journey of the Sorcerer’, another dark rectangular shape floats centre-screen, now evoking the monolith from the ‘Jupiter’ sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) before it turns to reveal itself as a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy complete with its ‘Don’t Panic’ cover instruction. Here, indicative of scale and ambition, Corporal Jones has ceded to iconic Kubrick. If the sonic texture and quirky incidental detail (plus Anglocentric humour) of the original frequently gives way to such set-piece special effects, the sitcom’s interplanetary picaresque with its staccato rhythm is more consistently homogenised through the film’s editing and score into a fast-paced sci-fi adventure. This is also an adventure with a standard romantic interest as the relationship between Dent and Trillion becomes

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much more pronounced than in earlier versions. The seemingly urgent pre-destruction pub conversation between Dent and Prefect is interrupted for a flashback to the Islington fancy-dress party where Dent first met Trillion, before Zaphod whisked her away with the promise of showing her his spaceship; the subsequent narrative thus has an added emotional momentum as everyman Arthur eventually wins back Trillion from his preening slow-witted rival. The importance of this sentimental education is emphasised in the film’s answer to the Ultimate Question, which may be delivered by Dent while strapped to a chair awaiting a lobotomy, but its assertion that all we need is love—looking at Trillian, Dent confesses that the only question he ever wanted answered was ‘Is she the one?’—confirms an overall Hollywood-style product in audience-pleasing saccharine mode rather than Adams’ more cynical British oeuvre.20 The film’s ending, though, again pulls in different directions. The sitcom’s conclusion, with Dent and Prefect back on a prelapsarian earth awaiting its eventual and inevitable destruction, offers a fatalistic inversion of an earlier sci-fi franchise, the most notable iteration of which had Charlton Heston railing at human folly in the film version of Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968). The film of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy rejects this regressive denouement. Instead, the new version of Earth built by Slartibartfast and Co. is contemporary, featuring a montage of the planet’s evolving flora and fauna, and culminating in the exact recreation of Dent’s country cottage where he finds his new companions enjoying a meal. Thus the transatlantic film version opposes its source text by reverting fully  to traditional television sitcom structure in its cyclical nature, here with disruption leading to a total, planetary restoration and reaffirmation. That the film then sends its central characters off to explore new worlds can be diegetically justified as showing a matured and empathetic Dent learning to fit with Trillian’s wanderlust. However, Prefect’s recommendation that they start with a visit to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe (the title of Adams’ follow-up novel to Hitchhiker’s Guide) exposes the move’s financial expediency, undoubtedly, unequivocally, unabashedly preparing the ground for a potential film sequel. This continuation, though, did not occur. The film performed healthily at the box office, recouping its production budget in the States ($51.1 million), and making the same again ($53.4 million) worldwide, with £11/$20.3 million coming from the UK.21 Such profits, though, were deemed insufficient to launch a blockbuster franchise. They did, though, show the (financial) benefits of opening the British sitcom to more ‘universal’—or at least US-centric—themes. Come in, Rowan Atkinson.

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5.2  Silent Success / Global Domination: Bean (1997) If Britain’s earlier apocalyptic spinoffs had failed commercially—Allan Hunter’s review correctly predicted that Guest House Paradiso ‘has as much chance of travelling the world as Charles Manson’—the British sitcom spinoff film did not have to await Hollywood investment to glean financial rewards: it had already swapped world destruction for global domination in Bean (Mel Smith, August 1997). The source sitcom Mr. Bean (ITV, 15 episodes, January 1990–October 1995) starred Rowan Atkinson, who across 1980s television and stage performances had honed a set of gormless rubber-faced dialogue-free comic personae. These coalesced into the Atkinson and Richard Curtis creation Mr. Bean, an accident-prone and mischievous man-child in an elbow-patched tweed jacket, who became the eponymous lead of an intentionally sporadic and phenomenally popular sitcom, produced by Tiger Aspect and written by Atkinson, Curtis and Robin Driscoll. At home it received five BAFTA nominations and reached viewing figures of 18 million. This was surpassed, though, by its overseas success: hugely popular in Germany, Australia, and Scandinavia, the sitcom sold to close on 250 countries, plus over 50 airlines, and its opening episode won the 1991 Montreux Golden Rose. Essentially different in (sanitised) degree rather than kind from Bottom, the key to its exportable appeal was its wordlessness—amidst a set of visually inventive sight gags and slapstick events Bean conveys his reactions through manic gurning, offering at most an occasional rotund, strangulated grunt.22 After the first four episodes, and the support release in theatres of two (episode remake) shorts, Mr Bean Takes an Exam and Mr Bean Goes to a Premiere (both Paul Weiland, 1991), feature film options were initially mooted with Twentieth-Century Fox (Variety, 10 November 1991). Ultimately, a film version was produced by UK-based Working Title Pictures with PolyGram Filmed Entertainment under their Gramercy Pictures banner. With their Curtis-scripted Four Weddings and a Funeral (Mike Newell, 1994) already a worldwide success, the production partnership was working, as Nathan Townsend notes, ‘to redefine expectations about the commercial potential of British films in popular genres’ (2021, p. 312). Boasting a £10/$26 million budget and a script from Curtis and Driscoll, Bean sought to continue Working Title’s ‘speciality’ in Transatlantic British Cinema, and filming took place over ten weeks from

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late September 1996, in both London and California. A transatlantic cast (including Bean fan Burt Reynolds) joined Atkinson, with a score written and conducted by the sitcom’s composer Howard Goodall.23 Given the star’s relative anonymity in America (consigned to PBS), Bean eschewed the producers’ normal pattern of release  by opening not Stateside but across wider international markets, debuting in Australia on 3 July 1997. With a PG (parental guidance) certificate from the BBFC, it held its UK premiere on 1 August 1997 and, hoping thus to maintain its commercial momentum, finally entered full American exhibition from 7 November, where test screenings led to an alternative cut (featuring a scene where Bean tries to stuff a turkey and gets his head stuck inside it). Bean aka Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie follows clumsy Mr Bean (Atkinson) who is working as a security guard at London’s National Gallery with the support of the Chairman (John Mills), much to the chagrin of the governors. They see their chance to dismiss Bean when the Grierson Gallery of Los Angeles, thanks to a $50 million donation from ultra-patriotic Army General Newton (Reynolds), buys back Whistler’s Mother from the Musée d’Orsay and invites the National to send over an art scholar ‘of great weight and substance’—they send Bean. After causing chaos on the plane and at Los Angeles airport (Fig. 5.3), Bean is invited home by the Grierson’s young curator David Langley (Peter MacNicol), quickly prompting his wife Alison (Pamela Reed) to leave with their kids. At the house of pompous gallery boss George Grierson (Harris Yulin) for dinner, Bean tries to microwave a giant turkey which explodes. Left alone at the gallery, Bean irreparably damages the star painting, but substitutes a copy which is acclaimed at its unveiling. When the Langley’s teenage daughter Jessica (Tricia Vessey) is injured in a motorcycle accident, Bean, rushing to the hospital with David, is mistaken for a surgeon: he fortuitously brings Jessica out of her coma, and becomes a family favourite. Back in Britain he adorns his bedroom wall with photos of his time with the Langleys—and the original Whistler. Receiving the fullest press reviews for a British sitcom spinoff film since Till Death Us Do Part, critical opinion ventured from lukewarm to sulphurous. In the UK, the BFI’s Philip Kemp thought that, in the ‘dismal’ record of television to film transfers, ‘Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean fares better than most. The plot, if ludicrously implausible, is clear and coherent, and despite the Bean persona being relocated to LA, the comedy has been kept down to a human scale where the Beanish humour works best’ (Sight and Sound, 7, 8, August 1997: 41). The tabloids’ Nick Fisher also

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Fig. 5.3  Bean—The British Sitcom Spinoff Film Takes Off

broadly encouraged audiences to ‘Enjoy this Bean feast’ of ‘top toilet fun’, but noted that ‘Sadly, going to Hollywood forced the makers into an ending choked with sugary we-love-you-Beany schmaltz’ (Sun, 8 August 1997). The broadsheets, by contrast, were definitely not amused. Matthew Sweet castigated ‘A half-baked Bean’, noting that ‘Atkinson is reported to have geared his gags to the intellectual level of a nine-year-old boy, but this is a piece of work that would insult the intelligence of blue-green algae’ (Independent on Sunday, 10 August 1997). Geoff Brown highlighted the lead’s ‘lowest common denominator antics’ before concluding that ‘Bean is the kind of shallow movie that only works if you shut your mind to the qualities of all great comedy—rigour, intelligence, imagination and humanity’ (Times, 7 August 1997). Derek Malcolm was the most emollient: ‘this is rarely as good as the TV series or Atkinson’s best form’, though he accepted it was ‘shrewdly structured for an international audience that wants belly laughs’ (Guardian, 8 August 1997). Most US critics questioned such conscious design. Roger Ebert acknowledged the film had ‘many moments that were very funny’ but thought it overall too long: ‘At an hour Bean would have been non-stop laughs. Then they added 30 minutes of stops’ (Chicago Sun-Times, 7 November 1997). Susan Wloszczna hectored that ‘We’ll forgive England for the Spice Girls. Maybe even Benny Hill … and the habit of pouring milk in tea. But with Bean’s

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arrival, it might mean war.’ She saw ‘an excuse for a graceless string of skits’ until, ‘At a certain point, Bean goes beyond awful to surreally awful, like the rug Burt Reynolds sports in a cameo’ (USA Today, 12 January 1998). Such objections mattered not: immune to critical opinion (as several reviews conceded), Bean fully justified its release strategy, becoming a box-office sensation, and the first British sitcom spinoff film with truly international appeal. Domestic takings alone heralded success: building on opening weekend receipts of £2.5 million, a record for a British film, these reached £17.6/$24.9 million, making Bean the fifth highest-grossing film of the year—and only beaten by The Full Monty (Peter Cattaneo, 1997) as a British production.24 This was dwarfed, though, by overseas responses: takings of US $5 million in the film’s opening week in Australia set the trend that culminated in a worldwide gross of $234.4/£143 million (Townsend, 2021, p. 202).25 These included, after a second-place opening weekend gross of $13 million, genre-high US takings of $42.5. Though the 1970s ‘Golden Age’ was long past, once again the sitcom spinoff proved important in assuring the British film industry’s economic viability. John Upton emphasises that ‘Bean was symptomatic of how British cinema had changed and how it had had to change to survive in the blockbuster era. Consequently, Bean was Americanised and—therefore— globalised’ (2002)—one notes, for example, the title’s dropping of ‘Mr.’ to minimise renaming for non-Anglophone markets. A clear instance of Working Title’s (successful) strategies to foster transatlantic cultural and commercial synergies (that would continue with Elizabeth (Shekhar Kapur, 1998) and Notting Hill (Roger Michell, 1999)), Bean may have diluted its British setting and dispensed with the source comedy’s silence—dialogue not only surrounds Bean but he blurts out the occasionally decipherable phrase in his unveiling speech—yet it knows to retain intact the Bean persona, mixing guile and stupidity (he knows how to use an electric razor but also decides to shave his tongue), and improvising occasionally ingenious solutions to his self-inflicted predicaments (notably when he sneezes on then progressively destroys the face of Whistler’s Mother, only to sneak past security guards and install a poster replacement). There is also a witting and unwitting streak of malice in his clowning (as when he explodes an airplane sick-bag over a fellow passenger—though unaware it is full of vomit). In these and other scenes, the big-screen format emphasises how Bean is a loose(-limbed) comedic cousin less to the maudlin Charlie Chaplin than to Jacques Tati’s more aloof Monsieur Hulot. Bean is too self-contained (and irritating), though, to evoke fully Hulot’s

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wistfulness or empathy, sentiments which are here generated by MacNicol’s hapless curator, reduced to a tearful rendition of the Beatles’ ‘Yesterday’ as he sees both his career and home life disappearing after 20 screen-minutes in Bean’s company. There are evident failings. The film’s plot, while cursory, defies even cartoon logic. Why would a Los Angeles art museum buy a painting from Paris then ask London for a British expert to unveil it? And while Bean’s bosses want rid of him, would they risk their Gallery’s international reputation by sending such an idiot as their representative? Also, its depiction of other nations often recalls the genre’s earlier ‘Little Englander’ outlook. The film may be targeted at the US box office and employ Randy Newman’s ‘I Love LA’ in a seemingly straight capacity, but Bean’s hosts are nonetheless shown as gullible (believing in Bean), xenophobic (the General saving America’s great painting from ‘the Frenchies’), and venal (the museum exploiting its new acquisition with Whistler beer mugs, cookies, and towels). It is, for Philip French, ‘the traditional vulgar, ignorant Yanks that patronising British humourists have been depicting for over a century, though thankfully less often in recent years’ (Observer, 10 August 1997). Nonetheless, rather than betraying the desperation often evident in previous decades’ spinoff films, Bean’s expansion of the television format could here be adjudged not just commercially shrewd but aesthetically advantageous. While Bean ultimately conforms to the structural tropes of the Hollywood film, these tropes are simultaneously parodied, as Neil Archer notes, due to the ‘obvious incongruity’ of Bean, evidently ‘the wrong person for the task’, being the (oblivious) instrument of their resolution (2017, p. 31). More pertinent to this study, the dichotomy of the British sitcom spinoff genre, where the television sitcom needs complete character stasis to endure, but a feature film thrives on the development inherent in a character’s learning arc, is here solved, as Julian Dutton argues, by making the film ‘not so much about Mr Bean himself but the perception of Mr Bean via the characters around him’ (2015, p.  365). Breaking with the source sitcom’s single-character focus, the film’s subplot that places him amidst a suburban Californian family transfers the development arc. While Bean’s solipsism relents only to the photos on his bedroom wall, it is the Langleys who change profoundly, coming together to appreciate what they see (erroneously) as Bean’s ultimately good intentions. * * *

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Rumours of demands for a follow-up were almost instant (Times, 28 November 1997), and while plans were mooted from 2001 (taking Bean to Australia), it took until a decade later, when Working Title was reworking its back catalogue with a set of sequels (cf. Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Shekhar Kapur, 2007)), that it combined with Studio Canal and Tiger Aspect Films to realise Mr. Bean’s Holiday (Steve Bendelack, March 2007). Written again by Driscoll now with Hamish McColl from a story by Complicité co-founder/artistic director Simon McBurney, and again scored by Howard Goodall, Bean’s new cross-channel destination plus the final title (changed from Bean 2 then French Bean) openly acknowledged the Bean character’s debt to Jacques Tati’s Hulot character who had debuted in Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday/Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Tati, 1953).26 With a budget now of £12.5/$25 million and an international supporting cast including Emma de Caunes and Willem Dafoe, filming took place from May to August 2006  in England and France, including scenes shot at that year’s Cannes Film Festival. Repeating the exhibition pattern so successful with Bean, the standalone sequel opened in Singapore on 22 March 2007, then  UK premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square on 26 March ready for Easter holiday family audiences, before its US release, through Universal, in over 1900 theatres from 24 August. The film shows Mr Bean (Atkinson) in a church lottery winning a trip to the French Riviera and a camcorder. Filming as he goes, in Paris Bean takes care of a boy, Stepan Duchevsky (Max Baldry), whom he inadvertently separates from his Russian filmmaker father Emil (Karel Roden). When Bean loses his wallet, the pair are thrown off the train; Bean then loses both Stepan and the coach tickets he has earned through busking. After ruining the set of a war-themed advert being filmed by egotistical American director Carson Clay (Dafoe), aspiring actor Sabine (de Caunes) drives Bean to Cannes where her debut in Clay’s new film is being premiered. Refinding Stepan but accused by the police of abduction, Bean and the boy sneak into the premiere. As Stepan is reunited with his Festival-judging father, Bean projects his film footage to prove his innocence: the audience think it the best part of Clay’s otherwise pretentious film, and applaud wildly. In a musical finale, Bean et al. paddle in the sea to the strains of Charles Trenet’s ‘La Mer’. Critical reception was again largely negative, on both sides of the Atlantic. For Britain’s David Gritten ‘The older Atkinson gets, the

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creepier Bean seems … Petulant and self-centred, with that indistinct, echoing, disembodied voice, Bean may be tolerable in short stretches or as ubiquitous in-flight entertainment, but overstays his welcome at this length’ (Daily Telegraph, 31 March 2007). Anthony Quinn decried a ‘dire celebration of imbecility’ where ‘neither star nor screenwriters could contrive a single laugh in the course of 85 purgatorial minutes’ (Independent, 30 March 2007). Steve Rose bemoaned the ‘innumerable set pieces, most of which take an awfully long time to deliver an awfully weak gag’, thought ‘Dafoe’s fake art movie looked a damned sight funnier than the one I was watching’, and offered that, ‘if Rowan Atkinson hasn’t got the heart to kill off the character, I’ll gladly throttle him by the necktie myself’ (Guardian, 31 March 2007). Nick de Semlyen succinctly termed it ‘almost disturbingly unfunny’ (Empire, 215, March 2007: 55). In America the sequel had its supporters, such as Tom Long who thought ‘this film actually picks up steam as it rolls along, becoming ever more absurd’ while ‘Mr Bean offers a refreshingly blunt reminder of the simple roots of comedy in these grim, overly manufactured times’ (Detroit News, 24 August 2007). Many, though, were with Claudia Puig, for whom ‘the mostly silent gags feel like watered-down Bean’ and who suggested that only ‘If you’ve been lobotomised or have the mental age of a kindergartener, Mr. Bean’s Holiday is viable comic entertainment’ (USA Today, 23 August 2007). Again, though, critical opinion mattered not a jot as the film bore comparison with Bean’s financial returns, grossing £22/$44 million in Britain and a lucrative $232.2 million worldwide, including (a reduced) $33.3 million in the States. While again dominated by Atkinson’s rubber-jointed contortions and incessant gurning, Mr. Bean’s Holiday offers several improvements on its spinoff film predecessor. There are drawbacks—the hook-up with Sabine hints at (misjudged) romance, while spurious sentiment is intrusively pushed through the over-lush score. However, spared the generic restraints of cosy American film-family life, Bean’s picaresque trip through France is more conducive to his pantomime anarchy, and while realism is not preeminent in such fare, the language differences offer a degree of justification for his frantic para-linguistic contortions (Bean’s French amounts to ‘oui’, ‘non’ and ‘gracias’). While its comedy is predominantly aimed at a young/family audience, Mr. Bean’s Holiday also, as with director Bendelack’s earlier The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse, offers several allusions for cinephiles. Most critics now picked up on the links to Tati— Philip French pinpointed Bean as ‘a dim-witted sub-Hulot loner’

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(Observer, 1 April 2007)—with an indebtedness stretching beyond the title: Bean’s rapport with Stepan (uncomfortable for some critics) reworks Hulot’s relationship with his adoring nephew Gérald Arpel (Alain Bécourt) in Mon Oncle (Tati, 1958), while the scene where Bean, chasing his coach ticket on an old bike, outpaces a team of professional cyclists ‘recycles’ Tati’s postman François from Jour de Fête (Tati, 1949). Other allusions can be traced: the desire to reach the sea faintly echoes (until the Croisette singalong) that other adolescent mischief maker, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) from The 400 Blows/Les 400 Coups (François Truffaut, 1959); Bean chasing a chicken through a bustling market references the opening to City of God/Cidade de Deus (Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund, 2002); a French paysan approaching Bean through a heat haze on a slow mobilette parodies the arrival of Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) in Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962). Patrick Fahy, in a rare (and surprisingly) positive review, saw in Bean’s Cannes cinema escape, hopping over packed rows of seating, a (hopefully self-deprecating) replay of Roberto Benigni collecting his Oscar for Life Is Beautiful/La Vita è Bella (Benigni, 1997) (Sight and Sound, 17, 5, May 2007: 72). Beyond this intertextual dimension (which here merely offers recognition of sources rather than generating comic/character intensification), the spinoff presents a more self-reflective (and arguably reactionary) play on filmmaking itself. It does so discretely and diegetically via its (low-level) satire on the costly pretentions of intertextual commercial campaigns (by brands like Stella Artois). It does so more directly, and with extra-diegetic resonance, via its debunking of (not Bean’s amateur footage but) the art-­ house narcissism exemplified by director-writer-star Curtis’ Cannes entry Playback Time. Such (accomplished) parody (even if preferred by the Guardian’s film critic) helps Working Title to propose, through the encompassing US-free spinoff comedy of Mr. Bean’s Holiday itself, ‘a viable mode of cross-continental production that is an alternative to both the festival-type film and Hollywood’s market-dominant juggernauts’ (Archer, 2021, p. 83). This postmodern double-play, pursuing artistic credentials via pastiche while rejecting high-end European culture via parody, is also replicated via the holiday plotting which ties the film back to its British sitcom spinoff predecessors. A posh Paris lunch of oysters and langoustines (alas maître d-ed by legendary French actor Jean Rochefort) may expose Bean’s class and cultural naiveté but it also mocks ‘foreign’ food in another (sad) regression to the tropes rampant in Are You Being Served? It is a further contradictory pull, indicative of how, as Archer notes, ‘the

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film’s gesture to a type of cosmopolitanism betrays its intrinsically monocultural position’ (2021, p.  86). Plus ça change, as Bean would not have put it.

