French and Saunders... And all things related.

[Alexis]

She was indeed. And Tracy Ullman, too, in the first series. It was my favourite comedy when I was about 12 - it seemed so daring and unbelievably funny. I got it when the DVD came out and sadly it had not dated well at all. It was certainly not as funny as I remembered and nowhere near as clever as I thought it was. It's many years since my last rewatch. Maybe I should watch it sometime soon. I certainly plan to watch the whole of French & Saunders as I have the box set upstairs - all sealed and ready to crack open when I get the urge.

You need to rip of the plastic and get stuck into that boxset.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

You need to rip of the plastic and get stuck into that boxset.

That sounds most unsafe.

 

[Willie Oleson]

I'd first discovered them in Girls On Top

Me too. I hardly remember any of it, except for the naked boyfriend and Ruby Wax suffering from an overload of chocolate.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Me too. I hardly remember any of it, except for the naked boyfriend and Ruby Wax suffering from an overload of chocolate.

Girls On Top was probably the first tv show I watched so often I could recite every episode line for line. I still could, I think.

And yet I struggle to retain any useful information.

 

[JROG]

Just found this.... and it's brilliant!

Oh... my.... God..... I just... I... I....

 

[Toni]

They get more horrible as they go on!

Abort! Abort! ABORT!!!!!


Just awful really but it's so funny. When I see some of the things Joanna Lumley does I just cant stop laughing. It's genius having her play Patsy. As she's the total opposite. But seeing this graceful lovely actress do this grotesque physical comedy is hilarious.

I crack up just by watching the way Patsy walks...!!!

Miss Piggy just told me that she once had an AbFab-related dream (or nightmare...):

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I'd first discovered them in Girls On Top

I still need to check out Girls On Top. I don't think I have ever saw that? Ruby Wax was in that too wasn't she?

And Tracy Ullman, too, in the first series. It was my favourite comedy when I was about 12 - it seemed so daring and unbelievably funny.

I still need to check out Girls On Top. I don't think I have ever saw that? Ruby Wax was in that too wasn't she?

And Tracy Ullman, too, in the first series. It was my favourite comedy when I was about 12 - it seemed so daring and unbelievably funny.

A bit of random searching on the interwebs yesterday bore this fruit, which I thought made for interesting reading. Lots on the background and development of Girls On Top. I'm now getting the urge to watch it. And perhaps some Comic Strip Presents... too. Enjoy:

Thanks For Dropping By





As strange as it may appear from this distance, television was initially very nervous of Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. Of the original rising stars of the alternative comedy scene, they were the last to make their name in the medium by some distance. While this has often been attributed to the simple fact they were the dominant female presence in the movement – their comedy presumably unable to totally counteract the sexism it so frequently railed against – the reality is it was far more a result of the sheer strength of their humour. Much of French and Saunders’ early act was deliberately challenging and taboo-breaking, and while they made guest appearances in such shows as Friday Night And Saturday Morning and Whatever You Want, the first programme to capture them in full unrestrained flow – an edition of Channel 4’s stand-up anthology series The Entertainers (the name chosen as a deliberate counterpoint to ITV’s decidedly more ‘traditional’ The Comedians) – was bumped back from its usual 8:30pm slot to close to midnight. They were, of course, well known for their participation in the likes of The Young Ones, not to mention impressive turns as writers and performers on The Comic Strip Presents …, but as the middle of the eighties approached they had still yet to secure a headlining series of their own; and this was not for want of trying.

Early in 1982, French and Saunders had met Ruby Wax, a vivacious American actress who had been living and working in the UK since the mid-seventies, and was then contributing material to long forgotten Channel 4 chat show spoof For 4 Tonight. Finding that they had much in common, the three began to work on an idea for a prospective television vehicle based around their respective stage personas. It was obvious from the outset that the best way to get three such obnoxious and self-centred characters together was to have them forced by circumstance and desperation to share a flat, with none of them possessing the means, the motivation or indeed the intellect to get out and move somewhere better.

