Welcome to my latest monthly roundup, I hope you’re doing well.
In terms of my caring responsibilities towards my mother, who is still recovering from her broken wrist, I’ve continued posting separate journal updates about everything that’s been going on, split into Part 1 and Part 2 for this month. So do read those posts if you want to be kept informed about that side of my life. Suffice to say that while we are still finding things difficult in some ways, she is continuing to get various forms of help, and we are now starting to consider the support required for her longer term care needs. Plus we’ve already had a very positive development at the start of October, perhaps the most significant to date, that has the potential to make a huge difference long-term. I’ll tell you about that in my October journal posts in the weeks ahead, and it’s going to be an important transitional month if all goes to plan.
Apart from all that though, I have kept myself entertained in various ways as well, with music, TV shows and an audiobook. So here are the main things I’ve been enjoying, and I hope you find them interesting to read about as always.
50 years ago the classic hotel sitcom Fawlty Towers opened for business on the BBC. And while it only ran for 2 series, it’s no exaggeration to say that it blessed us with 12 of the greatest half hours of comedy that have ever been broadcast on British TV.
The huge popularity of this BAFTA-winning programme continues to grow to this day as well, most recently aided by the stage show that has just been broadcast on TV to mark the anniversary. It just goes to show that, unlike many old sitcoms which ended up being very much of their time, Fawlty Towers still holds up perfectly well, and still blows all of the modern comedies out of the water, which is a remarkable achievement.
Created by John Cleese with his first wife Connie Booth and set in Torquay (though they never filmed there), and accompanied by Dennis Wilson’s beautiful theme tune, it has an excellent mixture of characters who find themselves caught up in a variety of highly amusing and increasingly farcical scenarios.
While manager Basil (played by John) constantly hopes for a relaxing day with normal guests, and strives to find ways to have a fancier class of clientele visiting his establishment, it never takes long for things to unravel, driving him to frustration. It doesn’t help that his sharp-tongued, fear-inducing dragon of a wife Sybil (Prunella Scales) is constantly nagging him, and that his keen and well-meaning yet confused Spanish waiter Manuel (played by the dearly missed Andrew Sachs) is impossible to communicate with. He does at least have support from waitress Polly (played by Connie), who provides some sanity to keep Basil grounded, but he makes life difficult for her sometimes too, by using her in his attempts to get out of sticky situations.
The show has a solid hit rate of verbal, visual and physical gags, along with plot strands that come together nicely, and a first-rate cast who bring it to life so brilliantly. And such was the amount of action packed into each episode that the scripts were twice as long compared to other sitcoms and had twice as many camera cuts.
The humour is quintessentially British too, so much so that 3 attempts to remake the series in America and one in Germany all inevitably failed. It has inspired several other sitcoms though, with the makers of shows like Father Ted, Cheers and 3rd Rock From The Sun all acknowledging it as a major influence. And in general it set an incredibly high benchmark that few sitcoms (if any) since have come anywhere close to.
I’ve watched the series countless times over the years, but now is the perfect excuse to watch it yet again and actually write a bit about it to celebrate the occasion. So I’m going to go through the episodes and the extras on the Blu-ray set I have, as well as checking out the stage play on TV, which I didn’t get around to seeing in person in the West End. Plus I’ve put together a Youtube playlist of highlights and bonus material to go with this. So I hope you enjoy!
I seem to have gone from one extreme to another lately. After a relatively relaxed October, November has been really busy, and in a good way. I appeared on TV and radio to raise awareness of digital accessibility, promoted audio description at a trade exhibition, learnt a great deal about Ancient Greece, explored London’s illuminated bridges, highlighted more scam emails, bought some new Blu-rays and music, and enjoyed various things on TV.
So there’s plenty to cover this month, and I hope you enjoy this post and video summary of it all. As always, I haven’t received any gifts or payments by anyone mentioned in this post, and all opinions are my own.
Welcome to another set of my journal entries. I’ve combined 2 months together here as things have been fairly quiet, particularly in October, and as a result I’ve often left it two weeks between posts. That said, however, I did stay with my friend in Exeter a couple of times, I’ve been busy at work, I’ve enjoyed various things on TV including Children In Need and a special royal comedy show, and lots of news stories have caught my eye, including the fallout from the prank calls made to Andrew Sachs. And there’s also been a surprise trip arranged for December. So there’s plenty here overall, and I hope you enjoy!
Well Eye Never 