Notes 1. The film’s title song, by cult British singer-songwriter John Otway, was released as a (non-charting) single. 2. The film acquired an unwanted notoriety when Richards, performing at Hollywood’s Laugh Factory in November 2006, directed racist language at a group of black hecklers. Amidst the online backlash, his scene as black-­ faced window-cleaner Conway Nitz III went viral. 3. Though they continued in tour format, technically Richie and Eddie had been ‘killed off’ in the sitcom’s final episode ‘Carnival’ (3, 6). 4. Furthering this intertextual link, Edmondson would later play Captain Pavey in Star Wars: Episode VIII—The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson, 2017). Film debutant Pegg would also appear as Unkar Plutt in Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams, 2015). 5. Bottom was developed concurrently with Mayall and Edmondson preparing their 1991 roles in Waiting for Godot (a production designed by Derek Jarman) at the Queen’s Theatre, London (Steven Grant, ‘Bums the Word’, Time Out, 189, 15 September 1991). 6. Jim Sangster and Paul Condon note the show’s character emphasis: ‘Paedophiles, transsexuals, murderers, bestiophiles, travellers and the unemployed—all subjects to get Middle England hot under the collar’ (2005, p. 431). 7. In particular one could cite Little Britain (BBC, 3 series, 20 episodes,  2003–2007) whose first series was script-edited by Gatiss and directed by Bendelack. 8. For instance, The League of Gentlemen Christmas Special (tx. 27 December 2000) was a direct tribute to the compendium films of Amicus. 9. Writer Dyson traces their desire to make a film version back to 1999 while making the sitcom’s first series. He also notes his earliest film memory, not as usually cited ‘something grandly iconic. Anita Ekberg dancing in the Trevi fountain, Omar Sharif resolving into focus through a shimmering heat haze … The first big-screen experience I can recall is watching Reg Varney chuck a fag end into a piss-drenched lavatory bowl and the toilet exploding. This was Holiday on the Buses—the final part of the great Buses Trilogy—and as fine an example as any of that noble British tradition: the TV spin-off movie’ (‘The Big League’, Guardian, 30 May 2005). 10. Unless otherwise signalled, box-office takings are henceforth taken from the Box Office Mojo website, replicated on IMDbPro.

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11. On the DVD commentary, Mark Gatiss cited the resemblance to the Dynaramation/Dynarama employed by Harryhausen in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (Gordon Hessley, 1973). 12. In the film’s pressbook, Dyson concludes that ‘Looking back, the whole conceit of the film, I suppose, is the pitfalls of writing a spin-off TV movie’. For Leon Hunt the conceit was successfully tackled: ‘Apocalypse is a rare creation … by being an accomplished film based on a British TV comedy’ and moreover ‘a film about the problem of turning a series into something fans will recognise without simply padding out a thirty-minute format by taking its characters on holiday to Spain’ (2008, p. 131). 13. The Only Fools and Horses special’s two episodes, ‘The American Dream’ (50  mins) and ‘Oh to Be in England’ (95  mins), were combined into Miami Twice: The Movie for later VHS and DVD release. 14. Four further radio series, based on the third novel in Adams’ ‘trilogy in five parts’, were recorded over twenty years later (20 episodes, September 2004–April 2018). 15. Adams notoriously likened the Hollywood process to ‘Trying to grill a steak by having a succession of people coming into the room and breathing on it’ (cited Hughes, 2008, p. 202). 16. Helpful to green-lighting Adams’ long-cherished film version, sci-fi comedy had proven itself to Hollywood with the commercial success of Men in Black (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1997), Men in Black II (Sonnenfeld, 2002) and, to a lesser extent, Mars Attacks! (Tim Burton, 1996), Galaxy Quest (Dean Parisot, 1999), and Evolution (Ivan Reitman, 2001). 17. The film’s release prompted a BBC summer 2005 re-run of the Hitchhiker’s Guide television series. 18. In the film’s defence, all new material was derived from drafts in various stages of development that Adams wrote before his death. 19. In its final transformation, the ship becomes the face of Douglas Adams. 20. James Christopher, who found the film overall ‘pleasingly British’ with its ‘Pythonesque moments of brilliance, and the wobbly Doctor Who sets’, was not alone in fulminating that ‘’the romance between Arthur and Trillian has the commercial texture of a Richard Curtis pudding: puffed up, over-­ sweet and none too convincing’ (Times, 28 April 2005). 21. With the number 42 so significant to Adams’ creation, Britain’s opening weekend takings of £4.2 were deemed by Buena Vista a ‘delightfully improbably coincidence’ (Guardian, 4 May 2005). 22. Bean would return, voiced by Atkinson, in Mr. Bean: The Animated Series (ITV/CITV, 5 series, 130 episodes, 2002–2004; 2015–2019). A feature-­ length cartoon film was mooted in 2021. Indicative of the character’s global appeal, Bean would feature prominently in the Opening Ceremony to London’s 2012 Summer Olympics, directed by Danny Boyle.

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23. A tie-in soundtrack LP Bean: The Album was released on Mercury Records. The closing theme song, Boyzone’s ‘Pictures of You’, was released as a single and, with Bean joining the band on the single cover and video, reached number 2 in the UK and Irish charts. 24. Despite the film’s popular success Bean, unlike the source sitcom, was snubbed by ‘the ‘snobbish’ BAFTAs (Alison Boshoff, Daily Telegraph, 23 February 1998). 25. Success in Australia, Europe, and Japan helped Bean become the first feature film to gross $100 million prior to release in the USA. For Australian and UK, plus US opening box-office figures, see respectively Times, 12 August 1997; Independent, 11 November 1997. 26. Nonetheless, promotional interviews stressed a contrasting narrative to Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday. For writer McBurney ‘The difference is that Tati spends his entire time by the sea, while Mr Bean spends his entire time trying to get there’ (Time Out, 7 March 2007). Thus, Atkinson stressed, ‘It’s an inverse of that film’ (Pressbook).

Bibliography Archer, N. (2017). Beyond a Joke: Parody in English Film and Television Comedy. Bloomsbury Academic. Archer, N. (2021). Cinema and Brexit: The Politics of Popular English Film. Bloomsbury Academic. Dixon, W.  W. (2003). Straight: Constructions of Heterosexuality in the Cinema. State University of New York Press. Dutton, J. (2015). Keeping Quiet: Visual Comedy in the Age of Sound. Chaplin Books. Eaton, M. (1978). Television Situation Comedy. Screen, 19(4), 61–90. Gaiman, N. (2009). Don’t Panic: Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (3rd ed.). Titan Books. Hughes, D. (2008). The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made (Rev. edn). Titan Books. Hunt, L. (2008). The League of Gentlemen. BFI. Hunter, I.  Q. (2012). From Window Cleaner to Potato Man: Confessions of Working-class Stereotype. In I. Q. Hunter & L. Porter (Eds.), British Comedy Cinema. Routledge. Kolker, R.  P. (2000). A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. Lewisohn, M. (1998). Radio Times Guide to TV Comedy. BBC Worldwide. Newman, K. (1999). Millennium Movies: End of the World Cinema. Titan Books. Purves, B. J. C. (2014). Stop-motion Animation. Bloomsbury. Putterman, B. (1995). On Television and Comedy: Essays on Style, Theme, Performer, and Writer. McFarland.

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Roche, D. (2022). Meta in Film and Television Series. Edinburgh University Press. Sangster, J., & Condon, P. (2005). TV Heaven. Collins. Thompson, B. (2004). Sunshine on Putty: The Golden Age of British Comedy from Vic Reeves to The Office. Fourth Estate. Townsend, N. (2021). Working Title Films: A Creative and Commercial History. Edinburgh University Press. Upton, J. (2002, January). Carry On Sitcom: The British Sitcom Spin-off Film 1968–1980. Bright Lights Film Journal, 35. https://brightlightsfilm.com/ carry-sitcom-british-sitcom-spin-film-1968-1980/ [accessed 16 October 2023] Wagg, S. (1998). At Ease, Corporal: Social Class and the Situation Comedy in British Television from the 1950s to the 1990s. In S. Wagg (Ed.), Because I Tell a Joke or Two: Comedy, Politics and Social Difference. Routledge.

CHAPTER 6

Revival and Revisionism: 2009–2021. Part 2: Schools, Legacies, and Mockumentaries

The recent resurgence in the British sitcom spinoff can be grouped into three (loosely connected and overlapping) trilogies of films, those featuring school classes or school leavers, those revisiting sitcoms originally broadcast several years earlier, and those replicating the fake-documentary stylings of their source text. If contemporary in setting, language, and use of meta-fictionality, these films are often residual not just in their nostalgic mining of texts long absent from the small screen, but also at times (alas) in their thematics and ideology.

6.1   Confirming the Sitcom Spinoff Film Revival: The Inbetweeners Movie (2011) The 2010s saw a revival of school-based sitcoms transferring to cinema: these may have exploited unprecedented levels of coarse language and sexual content, but they nonetheless revived ideological stances reminiscent of the genre’s 1970s heyday. The run was started by the film spinoff from The Inbetweeners (E4, 3 series, 18 episodes, May 2008–October 2010), a lauded gross-out sitcom created and written by Damon Beesley and Iain Morris that followed four male suburban London teenagers through the purgatory of sixth-form life at Rudge Park Comprehensive, coping with uncaring teachers, uncomprehending parents, and unwilling female students. The titular quartet, stuck both between childhood and adulthood, and varyingly on the school popularity scale between geeks © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 S. Glynn, The British Sitcom Spinoff Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41222-6_6

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and jocks, comprised studious ex-public-schoolboy Will McKenzie (Simon Bird) who narrates each episode in voiceover, romantic but hot-headed Simon Cooper (Joe Thomas), vulgar ‘bullshitter’ Jay Cartwright (James Buckley), and gullible but sexually experienced Neil Sutherland (Blake Harrison). Audiences grew from a first season average of 500,000 to a final season peak of 4.1 million, a 12.5% audience share, and the highest-­ ever viewing figures for Britain’s E4 digital terrestrial network. Nominated for Best Situation Comedy at the 2009 and 2010 BAFTAs, The Inbetweeners won the 2010 Audience Award at the British Academy Television Awards, and the Rose d’Or for Best Situation Comedy at Montreux: at 2011’s British Comedy Awards, it was awarded the British Comedy Academy Outstanding Achievement.1 The Inbetweeners Movie (Ben Palmer, August 2011), though commissioned after the second series by Film4 Productions with a healthy £3.5 million budget, was set after the boys had left school on sitting their A-level examinations and filmed on location in February and March 2011 with all main cast members retained. A strategy to secure fanbase involvement included early Facebook teasers (to 3+ million friends), on-set Twitter reports from cast and crew, and the chance to be extras (for which many flew themselves out to Mallorca). Working closely with the BBFC to secure a core demographic-catching 15 rating (the apparently desired 12A was never a realistic option), the film’s late-summer release avoided US tent-pole competition, and coincided with the publication of British school-leavers’ own A-level exam results.2 The film follows the four school-leavers, Will (Bird), Simon (Thomas), Jay (Buckley), and Neil (Harrison), on holiday to Malia, Crete, where they are stuck in a rundown apartment and lured to a near-deserted nightclub. There they meet four girls who take a shine to them, but Will constantly questions Alison (Laura Haddock) over her Greek boyfriend, Simon cannot stop talking to Lucy (Tamla Kari) about his ex, Carli D’Amato (Emily Head), who is also at the resort, Jay is rude and reluctant to be seen with overweight Jane (Lydia Rose Bewley), and Neil keeps abandoning Lisa (Jessica Knappett) to sexually service middle-aged women. The four boys end up on a boat party, where Will, Jay and Neil finally connect with their respective partners, while Simon realises he no longer loves Carli and vainly tries to swim ashore to make up with Lucy, who gave him her party ticket. The four couples fly back to Gatwick Airport where the girls meet the boys’ parents.

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Though more blatantly commercial that the projects normally nurtured by Film4, The Inbetweeners Movie had the modest target of a final £5 million profit (Brown, 2021, p. 198). It became instead a ‘break out’ box-­ office sensation, its £13 million return setting a UK record for a comedy’s opening weekend takings. Attracting repeat viewings by teenage groups, it then held top position for four weeks in the UK film charts before coming third in the year’s top earners with receipts of £39 million, and an overseas gross of a further £19 million, making a world gross of $89 million— though just $35,000 from a limited US showing.3 (Its UK DVD and Blu-­ ray release on 12 December 2011 again proved well-timed and a significant financial success, shifting over 0.5 million copies on the first day, and over 1 million sales before Christmas). British critics were not unimpressed. Ian Freer noted that, ‘Like any holiday, it is episodic and suffers from repetition but this is gag-for-gag the funniest film of the summer and a fitting end to a much-loved series. So long boys, it’s been great to know you’ (Empire, 266, August 2011). Steve Rose indicatively singled out Simon Bird’s performance for praise and observed how ‘this TV spin-off updates the teen summer holiday formula surprisingly entertainingly, considering it doesn’t subvert it one iota’ (Guardian, 18 August 2011); Alex Zane thought it ‘awkward, grotesque and heartwarming in equal measure’ (Sun, 19 August 2011); David Edwards found it ‘a filthily funny spin-off’ that was ‘not big and not clever’, but praised how ‘the film, like the show, captures the horrors of being a male teenager in all its pathetic glory’ (Daily Mirror, 19 August 2011). Not all, though, were onside: Derek Malcolm complained that ‘One doesn’t require a Bergman or even a Fellini, it’s simply that this film takes every easy way out there is for its laughs’ (Evening Standard, 19 August 2011), while Neil Smith concluded that ‘Affection for the characters will bring fans in. But many will leave wishing the makers of one of the most enjoyable programmes of recent years had left well enough alone’ (Total Film, August 2011). While bemused US critics regularly explained the spinoff as Britain’s delayed riposte to the high-school sex comedy American Pie (Paul Weitz, 1999), The Inbetweeners Movie succeeds principally because it is not in fact a school film. Unlike ‘Golden Age’ members of the contrived sitcom travel club such as the workers from Holiday on the Buses and Are You Being Served? and even, with less contrivance, the Fenn Street gang from Please Sir! (or the 2000 sketch-show spinoff Kevin and Perry Go Large), the four lads here possess a natural momentum to take feature-film flight, having impatiently eyed the big wide world from their interim and enclosed

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sixth-form existence. A common experience for modern British school-­ leavers, Neil Archer emphasises the film’s strong ‘sense of participation and identification’ with its target audience, offering ‘a somatic and ritualistic rehashing of, or even preparation for, the presumed pleasures of the Mediterranean holiday’ (2021, p.  71). Beginning with their last day at Rudge Park and an unambiguous final assembly send-off from Head of Sixth Form Mr Gilbert (Greg Davies), the film soon takes the four lads abroad for a summer tour of (Jay’s envisaged) ‘sex, minge, fanny and booze, and tits, and sex’. This is a logical extension of the sitcom’s scatological coming-of-age narrative since the new location adds a further tranche of ‘inbetweenness’ with its liminal spaces of summer beaches and nightclubs typically promising, as Steven Allen notes of British cinema, a ‘carnivalesque display of the undisciplined body’ and ‘a set of permissive attitudes and behaviours’ (2008, p.  53). The Inbetweeners Movie duly delivers on Bakhtinian bodily excess with repeated images of vomit and excrement, but while the Mediterranean mise-en-scène can reinforce the hedonistic impulse—with Will’s suggested visit to local historical sights summarily rejected, the film repeatedly returns to beach-front images of drunken tourists and pounding dance anthems (Fig. 6.1)—the narrative captures effectively the bleak and anticlimactic horror of hormone-charged and alcohol-fuelled continental package holidays where ‘striking out’ far outperforms ‘home runs’. The spinoff film’s strategies for humour contain both residual and contemporary aspects. Just like Grace Brothers’ workforce on the Costa Plonka, the insular ignorance of Brits abroad is again the (often literal) butt of the joke, as when Neil’s belief that their bathroom bidet is a child’s toilet results in large immovable faeces, while the foreign ‘other’ are condemned for acting on their libidos, as when Alison’s Greek boyfriend Nikos (British actor David Avery) is exposed as a two-timing lothario. Different to 1977 is the coarseness of the gags, verbal and visual, which (unlike the boys) come repeatedly: for instance, Jay’s indelicately expressed high hopes that, once abroad, ‘It’ll be like shooting clunge in a barrel’, or the slow-motion reveal (and instant airport  banning) of the lads’ pink-­ slogan T-shirts proclaiming them the ‘Pussay Patrol’. These hit-and-miss crudities are in part offset by Will’s articulate and preternaturally mature commentary which shows a consciousness, but not condemnation, of the group’s desperate overcompensation for failing to achieve perceived levels of heteronormativity. This again is nothing new, with the foursome’s desperation largely expressed through the genre’s enduring attitudinal

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Fig. 6.1  The Inbetweeners Movie—Failing to Score

quartet of misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, and sizeism—Neil’s cougar-­servicing perhaps precluding additional accusations of ageism. The gross-out comedy is, in fairness, occasionally modulated with moments of serious relief. Lisa’s late-night outburst of genuine anger at the constant name-calling over her weight is rendered more affecting by Jay’s cowardly refusal to take her side, while his own fresh ‘inbetween’ status is revealed in his spat with Simon: learning that the friend with whom he hoped to start a business is, like Will, intending to go to university, furthers his sense of imminent abandonment. More broadly, the narrative democratises a degree of character development and situational shift, as each ex-schoolboy appears to learn life lessons about relationships (rather than shagging) and returns home with new and, it seems, genuinely caring girlfriends. The fact, however, that this female quartet is barely characterised (and white like almost everyone on the island resort) exposes how the film itself rather reinforces the lads’ diegetic inability to relate to difference.

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* * * This socio-cultural insulation mattered little. Intended as bringing closure to the television series (cf. Freer’s Empire review), the film’s unexpected commercial success instead prompted the inevitable sequel / retread, unimaginatively titled The Inbetweeners 2 (Damon Beesley, Iain Morris, August 2014). With an enlarged £4 million budget, principal cast members were persuaded for one last return, while the same plot premise, fantargeted publicity campaign and summer release schedule were employed, though with Ben Palmer unavailable the writer-creators stepped in as debut directors. Shot in Australia and England across December 2013 to February 2014, the film again hit the requisite 15 certificate (after cuts to images of male genitalia and urinating into mouths) and premiered at London’s Leicester Square on 5 August 2014 before national and limited international release. The sequel shows how Will (unpopular at Bristol University), Jay (abroad) and Neil (temping in a bank) have lost their Malia girlfriends, while Simon (studying sociology at Sheffield) finds his partner and fellow-­ student Lucy (Tamla Kari) clinging and abusive. After receiving an email from Jay boasting of his sex-life as a top DJ in Sydney, the others fly out at Easter to see him—he is in fact a toilet attendant camping in the garden of his foul-mouthed uncle Bryan (David Field). Will meets his prep-school old flame Katie Evans (Emily Berrington), and persuades the others to join her rich backpacking companions—they do not mix well. After a disastrous trip to a water park, Will parts angrily from the others who follow Jay into the outback where he tries (unsuccessfully) to make up with his ex, Jane (Lydia Rose Bewley)—the real reason for his visit. Will fails to connect with Katie while Simon is relieved to learn that Lucy has been unfaithful. Will’s mother appears with her new boyfriend, the lads’ former Rudge Park nemesis Mr Gilbert (Greg Davies). The lads move on to Vietnam. The Inbetweeners 2 proved a secure financial move, holding up against its predecessor as it bagged the UK’s highest ever first-day comedy takings of £2.75 million and, totalling £33.4 million, became the best-selling domestic film of the year.4 (The international gross, mainly from Australasia, added a further $8 million to a world take of £38.75 / $64 million). Confidently critic-proof, the film (reviving the genre’s 1970s practice) had eschewed an official press screening. Nonetheless, UK reviewers reported in numbers, and were again guardedly onside. Robbie

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Collin in particular enthused: ‘Perhaps the biggest compliment you could pay the film, apart from that it’s by and large hysterically funny, is that it is unmistakably film-like, with a smoothly arcing plot and gross-out moments staged with the verve and ceremony of an action-movie set-piece’ (Daily Telegraph, 8 August 2014). Danny Leigh found that the writer-directors ‘manage to expand one hallmark, a gift for the grossest of gross-out, without diminishing the other—an essential sweetness of spirit’ (Financial Times, 8 August 2014). Less convinced, Andy Lea felt that ‘There’s probably just enough here to take the lads over the finishing line. But they’re panting rather heavily’ (Daily Star, 8 August 2014). By contrast, Henry K. Miller spoke for the more intellectual end of the critical spectrum in terming it a ‘fetid rubbish-heap of a movie’ (Sight and Sound, 24, 10, October 2014: 74). While its plot was never the point, The Inbetweeners 2 just about retains a motivational credibility with its ‘mental gap year’ / university holiday premise sending the boys ‘down under’ and into ‘the bush’ (the terms are ceaselessly worked for their sexual innuendo). One could also argue for a degree of character development. The fault lines amongst the group opened in the first spinoff film here continue, with Simon more regularly joining fellow undergraduate Will in expressing dismay at the dumb antics of non-students Jay and Neil. Will, still narrating but now distanced from the aborted private-school education that was such a comedic motor for the original sitcom, can now launch into a feasible (and audience-pleasing) tirade against trustafarian backpackers who, guitar in hand and claiming a spiritual indifference to materialism, nonetheless travel the world on their parents’ money. Even Jay abandons his boasting of serial sexual conquests and a ménage à trois with Kylie and Dannii Minogue to arrive, bottom lip a-tremble, at an expression of his true feelings for Jane. (Neil remains a gormless constant, bemused by the concept of double-barrelled names and fatally introducing dolphins to McDonald’s burgers). The film contains culture-clash highs: Jay’s opening fantasy spiel on ‘the shagging capital of the world’ is accompanied by an elaborate Scorseseesque tracking sequence; Will performs an entertainingly awful falsetto take on Roberta Flack’s ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ when wooing Katie, while his (literally) shit-faced pool-emptying vomiting is enhanced by Tomaso Albinoni’s ‘Adagio in G Minor’, parodying its usage alongside slow-­motion footage in Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986). Where the sequel is more laboured is in the need to out-shock its earlier spinoff iteration, hence cranking up the knob and ‘clunge’ gags, the vomit and