After initial writing meetings and discussions about possible storylines, they felt they needed a fourth lead character for balance, and French’s husband-to-be Lenny Henry suggested Tracey Ullman, whom he had recently worked with on three series of the vaguely ‘alternative’ BBC sketch show Three Of A Kind. Although barely into her twenties, Ullman had already enjoyed a dramatic rise to fame, initially drawing acclaim as a straightforward comic actress before demonstrating her versatility to a far wider audience with Three Of A Kind and its somewhat more variable stablemate A Kick Up the Eighties. In tandem with these projects, she had enjoyed considerable success as a pop singer, scoring hits with a number of sixties-tinged songs given a slight comic twist and memorably overtly comic videoes. In addition to her remarkable skills as a performer, Ullman brought an all-important bankable 'name' to the project, and it may well have been her involvement that ultimately secured a surprisingly high profile slot for what was a mildly 'dangerous' effort from a group of still largely unknown performers.



ITV's midlands franchise holder Central were sufficiently impressed by the resultant pitch to commission a pilot, which was made over the summer of 1983 under the title Four F’s to Share. While nothing of this pilot ever seems to have surfaced - it was later extensively rewritten and almost completely reshot as the first series opener Four-Play - it was clearly strong enough for Central to commission a series of thirteen episodes to go into production the following year. However, the projected recording dates in April 1984 fell victim to by industrial action, and despite some talk of an autumn remount it eventually transpired no convenient dates would be available until the New Year. According to some sources, Wax and Ullman used this unexpected break in production to collaborate on scripts for a series of standalone comic playlets, which ultimately came to nothing.

When the team finally returned to the studios in January 1985, so long had elapsed since the recording of the original pilot it was decided simply to remount production, with the first episode effectively acting as a ‘new’ pilot. It is likely the characters, performances and entire concept had already been sharpened considerably during this eighteen-month delay, but the new studio dates also brought with them a vital change on the production side. Whereas the original pilot had been handled by a team more used to working on Central’s traditional sitcoms, Paul Jackson, a young producer with a strong understanding of alternative comedy, and who had worked with the main performers in various permutations as far back as 1980, was assigned to take over the project. Now renamed Girls On Top, the new sitcom was finally ready to go before the cameras.

Wax’s loud, attention-demanding stage persona was streamlined for Girls On Top into Shelley Dupont, a brash drama student with plenty of ego but precious little discernible talent. French became Amanda Ripley, a humourless diehard left-wing feminist whose ideology was decidedly at odds with her rarely-satiated hunger for men, while Saunders became Amanda’s dozy, lethargic childhood friend Jennifer Marsh, a girl without a malicious thought - or possibly a thought of any kind - in her head. Ullman, meanwhile, quickly developed the part of Candice Valentine, a bitchy and manipulative It Girl who associated with the rich, powerful and glamorous, yet was still not above committing acts of petty theft against her flatmates. Rounding off the main cast was veteran actress Joan Greenwood as Lady Carlton, an eccentric romantic novelist who doubled-up, arguably not entirely to her own awareness, as the girls’ landlady.



Perhaps inevitably, much of the humour in Girls On Top revolves around the massive clash of personalities between the equally voluble and volatile Shelley and Amanda, with Jennifer playing less of a part in the dialogue but indulged with extended physical comedy sequences based on her immense lack of intellect and self-awareness. However, it is Candice who really steals the show, not least on account of her often lengthy 'solo' sequences taking place in a surreal, dreamlike world of glamorous discos and exclusive nightclubs, where it is never entirely clear to the viewer whether or not this is all simply taking place inside her head. The scripts for the first series were primarily written by French, Saunders and Wax, with Ullman contributing additional material and Ben Elton acting as script editor.

Introduced by a stylish theme song performed by the cast and written by Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook of Squeeze, Girls On Top finally found its way onto ITV when the first run of seven episodes appeared in an 8.30pm Wednesday timeslot from 23rd October 1985. Storylines included Candice’s attempts to hoodwink Shelley into appearing in an ‘adult’ film, Jennifer being kidnapped and held to ransom, Amanda’s pathetic attempt at staging a multi-cultural street festival, the disappearance of Lady Carlton’s stuffed dog, and more attempts at dodging rent payments than the combined cast could have counted on their collective fingers. Among those making guest appearances were Helen Atkinson-Wood, Helen Lederer, Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane, Mark Arden, Stephen Frost, Simon Brint, Roland Rivron and – in a fantastic semi-regular turn as Amanda’s jumpsuited feminist activist co-conspirator – Harriet Thorpe.

