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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 365228" data-attributes="member: 23">Episodes 31 - 52 15 February - 27 April 1983The series is a bit hit and miss with me at the moment. Fortunately, it’s more hits than misses, but it doesn’t feel as surefire in terms of quality as it did a short while ago. Rather than storylines, this mostly depends on the character combinations. Barry trying to persuade Karen to come out of the locked bathroom is a winner. Roger visiting Petra and Michelle with paperwork is very watchable. But Barry and Petra walking through a park made me glaze over.Alan Partridge is a character I don’t remember at all (I had it in my head that he was someone Damon knew through school), and I’m really struggling to get any kind of connection with him. It feels as though eccentricity is his “thing”, but at the same time it feels like eccentricity for eccentricity’s sake and it simply doesn’t interest me. The actress playing Sam delivers all her lines with a complete lack of conviction or enthusiasm*, and it’s difficult to fault her for this, because there’s no saying just who she is meant to be. She does have a rather lovely Mini Mayfair, though.For all the unconventionality he projects, Alan Partridge is in many ways the most conventional soap character owing to the way he keeps wandering into his neighbours’ homes. To the series’ credit, this is at least shown as a minor irritant to householders. The “open house” soap convention feels a bit more of a thing in general as the episodes go along, with Annabelle’s Brookside Ratepayers’ Association (nobody has yet commented on the BRA acronym) and the visit of Roger’s Catholic parents establishing logical reasons for the increased interaction, in addition to the ongoing ripples from Gavin’s death.The send-off party the Huntingtons held for Roger’s parents including pretty much the whole cast came about equally logically, with it initially being an invitation for Bobby and Sheila, which was reluctantly extended when characters from other households were unexpectedly present as the invitation was made. All the characters barring its two most strait-laced upping sticks mid-party and moving from the Huntingtons to the Grants felt enjoyably petty and point-scoring, cementing the Grants as the alpha householders while sticking it to the characters who are most “othered” by most characters at this point. Frankly, though, I immensely enjoyed watching Paul and Roger’s awkward exchange about nibbles and whatnot after everyone else had rudely bailed, and wouldn't have minded spending far more time with them.There have been a number of themed episodes that feel as though they’ve taken place either in real time (or at least over the course of a short period of time) or in one location. Or both. The smoky lock-in episode was a great example of this, taking place in a working men’s club with Bobby and his colleagues after several of them have worked their last shift before redundancy-forced unemployment.Reflecting this was a later episode where a slightly tipsy Sheila and Bobby lark about playing pool and reminiscing about their younger days while walking home after a night of dancing. This contrasted perfectly with the Grant children at home discussing not wanting to go to church anymore. The two came together perfectly for a mega blow-up when Bobby and Sheila arrived home and things came to a head. It felt all the more meaningful and powerful because we had spent the evening with all the characters and knew the frame of mind they were in. Sheila and Bobby had broken a cardinal soap rule: they were in a happy and contented place. And even though they had to pay the price, it left me feeling bittersweet that it had to happen this quickly. Needless to say, there were terrific performances all round.Brookie is really about the small stuff. The last episode I watched contrasted Bobby accompanying Jonah to court in a bid to keep access to his son with Paul and Gordon discussing whether or not Paul should trade in the Rover SD1 for a smaller, more economical car. I found the latter far more compelling. While it’s nice to see Jonah’s character expanded a little, it all felt like too much, too soon. A couple of episodes ago he was a tertiary character who butted heads with Bobby occasionally over union business. Now he’s screaming at the ex we’ve never met before over a child we’ve never seen. No matter how good the writing and performances, these heightened dramatics are just not going to land with me the same way when the character is a non-resident we’ve only really seen filtered though the eyes of a key player.Back on the subject of contrasting, it’s notable that a line about things “not being black and white” cut immediately to Jonah in court, where he had earlier been complaining to Bobby that there’s a layer of racism behind his white ex-wife’s white new lover wanting to edge him out of the picture. Something this arc has brought home for me is that there’s actually very little racial diversity in Brookie at the moment. Part of me wondered if this is an inaccurate portrayal of Eighties Liverpool, but I’ve decided that this middle class cul-de-sac being inhabited exclusively by white faces is quite possibly one of Phil Redmond’s most subtle political statements. In many ways, Jonah has to be an outsider for this statement to have any truth.And in the same episode, it falls to Paul Collins to be the voice of casual racism when he tut-tuts from behind his net curtains about Bobby’s “ethnic” “coloured” friend. Annabelle is the voice of diplomacy. In an earlier episode her response to his complaint that Jonah wore an earring was to point out that sometimes she wore two. Here she points out that Jonah is more a true Scouser than either of them. While he agrees, this only prompts him to wax lyrical about the “Liverpool darkies” in his unit during his service. One has to admire Annabelle for trying, though.* Brookie has a number of characters who have that inflection-less Ringo Starr delivery which might have as much to do with the regional dialect as it does actors’ inexperience. Petra aside, it’s mostly supporting players such as Sam, Jonah, Ducksie and my personal favourite Gizzmo. Gizzmo’s delivery makes him sound endearingly wooden, but it fits the character perfectly and I wouldn’t have him any other way. </blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?