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the faeces—though Neil’s latest stool following Will down a water tube has an undeniable comic momentum.5 Less forgivable are the ceaseless tirades of homophobic invective from uncle Bryan, the near white-washing of the Australian outback and, potentially worst of all, a far-from sweet-spirited strand of misogyny. The lads’ ages are now scant defence for their obsessive objectification of women (especially from actors aged—and looking—26-to-30). In addition to this arrested development (stranded in the outback the boys may contemplate mortality but still sketch a cock and balls in the sand), the film’s ‘smoothly arcing plot’ shows a near-contempt for its female characters: Jane, the film’s living MacGuffin, has barely a minute on screen, while it targets Lucy, a regular presence on Skype, as a psychotic (and cheating) ‘bunny boiler’ prone to the motiveless destruction of Simon’s property, and exposes Katie, despite her attentiveness to Will, as unworthy, over-privileged and indiscriminately promiscuous. It’s different for girls, apparently.6 Again, though, economics proved decisive. Hoping to ride this resurgent box-office momentum (and even aping The Inbetweeners’ first film’s title) came The Bad Education Movie (Elliot Hegarty, August 2015), a spinoff from Bad Education (BBC3, 3 series, 19 episodes, August 2012–October 2014 + 1 special, 2022). This youth-oriented sitcom was devised by comedian Jack Whitehall who plays newly graduated posh-boy history teacher Alfie Wickers, desperate to be ‘down with the kids’ in his GCSE class (16year olds) at Abbey Grove comprehensive, Hertfordshire. The film version, again co-written by Whitehall and Freddy Syborn, was produced by sitcom spinoff experts Tiger Aspect and shot over five weeks from late February 2015 with a £1.5 million budget and location work in Cornwall and at Pembroke Castle, Wales. Following The Inbetweeners’ spinoffs’ release pattern with a late-summer release (again via Entertainment Film Distributers), the film follows Alfie (Whitehall) and his class on a school trip to Cornwall. Due to an unfinished ‘class K’ tattoo on his back, Alfie is mistaken for a member of the Cornish Liberation Army (CLA), and tricked into delivering a truck full of explosives to the country pile of his old school friend Atticus Hoye (Jeremy Irvine), son of the local Tory MP. Though Alfie and his class are kidnapped by salty sea-dog CLA leader Pasco Trevelyan (Iain Glen), they effect an escape and, back home, get their GCSE results. Box-office returns of £2 / $3.1 million showed a film failing to repeat The Inbetweeners’ crossover appeal (and scuppering plans for a sequel), while critics were, overall, unimpressed. For Henry Fitzherbert ‘The script is patchy and the story too silly for its own good, but there are enough

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laughs to make this a hit with the target audience’ (Daily Express, 24 August 2015); Mike McCahill, though, bemoaned the laughter-stifling ‘TV aesthetic, all static medium and close-up shots, chiefly of Whitehall’s ever-harassed testes’ (Guardian, 26 August 2015). A vehicle for Whitehall’s popular stand-up humour centred on (social) class satire and knob jokes, the second half of The Bad Education Movie does at least side-step generic patterning with its topical tapping into (extreme grassroots) nationalist sentiments—and even brings in a brief homage to The Wicker Man alongside a mangled climactic speech that samples Braveheart (Mel Gibson, 1995), 300 (Zack Snyder, 2007)—and former Girls Aloud singer Cheryl. However, despite this and on-point jokes about hashtags and mumsnet, plus puerile jokes on debagging and teabagging, Whitehall’s post-exam school trip to the South East is an exact rerun of Please Sir! both narratively and thematically, the latter evident in the persistent misogyny (here jokes on peg-legged prostitutes plus the unyielding lower-body humiliation of killjoy parent Susan Poulter (Joanna Scanlon)), and the cross-class rivalry (here Alfie meeting his old public school peers, one of whom is called Dave, ‘short for the Earl of Daventry’). The toffs’ obnoxious behaviour and belittling of Alfie serves more broadly as a metonym for Tory/metropolitan indifference to the area’s colonisation by well-heeled second-homers. Educationally, it highlights the relative compassion and collegiality of immature but well-intentioned Alfie and his (unfeasibly small) state school class, refreshingly varied in race, gender, disability (and intellect), though residually homogenous in their blunt cultural stereotyping—for example, studious Chinese Jing (Kae Alexander) and sassy gay Stephen (Layton Williams). In all, though freshly dressed up, it is ideologically just like Bernard Hedges and class 5C from 44 years earlier, and thus a fail grade.

6.2   Cycles Revived: The Legacy Sitcom Spinoff Film The backward-looking nature of The Bad Education Movie indicates a second recent trend in the genre’s third phase, the production of belated or ‘legacy spinoffs’; that is, films based on sitcoms originally aired several years, even decades earlier. As well as looking to capitalise on the colossal success of The Inbetweeners Movie, this can be seen as fitting with a wider twenty-first-century trend from an increasingly risk-averse industry hoping not only to tap into fan nostalgia but also to appeal to a younger

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generation who may have come to the show later via repeats / box-sets. Hence, the appearance of legacy products that work to combine past and present, keeping a toehold in the original via familiar actors and narratives but adding fresh, culturally up-to-date elements. First up in this category was Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (Declan Lowney, August 2013). Alan Partridge, the ignorant, insensitive, and self-­ important fictional presenter co-created and played by Steve Coogan, was first heard as a sports presenter on the spoof current affairs show On the Hour (BBC Radio 4, 2 series, 12 episodes, 1991–1992). The character successfully transferred to television with Partridge an insufferably prudish chat-show host with a ‘sports casual’ look in Knowing Me, Knowing You (BBC2, 6 episodes + 1 Christmas special, September-December 1994) and, more properly in sitcom territory, with I’m Alan Partridge (2 series, 12 episodes, November 1997–December 2002) which, after the collapse of his marriage and television career, in faux-vérité fashion follows Alan living permanently in the Linton Travel Tavern and reduced to working the graveyard slot on Radio Norwich. The show was an early example of ‘cringe comedy’, often making for ‘deeply uncomfortable viewing … with many moments of cushion-hugging agony’ (Sangster & Condon, 2005, p. 350): nonetheless, it won 1998 BAFTAs for Best Comedy and Comedy Performance. While Partridge remained in the public consciousness via sporadic appearances across multiple media formats, including twelve 15-minute YouTube episodes in Mid Morning Matters (2010–2011),7 rumours of a film spinoff had first surfaced in 2004, and were finally realised, 22 years after his radio debut, in a co-production between Coogan’s Baby Cow, BBC Films and Studio Canal. Green-lit largely by the success of The Inbetweeners’ films (Steve Clarke, Variety, 6 August 2013), and sharing its setting plus writers with Mid Morning Matters, filming began in January 2013 with a (small) £2.5 / $4 million budget but without a complete script, and proved a difficult, rushed shoot. Several characters returned from I’m Alan Partridge including personal assistant Lynn Benfield (Felicity Montagu), rival DJ Dave Clifton (Phil Cornwall), and Geordieaccented ex-soldier Michael (Simon Greenall); retained from later iterations was Sidekick Simon (Tim Key). True to its diegetic roots, the film held its (lunchtime) world premiere in Anglia Square, Norwich before an evening (helicopter) dash to London’s Leicester Square and widespread national release. Film festival appearances followed in the US. The film shows how, as radio station North Norfolk Digital downsizes—and rebrands as ‘Shape’—under new management, Alan Partridge

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(Coogan) convinces his new bosses to sack not him but Pat Farrell (Colm Meaney), fellow DJ and grieving widow. An armed Pat takes the station hostage, and Alan is persuaded to act as mediator, a task he performs incompetently but exploits to revive his career as the story becomes a national media event. Eventually Pat and Alan escape in the station’s outside broadcast van, and confront each other on Cromer pier. Alan disarms a suicidal Pat, becomes the station’s star presenter, and starts a relationship with co-worker Angela Ashbourne (Monica Dolan). Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa proved a financial success in the UK, topping the box office on its opening weekend and finally grossing £6.1 / $9.9 million—overseas sales were negligible, with just $150,000 each from Australia and the US. Critics were broadly onside with the transfer. Andy Lea termed it ‘The funniest film of the year by a Norfolk mile’ (Daily Star, 5 August 2013). For Dan Jolin ‘it provides a masterclass in physical character comedy courtesy of the Alan himself’ and was ‘Ruddy hilarious. Just what big-screen comedy needed’ (Empire, 290, August 2013). Laurence Phelan noted that, ‘while the long tradition of big-screen spin-offs of British TV sitcoms is not an especially glorious one, Coogan slips as easily into the role as into a comfortable pair of leather driving gloves’ (Independent, 9 August 2013). Not so, though, for Nigel Andrews who felt that, ‘as in so many telly-to-movie comedies, the plot and acoustic are broadened for a large screen and a world market and precision-­ crafting goes thataway’ (Financial Times, 8 August 2013). Tom Huddleston also thought it ‘a long way from the back-of-the-net strike it should have been’ where ‘the final act feels rushed and underwhelming’ and the film overall ‘feels cheap and a little drab’ (Time Out, 24 July 2013). These latter criticisms strike as harsh since Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, like its eponymous lead, strives to makes the most of its evident limitations. The decidedly uncinematic mise-en-scène, mostly taking place in its cramped radio-station setting and shot on handheld, may be financially expedient but can equally be read as expressly devised, deliberately placing the film in Britain’s lineage of no-frills 1970s spinoff fare—the sort of fare Partridge himself would admire. Exemplifying the genre’s late-phase penchant for parody by reworking New  York’s Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, 1975)—with a touch of Network (Lumet, 1976)—but intermedially filtering all through North Norfolk Digital, bathos is the film’s underlying motor: a key set-piece revolves around an hour’s life-or-death deadline to produce for Pat a new ‘old-school’ jingle to replace Gordale Media’s lifeless messaging. The plot is hubristic in keeping with its lead:

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out of his depth as a hostage negotiator, Alan being selected and his subsequent antics—‘welcome to the big school!’ he utters on donning a flak jacket—comically undermine the whole concept. The film also remains ‘televisual’ in its attention to small detail, especially with Partridge himself: the sports casual attire, the mangled metaphors, the un-hip musical passions (including a transported miming to Roachford’s ‘Cuddly Toy’), all continued the precepts of cringe comedy. Nigel Andrews’ review seems particularly misplaced since Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa offers few concessions to international markets in casting, plot, or location, and eschews the genre’s habitual geographical transfer to stay within its regional roots. Even the final (snail-paced) police chase to the seaside pier may spoof The Sugarland Express (Steven Spielberg, 1974), but the destination equally resonates with British comedy’s variety circuit origins. Overall, the film continues the function of the Partridge persona who, unlike a creation such as Alf Garnett, not only develops over time (though significantly behind enlightened society), but whose cumulative ‘shifts comprise a rolling satire of the UK media landscape at a time of seismic change’ (Walters, 2013, p.  40). With a contemporary edge, the prime threat here emanates less from distraught Pat than Gordale Media’s callous new MD Jason Tresswell (Nigel Lindsay), tempting Alan in extremis with his own breakfast show and ‘a glamorous assistant with big tits’. Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa ultimately shows local DJs not as figures of ridicule, but ‘doing radio for the love of radio’ and purveyors of an appreciated service to their local community, a service threatened by multinationals and their ‘corporate mercenaries’ who seek only bland homogenised assets for their shareholders. Alan Partridge embodies this late pro-local/community revelation as the small-screen aesthetic marries to a big-screen narrative redemptive arc. While this offers a topical media context, there is also a more nostalgic, Ealingesque touch to pitching a (deeply) flawed character against the corporate machine. Alan is instantly recognisable: a man lacking a social filter (he is happy to share with police details of his ‘very aggressive athlete’s foot’), but forgivably naïve. There is a Bean-like mix of slapstick incompetence and self-preserving guile as he becomes ‘all puffed-up like a robin’ when given the chance to hog national headlines: ‘I’m trying to host a siege’, he declaims to his new audience on the station steps, ever-driven by showbiz self-importance. Nonetheless, Alan’s reinvention as an accidental hero is ultimately confirmed through rare flashes of self-awareness and—to employ his own descriptors—‘Siege Face’ becomes (closer to) ‘Christ 2.0’

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by finally rejecting Tresswell’s Darwinian exhortations. Unlike with the circularity of the television sitcom format, the film version attains a resolution that allows for a fresh and character-­enriching ‘situation’ to be established. Reaching further back into the sitcom archives was the genre’s second adaptation of Dad’s Army (Oliver Parker, February 2016). With terrestrial television repeats of the original 1968–1977 sitcom gaining viewing figures of over 3 million in the 2010s, there was incontrovertible evidence of an enduring affection and ‘brand awareness’—especially ripe for ancillary revenues with a target demographic still purchasing DVD/Blu-ray releases. A reboot rather than a ‘remake’, this spinoff iteration, produced by DJ Films and scripted by Hamish McColl, takes place in 1944, after the events of the television sitcom. A top-draw British cast featured Toby Young as a less mean and more slapstick Captain Mainwaring, Bill Nighy as urbane if less diffident Sergeant Wilson, Blake Harrison trading Neil in The Inbetweeners for another ‘stupid boy’, Private Pike, Michael Gambon perfectly playing the befuddled Private Godfrey, Bill Paterson assuming the lugubrious Private Frazer, Daniel Mays as spivvy Private Walker, and Tom Courtney as a rather muted Lance-Corporal Jones. In links back to the original, Frank Williams reprised his role as the Vicar, while Ian Lavender, formerly Pike, made a cameo as Brigadier Pritchard. Props too were fastidious: Jones’ original butcher’s van (dropped in 1971) was back on screen, borrowed from the Dad’s Army Museum in Thetford, Norfolk. Filming, on location around East Yorkshire, took place over October and November 2014, with distribution handled by Universal. The film begins with Walmington-on-Sea’s Home Guard ordered to protect the Allied invasion base at Dover. Glamorous journalist Rose Winter (Catherine Zeta-Jones) arrives to write a profile for The Lady magazine, but is actually ‘Agent Cobra’, the German spy that MI5 are seeking for sending back vital D-Day information. Mainwaring is demoted when a clifftop rescue of Jones reveals the Dover army base to be a fake. Rose, playing with the platoon’s affections, convinces Mainwaring that Wilson is the spy, but her cover is exposed. A U-boat surfaces to pick up Rose and the captured Mainwaring, misidentified as Winston Churchill. Wilson and the platoon help thwart the escape and rescue Mainwaring who, reinstated, leads the Home Guard through a town parade. Box office returns for Dad’s Army were a healthy £10.8 / $12.8 million, mostly from UK cinemas (Australasia pulled in $500k), and in spite of predominantly negative reviews. The spinoff film was championed by Sean O’Grady who (surprisingly) declared it superior to the source sitcom,

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noting that ‘all the elements that made the original so clever, durable and lovable are turned up for parade, present and correct: the wit, the subtle satires on our still mostly intact class system, and the knockabout (in just the right proportion)’ (Independent, 27 January 2016). Peter Bradshaw was more indicative in finding ‘something inescapably creaky about this strangest of sitcom revivals’: he concluded that ‘it’s hard to escape the sinking feeling that this is a waste of talent—that this is a good natured, well-meaning but pointless kind of Brit comedy ancestor worship, paying elaborate homage to a TV show that got it right the first time’ (Guardian, 27 January 2016). Nick de Semlyen found the new plotline ‘moderately entertaining bunkum’, while ‘as a whole it’s an inessential oddity—amiable enough but also over-reverential’, and an example of ‘karaoke filmmaking, trading on nostalgia rather than breaking new territory’ (Empire, 320, February 2016). Henry Fitzherbert suggested ‘the filmmakers should have done what most big screen adaptations of TV shows do and sent the Home Guard on holiday. Dad’s Army in Ibiza. At least it would have had an identity of its own’ (Daily Express, 8 February 2016). Least impressed, Nigel Andrews irately asked ‘what were they thinking?’ of a spinoff ‘bloody awful from start to finish’ (Financial Times, 5 February 2016).8 The ‘politics of nostalgia’ that Jeffrey Richards saw as essential to the television Dad’s Army (1997, p.  352) are here twice accentuated (and monetised) in a cosy / complacent pastiche, pining both for the plucky wartime spirit that crossed class divides and for the 1970s sitcom that cemented this ‘mythic’ image of home front gallantry. Fitting with Penelope Houston’s ‘Golden Age’ hypothesis that the genre principally succeeded by catering to a ‘large, generally ageing audience’ (New Statesman, 18 August 1972), the film seeks to find its place as an amiable antidote to the ‘dark comedy’ and ‘clunge’ jokes currently on trend, with plentiful slapstick and benign innuendo limited to referencing ‘roly-poly pudding’ at the kitchen table and ‘you just slipped her a sausage’ in a ration queue. The expected catchphrases are shoehorned in, scenes from the sitcom reappear such as sagging bedsprings indicating that Mainwaring’s wife has occupied the upper bunk, while the whole plot, though post-­ dated, borrows heavily from 1970’s ‘Mum’s Army’ (series 4, episode 9), where Mainwaring is rumoured to be falling for a female recruit to the platoon. Old England may remain comfortingly resistant to invasion but, alas, the original’s nuance and ambiguity are mostly extinguished: Frazer’s repulsion of the Germans reworks the kilt-lifting ploy from Carry On Up

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the Khyber (Gerald Thomas, 1968); Mark Gatiss is a caricatured buffoon as Colonel Theakes, while Pike is confirmed as ‘uncle’ Arthur’s illegitimate son. Most injuriously, the interpersonal dynamics of the sitcom are lost, especially the underlying largely unarticulated class tensions between (less bumptious) Mainwaring and (we now learn, former Oxford don) Wilson. More positively, the film does indicate the cultural importance of cinema on the British public, especially in wartime. Godfrey selects his camouflage after viewing South of Pago Pago (Alfred E. Green, 1940), while Pike recommends a heroic but menacing pose, like Errol Flynn in The Sea Hawk (Michael Curtiz, 1940), and repeatedly quotes Humphrey Bogart from Casablanca (Curtiz, 1942). Meantime, his girlfriend Vera Shilton (Holli Dempsey) wants them to see Lifeboat (Alfred Hitchcock, 1944) at the Eastgate, and in the midst of the final beach shoot-out platoon members recall Ronald Colman and A Tale of Two Cities (Jack Conway, 1935). Above all, the film also provides a degree of gender realignment. The Mata Hari plot motor may be laboured and generate a scene of feeble farce when Rose is simultaneously visited by several admirers, but it facilitates an overall scenario where it is the male characters whose vanity is piqued and judgment confused by the attentions of a Chanel-suited beauty (Fig. 6.2). There is also a first appearance for Mrs Mainwaring (Felicity Montagu) doing her bit for the cause, while Pike’s mother Mavis (Sarah Lancashire) and Jones’ admirer Mrs Fox (Alison Steadman) are given fuller agency. Also, while the men swoon and strut, Rose is eventually unmasked by Godfrey’s sisters Cissy (Annette Crosbie) and Dolly (Julia Foster) and their judicious telephone enquiries. Ultimately, it is Elizabeth Mainwaring and her Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) team that provide the decisive back-up for the Home Guard fighting on the beach. Moving its female characters centre-stage and depicting their war-work is the saving grace for Dad’s Army 2.0. Another belated spinoff soon followed with Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (Mandie Fletcher, June 2016). The source sitcom, Absolutely Fabulous aka Ab Fab (BBC, 5 series, 34 episodes + 3 specials, November 1992–November 1996; August 2001–December 2004), was written by and starred Jennifer Saunders, and grew out of the sketch ‘Modern Mother and Daughter’ that featured in series 3 of the comedy series French and Saunders (BBC, 6 series, 48 episodes, 1987–2017). Ab Fab featured self-­ centred PR executive Edina ‘Eddy’ Monsoon (Saunders) and her magazine-­editing BFF Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley), both ostensibly successful middle-aged career women on the London fashion scene, but in

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Fig. 6.2  Dad’s Army—The Write Stuff

essence heavy-drinking recreational drug abusers desperately trying to stay in touch with the latest trends. The inevitable crises of these unruly women were usually resolved by Edina’s sensible if stern daughter Saffron  aka Saffy (Julia Sawalha), a clean-living student and aspiring writer. Also in regular attendance were Edina’s scatter-brained PA Bubble (Jane Horrocks), and argumentative Mother (June Whitfield), plus, in later series, an increased reliance of celebrity cameos. Recipient of four BAFTAs including 1993’s Best Comedy, plus a 1994 Emmy, the show was pioneering in raising the profile of female-centred comedy in Britain, and alongside its female address drew a cult gay following.9 Above all, it corrected the longstanding disparity noted by Frances Gray that ‘No female character in a British sitcom has yet been given the dramatic licence of a Hancock or an Old Steptoe to be rude, disruptive, dirty or aggressive’ (1994, p. 110).10 Reports of a spinoff film began in 2011, largely concurrent with the appearance of two twentieth-anniversary sitcom specials (December 2011 and July 2012).11 Having secured a production deal with BBC Films and DJ Films, a script from Saunders, and the signing up of all original cast members (plus a 60-strong cameo listing that included Harry Styles, Stella

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McCartney, and Kim Kardashian), principal photography began in the South of France in October 2015 and was completed in London by the start of December. Granted a 15 certificate, the film premiered (without preview screenings) at London’s Odeon Leicester Square: its subsequent international release included limited US exhibition. The film shows how Edina (Saunders), now in her 60s and her business failing, attends a London party in the hope of signing up Kate Moss (herself), but instead accidently knocks the supermodel over the balcony into the Thames: no body is recovered. After police questioning, Edina looks for Kate, sending into the river her PA Bubble (Horrocks)—who also disappears. Now a tabloid pariah, Edina flees to Cannes with her friend Patsy (Lumley), and burgeoningly hip 13-year-old granddaughter Lola (Indeyarna Donaldson-Holness). In search of finance, Patsy poses as a man and weds a rich elderly baroness. All live the high-life at the Hotel du Cap but the police catch up with them. Bubble re-emerges and informs them that Moss is alive and well. At the insistence of Edina’s daughter Saffy (Sawalha), Patsy confesses she is a woman; the baroness reveals she is a man. Back in London, Kate Moss signs with Edina’s agency which restores its fortunes. The film performed well, taking £16 / $19.5 million at the UK box office, $4.7 million in America and a £32.4 / $39.2 million worldwide gross, with strong returns from Australia ($6.2 million) and the featured France ($4.8 million). Reviews were, overall, less positive. Many praised the effervescent performances of Saunders and especially Lumley: Henry Fitzherbert thought that, ‘Made with heart and affection, it really is a welcome return for these much-loved characters and a merrily mad swansong that will leave you smiling’ (Daily Express, 4 July 2016), and Helen O’Hara concluded that ‘It’s scatty, scrappy and thoroughly OTT, but then that’s like the characters themselves … Edina and Patsy are classics’ (Empire, 325, July 2016). Matthew Bond, though, exemplified the majority response as he bemoaned a ‘confused celebrity-laden chaos weighed down by too many cameo appearances and not enough story to sustain a full feature’ (Mail on Sunday, 22 October 2017). Wendy Ide was also unimpressed by a ‘painfully stretched’ effort: ‘The film, like its subjects, is chaotic, frequently lazy and unhealthily obsessed with celebrity’ (Observer, 3 July 2016). Nor did America find it fab: Anthony Lane noted that ‘To transform a TV series into a film is to surround yourself with pitfalls, and Absolutely Fabulous, sad to report, nosedives into every one of them’ (New Yorker, 25 July 2016).