Despite the inevitable limitations of its timeslot and prominence – although the writers did their best to find increasingly subtle ways around this – Girls On Top was an instant and deserved hit with both the regular sitcom audience and fans of the alternative scene alike. Its brashness and vulgarity were neatly balanced by the air of surrealism and the traditional bright lights and studio audience sitcom setup. Some observers have maintained the series was simply a carbon copy of The Young Ones, and superficially this criticism would appear to hold some weight. The basic setting is the same, and even the characters themselves are not that dissimilar – Amanda and Rik are certainly very close contemporaries, with Shelley effectively taking the place of Vyvyan, Jennifer as Neil and Candice as Mike. However, it is true that at least three of the characters were simply extensions of what their respective performers had been doing on stage for several years beforehand, and even taking usual television production practices into account, the idea of someone intentionally commissioning a series which was at that point barely more than a cult hit and literally only a couple of months old does stretch credibility somewhat.



What is perhaps most surprising about Girls On Top in retrospect was how much they were able to get away with in a prominent pre-watershed timeslot. While there is no actual swearing, there is a fair amount of what would be generally deemed ‘bad’ language, and a good deal of explicit sexual references, many of which were arguably still shocking in the mid-eighties. Central did in fact have some worries about this, but the writers preferred to leave the ensuing arguments in the capable hands of Paul Jackson, who was well experienced in negotiating with more conservative contemporaries. In any case, on some occasions Central seemed to be making a fuss over absolutely nothing, and Wax has often wearily recalled being informed of concerns that the utterly fictional Irma La Douce might sue for defamation of character.

By the time the first run of Girls On Top was being transmitted, Tracey Ullman was already in talks with American television networks about the possibility of her own solo project. This would eventually result in the acclaimed The Tracey Ullman Show, a series of offbeat playlets - some possibly derived from the abandoned series mooted during the interruption to production of Girls On Top - that ran on Fox between 1987 and 1990, although its success has since been somewhat overshadowed by the fact that it also included the television debut of The Simpsons. These negotiations precluded the possibility of Ullman appearing in the second series of Girls On Top, recorded in the early summer of 1986, but rather than replace her, Wax, French and Saunders opted instead to write Candice out. Ullman was ultimately available to record a small amount of material for the first episode, but her absence would leave the second series sorely lacking when it finally appeared in October 1986.

Candice had of course originally been added to the show to create a stronger dynamic between the other three leads, and her absence had an inevitable effect on the quality of Girls On Top. The main problem with the new batch of six episodes, which commenced on 30th October in the same timeslot, was not simply that they missed Candice and her glitzy fantasy world, but that the other characters had also been noticeably reshaped to compensate for her absence. This inevitably did not prove to be a successful move; Shelley’s brashness and confidence were noticeably toned down, Amanda was revealed to be unexpectedly weak-willed and easily manipulated by men, and most jarringly of all Jennifer became something of a scheming bitch, siding with whichever of the others she stood to gain the most from. This resulted in a muddled dynamic with less inspired interplay between the flatmates, and sadly as a consequence was just not as funny.



In fairness, and as Dawn French hinted at when interviewed for Roger Wilmut’s history of Alternative Comedy Didn’t You Kill My Mother-In-Law?, there may just not have been as much spare time and energy to spend working on six new scripts of Girls On Top. They entered production unexpectedly soon after the first batch, presumably in a bid to capitalise on the show's success, and the three leads had already planned to use this time working on other projects. Wax was engaged on a number of other writing assignments, while French and Saunders - the latter of whom was also pregnant during this time - were hard at work both on Ben Elton’s BBC sitcom Happy Families (also produced by Paul Jackson) and their The Comic Strip Presents… film Consuela. Ultimately, however, the second series was a massive comedown after the offbeat vulgar charm of the first. This is not to say it does not have its moments. The first episode, in which Amanda and Shelley are both accused of murdering Candice by assisting one of her 'mystery' illnesses - in reality she had run away to marry a rich nobleman, suggesting her apparent delusions may have been truthful after all - is well up to standard, while others featured entertaining guest appearances by Harry Enfield, John Sessions, Hugh Laurie, and Katherine Helmond as Shelley’s mother, but as a whole it failed to work as well as the first run had done. Even the theme song, remixed to remove Ullman’s vocals, seemed a pale shadow of its former self. On a brighter note, the second run did come accompanied by the only item of Girls On Top merchandise - a tie-in paperback, written by the cast and published by HarperCollins, which was every bit as brash, vulgar and indeed amusing as the first set of episodes.

