Saturday, 26 July 2008

IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH SERIES 1


The PC brigade have a lot to answer for.

These days the TV listings are filled with bland characters and if the PC lot get their way then society will follow suit. The modern Media is full of bland plastic people who couldn't form an opinion of their own if it came flat packed from Argos.

So travel back in time to the dim distant days when we still had freedoms, rather than the illusion of freedom, to a place where cigarette smoke drifts in the air and knife crime only ever happens on Starskey and Hutch.

This brilliant sitcom about loud mothed bigot Alf Garnet could never play on TV these days, well except for the odd episode tucked away on the more obscure channels. So this DVD release is very welcome.

The show was often charged with being racist but that was missing the point. Sure the character of Alf was racist and homophobic. But the show poked fun at his old fashioned British Imperialistic attitude and he always had his come uppance at the end with his bigotry showed up for the ignorance it was.

What the show did was to show real characters, exactly like old folk I knew growing up in the 70's and 80's.

Shame we won the bloody way, really.

An excellent series featuring a genuine British comedy icon.

NOTE: For US readers the show was bought by the US and became the long running Archie Bunker.

2 comments:

David Cranmer said...

Unfortunately, there are many Americans who have no clue as to how many of our great shows were created in the U.K. I have now made it a habit to search out the original instead of waiting for the inevitable and often clumsy remake. Gervais's The Office was excellent (and also Extras on HBO). I wanted to catch Life on Mars, but I missed when it ran on BBC America and it looks like it won't be released on dvd in the US. I wonder if In Sickness And In Health will be... If it is, I'll add it to my list.

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

Yeah there are a few Brits sitcoms that made the transistion - man about the house became three's company, the office and there are many more.
I think us Brits have always had the edge with sitcom but in my opinion the best TV drama in the world comes from the US - DEADWOOD, HILL STREET BLUES, THE WIRE, THE SHIELD, SOPRANOS AND I've a soft spot for all the 70's detective series KOJAK, IRONSIDE ETC.