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When Lola asks Edina why Patsy stays with her, the incredulous reply ‘Because it’s bloody good fun!’ offers a hostage to fortune. The leads provide a steady supply of Bollinger-fuelled pratfalls and one-liners, and Rebecca Hale provides suitably outlandish costume designs, but three credited editors betray the absence of any coherent narrative structure. Character, though, is consistent (in its unreliability). In essence, the film picks up where the sitcom had left off in 2004—which is the point: Edina and Patsy remain arrested in development, 60-somethings unaltered since the Swinging Sixties, still drinking, still falling over, still trying desperately to stay on trend. They are struggling to grasp that in a world of Twitter and Instagram, people can perform their own PR—Edina’s client list has shrunk to Lulu, Baby Spice, and a ‘boutique vodka’, while her celebrity memoirs have been unceremoniously rejected. The opening out from the sitcom’s domestic focus is a near-ubiquitous spinoff film strategy, (and indicated from the off when the pair gatecrash (and try to twerk at) a Giles Deacon show during London Fashion Week), but at least here the Côte d’Azur is a credible choice for fashionistas defiantly living in the past— complete with Peter Sarstedt’s faux-foreign 1969 hit ‘Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)’ on the soundtrack. If the original sitcom’s feckless duo had skewered the evanescent importance and personalities of Cool Britannia, Edina’s nascent and elegiac realisation that ‘there was a time the zeitgeist blew through me’ could be countered by noting how the show’s spinoff film appeared just after Britain had voted in the 23 June 2016 Brexit referendum: (Patsy by contrast remains devoid of an iota of self-­awareness or empathy). In British cinema’s first post-Brexit release, Edina now becomes serendipitously metonymic of a country vacillating over its identity. Again indicative of the nation state, any inner doubts are swiftly defeated and she remains publicly domineering with an inflated concept of her importance; meanwhile everyone, at glitzy parties and in Europe, tries their best to avoid her company. Politics aside, the spinoff film displays a brashness in keeping with its leads by flaunting the brand’s cultural capital via the quantity (if not quality) of its cameo appearances. Like its source text, though, the film here has its ideological cake and eats it. The national mourning for Kate Moss may expose Britain’s celebrity-obsessed media, but any trenchant satire on the vacuity of guest-appearing ‘real’ supermodels and designers is deflected by ensuring fictional constructs Edina and Patsy are the butt of all cruel industry jokes. The spinoff especially delights in and showcases the

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‘A’-lister lifestyle—hence, no doubt, the celebrity queues to make their stilted contributions which, as in the concurrent Zoolander 2 (Ben Stiller, 2006), prove so anathema to comedy. The film also (more to its credit) shows little diffidence in its recourse to intertextuality, notably with Patsy’s gold-digging marriage offering an inverted if undeveloped play on Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959). In similar vein, Kylie Minogue’s new take of the Bob Dylan-Rick Danko ‘Wheels on Fire’ theme song, and Saffy singing Janis Ian’s ‘At Seventeen’ to a pub filled with drag queens further deliver to the brand’s loyal LGBTQ+ fanbase. Above all, though, the film remains refreshingly true to the sitcom’s core strength in eschewing any male significance: Mark Gatiss appears briefly as bullying publisher Joel, and Robert Webb plays Saffy’s insipid copper boyfriend Nick, but this remains resolutely an exploration of women behaving badly, now with unabashed morning Botox top-ups.

6.3  Meta-Cycles: The Mockumentary Sitcom Spinoff Film The 2000s saw the television sitcom undergo major formal rejuvenation by adopting the characteristics of documentary practices. This humorous, fake-documentary or ‘mockumentary’ approach, defined by Richard Wallace as ‘those fictional media texts which make it their job to imitate the aesthetics and stylistic conventions of documentary and other forms of factual media for comic ends’ (2018, p. 3), may have flourished in the new millennium, but it grew out of the prolonged investigations by television of its own factual programming that had created precedents for hybridised modes of representation. For instance, BBC’s ‘Wednesday Play’ strand (1964–1970) had featured important docu-dramas, such as the Ken Loachdirected Up the Junction (1965) and Cathy Come Home (1966), while false chat shows, spoof news items, and fake documentary reports regularly featured in Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Film too had increased its use of fake-documentary aesthetics, especially in the comic mode (cf. This Is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984) and Best in Show (Christopher Guest, 2000)), resulting in the form becoming, across both small- and largescreen media, ‘an accepted part of the mainstream’ (Hight, 2010, p. 1). The first transition to cinema of a British sitcom made in this mockumentary style was the political satire In the Loop (Armando Iannucci, April 2009), a spinoff from The Thick of It (BBC, 4 series, 23 episodes, May

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2005–October 2012). This dark sitcom, created by Iannucci, satirised the unscrupulous backstage machinations of Britain’s contemporary political system. Focusing on the fictitious Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship, its succession of appointed ministers were invariably incompetent, out of touch with public views, and out of their depth when faced with the government’s foul-mouthed enforcer Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi).12 Though the government was never named, it was clearly based on Britain’s New Labour government (1997–2010) with its media-savvy culture of spin, while Tucker was patterned on the Labour party’s Director of Communications Alastair Campbell (Wallace, 2018, pp. 134–149). The ‘fly-on-the-wall’ filming style, establishing what John Caughie has termed the ‘documentary gaze’ (2000, pp. 110–112), was created by using hand-­ held cameras throughout, encouraging actors to improvise around the script, and eschewing incidental music or a laughter track. The sitcom’s move from BBC4 to the more mainstream BBC2 indicated its growing success, matched by multiple awards including BAFTAs for Best Situation Comedy in 2006 (and again in 2010), critical praise from the UK media, and later positive academic analysis (Pankratz, 2016; Walters, 2016). Its impact was fulsome, Anette Pankratz noting how ‘The series provides a frame for interpreting and perceiving politics, it influences how viewing voters think about government and it serves as reference point for how the practitioners of politics perceive themselves’ (2016, p. 288).13 After the second series, a spinoff film was agreed between BBC Films and the UK Film Council, with a minimal budget of just over £600,000— Iannucci refused fuller US funding to ensure he retained overall control. The script, from the sitcom’s regular writers Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Iannucci and Tony Roche,14 satirised the behind-closed-doors machinations in the lead-up to the US-UK invasion of Iraq in March 2003 (thus revisiting events that triggered Labour’s post-Iraq war attack on the BBC, the catalyst for Iannucci devising the sitcom). Nonetheless, a distance was sought from the television version by creating new (though very similar) characters for The Thick of It actors to play: only Malcolm Tucker, and fiery Senior Press Officer Jamie McDonald (Paul Higgins), remained same-named in key roles.15 Amongst the completely fresh characters, top billing for James Gandolfini as a US Senior Military Assistant revealed the explicit targeting of American audiences. Filming, which aped the sitcom’s structured improvisation and handheld docu-style camerawork (for instance, panning from face-to-face rather than cutting), concluded with a week in Washington D.C. and New  York, but mostly took place on

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location in London (Swakeleys House in Hillingdon doubled up as 10 Downing Street and the Foreign Office, and the Royal Festival Hall stood in for the United Nations in New  York City) between May and July 2008—before the shooting of the The Thick of It’s third season (which aired in autumn 2009). Four months in the editing suite reduced a 4.5 hour first cut to 105 minutes which, featuring 135 uses of ‘fuck’ (86 by Tucker), was awarded a 15 certificate by the BBFC. The spinoff film premiered in January 2009 at the Sundance Festival before its April UK release.16 American distribution, through IFC Films, began in July 2009. The film follows the (mis)fortunes of Simon Foster MP  (Tom Hollander), Britain’s Minister for International Development who, after an inadvertent interview comment on ‘unforeseeable’ overseas conflict, is invited to Washington and becomes a pawn used by factions in the US and UK governments looking to promote or prevent a war in the Middle East. On the UK side, he is manipulated by the PM’s Director of Communications Malcolm Tucker (Capaldi); in the States, he is pulled between rival Assistant Secretaries of State, Policy’s hawkish (Donald Rumsfeld-like) Linton Barwick (David Rasche) and Diplomacy’s peace-seeking Karen Clark (Mimi Kennedy)—the latter aided by Pentagon bigwig Lieutenant General George Miller (Gandolfini). Amidst this global realpolitik, back in his Northampton constituency, Foster is lobbied by unhinged local resident Paul Michaelson (Steve Coogan) over the threat of the MP’s office wall collapsing into his mother’s garden. When a leaked document threatens the pro-war vote, Tucker re-edits a report to British intelligence, removing all arguments against intervention and thereby convincing the UN Security Council. Before Foster can resign in protest, Tucker sacks him over the collapsed constituency wall. In the Loop was a commercial and critical success both at home and abroad. It took £2.2 / $3.5 million in the UK, an impressive $2.4 million in the States, and a worldwide gross of £5 / $7.8 million. It gained a 2009 Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, and won the reviewers’ vote. It also received extensive press coverage. In rare praise for a British sitcom spinoff film, Wendy Ide commended how ‘The satire of In the Loop steams and fizzes like concentrated sulphuric acid. It is blisteringly offensive. Armando Iannucci’s debut feature film is the kind of movie that makes you proud to be British’ (Times, 17 April 2009). Allan Hunter felt that ‘The savage comedy of In the Loop is enough to justify hailing it as a triumph. What takes it to a different level is the way that Iannucci and a great team of writers ultimately manage to make the smile freeze on your

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face. When you stop to acknowledge that we have allowed the fate of the world to be determined by scared, spineless schoolboys then In the Loop is no laughing matter. A great British comedy’ (Daily Express, 17 April 2009). David Calhoun admired the transfer: ‘Cover your eyes: is this another well-loved sitcom dying an embarrassing death on the big screen? Far from it—Armando Iannucci has turned his satirical series The Thick of It into a film that sparkles with the same filthy humour, spoken by the same morally empty vessels in the same mundane corridors of power that marked the brilliant TV version’ (Time Out, 17 April 2009). In similar vein, for Larushka Ivan-Zadeh ‘it’s an extra remarkable triumph that The Thick of It … explodes on to the big screen without sacrificing a jot of its blistering, hand-held, outrageously well-scripted glory’ (Metro, 17 April 2009). There were occasional dissenters, ranging across the press’s political spectrum. For David Edwards ‘The subjects of Iannucci’s ire aren’t exactly hard targets while the movie has so much fun shooting those barrel-­bound fish, it forgets to bring anything terribly revealing to the table’ (Daily Mirror, 17 April 2009). Sukhdev Sandhu baulked at ‘a rather cliquey, boys’ locker-room form of humour that radiates little warmth or generosity’ and found the film ‘fatally flawed’ by ultimately ‘colluding in our cynicism about politicians rather than challenging it’ (Daily Telegraph, 17 April 2009).17 In America, Joanne Kaufman was also unconvinced by ‘a confusingly plotted satire … that starts off at such a frantic pace and at so high a pitch that it really doesn’t have anywhere to go’ (Wall Street Journal, 24 July 2009). Most US critics, though, were enamoured. Melissa Anderson noted that, ‘Though hilarious, In the Loop is also a horror movie, its lacerating satire constantly reminding us of the all-too-real consequences of distorted, manipulated, and vitiated language’ (Village Voice, 21 July 2009). For Moira MacDonald ‘Political satire is a rare bird at the cinema, so fans of the genre should watch and savor In the Loop—a rapid-­ fire, profane celebration of the art (and artlessness) of spin’ (Seattle Times, 30 July 2009). A.O. Scott praised how ‘While In the Loop is a highly disciplined inquiry into a very serious subject, it is also, line by filthy line, scene by chaotic scene, by far the funniest big-screen satire in recent memory’ (New York Times, 24 July 2009).18 In the Loop is indeed rare. Unlike British cinema’s comic tradition of treating the nation’s politicians and civil servants with mild mockery or as ultimately harmless buffoons (cf. Ealing’s back catalogue or British Lion’s Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (Roy Boulting, Jeffrey Dell, 1959)), here there is a deep loathing of the species’ vanity and venality, at home and abroad.

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Where Whoops Apocalypse could not bear the comparison, In the Loop can be cogently termed Kubrick-like in showing a cadre of dangerous incompetents who have learned to stop worrying and love the spin. The new title—taken from George Bush Snr’s infamous claim that, as a mere Vice-­ President in the 1980s, he was ‘out of the loop’ on the US administration’s secret Iran-Contra funding (Meacham, 2015, pp. 299–305)—here denotes the self-serving knowledge-as-power dynamic of the higher political sphere (and, by contrast, the likes of Simon Foster on the outside desperately wanting to know, to be let in).19 The new title could also reference the noose into which these people are placing the world’s neck. A (dis)honorary late member of the ‘apocalyptic spinoff’ cycle, the budget for In the Loop, though small, allows an increase in scope and scale from the television sitcom, and its opening out to include America here has a narrative validity. Furthermore, the US additions integrate effectively with the standards established by the original cast: Kennedy is faultlessly deadpan, while Gandolfini’s General offers a rare moral compass as a soldier who has been there and is seeing the horror yet again being blithely engineered for political career advancement. Meanwhile, the employment of the sitcom’s actors to play new but similar characters becomes a feature of Britain’s new political class, ‘interchangeable and, ironically, somewhat faceless’, as James Walters noted (2016, p. 96). Foster’s new special advisor Toby Wright (Chris Addison reworking the sitcom’s self-centred and slippery Ollie Reader) is wrongly identified by the department’s Director of Communications Judy Molloy (Gina McKee) as ‘Dan’: she excuses her mistake by acknowledging that ‘You guys are often called Dan, so it’s worth a punt’. The punt is justified when, at the end of the film, Toby is sacked and replaced by a new advisor, indeed called Dan (and played by Will Smith, Ollie’s nemesis Phil Smith in The Thick of It). If (deliberately) visually unpolished, In the Loop sparkles for the relentless verbal wit of its script, consummately delivered by talented actors. The political context may revisit recent history—Peter Bradshaw hailed the film as ‘the first really satisfying, really fearless dramatic assault on the scandal of Iraq’ (Guardian, 17 April 2009)—but the omnipresent double-­ speak strikes as enduringly  Orwellian: the War Committee is called the ‘Future Planning committee’; a dossier refuting war is called the PWIP-­ PIP (even officials cannot recall what the initials stand for), then is ‘sexed up’ with ‘false intel’ and remoulded to explain why war must be declared; Barwick justifies bureaucratic redaction, advocating that committee

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meeting minutes ‘should not be a reductive record of what happened to have been said; they should be more a full record of what was intended to be said’. The intensification of this doublespeak/disinformation is encapsulated in a climactic—and prophetic—exchange when Tucker (who has already informed Foster of the ‘official line’ that war is ‘neither foreseeable nor unforeseeable’) instructs the hapless minister that the PM has demanded his resignation: ‘Whether it happened or not is irrelevant’, Tucker hisses. ‘It is true’. Fast forward to the 2016 US presidential elections, rampant fake news, and the age of post-truth politics. As in the source text, acid-tongued government enforcer Malcolm Tucker is the film’s lynchpin—Philip French compared his character’s diegetic dominance to Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part (Observer, 19 April 2009)—and no concessions are made to toning down his incessant profanities for a transatlantic audience. In film format, and an environment where even cultural references are weaponised, the spin-king’s caustic cine-literacy comes to the fore: when Foster compounds his first faux pas by stammering that Britain could in theory ‘climb the mountain of conflict’, an apoplectic Tucker alludes to The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965) when comparing him to a ‘Nazi Julie Andrews’; more straightforwardly, he addresses Toby Wright as ‘the baby from Eraserhead [David Lynch, 1977]’ and Judy Molloy as ‘the woman from The Crying Game’ [Neil Jordan, 1992]’. However, perhaps sensing a palling after an hour-plus of single-sourced invective, the bollockings are eventually passed over to Tucker’s similarly savage (and cinema-savvy) Scottish deputy McDonald—who immediately tells Toby to ‘Shut it, Love Actually [Richard Curtis, 2003]’.20 Against Capaldi’s tour de force performance, Tom Hollander provides an amiably bumbling minister, satire’s standard innocent plunged into a world he does not understand (cf. Ian Carmichael’s habitual portrayals). However, cowering and callow, arguably (as with the source sitcom after Chris Langham’s series 2 departure) he fails to provide Tucker with an object worthy of his contempt (Fig.  6.3). There is, though, an effective reverse parallel with Voltaire’s satirical novella Candide (1759) in Foster’s downfall, the ingenu trying (mostly) to do the right thing, but enmeshed in others’ grand schemes and neglecting (literally) to look after his garden. Alongside such Enlightenment linkages, this subplot (as with Iannucci’s later Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa) also adds a very British bathos to the comedy. The shift to cinema allows for a similarly undermining mise-en-scène. The claustrophobic (and cheap) small-scale settings for the sitcom, where

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Fig. 6.3  In the Loop—Ministry of Offence

people talked (or just swore) in a room, added to the bathos, with the jerky camera movements exposing the poky, perfunctory, and personal nature of what passed for important political decision-making. The film, in spinoff mode, mostly opens this out, yet succeeds in retaining the diminishment: the sense of unwanted eavesdropping has largely gone, superseded by a cadre of Whitehall and Washington’s corridors of power, but these drab-looking thoroughfares now serve to dwarf the free world’s self-­ important prime movers that scurry frantically along them. Both decors are employed to illustrate the dynamic of the much-vaunted (from the British perspective) UK-US ‘special relationship’. For instance, when Foster, back in his Northampton office and faced with an irate Michaelson, is telephoned by Karen, he takes the call in an adjoining room. On explaining that his constituent’s still-audible ranting is ‘departmental business: it’s about a wall’, Karen’s honest question ‘Gaza?’ is crushing for Foster, who meekly and mendaciously affirms. The difference in ministerial expectation is underlined by the respective settings: Foster standing in a church-­ hall annexe surrounded by stacked plastic chairs, while Karen sits at her desk in a large, well-furnished departmental office. Narrative works to the same effect. When Foster is invited to D.C. with his advisor Toby Wright, they follow their counterparts Clark and her advisor Liza Weld (Anna Chlumsky) because they have no idea where the

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designated meeting is taking place—only to find the women are on their way to the toilet. This scene reveals both the heart of the film, politicians’ desperate craving not for the common good but their personal status, to be ‘in the loop’, and it again enacts the true nature of this so-called ‘special relationship’: wherever the US goes, Britain blindly follows. Thus, the film implies, did the Tony Blair government act in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion. However, much as the source text blurs exact equivalence while making characters and events eminently readable, the film refrains from precise signposting. Except at one point, where the obfuscation slips: when Tucker warns Foster he will ‘hound you to an assisted suicide’, the resonance with the fate of David Kelly—the weapons expert who took his own life in July 2003 when named as a source in media claims the government ‘sexed up’ the case for war in Iraq (Lewis, 2013)—brings a jolt of horrifying specificity to proceedings. More than anything in the overblown Whoops Apocalypse, here democracy lies bleeding. Its political content and mockumentary format led In the Loop, like its source text, to be pitched as Yes Minister (BBC, 3 series, 21 episodes + 2 specials, 1980–1984) meets The Office (BBC, 2 series, 14 episodes, July 2001–November 2002 + 2 Christmas specials, 2003). The latter Blair-era British sitcom, created, written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, was a pioneering mockumentary which, while again employing a workplace setting to explore character failure and misunderstanding, eschewed the traditional sitcom’s arsenal of farcical set-ups and smart one-­ liners to ape the recent schedule-filling practices of reality shows as a (never-seen and rarely referenced) TV crew followed the mundane activities of office employees at the Slough Trading Estate branch of the fictional Wernham Hogg paper merchants company. Gervais also played the sitcom’s lead, office general manager David Brent who, with his already-­ limited authority diminishing, uses the cameras’ fly-on-the-wall presence to promote himself as a would-be ‘chilled-out entertainer’, but whose self-­ serving posturing and desperate need to prove himself as caring, witty, and talented strongly advanced the notion of cringe comedy, generating an awkward viewing experience based on wide ‘differentials in perception and affect amongst filmmaker, subject, and spectator’ (Middleton, 2014, p. 26). A slow-burner, this ‘anti-sitcom’ grew from negligible BBC2 viewing figures to gain critical and industry acclaim, winning four Best Comedy BAFTAs in 2001–2003, a 2003 Montreux Silver Rose, and 2004’s Golden Globe for Best Television series: Musical or Comedy (Gervais himself won a 2004 Golden Globe and three BAFTAs for Best Comedy Performance