With the final episode featuring the main characters apparently killed in an explosion – yet another unintentional but widely-derided echo of The Young Ones – Girls On Top made its final appearance on 11th December 1986. Despite never giving an inch in terms of the strength of its content, the success of the show in its unlikely timeslot did much to make this new strain of comedy acceptable in the eyes of the wider viewing public. It also acted as a springboard for the cast to find their way into similar areas. However, this success did not extend to all parties involved – early the following year, Central attempted to fill the gap that Girls On Top had left in their output with the similarly conceived Hardwicke House, which was rapidly pulled after only two episodes had been broadcast.

Sadly, and perhaps on account of the lacklustre second series, Girls On Top is now regarded as one of the lesser achievements of the 'alternative' comedy boom. But at least initially it was a sterling effort and deserves slightly more respect than its reputation might suggest. Yet arguably the biggest laugh of the entire series was that, having been shunned by television virtually outright for so long, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders beat their contemporaries into the mainstream schedules by some considerable distance.



http://timworthington.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/thanks-for-dropping-by.html



​

The entire blog is heavenly, bursting at the seams with the most nostalgic TV stuff.

​

 

[Alexis]

Thanks @Mel O’Drama I will check this out later.

You didn't happen to catch Dawn French's stand up show that was on over Christmas? Boxing day I think? Something like 900 million minutes or something? I missed it with work and its not on the iPlayer now.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I certainly plan to watch the whole of French & Saunders as I have the box set upstairs - all sealed and ready to crack open when I get the urge.

You need to rip of the plastic and get stuck into that boxset.

After it sitting on my shelf for several years, I've finally opened it and popped it into the player. I'm two episodes into Series Two.

It's many years since I last watched this. And it's quite possible that I've never actually seen one or two of the later series - I'll have to wait and see if anything comes back to me while watching.

To be quite frank, I found Series One quite hit and miss. Back in 1987 French & Saunders could do no wrong with me. Girls On Top was my favourite comedy show of all time and the idea of them having their own sparkly new TV show was like heaven. I can remember reading a Radio Times interview where they talked about how the sketch show was based on the live performances they'd been doing for years (one comment I've always remembered was about the general public thinking of Dawn as being bossy because of GOT, but in their live shows it was always Jen who was the bossy one).

It was an exciting time to be a French & Saunders fan. I'd made up my mind I was going to find this riotously funny and so I did.

Being older, more cynical and less enthusiastic, I'm harder to please these days. Maybe it's that, or maybe it's time moving on. But there was a lot in Series One that felt more experimental and, frankly not too funny. I think I've outgrown alternative comedy and this series is the one that is truest to their Comic Strip roots. Lots of talks about menstruation and front bottoms and some gross out comedy that seemed really daring back then. In hindsight some of it now just seems like the kind of sub-feminist acting out that's restricted to Loose Women.

Credit where it's due, though. I have to remember that this was groundbreaking back in the day. This was French & Saunders entering their second wave:
going mainstream. They weren't quite national treasures at this point. It was this show that would move them towards that. But their names were getting known. They'd gone from comedy clubs to Channel 4 (on its launch night, to boot) to ITV and now here they were on the Beeb. OK - it was BBC2, but still...

Nostalgia tinges my viewing, of course, and these early shows are like a little time capsule of their early partnership. And there is some good stuff in there. The Extras are always thoroughly enjoyable and are early proof that - even at this point - they were at their funniest with the more family-friendly sketches.

The guests, too, are like an Eighties time capsule. Roy Castle, Julie T. Wallace, Rik Mayall, Michael Grade. This show could only have been made in 1987. I love Betty Marsden and had forgotten she was a regular through the first series.