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in 2002–2004). The show also became a hugely successful international export playing in over 60 countries, and a fruitful sitcom franchise with several national remakes including America’s Emmy Award-winning The Office (NBC, 9 series, 201 episodes, 2005–2013) starring Steve Carell as Brent’s counterpart, Michael Scott. It has since drawn concerted academic analysis (Walters, 2005; Jacobi, 2016) and is now revered as a seminal entry in British sitcom history, exemplifying the genre-rejuvenating ‘comedy verite’ hybridisation that meta-interrogates ‘the processes and representations of media forms’ (Mills, 2004, p. 65). However, no concurrent film spinoff was drafted, largely a result of the sitcom’s niche popular appeal and all parties swiftly moving onto new projects. Gervais, though, continued to mine socially awkward and needy character types (e.g. failed actor Andy Millman in Extras (BBC, 2 series, 12 episodes + 1 special, 2005–2007)), and plans for a David Brent film finally coalesced in 2013, building off Gervais’ recent ‘Learn Guitar with David Brent’ YouTube series, and the general sitcom spinoff film genre revival in the 2010s.21 With its estimated £10 million budget co-financed by Entertainment One and BBC Films, David Brent: Life on the Road (Gervais, August 2016), written and directed by Gervais (without Merchant), was filmed across November and December 2015 in London, Watford, and Slough. His Brent character was the sole survivor from The Office, but a fresh and strong (if underwritten) support cast was joined by a band put together by ex-Razorlight drummer Andy Burrows. After its UK and Commonwealth release, the film received wider international distribution through Netflix, including US streaming from February 2017.22 The film, and (again unseen) diegetic documentary camera crew, catch up with David Brent (Gervais) 13 years after his ‘documentary’ appearances in The Office. He is now 55, single, and an unhappy sales rep for sanitary and hygiene product supply firm Lavichem, still based in Slough and still largely unpopular with his co-workers, though he is liked by Pauline from accounts (Jo Hartley) and office prankster Nigel (Tom Bennett). Clinging to his dream of music stardom, Brent takes unpaid leave, cashes in his various pensions and subsidises a tour across venues in Berkshire with Foregone Conclusion, a band of hired session musicians, and young rapper Dom Johnson (Ben Bailey Smith aka Doc Brown). The tour is a disaster, with audiences tiny to non-existent, while Brent’s bandmates avoid his company (unless he pays them £25 per hour), and refuse even to ride in the same bus (Brent has to follow in his Vauxhall Insignia). When a record company rep finally attends a concert, Dom is the one

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signed up. After a final concert, the band join up with Peter Andre (himself), while Brent returns to Lavichem where Pauline asks him out for a coffee. David Brent: Life on the Road disappointed at the box office, its £3.9 / $5.2 million gross (£3.3 / $4.5 million in the UK, $500k in Australia) recouping less than half its production outlay. Critically, the film had its advocates. Jamie East applauded ‘96 minutes of belly laughs, gasps of horror, awkward adjustment of buttocks and lumps in the throat. It’s very, very good indeed’ (Sun, 19 August 2016). For Matthew Bond ‘Gervais slips effortlessly—and convincingly—back into the role that made him famous and delivers a film that is laugh-out-loud funny at times but also manages to be poignant and, eventually, even unexpectedly uplifting too’ (Daily Mail, 22 August 2016). Most, though, questioned the point of the exercise. David Sexton pointed out how ‘funny though some of this may be, it lacks edge: these are old targets, relics, not contemporary observation’, while ‘Brent just is not likeable enough in the end’ (Evening Standard, 19 August 2016). For Deborah Ross ‘it’s a repetitive rehash rather than a worthwhile continuation of the character, and the comedy and pathos is in exactly the same place as it always was’ (Spectator, 18 August 2016), while Brian Viner found the film ‘a slowly-unfolding disappointment. Comic characters conceived for TV very often misfire in the cinema, but there’s an even more worrying development here as the line between Gervais and his embarrassing alter ego, Brent, becomes blurred’ (Daily Mail, 11 August 2016). Henry Barnes thought ‘There were braver things that Gervais could have done with the character. The bravest being leaving him where he was’ (Guardian, 11 August 2016). David Brent: Life on the Road could equally be categorised as a legacy spinoff film, but it is examined here as it retains the defining ‘comedy verite’ format with its faux-documentary filming style—though this premise loses credibility when the multiple-angle shooting fails to reveal other cameras. The film also retains other features of the original sitcom. These include the initial office setting, with Nigel a replacement acolyte for Gareth Keenan (Mackenzie Crook), and kindly receptionist Karen Parashar a callback to Wernham Hogg’s Dawn Tinsley (Lucy Davis)—though without the emotional core of the on-off office romance Dawn enjoyed with Tim Canterbury (future Hitchhiker’s Guide lead Martin Freeman). Above all there is Brent himself, still oblivious to his own obnoxious behaviour, still offering his high-pitched laugh (over 90 times in the film) and smug yet unconvincing snaggle-toothed grin, still thinking of himself (in Rupert

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Rigsby or Harold Steptoe mode) as confined but talented, presenting what he now terms the ‘triple threat’ of ‘music, comedy, wisdom’. The lack of the latter is quickly shown when he thinks his leaving Lavichem would occasion an emotional send-off rather than staff indifference,23 while he remains ignorant of the boundaries between ‘banter’ and behaviour that is deeply offensive both racially and sexually and draws a sharp rebuke from HR.24 Although the redeployment of the docusoap aesthetic with diegetic musical content risks (unsustainable) comparisons with This Is Spinal Tap, the hybridisation is not out of step with the source text. In The Office Christmas Specials, it was revealed that Brent, trading on his ‘celebrity’ from the television documentary, had self-financed a cover version plus video of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes’ ‘If You Don’t Know Me By Now’, which flopped. In a one-off Red Nose Day short ‘The Return of Brent’ (BBC1, tx. 15 March 2013), Brent had become a talent manager in the music industry, trying to help young rapper Dom Johnson (Smith again) make his breakthrough. In the spinoff film, Gervais clearly works hard at delivering the musical set-up and numbers, and incontrovertibly the band can play and Gervais can sing. This may add grist to the notion that the film is a vanity project for an actor who had tried in the 1980s to become a music star,25 but the evident talent adds a diegetic poignancy since it shows that Brent’s ambitions are not outlandish fantasy. The (comic) problem is with the music itself, partly the style—defined by Brent as ‘new romantic but modern: A bit Bublé, a bit David Essex’— but predominantly the lyrics. The songs can successfully skewer middleaged concepts of rock hedonism—‘Foot down on the floor / Seventy miles an hour but no more’—but writing about what you know is not an adage Brent follows as he pens excruciating numbers on the plight of the disabled—‘please be kind to those with feeble minds’—and, complete with ‘authentic’ dancing and chanting, the lives of Native Americans, whose ‘scalping thing was only when [they] got real mad’ / ‘Soar like an eagle, sit like a pelican’. The songs’ ludicrous over-earnestness not only exposes Brent’s woefully misguided efforts to adhere to society’s shifts towards inclusion but belies a man bereft of self-worth and instead trying pathetically to project a likable ‘woke’ persona. As Ollie Richards’ review noted, ‘Gervais’s skill isn’t so much in giving a comedy character real emotion, but in making a tragic character so, so funny’ (New Musical Express, 15 August 2016). The musical plotline accentuates this factor.

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Many details of the tour have a skilled bathos. There is Brent’s constant separation from the musicians he hopes will be his future colleagues (Fig. 6.4); on local radio Tadley FM to plug his tour, Brent is introduced by an Alan Partridge-like DJ (Kevin Bishop) who doesn’t know who he is/was, and is persuaded to participate in a lame on-air quiz.26 His wall poster of the open road is undercut by the adjacent ironing-board, (and lyrics such as ‘Then to Gloucester, I get a Costa’). However, the sitcom spinoff film’s habitual expansion (even if here confined to the Thames Valley) also creates particular disadvantages when altering Brent’s situation. In The Office his position as manager meant he could conduct his immature and offensive jokes with impunity: he was ‘punching down’ and much of the humour derived from the captive workforce’s various and necessary strategies to accommodate his social improprieties and personal insecurities. Now, after a Partridge-like interim where he has been sacked, endured a breakdown and battled weight issues, Brent begins the film in a similar office set-up but without power or influence, and then pays a band to tour with him, musicians who show themselves as openly hostile, one even spelling out in an interview section (a format retained from the

Fig. 6.4  David Brent: Life on the Road—Equality Street (Not)

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sitcom) how ‘David is the personification of all our most embarrassing moments’. The spinoff as comedic karma? Brent here becomes not the conduit but the continual (almost mean-spirited) butt of the comedy of discomfort, bullied in the office then bombing on stage in a series of awkward situations that, while often discretely amusing, overall play like a sketch-show compilation with little through-momentum. The nearest Brent comes to finding a comic foil is when he hitches his ‘comeback’ tour to Dom, the rapper Brent sees as his protégé and terms his ‘ebony and ivory urban sidekick’, but who exposes their contrast in ‘star’ quality. Dom (again underused) possesses everything Brent lacks, a self-contained modesty and great rapport with an audience. Dom’s presence also facilitates the casual racism that, alongside his sexism and homophobia, remain key components of the socially tone-deaf Brent persona. When Brent lines up to perform ‘Equality Street’, a virtue-signalling rap about diversity and multiculturalism, Dom begs him (in vain) not to ‘do the accent’; when Dom confirms Brent’s high regard for Luther Vandross, Brent emphasises the point by adding ‘see, from the horse’s mouth’. In the film’s most difficult (deliberately tolerance-testing) scene, a drunk Brent insists that Dom calls him ‘my nigger’: appalled but aware that a deeply confused Brent is basically seeking affirmation of a cross-race friendship, Dom acquiesces. The sitcom spinoff film genre does, though, allow for character development and here (arguably unrealistically) Brent comes to a belated understanding of his singular situation. Professionally, when he learns that their booking at a Students’ Union is part of an ironic ‘shite night’ (’the shittest bits of culture of the last 20 years’), he credibly storms on stage to make deliberately dated jokes about students only getting up in time to watch the mid-afternoon game-show Countdown (Channel 4, 1982–­present). At the interpersonal level, though, when previously antagonistic road manager Dan Harvey (Tom Basden) suddenly and warmly advises him before their final gig that he should not need to go onstage for people to like him, Brent’s reply that people do not like him offstage either shows a new—indeed jarring—moment of self-awareness. This empathy-seeking coda is exacerbated by Brent’s office return and new bonding with Pauline—again aesthetically jarring as the tone shifts from Gervais’ usual achieved pathos into an unearned and deeply sentimental happy ending. The British sitcom spinoff film entered its ninth decade with the release of People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan (Jack Clough, August 2021). The source mockumentary sitcom, People Just Do Nothing (BBC, 5 series, 27

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episodes, July 2014–December 2018), followed the fortunes of Kurupt FM, a pirate radio station broadcasting UK garage music from a flat in Brentford, West London. Strongly influenced by The Office and filmed in documentary fashion with regular interviews straight to camera, the concept began in 2011 as a set of YouTube shorts named ‘Wasteman TV’: popular interest led to The Office producer Ash Attala commissioning an August 2012 BBC3 pilot episode then a full series. The show’s co-creators and long-term friends play the station’s feckless garage ‘crew’, comprising its arrogant founder Anthony Zografos aka MC Grindah (Allan Mustafa), and his right-hand man Kevin Bates aka DJ Beats (Hugo Chegwin), plus their mates, the reserved Decoy (Daniel Sylvester Woolford) and drug-­ addict Steven Green aka DJ Steves (Steve Stamp) from whose grandmother’s flat the station broadcasts, and their (incompetent) entrepreneur manager Chabud Gul aka Chabuddy G (Asim Chaudhry). There are also regular appearances from hairdresser Michelle Louise Coleman aka ‘Miche’ (Lily Brazier), Grindah’s social media-obsessed girlfriend then wife, and Roche (Ruth Bratt), Beat’s security-guard girlfriend, arguably the sitcom’s most perceptive character though prone to bouts of uncontrolled violence. Written by Mustafa and Stamp, People Just Do Nothing was critically lauded, transferred to BBC2 and, though heavily improvised, won 2017’s BAFTA for Best Scripted Comedy.27 The sitcom further showed its multiplatform adaptability with the station crew touring nightclubs as ‘Kurupt FM Live’ and appearing at music festivals including Reading, Leeds and 2017’s Glastonbury, and, though the final season had ended with the lads abandoning their dreams of success and closing the station, the show continued to develop a cult audience and a spinoff film was announced in November 2019. Produced by BBC Film and Roughcut Films, with a script from Mustafa and Stamp, the sixweek shoot, again filmed in documentary fashion and with all main cast intact, began in late November 2020 in Tokyo, Japan and concluded back in England with scenes shot at Pinewood and on location in and around West London. With a fan-friendly 15 certificate, the COVID-19 pandemic then blockbuster competition pushed the theatrical release back a full year to the spinoff genre’s preferred late-summer slot, here August 2021.28 The film begins three years after the final transmission of Kurupt FM. The intellectually challenged garage crew are stuck in dead-end jobs, but all changes when they are informed by Chabuddy G (Chaudhry) that their song ‘Heart Monitor Riddem’ has become a hit on a Japanese popular game show and its producers have invited Grindah (Mustafa), Beats

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(Chegwin), Decoy (Woolford) and Steves (Stamp) on an all-expenses-paid trip to Tokyo to discuss a record deal. In Japan, the crew are assigned a manager, Taka (Ken Yamamura), who sidelines Chabuddy (who, uninvited, has paid his own way over), foregrounds Grindah, and tries to soften the crew’s image via a boyband makeover complete with gelled hair, matching costumes and dance routines. Miche (Brazier) later flies out, much to Grindah’s disappointment. The crew argue over abandoning their roots, leaving Grindah to appear solo and perform poorly on the game show and at a recording session with a J-pop artist. Still alone on the day of their climactic concert at the Toyosu Pit Arena, Grindah flees and finds the crew in a karaoke bar where they make up over a communal rendition of ‘Heart Monitor Riddem’. People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan took £2.3 / $3.2 million (exclusively at the UK box office) and won largely positive reviews. It had champions from both redtops and broadsheets. Dulcie Pearce hailed a spinoff ‘rare beast—a resounding big-screen triumph’ where, with ‘An insanely talented British cast, with incredible writing, non-stop quotable lines and perfect pace, you won’t want to miss this Kuruptingly good comedy’ (Sun, 20 August 2021). Simran Hans broadly agreed, noting that ‘Rarely does a half-hour TV show successfully stretch itself into a 90-minute film. It’s a nice surprise, then, that the popular BBC mockumentary works as a feature’ and, ‘While it’s pretty standard idiots abroad stuff, there’s a sweetness to the characters that stops the comedy from feeling crass’ (Observer, 22 August 2021). Most critics offered more reserved praise. For Steve Rose ‘The result is an amiable if unambitious showbiz satire, somewhere between The Office and Spinal Tap although not as groundbreaking as either’ (Guardian, 13 August 2021); Beth Webb felt that ‘Though it doesn’t stray far beyond fan service, this is a comfortable extension of a beloved British show that delivers a reliable mix of quotable comedy and heart’ (Empire, 391, August 2021). Kevin Maher, though, decried how a ‘cult sitcom turns movie with bland jokes’ and where (as noted of Bean) ‘eventually it starts to feel like lowest-common-denominator humour’ (Times, 20 August 2021). Robbie Collin, while admiring the principal actors, felt that overall ‘it doesn’t quite work as a piece of cinema’ (Daily Telegraph, 16 August 2021). Though the most recent sitcom spinoff film examined here, People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan is suffused in its cultural and generic legacy. Within the film, the music scene beloved of the crew is almost 20 years past its apex, with pirate radio stations such as London Underground and

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Flex FM having thrived at the turn of the new millennium and bringing the garage genre UK chart success (Reynolds, 2013, pp.  555–572). Unable and unwilling to develop, Grindah and Beats avow in their opening address to camera that music’s ‘golden era’ was 2001–2004 and boast of Kurupt FM having always played the same songs. Miche may reference Canadian rapper Drake, but the lads’ frames of reference only land with fellow London garage act Heartless Crew (Beats tries a comparison with Queen, but names its singer Eddie Murphy). Fresh comedy is mined from the clash with the adapted music styles expected of them in Japan, and the long-standing industry dilemma of ‘keeping it real’ or selling out for mainstream success. The lure of fame and fortune that undermines the long-forged friendship between Grindah and Beats may resonate with This Is Spinal Tap, but the schism created by manipulative management has been a long running plot-motor in British pop music films, running through Cliff Richard in Expresso Bongo (Val Guest, 1959), Slade in Flame (Richard Loncraine, 1975) and Hazel O’Connor in Breaking Glass (Brian Gibson, 1980) (Glynn, 2013). The ‘rekitting’ of the crew as a boyband in neon lycra onesies struggles to find acceptance beyond the compliant Grindah, but is rendered off-limits and band-splitting when, picking up on their hit song’s chorus line—Bang! Lyrical blow to the jaw!’—Taka renames them the ‘Bang Boys’. ‘Sounds like a paedophile ring’, Steves points out, decisively (Fig. 6.5). The setting may be new but, for fans of the source text, the film provides several callbacks. On their way through airport security, Chabuddy sports glasses and a combover: it transpires he needs to look like his passport photo. As he lets slip to camera (repeating a line addressed to Miche in the sitcom’s opening episode, ‘Secret Location’), ‘I actually came here in ’93 with nothing but £5 and my brother’s passport—my passport’. Miche herself repeats her sitcom explanation that her daughter is dark-­ skinned because she used lots of fake tan during her pregnancy that seeped through to her womb (it is evident that Decoy is the real father, a bond further indicated in the film when he is the only one to offer an emotional goodbye to Miche and Angel at the airport). When Beats proclaims to camera that ‘You gotta go where the music takes ya, like Brentford, Ipswich, and now Japan’ the Suffolk town amuses independently as zeugma, but for fans also recalls the crew’s road trip to an Ipswich gig organised by Chabuddy (‘Ipswich’, series 3, episode 5). There is also an early film appearance for the DIY music video, shot in the sitcom without permission at a hospital and with ropey special effects from director Chabuddy (‘Music Video’, 5, 3).

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Fig. 6.5  People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan—Crunch Time for the Bang Boys

Most of the film’s humour derives, however, from the traditional spinoff strategy of displacing character from situation, a trope employed from the genre’s Band Waggon beginnings back in 1940. Here, the film reworks the ‘Golden Age’ staple of placing its British protagonists abroad. Again, as with fare such as Are You Being Served?, most of the culture-clash comedy comes at the ignorant Brits’ expense: the crew over-fastidiously remove their shoes wherever they enter an office or restaurant; Beats cannot understand why maps are not written in English; Steves (reminiscent of The Inbetweeners’ Neil) is bemused by the workings of an overseas toilet; Miche fulfils her promise to ‘take in the culture by taking selfies everywhere’. Nonetheless, the collusive recourse to easy foreign stereotypes is not sidestepped: initially discussing a music deal, Beats imagines meeting a ‘tiny three-foot Japanese fellow’; in Japan the crew repeatedly baulk at Japanese food (and rush for the haven of a McDonald’s take-away); in particular, the crew’s evident contempt for what they adjudge the vacuity of J-pop is nowhere counter-balanced. If the musical tastes are early 2000s, the xenophobic undercurrent is rampant 1970s. Elsewhere, character behaviour can also be adjudged as mining longstanding sitcom types. The film’s concluding make-up scene proves the crew’s key dynamic to be the bromance between Grindah and Beats. Each is disconsolate after their studio argument, Grindah reduced to tears while

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Beats’ dismay is affectingly registered by a karaoke duet with Steves to the Streets’ break-up song ‘Dry Your Eyes’. Inseparable yet argumentative, here again is the enduring sitcom double-act, with Grindah and Beats offering Brentford’s version of The Likely Lads. Individually, Grindah’s deluded opinion on his artistic reach but essential likeability strongly recalls David Brent (especially given Life on the Road’s musical slant), while Miche’s fixation with her social standing updates Edina Monsoon from Absolutely Fabulous. Chabaddy is a self-styled ‘Asian Del Boy’ from Only Fools and Horses, confident and slick-talking—but whose serial failures have reduced him to living in the back of his van. Self-important yet frustrated and an incompetent leader, he can also be read as a modern Capt. Mainwaring, much as Steves’ gormless youth can be traced past Neil Sutherland to ‘stupid boy’ Private Pike (excepting the skunk habit). Indeed, the film acting by a troupe who have inhabited their characters for over a decade may be diametrically different in tone and setting to Dad’s Army, but arguably bears a degree of comparison for its nuanced individual mannerisms and skilled ensemble playing. If the karaoke finale to People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan suggests the sitcom’s necessary circular narrative whereby outside influences temporarily challenge or disrupt the situation but never fundamentally change the genre’s worldview, which always ends with reaffirmation and a return to origins (Eaton, 1978, p.  79), the spinoff film can again push at this semantic stability. Grindah’s Tokyo travails may sufficiently test his inflated sense of self-worth to make him realise just how badly he needs his crew alongside him, but other changes seem more transformative. Miche, sufficiently obsessed with finding fame through social media that, so as not to disappoint her (supposed) Instagram followers, she fakes being in Japan by decking out Roche’s living-room and photoshopping herself (badly) onto Japanese landmarks, finds an epiphany in her final piece to camera where she counsels the happiness of family life and a steady job. The end credits indicate that Kurupt FM’s perpetual losers are working on their first album, while stoner Steves and the crew’s translator Miki (Hitomi Souno), his regular drug supplier during their visit, have become an ‘official’ couple, and (for now) are staying in Japan. The film thus indicates that, for all its clichéd employment, travel can broaden the mind—however limited that sitcom mind may be.

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Notes 1. After an abortive effort from ABC in 2008, a US remake, with Taika Waititi directing the pilot (MTV, 12 episodes, August–November 2012) was cancelled after one series due to poor ratings. 2. An accompanying soundtrack double-album featured, alongside its collection of package holiday floor-fillers, ten original compositions from Birmingham rapper, Mike Skinner aka The Streets. 3. In its survey of British-produced domestic box-office gross successes (a chart dominated by James Bond and Harry Potter films), the BFI placed The Inbetweeners Movie at number 17 in the ‘Top 20 UK Qualifying Films at the UK Box Office, 1989–2014’. For Independent Movies in the same period, it came second, only (just) out-performed by The King’s Speech (Tom Hooper, 2010). Top Films of All Time at the UK Box Office: BFI Research and Statistics. BFI: June 2015. 4. In the BFI Research and Statistics survey, The Inbetweeners 2 came seventh in the ‘Top 20 Independent Films at the UK Box Office, 1989–2014’. As the BFI noted, these ‘can be categorised as all time top films since it is unlikely that anything produced before 1989 will have earned more in nominal terms’ (2015, p. 3). 5. Life imitating art? The scene reputedly launched a spate of copycat ‘logging’ incidents at holiday resort swimming pools (Daily Mirror, 30 September 2014). 6. The actors’ age was a decisive factor in closing the film series. David Puttnam felt that Channel 4 had missed a trick in not securing a fast threefilm deal at the start of The Inbetweeners’ television success, as he had done with On the Buses (Brown, 2021, p. 198). 7. Repeats of Mid Morning Matters and a second series (6 30-minute  episodes,  2016) aired on Sky Atlantic. There have also been faux-­ autobiographies and stage tours. 8. Public internet reactions to the revived Dad’s Army have also registered relative disapproval. See Appendix B. 9. While the British sitcom remains predominantly male-centred, worthy of mention are the creations of writer Carla Lane, who explored women’s place in society in series such as The Liver Birds (BBC, 10 series, 86 episodes, 1969–1978), Butterflies (BBC, 1978–1983), Solo (BBC, 2 series, 13 episodes,  1981–1982), The Mistress (BBC, 2 series, 12 episodes, 1985–1987), Screaming (BBC, 1 series, 6 episodes, 1992), and Luv (BBC, 2 series, 18 episodes, 1993–1994). None, though, made the transition to a film spinoff. 10. Attempts at an American remake by Roseanne Barr notoriously failed to make it to air when producers insisted on sanitising the original’s rawness (Mills, 2005, p. 59).

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11. There had been a French adaptation, Absolument Fabuleux (Gabriel Aghion, 2001), starring Josiane Balasko as Edith Mousson, and Natalie Baye as Patsy Laroche: it proved a critical and commercial failure. 12. Jonathan Romney rightly notes in his film review that ‘Malcolm [Tucker] is one of the great comic monsters, his obscene verbal violence unleashing the anger that is always on the boil in British sitcom: where even Basil Fawlty managed to repress his inner best until the climax, Tucker goes in raging from the start’ (Independent on Sunday, 19 April 2009). 13. An initial US remake pilot was refused by ABC. The series was finally and highly successfully adapted as Veep (HBO, 7 series, 65 episodes, 2012–2019). 14. Ian Martin is also credited, as ‘swearing consultant’. 15. There were also brief cross-over appearances by Tucker’s secretary Sam Cassidy (Samantha Harrington) and journalist Angela Heaney (Lucinda Raikes). 16. In the Loop was given added topicality when, in the week of its release, Government probity was questioned with the release of emails from Downing Street’s head of planning and strategy Damian McBride proposing a smear campaign against Conservative politicians (Gaby Hinsliff, ‘Gents, a few ideas’, Observer, 12 April 2009). 17. In the Loop was also reviewed by Alastair Campbell: in a passive-­aggressive piece he claimed to have been finally ‘too bored to be offended’ by the film (Guardian, 24 March 2009). 18. Viewer ratings on IMDb adjudge In the Loop the most popular of all British sitcom spinoff films (see Appendix A). 19. In answer to the objections of Sukhdev Sandhu, it could be argued that the hypermasculine cliquishness is very much the point. 20. Amongst the plethora of film-based insults, Judy terms Washington with its youthful aides as ‘like Bugsy Malone [Alan Parker, 1976], but with real guns’. Opportunistic intern Chad (Zach Woods) is asked if, to please his boss Linton, he would ‘go all the way up Brokeback Mountain [Ang Lee, 2005)]’. At the film’s end Toby is dismissed by General Miller with a reference to the Lord of the Rings film series (Peter Jackson, 2001–2003): ‘Go fuck yourself, Frodo’; 21. A crowd-funded spinoff film of the franchise’s German version, Stromberg— Der Film (Arne Feldhusen, 2014), was a domestic hit, topping the German box office for two weeks. 22. A tie-in 15-track soundtrack album and David Brent Songbook (London: Blink Publishing, 2016) were released in advance of the film. 23. In another link back to the source text, the deployment of its theme tune, Mike d’Abo’s ‘Handbags and Gladrags’, as Brent leaves the office (over-) strives to create character sympathy with the audience.

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24. One example of the cultural penetration of Gervais’ character. A front-­ page report from Oliver Wright and Rachel Sylvester into opposition to a Boris Johnson-endorsed peerage cited the nominee’s behaviour towards female staff that ‘they believed “crossed over the line” into bullying. “He had David Brent-style humour and made odd, sexist comments” said one’ (Times, 19 December 2022). 25. Gervais released two (non-charting) singles in 1983 as part of the short-­ lived synthpop duo Seona Dancing. 26. Life imitating art? The DJ says that Brent had been in a show ‘like The Call Centre’, a genuine work-place documentary (BBC3, 2 series, 11 episodes + 1 special, 2013–2014). 27. In April 2022, to mark a century of broadcasting from the BBC, the BFI issued a chronological list of 100 British television ‘gamechangers’, celebrating ‘those televisual turning points from the BBC that have helped to shape social attitudes, remake genres and transform television itself’. Eleven sitcoms were listed: 10. Hancock’s Half Hour/Hancock; 20. Steptoe and Son; 40. The Liver Birds; 65. The Young Ones; 76. Absolutely Fabulous; 82. The Royle Family (BBC, 3 series, 20 episodes, 1998–2000 + 5 specials 2006-2012); 85. I’m Alan Partridge; 86. Goodness Gracious Me (BBC, 3 series, 20 episodes, 1998–2001); 89. The Office; 92. The Thick of It; and at 96. People Just Do Nothing. https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/100-­bbc-­tv-­ gamechangers [accessed 20 August 2023] 28. In step with the film’s release, Kurupt FM dropped their debut album, The Greatest Hits (Part 1), in August 2021: it reached number 8 in the UK album charts. The lead single ‘Summertime’, featuring Craig David, was advance released with accompanying music video in May, but failed to chart.

Bibliography Allen, S. (2008). British Cinema at the Seaside—the Limits of Liminality. Journal of British Film and Television, 5(1), 53–71. Archer, N. (2021). Cinema and Brexit: The Politics of Popular English Film. Bloomsbury Academic. Brown, M. (2021). Channel 4: A History from Big Brother to The Great British Bake Off. BFI. Caughie, J. (2000). Television Drama: Realism, Modernism and British Culture. Oxford University Press. Eaton, M. (1978). Television Situation Comedy. Screen, 19(4), 61–90. Glynn, S. (2013). The British Pop Music Film: The Beatles and Beyond. Palgrave Macmillan. Gray, F. (1994). Women and Laughter. Macmillan.

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Hight, C. (2010). Television Mockumentary: Reflexivity, Satire and a Call to Play. Manchester University Press. Jacobi, P. (2016). Life is Stationary: Mockumentary and Embarrassment in The Office. In J.  Kamm & B.  Neumann (Eds.), British TV Comedies: Cultural Concepts, Contexts and Controversies. Palgrave Macmillan. Lewis, R. (2013). Dark Actors: The Life and Death of David Kelly. Simon and Schuster. Meacham, J. (2015). Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush. Random House. Middleton, J. (2014). Documentary’s Awkward Turn: Cringe Comedy and Media Spectatorship. Routledge. Mills, B. (2004). Comedy Verite: Contemporary Sitcom Form. Screen, 45(1), 63–78. Mills, B. (2005). Television Sitcom. BFI. Pankratz, A. (2016). Spin, Swearing and Slapstick: The Thick of It. In J. Kamm & B.  Neumann (Eds.), British TV Comedies: Cultural Concepts, Contexts and Controversies. Palgrave Macmillan. Reynolds, S. (2013). Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture. (Rev. edn). Faber and Faber. Richards, J. (1997). Films and British National Identity: From Dickens to Dad’s Army. Manchester University Press. Sangster, J., & Condon, P. (2005). TV Heaven. Collins. Wallace, R. (2018). Mockumentary Comedy: Performing Authenticity. Palgrave Macmillan. Walters, B. (2005). The Office. BFI. Walters, B. (2013, September). An Alan for All Seasons. Sight and Sound, 23(9), 38–41. Walters, J. (2016). The Thick of It. BFI.

CHAPTER 7

Conclusion

7.1   Never the Twain: Popular Versus Critical Standings The British sitcom spinoff film is buried deep in the national consciousness—and many in truth have wished it could stay buried. When actor-­ comedian Reg Varney died, aged 92, in November 2008, the ensuing obituaries and opinion pieces could not be considered fulsome in their praise. David Stubbs, not untypically, wrote that, despite a lengthy and varied career, ‘To a generation of long-suffering comedy lovers, Reg Varney represents an all too familiar bane, as Mum-loving lothario Stan Butler in ITV’s long running On the Buses, a byword for 70s sitcom mediocrity’. He added that ‘The films the series spawned, including Holiday on the Buses and Mutiny on the Buses, are quite fascinating in their randomly plotted, seedy awfulness. Anyone who complains that good, old-fashioned British comedy was ruined by political correctness should be compelled to view these films in full, back-to-back’ (‘Reg Varney reaches the end of the line’, Guardian, 17 November 2008). A harsh assessment, not just of Varney but his film fare? It would seem to support the view of Brett Mills for whom ‘it has to be accepted that not only is the sitcom a low cultural form, but that society as a whole, and the industry which produces it, is quite happy to see it that way’ (2005, p. 153). And yet, Varney not only steered his number 11 bus to the Cemetery Gates and through 68 hugely popular television episodes from 1969 to 1973, but he was also © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 S. Glynn, The British Sitcom Spinoff Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41222-6_7

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instrumental in steering the British film industry out of its near-terminal 1970s decline with rare and badly needed domestic box-office triumphs. Why then the enduring derision for these and other sitcom spinoff films? This study has sought to address two key reasons for this opprobrium: the films’ bald economic imperative and their blatant aesthetic failings. No films are made outside of economic considerations, yet James Chapman has pinpointed ‘a significant lacuna in the critical historiography of British cinema’ deriving from an academic bias—partly practical, largely volitional—‘that has usually preferred to focus on the films themselves rather than on the institutions and structure of the film industry’. For Chapman ‘A consequence of the cultural and aesthetic emphasis of much film history has been the relative marginalisation of the economic and industrial context of film-making’ (2022, pp. 1–2). This study has tried, citing available statistics on budgets and gross receipts, to explore the production and reception histories and thereby underline the fiscal significance of sitcom spinoffs to the British film industry. Here, above all, are textual adaptations that exploit the cultural viability of material already proven in the marketplace so as to secure the attention of a precisely targeted audience; here are ready-made genre signifiers, comforting labels that facilitate the pre-selling of a relatively ‘safe’ product launch. This economic imperative is, of course, pertinent throughout the existence of the genre, but is most notable in the late 1960s and early 1970s when, although suddenly bereft of US funding, reports of UK cinema’s imminent demise proved to be an exaggeration. Boldly stepping into the financial breach, Till Death Us Do Part became the top domestic seller of 1969: 1971 saw three sitcom spinoff films in the UK’s Top Ten bestsellers, with On the Buses second, Up Pompeii eighth, and Dad’s Army in tenth place; 1972’s box-office returns saw Steptoe and Son coming fifth, with Mutiny on the Buses, Please Sir! and Up the Chastity Belt all hitting the Top Twenty; thereafter Love Thy Neighbour was the fifteenth most lucrative release of 1973 while, in a late hurrah, 1979’s Porridge came thirteenth in British cinema’s annual gross. Though evidently not the sole contributors to the survival of a national cinema, the British sitcom spinoff film is by far the most prevalent, the most consistently commercially successful genre at the start of a difficult decade—and yet it remains almost a source of embarrassment, regularly ignored in historical surveys and summaries.1 This reluctance to embrace the positives of sitcom spinoff fare would seem to span both the industry and critical camps, which emphasise instead the genre’s (incontrovertible) weaknesses. In a trade article from the set of

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Inn for Trouble (a decade before the genre’s incontrovertible successes), Bill Edwards noted that ‘It seems a sad injustice that while old features on television will effectively keep cinema audiences at home, the cinema’s counter-move—filming successful television shows—rarely meets with the same success’. He continued that ‘Different producers have different explanations. Some say it is fatal to have a title with identifies its television origins. No matter how much publicity is put out claiming: “This is a Brand New Story”, the public still thinks it has seen it all before. Or is going to see it on television in the near future. Others believe that TV characters seldom have the stature to sustain their promotion from intimate fireside viewing to cinema wide screen’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 10 September 1959: 16). Box-office takings would refute this reading, but the critical concern has endured, even across that relatively lucrative 1970s. In his review of The Likely Lads, film critic David Robinson offered readers a primer on the problems associated with adapting a small screen success for cinema. ‘The big screen, extending the action and increasing the concentration, exposes the limitations of television series comedy, in which it is a basic requirement that characters should not develop, but be life suspended and crystallised.’ He added (rather unfairly in the case of Bob Ferris and Terry Collier) that even the best characters are ‘of necessity like cut-out dolls, on whom each week’s new adventures are amusingly hung like paper dresses. On the big screen these fixed characters and the deliberate avoidance of any progression from their interplay will not do.’ In this case (and in an age before HD television), he also found that, while ‘the dialogue … is still amusing … the Lads retain their charm even if the big screen reveals the actors’ own maturity. But the ups and downs of marital and extra-marital adventures prove very thin, spun out to 90 minutes’ (Times, 15 April 1976). The films’ (incontrovertible) financial rewards seem uncertain, or unworthy of comment, with their artistic failings instead foregrounded—public and professional appreciation will not meet.

7.2  Second Thoughts: Summary of Genre’s Formal Characteristics Thus British sitcom spinoff films retain the reputation as artistically and politically bankrupt, whatever their economic success. Individual efforts may indeed often betray a paucity of imagination in plotlines, setting, and characterisation, adding little to or even coarsening existing comic

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creations, but, brought together, these films possess a collective coherence that, these pages have argued, merits analysis. Functioning primarily as a complete genre study, this book has shown how the British sitcom spinoff film presents a specific narrative mode, working to establish and exploit its specific terrain, here centred on comedic situation and characterisation, within mainstream cinema. Genre, as Steve Neale, has established, represents ‘systems of orientations, expectations, and conventions that circulate between industry, text and subject’ (1980, p. 19), and, alongside its exploration of the industry’s own pragmatic attitude towards the sitcom spinoff film—low culture, perhaps, but also low risk, a proven product with an enthusiastic audience to exploit—this study’s textual analysis has sought to establish how, with a longevity stretching from Arthur Askey and his wartime Band Waggon to the crew of Kurupt FM and their recent People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan, the British sitcom spinoff film  can be interpreted as following a full generic ‘life cycle’ as notably adumbrated by Thomas Schatz (1981, pp. 36–41) and Richard Dyer (1992, p. 61). This starts with the ‘formative’ aka ‘primitive’ stage where, following Band Waggon, works from Hi Gang! to I Only Arsked! establish the genre’s characteristics. The spinoff genre then moves to its ‘classic’ or ‘mature’ stage where, secure for form and content, it enjoys considerable popular success with a run of 26 films stretching from 1969’s distinctive Till Death Us Do Part to 1980’s dire George and Mildred. The genre’s revival especially since the late  1990s reveals, alongside transatlantic targeted box-­ office successes, a more ‘mannerist’ or ‘decadent’ final stage, with films like Guest House Paradiso, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, and in particular The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse adopting a consciously self-­reflective mode. Furthermore, as works of intertextual adaptation, it is posited that the sitcom spinoff film has a further point of interest, demonstrating how narrative patterning can fluctuate across different media, playing with and appeasing audience expectations and responses. The film versions studied here have been shown in large part to stay true to the generic structure of their source text, extending the length but replicating the trajectory of a ‘comic circle’ with ‘the normalcy of the premise undergoing stress or threat of change and becoming restored’ (Mintz, 1985, p. 115). The feature film versions of television sitcoms, though, allow for greater flexibility, and even the occasional flouting of this rule. For instance, the ‘Golden Age’ opener Till Death Us Do Part and its sequel The Alf Garnett Saga established a separate continuity, taking the Garnetts out of Wapping, their roots since wartime, to a new high-rise complex, a move simply

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ignored in the continuing television series. The commercially successful and cycle-confirming On the Buses trilogy also pursued a different canon: it was not only set in a different bus depot, but Olive and Arthur had a child: meanwhile their television sitcom marriage remained seemingly sexless, especially given Arthur’s frequently cited if never explained ‘operation’. On occasion, spinoff films elaborated an existing backstory: the meeting of Bernard Hedges with his future wife Penny and the departure of class 5C extended and enhanced the overarching narrative of Please Sir!. Other films, especially in the mannerist later years, explored life after the sitcom had ended. Here one could cite the late-war manoeuvres of the second Dad’s Army; the post-school holidays and gap-year visits of The Inbetweeners Movie and The Inbetweeners 2; the desperate determination of a stationary manager to pursue his musical career in David Brent: Life on the Road; the post-modern Pirandelloesque metafictions of The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse. Here are parallel universes enriching the British sitcom ‘canon’.

7.3   Joking Apart: Genre as Social History Beyond economic and aesthetic considerations, this study has also sought to employ the sitcom spinoff film as an index of their era, a lens to examine stories the UK tells itself—its obsessions and fears, the way it employs its visual heritage, and its material social circumstances. Genre criticism is, like this author, Janus-faced, necessitating the ‘looking both at sets of formal conventions that define different film types and at what these conventions signify socially’ (Dix, 2008, p. 178). Thus this study has sought to marry sitcom films’ generic patterns with their meanings as a vehicle of social film history. The British sitcom spinoff can be adjudged a form of exploitation cinema, a film form always ripe for reading concurrent trends, from passing fashions and home furnishings to deep-seated ideological structures. From Arthur Askey’s drying combinations, through the oilcloth-­covered kitchen table in Stan Butler’s terrace home, to the high-­ rise apartments of the Kurupt FM crew, directors and art designers highlight—or cannot hide—the broad cultural composition of post-war Britain, a feature particularly striking in the wretched and threadbare decor of the genre’s ‘golden’ 1970s.2 Ideologically, the British sitcom spinoff films studied here present testimony, occasionally explicit or witting but mostly implicit or unwitting, to the nation’s power structures and its dominant values, especially

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concerning gender, race, and sexuality. Behind the camera, no diversity or inclusion agenda can be offered—of the 53 films examined in this monograph, one was directed by a woman (Mandie Fletcher on Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie), while only Lyons family founder Bebe Daniels and Ab Fab creator Jennifer Saunders had prime writing credits; all had white directors, with only the latest entry People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan offering significant BAME creative input. On screen, with all due caveats entered as to comic exaggeration, British sitcom spinoff films’ subject matter can be interpreted, like the ‘worked through’ quotidian experiences of their television source texts, as a social barometer of the values expected of the cinema-going public, with the butt of their humour offering commentary on wider British codes of national identity. Most spinoff films offer a conformist, indeed reactionary ideology, with the looser censorship parameters at times prompting a coarsening of the original’s concept and characterisation: this is especially evident in sequels, from the betrayal of the younger generation in The Alf Garnett Saga to the even heavier misogyny and indigenous absences of The Inbetweeners 2. Nonetheless, on occasion these films, viewed by all as ephemeral exploitation fare, could push at the accepted social boundaries and contest the ideological shaping of national identity in ways not possible on mainstream television. These more critical examples are admittedly few, appearing intermittently across the genre’s history. Graeme Turner cautions that ‘It is important to see the dynamic nature of ideology’ and that ‘Although culture is subjected to hegemonic constructions, this is a process—not a permanently achieved state’ (2006, p.  204). The British sitcom spinoff film demonstrates that this process is itself not linear, or inevitably progressive. Recent spinoffs may offer stylistic complexity and a more ludic relationship to their source text, but they have often reverted to broad gender and racial stereotyping typical of earlier decades in their narratives and characterisation. Rather, it is in the perceived ideological nadir of the 1970s that more oppositional readings can be found. For instance, one could offer up the greater agency and diegetic assent enjoyed by recently wed Thelma Ferris in The Likely Lads; one could cite the promise of sexual liberation presented to the clearly gay-coded Mr Humphries when visiting the Costa Plonka in Are You Being Served?; one could even include the pointed conclusion with racist Eddie Booth’s face transformed into half-­ white and half-black in Love Thy Neighbour. They are small and fleeting examples but all the more notable in texts predominantly supportive of existing social conditions.

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More consistently, the British sitcom spinoff film quite often ends on a downbeat, even dour note. While working in the comic mode, these films, building on their source texts, often convey a particularly British ‘economics of disappointment’, with the various protagonists’ (not-outlandish) hopes, of work success, of friendly neighbours, of meaningful relationships, and especially of sexual fulfilment, found to lie continually out of reach, to be deferred, almost inevitably residing beyond the film itself, beyond, it seems, the British psyche and social structures.3 The British sitcom spinoff film shows the nation its own image, a representation of limited horizons bordering on bleakness, but acceptable, indeed for many pleasurable (and for studios lucrative), since it is conveyed (in Joycean terms) in risu veritas, or (in sitcom terms) ‘only when I laugh’.4

Notes 1. Even Swern and Childs’ Box Office Hits (1995), the source of much collated financial information for this decade, excludes all sitcom spinoffs from its selection of film summaries. 2. Andrew Roberts notes that, ‘In retrospect, On the Buses is as bleak as any offering from Ken Loach, with its London of rusting Hillman Minxes, bare light bulbs and kitchens reeking of congealed fat’ (Guardian, 23 June 2011). 3. In her review of Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (which she saw as atypical with its ‘implausibly wealthy fashion setting’), Helen O’Hara proposed that ‘British sitcoms face particular challenges when they attempt the big screen, since the charm of our comedy is that it tends to be small scale, low-budget and full of interestingly unglamorous people’ (Empire, 325, July 2016). 4. As in the introduction, British sitcom titles have been redeployed for chapter subheadings: Never the Twain (ITV,  11 series, 67 episodes, 1981–1991); Second Thoughts (ITV, 5 series, 49 episodes, 1991–1994); and Joking Apart (BBC, 2 series, 12 episodes, 1993–1995). This continues into the closing words, Only When I Laugh (ITV, 4 series, 29 episodes, 1979–1982).

Bibliography Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945–1985. Edinburgh University Press. Dix, A. (2008). Beginning Film Studies. Manchester University Press. Dyer, R. (1992). Only Entertainment. Routledge. Mills, B. (2005). Television Sitcom. BFI.

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Mintz, L. (1985). Situation Comedy. In B. G. Rose (Ed.), TV Genres: A Handbook and Reference Guide. Greenwood Press. Neale, S. (1980). Genre. BFI. Schatz, T. (1981). Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking and the Studio System. Random House. Swern, P., & Childs, M. (1995). Box Office Hits: No. 1 Movie Hits in the UK. Guinness Publishing. Turner, G. (2006). Film as Social Practice IV. Routledge.

 Appendix A: World Gross Box-office Receipts for British Sitcom Spinoff Films— Top Ten (Figures in US$ from IMDb Pro / Box Office Mojo—as of 1 September 2023)

In the absence of admissions data on individual films, top films can only be measured in terms of earnings at the box office. Inflation is a key factor affecting earnings and this needs to be borne in mind against the figures quoted below. Actual box-office receipts are only widely available from 1989 onwards, but the listing below can be securely categorised as an ‘alltime top ten’ since, as the British Film Institute recognises, it is most unlikely that anything produced in earlier decades will have earned more in nominal terms. Bean Mr. Bean’s Holiday The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy The Inbetweeners Movie The Inbetweeners 2 Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie Dad’s Army (2016) Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa In the Loop David Brent: Life on the Road

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 S. Glynn, The British Sitcom Spinoff Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41222-6

251,212,670 232,225,908 104,478,416 88,823,111 63,852,235 39,219,109 12,738,785 9,979,601 7,787,487 5,204,054

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Appendix B: The British Sitcom Spinoff Film—Viewers’ IMDb Ratings [as of 1 September 2023]

The following statistics, taken from the IMDb website, are of course a blunt tool and need to be treated with caution. The temporal bias in terms of both ratings and voting numbers significantly skew any listings and putative interpretations. Nonetheless, in the absence of accurate box-­ office takings from across the genre’s 80-plus years, the following tables broadly indicate the current popularity and awareness of British sitcom spinoff films. (Alongside each Top Twenty a ‘Wooden Spoon’ aka bottom of the listing is added).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 S. Glynn, The British Sitcom Spinoff Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41222-6

243

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APPENDIX B: THE BRITISH SITCOM SPINOFF—VIEWERS’ IMDB RATINGS…

Most Popular British Sitcom Spinoff Films on IMDb: Top Twenty 1. 2. 3.= 5. 6.= 8.= 10.= 12.= 14. 15.= 17.=

20.

In the Loop Porridge Dad’s Army (1971) Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy The Inbetweeners Movie Steptoe and Son Ride Again The Likely Lads Steptoe and Son Bean Mr. Bean’s Holiday The Inbetweeners 2 David Brent: Life on the Road Bless This House Rising Damp Are You Being Served? Guest House Paradiso The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse Up Pompeii

Wooden Spoon: Dad’s Army (2016) [minimum 1000 IMDb ratings]

Most Popular British Sitcom Spinoff Films on IMDb: Top Twenty [Open Entry] 1. 2. 3. 4.= 6.=

9.=

12.=

In the Loop Porridge Hi Gang!** Dad’s Army (1971) Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa Life with the Lyons** The Lyons in Paris** People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan Nearest and Dearest** The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy The Inbetweeners Movie Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width** Steptoe and Son Ride Again (continued)

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245

(continued) 15.= 17.= 19. 20.=

The Likely Lads Steptoe and Son Bean Mr. Bean’s Holiday The Inbetweeners 2 David Brent: Life on the Road Celia** Till Death Us Do Part* Bless This House Rising Damp

Wooden Spoon: Up the Front* [* = less than 1000 IMDb ratings; ** = less than 100 IMDb ratings]

Best Known / Most Commonly Rated British Sitcom Spinoff Films on IMDb: Top Twenty 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Mr. Bean’s Holiday Bean The Inbetweeners Movie In the Loop The Inbetweeners 2 Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa David Brent: Life on the Road Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie Guest House Paradiso Dad’s Army (2016) The Bad Education Movie The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse Dad’s Army (1971) Porridge People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan Are You Being Served? On the Buses Holiday on the Buses Steptoe and Son

Wooden Spoon: Happidrome

246 

APPENDIX B: THE BRITISH SITCOM SPINOFF—VIEWERS’ IMDB RATINGS…

Viewers’ IMDb Ratings: All Films [Rating Average + (Number of Ratings)] Primitive / Experimental: Band Waggon Hi Gang! It’s That Man Again Happidrome Celia The Lady Craves Excitement Life with the Lyons The Lyons in Paris I Only Arsked! The Navy Lark Inn for Trouble Bottoms Up! Mature / Classical: Till Death Us Do Part Dad’s Army (1971) Up Pompeii On the Buses Please Sir! Steptoe and Son Up the Chastity Belt Mutiny on the Buses Up the Front The Alf Garnett Saga For the Love of Ada Bless This House That’s Your Funeral Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width Father, Dear Father The Lovers! Nearest and Dearest Love Thy Neighbour Steptoe and Son Ride Again Holiday on the Buses Man About the House The Likely Lads Are You Being Served? Porridge Rising Damp George and Mildred

5.4 7.0 5.6 5.9 6.2 5.5 6.8 6.8 5.8 6.1 5.7 6.0

(205) (56) (91) (33) (53) (40) (39) (39) (68) (115) (225) (220)

6.2 6.9 6.0 5.9 6.0 6.5 5.2 5.7 4.5 5.0 5.8 6.2 4.7 6.6 4.9 6.1 6.7 5.9 6.6 5.8 5.9 6.6 6.1 7.2 6.2 5.8

(481) (3401) (1133) (2041) (784) (1695) (486) (1410) (333) (161) (146) (1091) (173) (60) (185) (248) (86) (327) (1273) (1930) (644) (1212) (2858) (3140) (1099) (702) (continued)

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(continued) Decadent / Mannerist: Whoops Apocalypse Bean Guest House Paradiso The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse Mr. Bean’s Holiday In the Loop The Inbetweeners Movie Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa The Inbetweeners 2 The Bad Education Movie Dad’s Army (2016) Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie David Brent: Life on the Road People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan

6.0 6.5 6.1 6.7 6.1 6.4 7.4 6.7 6.9 6.4 5.8 5.2 5.4 6.3 6.8

(951) (105,881) (10,117) (199,552) (5700) (126,993) (58,594) (83,277) (31,934) (44,446) (7253) (8159) (12,680) (20,793) (3086)

The British Sitcom Spinoff Filmography

Primitive Phase: (12) Band Waggon (Marcel Varnel, March 1940) Hi Gang! (Marcel Varnel, December 1941) It’s That Man Again (Walter Forde, February 1943) Happidrome (Phil Brandon, June 1943) Celia (Francis Searle, August 1949) The Lady Craves Excitement (Francis Searle, August 1950) Life with the Lyons (Val Guest, May 1954) The Lyons in Paris (Val Guest, February 1955) I Only Arsked! (Montgomery Tully, November 1958) The Navy Lark (Gordon Parry, December 1959) Inn for Trouble (C.M. Pennington-Richards, February 1960) Bottoms Up! (Mario Zampi, March 1960)

Mature Phase: (26) Till Death Us Do Part (Norman Cohen, January 1969) Up Pompeii (Bob Kellett, March 1971) Dad’s Army (Norman Cohen, March 1971) On the Buses (Harry Booth, August 1971) Please Sir! (Mark Stuart, September 1971) Up the Chastity Belt (Bob Kellett, January 1972) © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 S. Glynn, The British Sitcom Spinoff Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41222-6

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Steptoe and Son (Cliff Owen, April 1972) Mutiny on the Buses (Harry Booth, June 1972) Up the Front (Bob Kellett, July 1972) The Alf Garnett Saga (Bob Kellett, August 1972) For the Love of Ada (Ronnie Baxter, August 1972) That’s Your Funeral (John Robins, December 1972) Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width (Ronnie Baxter, January 1973) Father, Dear Father (William G. Stewart, May 1973) The Lovers! (Herbert Wise, May 1973) Bless This House (Gerald Thomas, June 1973) Nearest and Dearest (John Robins, June 1973) Love Thy Neighbour (John Robins, July 1973) Steptoe and Son Ride Again (Peter Sykes, July 1973) Holiday on the Buses (Bryan Izzard, December 1973) Man About the House (John Robins, December 1974) The Likely Lads (Michael Tuchner, April 1976) Are You Being Served? (Bob Kellett, July 1977) Porridge (Dick Clement, August 1979) Rising Damp (Joseph McGrath, May 1980) George and Mildred (Peter Frazer Jones, July 1980)

Decadent Phase: (15) Whoops Apocalypse (Tom Bussmann, May 1986) Bean (Mel Smith, August 1997) Guest House Paradiso (Adrian Edmondson, December 1999) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Garth Jennings, April 2005) The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse (Steve Bendelack, June 2005) Mr. Bean’s Holiday (Steve Bendelack, March 2007) In the Loop (Armando Iannucci, April 2009) The Inbetweeners Movie (Ben Palmer, August 2011) Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (Declan Lowney, August 2013) The Inbetweeners 2 (Damon Beesley and Iain Morris, August 2014) The Bad Education Movie (Elliot Hegarty, August 2015) Dad’s Army (Oliver Parker, February 2016) Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (Mandie Fletcher, June 2016) David Brent: Life on the Road (Ricky Gervais, August 2016) People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan (Jack Clough, August 2021)

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The British Sitcom Spinoff Filmography: Alphabetical from Original Series Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (Mandie Fletcher, June 2016) ←Absolutely Fabulous (BBC, 5 series + 5 specials, 1992–1996; 2001–2004; 2011–2112) Are You Being Served? (Bob Kellett, July 1977) ←Are You Being Served? (BBC, 10 series + 5 specials, 1973–1985) I Only Arsked! (Montgomery Tully, November 1958) ←The Army Game (ITV, 4 series, 1957–1961) The Bad Education Movie (Elliot Hegarty, August 2015) ←Bad Education (BBC, 3 series + 1 special, 2012–2014; 2022) Band Waggon (Marcel Varnel, March 1940) ←Band Waggon (BBC radio, 3 series, 1938–1940) Bless This House (Gerald Thomas, June 1973) ←Bless This House (ITV, 6 series, 1971–1976) Guest House Paradiso (Adrian Edmondson, December 1999) ←Bottom (BBC, 3 series, 1991–1995) Celia (Francis Searle, August 1949) ←Celia (BBC radio, 1949) Dad’s Army (Norman Cohen, March 1971) Dad’s Army (Oliver Parker, February 2016) ←Dad’s Army (BBC, 9 series, 1968–1977) Father, Dear Father (William G. Stewart, May 1973) ←Father, Dear Father (ITV, 7 series, 1968–1973) For the Love of Ada (Ronnie Baxter, August 1972) ←For the Love of Ada (ITV, 4 series + 1 special, 1970–1971) George and Mildred (Peter Frazer Jones, July 1980) ←George and Mildred (ITV, 5 series, 1976–1979) Happidrome (Phil Brandon, June 1943) ←The Happidrome (BBC radio, 3 series, 1941–1947) Hi Gang! (Marcel Varnel, December 1941) ←Hi Gang! (BBC radio, 3 series, 1940–1942; 1949) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Garth Jennings, April 2005) ←The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (BBC, 1 series, 1982) The Inbetweeners Movie (Ben Palmer, August 2011) The Inbetweeners 2 (Damon Beesley and Iain Morris, August 2014) ←The Inbetweeners (E4, 3 series, 2008–2010) Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (Declan Lowney, August 2013)

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THE BRITISH SITCOM SPINOFF FILMOGRAPHY

←I’m Alan Partridge (BBC, 2 series, 1997–2002) It’s That Man Again (Walter Forde, February 1943) ←It’s That Man Again (BBC radio, 12 series, 1939–1949) The Lady Craved Excitement (Francis Searle, August 1950) ←The Lady Craved Excitement (BBC radio, 1949) Inn for Trouble (C.M. Pennington-Richards, February 1960) ←The Larkins (ITV, 6 series, 1958–1960; 1963–1964) The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse (Steve Bendelack, June 2005) ←The League of Gentlemen (BBC, 3 series + 4 specials, 1999–2002; 2017) Life with the Lyons (Val Guest, May 1954) The Lyons in Paris (Val Guest, February 1955) ←Life with the Lyons (BBC radio, 11 series, 1950–1961: BBC / ITV, 5 series, 1955–1960) The Likely Lads (Michael Tuchner, April 1976) ←Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (BBC, 2 series + 1 special, 1973–1974) ←The Likely Lads (BBC, 3 series, 1962–1964) Love Thy Neighbour (John Robins, July 1973) ←Love Thy Neighbour (ITV, 8 series, 1972–1976) The Lovers! (Herbert Wise, May 1973) ←The Lovers (ITV, 2 series + 2 specials, 1970–1971) Man About the House (John Robins, December 1974) ←Man About the House (ITV, 6 series + 1 special, 1973–1976) Bean (Mel Smith, August 1997) Mr. Bean’s Holiday (Steve Bendelack, March 2007) ←Mr. Bean (ITV, 15 episodes, 1990–1995) The Navy Lark (Gordon Parry, December 1959) ←The Navy Lark (BBC radio, 15 series, 1959–1977) Nearest and Dearest (John Robins, July 1972) ←Nearest and Dearest (ITV, 7 series, 1968–1973) Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width (Ronnie Baxter, January 1973) ←Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width (ITV, 6 series + 1 special, 1967–1971) David Brent: Life on the Road (Ricky Gervais, August 2016) ←The Office (BBC, 2 series + 2 specials, 2001–2003) On the Buses (Harry Booth, August 1971) Mutiny on the Buses (Harry Booth, June 1972) Holiday on the Buses (Bryan Izzard, December 1973)

  THE BRITISH SITCOM SPINOFF FILMOGRAPHY 

←On the Buses (ITV, 7 series, 1969–1973) People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan (Jack Clough, August 2021) ←People Just Do Nothing (BBC, 5 series, 2014–2018) Please Sir! (Mark Stuart, September 1971) ←Please Sir! (ITV, 4 series + 1 special, 1968–1972) Porridge (Dick Clement, August 1979) ←Porridge (BBC, 3 series, 1974–1977) Rising Damp (Joseph McGrath, May 1980) ←Rising Damp (ITV, 4 series, 1974–1978) Steptoe and Son (Cliff Owen, April 1972) Steptoe and Son Ride Again (Peter Sykes, July 1973) ←Steptoe and Son (BBC, 8 series, 1962–1965; 1970–1974) That’s Your Funeral (John Robins, December 1972) ←That’s Your Funeral (BBC, 1 series, 1971) In the Loop (Armando Iannucci, April 2009) ←The Thick of It (BBC, 4 series, 2005–2012) Till Death Us Do Part (Norman Cohen, January 1969) The Alf Garnett Saga (Bob Kellett, August 1972) ←Till Death Us Do Part (BBC, 7 series, 1966–1968; 1972–1975) Up Pompeii (Bob Kellett, March 1971) Up the Chastity Belt (Bob Kellett, January 1972) Up the Front (Bob Kellett, July 1972) ←Up Pompeii! (BBC, 2 series + 2 specials, 1970; 1975, 1991) Bottoms Up! (Mario Zampi, March 1960) ←Whack-O! (BBC, 8 series, 1956–1960; 1971–1972) Whoops Apocalypse (Tom Bussmann, May 1986) ←Whoops Apocalypse (ITV, 1 series, 1982)

253

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Index1

NUMBERS AND SYMBOLS 42nd Street, 42 300, 201 2001: A Space Odyssey, 179 A Abbott, Bud, 170 Abominable Snowman, The, 93 Absolument Fabuleux, 230n11 Absolutely Fabulous, 8, 18, 207, 228, 231n27, 238 Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, 207–210, 238, 239n3 Adam, Ken, 163 Adams, Douglas, 175–178, 180, 190n14, 190n15, 190n16, 190n18, 190n19, 190n21 Adding Machine, The, 108n17 Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall, 108n17 Adventures of PC 49, The, 59n11

Airplane, 162 Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, 202–205, 216, 236 Albinoni, Tomaso, 199 Alderton, John, 118, 154n28 Alf Garnett Saga, The, 70–72, 77, 151, 236, 238 Alfie, 65, 144 Alien Autopsy, 9 Ali G Indahouse, 19n5 All in the Family, 67 American Pie, 195 And No One Could Save Her, 108n17 And Now for Something Completely Different, 19n4 Andre, Peter, 220 And the Same to You, 54 Another Sunday and Sweet F.A., 135 Apted, Michael, 133 Are You Being Served?, 125–128, 132, 174, 188, 195, 227, 238

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 S. Glynn, The British Sitcom Spinoff Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41222-6

263

264 

INDEX

Are You Being Served? (sitcom), 8, 17, 20n10, 125 Aristocats, The, 88 Arliss, George, 35 Army Game, The, 16, 47–50, 53, 114 Askey, Arthur, 16, 26–32, 38, 58n3, 58n5, 58n6, 71, 160, 236, 237 As Time Goes By, 20n10 Atkinson, Rowan, 18, 107n9, 180–183, 186, 187, 190n22, 191n26 Austen, Jane, 7 Autry, Gene, 44 B Bad Education, 200 Bad Education Movie, The, 200–201 Baker, Hilda, 97, 98, 109n28 Band Waggon, 26–32, 34, 36, 40, 46, 58n5, 160–161, 227, 236 Band Waggon (sitcom), 16, 26, 28, 29, 31, 35, 38 Bardot, Brigitte, 136 Bargee, The, 79, 83 Barker, Ronnie, 52, 128, 129, 131 Barr, Roseanne, 229n10 Bean, 171, 181–185, 186, 191n24, 191n25, 225 Beatles, The, 58n8, 65, 185 Beckett, Samuel, 168 Beckinsale, Richard, 128, 129, 133, 134, 149, 150, 153n21 Beesley, Damon, 193, 198 Being John Malkovich, 171 Benigni, Roberto, 188 Bennett, Alan, 168 Bentine, Michael, 52, 59n17 Bergman, Ingmar, 195 Best, George, 71, 135 Best in Show, 211 Bewes, Rodney, 142–144, 147, 155n33

Beyond the Fringe, 163 Beyond the Law, 153n6 Billy Liar, 137, 155n33 Birds of Prey, 154n22 Black, Cilla, 153n7 Blackadder, 107n9 Blair, Tony, 218 Bless This House, 13, 139–141 Bless This House (sitcom), 139, 142 Bligh, Jasmine, 32 Blood on Satan’s Claw, The, 121, 171 Bloomers, 153n21 Bogart, Humphrey, 207 Bolam, James, 142–144, 147, 155n33 Bond, James, 59n15, 65, 108n13, 109n22, 139, 229n3 Bootsie and Snudge, 59n20 Borat!, 19n5 Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, 19n5 Bottom, 164, 165, 181, 189n5 Bottoms Up!, 56–58, 68, 118, 132 Boyfriend, The, 135 Boys in Blue, The, 9 Boys Will Be Boy, 47 Boyzone, 191n23 Braben, Eddie, 78 Brambell, Wilfrid, 79, 80, 82, 94, 149 Braveheart, 201 Breaking Glass, 226 Bresslaw, Bernard, 48–50, 59n19, 74 Bresson, Robert, 11 Bridge on the River Kwai, The, 50 Brokeback Mountain, 230n20 Brown, Joe, 153n19 Brown, Roy ‘Chubby,’ 20n6, 168 Bruno, 19n5 Bublé, Michael, 221 Bugsy Malone, 230n20 Burrows, Andy, 219 Bush, George H.W., 215 Butterflies, 142, 229n9 Bygraves, Max, 71

 INDEX 

C Cairoli Brothers, 40 Call Centre, The, 231n26 Campbell, Alastair, 212, 230n17 Campbell, Big Bill, 37 Cancel My Reservation, 109n30 Candide, 216 Cardew, Phil, 26 Cargill, Patrick, 72, 73, 137–139 Carlton-Browne of the F.O., 214 Carmichael, Ian, 216 Carreras, James, 40 Carreras, Michael, 97, 98 Carry On Abroad, 127 Carry On at Your Convenience, 90 Carry On Cabbie, 90 Carry On Camping, 69 Carry On films, 2, 49, 72, 74, 94, 119, 125, 126, 136, 140, 141, 144 Carry On Nurse, 54 Carry On Sergeant, 49, 50, 52 Carry On Teacher, 119 Carry On Up the Khyber, 206–207 Casablanca, 207 Case for PC 49, A, 59n11 Casino Royale (1967), 59n15 Cat and Mouse, 108n17 Cathy Come Home, 211 Celia, 41, 59n12 Chaplin, Charlie, 39, 184 Chappell, Eric, 148, 149 Cheryl (Tweedy), 201 Chesney, Ronald, 86, 87, 109n18 Chewing Gum, 18 Christie, Tony, 154n22 Cinema Paradiso, 167 City of God, 188 Clarke, Alan, 133 Clement, Dick, 128, 129, 131, 142–144, 153n17 Cock, Gerald, 30

265

Cohen, Nat, 73, 87, 126, 143, 154n31 Colin, Sid, 47–49, 52, 72, 76, 78 Colman, Ronald, 207 Company of Killers, 153n6 Conspirator, 59n12 Coogan, Steve, 202, 203, 213 Cooke, Brian, 102, 105, 110n36, 137, 138, 154n23 Corbett, Harry H., 79, 80 Coronation Street, 87 Costello, Lou, 170 Countdown, 223 Coward, Noël, 69, 151, 164 Cowboys, The, 109n24 Croft, David, 114, 115, 125, 128, 152n3, 153n13 Crying Game, The, 216 Curse of Frankenstein, The, 1 Curtis, Richard, 181, 190n20, 216 Cushing, Peter, 1 D Da Ali G Show, 9 d’Abo, Mike, 230n23 Dad’s Army (1971), 114–118, 122, 131, 146, 234 Dad’s Army (2016), 205–208, 229n8, 237 Dad’s Army (sitcom), 100, 103, 114, 116, 125, 152n1, 152n4, 154n28, 154n30, 175, 205, 206, 228 Daniels, Bebe, 33, 34, 42–47, 238 Dark Half, The, 171 David Brent: Life on the Road, 4, 219–223, 228, 237 David, Craig, 231n28 Davies, Ray, 67 Dayan, Moshe, 125 Deacon, Giles, 210

266 

INDEX

Desmond’s, 18 Devils, The, 108n13 Diamonds Are Forever, 108n13, 109n22 Dick Barton at Bay, 59n11 Dick Barton: Special Agent, 59n11 Dick Barton: Special Agent (serial), 41, 42 Dick Barton Strikes Back, 59n11 Dick Emery Show, The, 128 Dick Van Dyck Show, The, 17 Dirty Dozen, The, 170 Doctor Who, 190n20 Dog Day Afternoon, 203 Donat, Robert, 35, 58n5 Don’t Drink the Water, 109n18 Dors, Diana, 43, 85, 86 Down Among the Z Men, 9, 47, 59n17 Dracula, 1 Dracula A.D. 1972, 1 Drake, 226 Draughtsman’s Contract, The, 171 Driver, Harry, 97, 99, 120, 121, 123, 124, 139 Dr. Strangelove, 163 Dylan, Bob, 211 E Eastwood, Clint, 147 Edmondson, Adrian, 164, 165, 167, 189n4, 189n5 Edwards, Jimmy, 56, 57, 68 Elizabeth, 184 Elizabeth: The Golden Age, 186 Elstree Calling, 38 Entertaining Mr Sloane, 84 Eraserhead, 216 Essex, David, 221 Ever Decreasing Circles, 20n10 Evolution, 190n16 Expresso Bongo, 226 Extras, 219

F Fame, Georgie, 70 Fast Show, The, 58n9 Father, Dear Father, 137–139 Father, Dear Father (in Australia), 154n23 Father, Dear Father (sitcom), 137 Fawlty Towers, 10, 166 Fear is the Key, 109n25 Fellini, Federico, 195 Fenn Street Gang, The, 119 Ferraro, Geraldine, 163 Fields, Gracie, 58n5 Fires Were Started, 152n2 Five Crazy Boys, The, 154n26 Flack, Roberta, 199 Flame, 226 Flynn, Errol, 77, 207 Fokine, Mikhail, 29 Forde, Walter, 36–38, 58n1 Formby, George, 58n5, 114 For the Love of Ada, 120–123, 133, 139 For the Love of Ada (sitcom), 120 Fosters, The, 18 Four Weddings and a Funeral, 181 Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, 1 Fraser, Bill, 59n20, 73, 74, 76–78, 96, 97, 100 Fredericks, Cecil, 39 French and Saunders, 207 Friends, 10 From Beyond the Grave, 168 Full Monty, The, 184 Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, A, 72, 107n5 G Galaxy Quest, 190n16 Galton, Ray, 17, 67, 76, 79–81, 84–86, 108n10, 108n11, 108n17

 INDEX 

Game On, 20n10 Gardner, Ava, 147 Garson, Greer, 151 Gauguin, Paul, 147 George and Mildred, 11, 12, 105–107, 133, 150, 236 George and Mildred (sitcom), 17, 105, 110n35, 142 Gervais, Ricky, 4, 218–221, 223, 231n24, 231n25 Get Carter, 147 Get Cracking, 114 Ghostbusters, 176 Gilling, John, 41 Girls Aloud, 201 Godard, Jean-Luc, 11 Go For a Take, 154n24 Going Straight, 129, 131 Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The, 190n11 Goodall, Howard, 182, 186 Goodies, The, 132 Good Morning, Boys, 57 Goodness Gracious Me, 231n27 Goon Show, The, 47, 59n17 Grace and Favour, 153n12 Grade, Lew, 105, 129, 152, 160 Grant, Cary, 34 Grease, 151 Great Escape, The, 171 Grenfell, Joyce, 120 Grundy, Bill, 104 Guest House Paradiso, 164–168, 170, 181, 236 Guest, Val, 27, 43, 45, 53, 58n6, 93 Gynt, Greta, 38 H Hall, James, 44 Hamilton, David, 132 Hancock’s Half Hour, 17, 107n10, 231n27 Hancock, Tony, 17, 79, 108n10, 208

267

Handl, Irene, 55, 120, 121 Handley, Tommy, 35–38, 44, 58n8 Happidrome, 3, 39–40 Happidrome, The (sitcom), 38–40 Happy Ever After, 142, 154n25 Hard Day’s Night, A, 135 Harlow, Jean, 44 Harry Hill Movie, The, 19n5 Harryhausen, Ray, 171, 190n11 Hawkins, Jack, 168 Hawtrey, Charles, 48, 55 Hay, Will, 9, 47, 55, 57 Hazell, Hy, 41 Head, 170 Heartless Crew, 226 Heath, Edward, 71, 93 Hell’s Angels, 44 Henson, Jim, 176 Heston, Charlton, 72, 180 Hi Gang!, 33–35, 42, 55, 132, 236 Hi Gang! (sitcom), 32, 34 Hill, Benny, 183 His Girl Friday, 34 Hitchcock, Alfred, 75 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The, 174–181, 220 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The (sitcom), 175, 190n17 Hitler, Adolf, 35, 87 Holiday on the Buses, 94–96, 135, 189n9, 195, 233 Hope, Bob, 109n30 Horne, Kenneth, 58n5 Horrible Histories: The Movie—Rotten Romans, 19n5 Hotel Paradiso, 167 House in Nightmare Park, The, 108n17 Howerd, Frankie, 72–78, 107n6, 107n9, 108n17, 109n19, 114, 117 Hutchinson, Leslie, 40

268 

INDEX

Hyde-White, Wilfrid, 147 Hylton, Jack, 27–29, 31, 36 I Ian, Janis, 211 Iannucci, Armando, 211–214, 216 I Love Lucy, 43 I Only Arsked!, 47–52, 56, 118, 236 I’m Alan Partridge, 202, 231n27 Inbetweeners, The, 9, 18, 193, 194, 200, 202, 205, 227, 229n6 Inbetweeners Movie, The, 193–197, 201, 229n3, 237 Inbetweeners 2, The, 8, 198–200, 229n4, 237, 238 In Loving Memory, 109n26, 110n36 Inman, John, 125, 128 Inn for Trouble, 54–56, 60n23, 122, 235 In Sickness and In Health, 107n1 Inspector Hornleigh, 58n1 Inspector Hornleigh Goes to It, 58n1 Inspector Hornleigh Investigates, 25 Inspector Hornleigh on Holiday, 58n1 Intelligence Men, The, 20n6 In the Loop, 211–218, 230n16, 230n17, 230n18 In Town Tonight, 32 In Which We Serve, 164 It’s That Man Again, 36–38, 44, 52, 58n7 It’s That Man Again (sitcom), 35–38, 58n8, 58n9, 116, 175 J James, Sid, 13, 42, 127, 140, 141 Jarman, Derek, 189n5 Jewel, Jimmy, 97, 98 Jimi Hendrix Experience, The, 60n24 John, Elton, 153n17 Johnson, Boris, 231n24

Johnson, Celia, 164 Joking Apart, 239n4 Jour de Fête, 188 Joyce, Yootha, 12, 86, 98, 103–106, 125, 133, 150 Julius Caesar (1970), 72 K Kardashian, Kim, 209 Karloff, Boris, 58n2 Kavanagh, Ted, 35–38 Keith Lemon: The Film, 19n5 Kelly, David, 218 Kevin and Perry Go Large, 9, 195 Kind of Loving, A, 137, 147, 155n33 King’s Speech, The, 229n3 King, Stephen, 171 Kinks, The, 67 Kirkwood, Patricia, 27, 29, 31 Kitt, Eartha, 76, 77, 107n8 Knowing Me, Knowing You, 202 Korris, Harry, 39, 59n10 Krüger, Hardy, 131 Kubrick, Stanley, 163, 170, 179, 215 L Lady Craves Excitement, The, 41–42 Lady Vanishes, The (1938), 75 La Frenais, Ian, 128, 129, 131, 142–144, 153n17 Lane, Carla, 229n9 Larbey, Bob, 118 Larkins, The, 54, 55 Last of the Summer Wine, 18 Lawrence of Arabia, 188 League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse, The, 166, 168–174, 187, 190n12, 236, 237 League of Gentlemen, The (1960), 168 League of Gentlemen, The (sitcom), 153n14, 168, 169, 171

 INDEX 

Lee, Christopher, 1 Leigh, Mike, 171 Lennon, John, 59n13, 107n3 Les 400 Coups, 188 Lester, Richard, 59n17, 107n5, 135 Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The, 58n6 Lifeboat, 207 Life Is Beautiful, 188 Life with Father, 43 Life with the Lyons, 43–45, 55, 59n14, 59n16, 87 Life with the Lyons (sitcom), 16, 42, 47, 66, 107n3 Likely Lads, The, 142–148, 151, 166, 167, 228, 235, 238 Likely Lads, The (sitcom), 142, 154n29, 154n30 Lippert, Robert L., 43 Listen to Britain, 58n7 Little Britain, 189n7 Liver Birds, The, 229n9, 231n27 Living It Up, 58n3 Lloyd, Harold, 42 Lloyd, Jeremy, 125, 128 Loach, Ken, 211, 239n2 Locke, Josef, 39 Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, The, 155n33 Lord of the Rings, 230n20 Lord, Rod, 175 Lotsa Luck, 109n18 Love Actually, 216 Lovers!, The, 4, 133–137, 139, 148, 154n22, 167 Lovers, The (sitcom), 133, 134, 149 Love Thy Neighbour, 94, 99–102, 173, 234, 238 Love Thy Neighbour (sitcom), 17, 99, 104, 105, 120 Love Thy Neighbour in Australia, 110n32

269

Lulu, 210 Lust for a Vampire, 1 Luv, 229n9 Lynch, Kenny, 71 Lyon, Ben, 33, 34, 42–46 Lyons in Paris, The, 45–47 M Macmillan, Harold, 163 Magicians, 20n6 Magnificent Two, The, 20n6 Man About the House, 11, 102–105 Man About the House (sitcom), 102, 105, 134, 138 Manfred Mann, 149, 154n27 Man Like Mobeen, 18 Manson, Charles, 181 Mars Attacks!, 190n16 Masefield, John, 146 Mayall, Rik, 160, 163–165, 167, 189n5 McCartney, Paul, 135, 136 McCartney, Stella, 208–209 Meet the Wife, 86 Melvin, Harold & The Blue Notes, 221 Men in Black, 190n16 Men in Black II, 190n16 Middleton, C.H., 32 Mid Morning Matters, 202, 229n7 Milligan, Spike, 59n17, 67, 103, 108n17 Minogue, Dannii, 199 Minogue, Kylie, 199, 211 Miss London Ltd., 58n6 Mistress, The, 229n9 Mitchell, John, 56, 60n24 Mitchell, Warren, 66–68 Mixed Blessings, 20n10 Moffatt, Graham, 33, 55 Monkees, The, 170

270 

INDEX

Mon Oncle, 188 Monroe, Marilyn, 42 Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, 167, 186, 191n26 Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 19n4 Monty Python’s Flying Circus, 9, 59n17, 75, 160, 177, 211 Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 19n4 Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, 19n4 Moore, Bobby, 71 Morecambe and Wise Show, The, 16 Morecambe, Eric, 9, 20n6, 78 Morris, Iain, 193, 198 Mortimer, Johnnie, 102, 105, 110n36, 137, 138, 154n23 Moss, Kate, 209, 210 Mount, Peggy, 54, 55 Mouse That Roared, The, 164 Mr. Bean, 18, 181 Mr. Bean’s Holiday, 186–189 Mr. Bean: The Animated Series, 190n22 Mrs. Brown’s Boys D’Movie, 10 Mr. Wong in Chinatown, 58n2 Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh, 58n5 Muffin the Mule, 58n4 Muir, Frank, 56, 67, 86 Murdoch, Richard, 26–30, 58n3, 58n5, 160 Murphy, Brian, 12, 103, 105 Murphy, Eddie, 226 Murphy, Stephen, 80, 87, 94 Murton, Walter, 34 Mutiny on the Buses, 92–94, 233, 234 My Wife Next Door, 154n28 N Name of the Rose, The, 174 Nan Movie, The, 19n5 Navy Lark, The, 52–54, 59n21

Navy Lark, The (sitcom), 52, 60n22 Nearest and Dearest, 97–98 Nearest and Dearest (sitcom), 97, 98 Network, 203 Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width, 94, 123–125 Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width (sitcom), 20n10, 123 Never the Twain, 239n4 Newman, Randy, 185 New Nightmare, 171 Nickel Queen, 154n24 Nilsson, Harry, 133 Niven, David, 35 Norden, Dennis, 56 Notting Hill, 184 Novello, Ivor, 69 O O’Connor, Hazel, 226 Office, The, 17, 18, 218, 219, 221, 222, 224, 225, 231n27 Oliver, Vic, 33, 34, 132 One Foot in the Grave, 18 One that Got Away, The, 131 Only Fools and Horses, 18, 174, 190n13, 228 Only When I Laugh, 239n4 Ono, Yoko, 59n13, 107n3 On the Buses, 1, 2, 11, 17, 40, 86–91, 95–97, 99, 101–103, 109n23, 119, 123, 234, 237, 239n2 On the Buses (sitcom), 17, 86, 87, 94, 109n18, 113, 137, 229n6, 233 On the Rocks, 153n16 Ooh… You Are Awful, 9, 128 Orton, Joe, 84 O’Shea, Milo, 85, 108n17 O’Sullivan, Gilbert, 122, 153n10

 INDEX 

Othello (1952), 75 Otway, John, 189n1 Our Miss Fred, 20n6 P Paddick, Hugh, 76, 77, 128 Pavlova, Anna, 29 PC 49, 40 People Just Do Nothing, 223, 224, 231n27 People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan, 223–228, 236, 238 Perchance to Dream, 69 Perry, Jimmy, 114, 115, 152n3 Phil Silvers Show, The, 47 Phillips, Leslie, 52, 54, 55, 60n22 Pidgeon, Walter, 147, 151 Planet of the Apes, 180 Plank, The, 108n17 Platoon, 199 Plautus, 73 Please Sir!, 118–120, 124, 131, 132, 140, 195, 201, 234, 237 Please Sir! (sitcom), 118, 119, 154n28 Poitier, Sidney, 120 Porridge, 128–133, 142, 143, 147, 150, 153n17, 153n18, 153n19, 153n20, 155n36, 234 Porridge (sitcom), 128, 129, 154n30 Poseidon Adventure, The, 171 Powell, Sandy, 39 Powell, Vince, 97, 99, 120, 121, 123, 124, 139 Prince and the Pauper, The, 77 Private’s Progress, 47, 59n18 Q Queen, 226 Queenie’s Castle, 85

271

R Rag Trade, The, 86, 109n18 Raiders of the Lost Ark, 167 Raise the Titanic, 152 Randle, Frank, 59n10 Reagan, Ronald, 163 Rebel, The, 108n10 Reid, Beryl, 139 Reith, Lord John, 26 Renwick, David, 159–161 Richard, Cliff, 226 Rise and Fall of Reggie Perrin, The, 160 Rising Damp, 11, 148–152, 166 Rising Damp (sitcom), 17, 148, 149 Rix, Brian, 54, 55 Roachford, 204 Robin’s Nest, 105, 110n35 Rogers, Peter, 48, 140, 141 Ropers, The, 110n35 Rosenthal, Jack, 133–135 Rossiter, Leonard, 149–151 Rothwell, Talbot, 72 Round the Horne, 77 Royle Family, The, 231n27 Rumsfeld, Donald, 213 Russell, Rosalind, 34 S Sanford and Son, 108n12 Sangster, Jimmy, 41 Saroyan, William, 146 Sarstedt, Peter, 210 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 137 Saunders, Jennifer, 207–209, 238 Scars of Dracula, 1 School for Randle, 119 Screaming, 229n9 Scum, 133, 153n20 Sea Hawk, The, 207

272 

INDEX

Searle, Francis, 41, 59n11 Secombe, Harry, 59n17 Second Thoughts, 239n4 Sellers, Peter, 59n15, 59n17, 131, 164 Sex Pistols, The, 104 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 58n8 Shakespeare, William, 7 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 2, 7 Sherrin, Ned, 75 Shining, The, 170 Simpson, Alan, 17, 67, 76, 79–81, 84–86, 108n10, 108n11, 108n17 Sinatra, Frank, 163 Slade, 226 Solo, 229n9 Some Like It Hot, 211 Sondheim, Stephen, 72 Sound of Music, The, 216 South of Pago Pago, 207 Speight, Johnny, 66, 67, 71 Spice Girls, The, 183 Spy with a Cold Nose, The, 108n17 Standing, Michael, 32 Star Trek, 109n31 Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace, 167 Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, 176 Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope, 179 Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens, 189n4 Star Wars: Episode VIII—The Last Jedi, 189n4 Steptoe and Son, 79–83, 86, 93, 166, 234 Steptoe and Son (sitcom), 17, 79, 81, 142, 154n30, 231n27 Steptoe and Son Ride Again, 83–86 Streets, The, 228, 229n2 Stromberg—Der Film, 230n21 Styles, Harry, 208

Sugarland Express, The, 204 Sykes, Eric, 67, 71, 108n17 T Tale of Two Cities, A, 207 Taming of the Shrew, The (1968), 137 Taste of Honey, A, 136, 148 Tati, Jacques, 167, 184, 186, 187, 191n26 Tauber, Richard, 35 Taylor, Elizabeth, 59n12 Taylor, Gilbert, 56 Tenser, Tony, 121, 122 Terence, 73 Terry and June, 154n25 Thatcher, Margaret, 163 That Riviera Touch, 20n6 That’s Your Funeral, 96–98, 100 That's Your Funeral (sitcom), 96 That Was the Week That Was, 16 Then Churchill Said to Me, 107n9 Thicker than Water, 109n29 Thick of It, The, 211–215, 231n27 Third Man, The, 171 This Happy Breed, 69 This Is Spinal Tap, 211, 221, 225, 226 Three’s A Crowd, 110n35 Three’s Company, 103 Three Stooges, The, 165 Till Death …, 107n1 Till Death Us Do Part, 66–70, 72, 75, 78, 81, 82, 107n3, 107n4, 114, 116, 145, 182, 234, 236 Till Death Us Do Part (sitcom), 8, 17, 66, 67, 99, 107n2, 154n28, 154n30, 216 Today, 104 Tom Jones, 77 To Russia with Elton, 153n17 To Sir, With Love, 65, 120 Touch of Grace, A, 153n8 Travels with My Aunt, 153n11

 INDEX 

Travolta, John, 151, 153n5 Trenet, Charles, 186 Trevelyan, John, 87 Twain, Mark, 77 Two of a Kind, 16 Two-Way Stretch, 131 U U.F.O., 20n6 Un Chant d’Amour, 167 Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, 107n3 Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions, 59n13 Up Pompeii, 72–77, 83, 95, 107n6, 114–116, 123, 234 Up Pompeii! (sitcom), 72, 80 Up the Chastity Belt, 75–77, 92, 119, 128, 234 Up the Creek, 53 Up the Front, 78 Up the Junction, 211 V Vandross, Luther, 223 Varney, Reg, 1, 2, 86, 88, 92, 94, 154n24, 189n9, 233 Veep, 230n13 Vetchinsky, Alex, 27 Vincent, Robbie, 39, 59n10 Voltaire, 216 W Waiting for Godot, 167–168, 189n5

273

Waititi, Taika, 229n1 Walpole, Horace, 124 Watch It Sailor!, 87 Way Ahead, The, 114 Wayne, John, 109n24 Welcome Back, Kotter, 153n5 Welles, Orson, 75 Whack-O!, 56, 57 Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, 142, 145, 146, 154n29, 154n30 Whitehall, Jack, 200, 201 Whitehouse, Mary, 66 Whoops Apocalypse, 159–165, 215, 218 Whoops Apocalypse (sitcom), 159 Wicker Man, The, 168, 201 Wiene, Robert, 11 Wilcox, Herbert, 52, 60n22 Wilton, Robb, 114 Winters, Shelley, 171 Wise, Ernie, 9, 16, 20n6, 78 Witchfinder General, 121 Withers, Googie, 132, 154n24 Within These Walls, 132 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 165 Wizard of Oz, The, 28 Wolfe, Ronald, 86, 87, 109n18 Woman in Black, The, 19n1 Y Yes Minister, 218 Young Ones, The, 8, 18, 160, 164, 231n27 Z Zoolander 2, 211