The show did seem to get better - and funnier - in the second half of Series One. Maybe it was a case of me needing a little time to get into the spirit of the proceedings.




Series Two is my most-watched F&S series. It was the first one I videotaped. Even by the time the next week's episode would air I'd watched the previous one half a dozen times and committed almost every line to memory. And I continued to watch it week in, week out for a good, long time. It's just as I remember it and feels like the start of the "classic" French & Saunders. It's sharper and more focussed than the previous year and holds up really well. As I remember it, this was the first series to get a repeat run on BBC1. And with good reason.

I'm looking forward to the remaining four episodes and the four series that follow.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I finished Series Two last night. It's much funnier and more clever than I remember it being. Characters from the first series were well used (loved The Extras hassling June Whitfield) and there were some great new creations.

My memory for the chronology of the series is rather wobbly. I was surprised to find there were a number of sketches I'd forgotten. And I mean completely forgotten. Even when they came on they didn't seem familiar, while the sketches that flanked them I could remember word for word. OK, it's probably been a couple of decades since I watched it, but I did watch it many, many times. But it was all for the good as it meant it was almost like watching it for the first time. The plastic surgery sketch was an example. It wasn't until Jen became Lulu that it became at all familiar. Also, a couple of sketches I was convinced were part of Series Two didn't appear. I could have sworn the Bros sketch was from S2, for example, but I'd have been quite wrong.

Back when this first aired, I loved Dawn and Jen equally and couldn't choose a favourite. This has changed. Jen has had me cracking up. She's so versatile and completely different in every character. The neurotic hostess sketch was the perfect vehicle for her: Dawn, Lenny and Ade were practically extras all muttering rhubarbs while Jen whirled chaotically round shrieking at them and panicking. It's proved to be my favourite sketch so far this time round.

The Hollywood section in the final episode with Jen as Katherine Hepburn, Judy Garland and Liza while Dawn played Liz Taylor and Cyd Charisse nicely hinted at some of the stuff still to come.

Series One had me a bit worried, but Series Two has really sharpened things up. I'm looking forward to some more familiar sketches (and probably lots of stuff I'd forgotten) in Series Three.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Into Series Three, and it's all coming back to me now.

Dawn is so dead on as Sonia and that catchy pseudo-SAW song she sang is perfection. It exposes the ubiquitous production line quality of the Hit Factory sound while demonstrating the appeal - because it's a complete earworm. And actually better than some of SAW's own material. I can easily imagine Donna Summer or Kylie singing this track.

What Ever Happened To Baby Dawn is wonderful too. Jennifer's Joan Crawford is frighteningly accurate.

I'm ashamed to say I've never actually seen What Ever Happened To Baby Jane in full, but when I do it will be hard to shake F&S's version.


The show feels like quality now. It feels like some money is being spent on it and the work that's gone into the makeup and cinematography to nail every pastiche they do is awe inspiring. Everything about this show is working.


I love that even by this point F&S are established enough to go meta. Like having Jerry Hall and Linda Lusardi (was it LL? or someone else?) reading their lines in their usual set. Or Jennifer watching old F&S sketches in the Baby Dawn spoof.

 

[Emelee]

I tried The Vicar of .... (can't remember the village name), but I didn't really like it.

Absolutely Fabulous is much more my cup of tea. I absolutely love Patsy & Eddy. I've seen all 5 seasons and 2 special episodes. Now the recent movie remains. I somehow doubt that they have changed much.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I tried The Vicar of .... (can't remember the village name), but I didn't really like it.

Maybe it's the Richard Curtis factor. I haven't enjoyed most of the big screen stuff he's been involved with.

But I do quite like The Vicar Of Dibley. It has a great ensemble and is quite charming. I have to be in the right mood to watch it though.

Absolutely Fabulous is much more my cup of tea. I absolutely love Patsy & Eddy. I've seen all 5 seasons and 2 special episodes.

I feel like I ought to like Ab Fab more than I actually do. Everything works about it. I love the cast (it has June Whitfield, for heaven's sake) and it makes me laugh whenever I watch. But somehow I almost never feel like I want to watch it. I bought the complete series box set about a decade ago, watched it once and immediately sold it on.

Why I have trouble getting attached to it remains a mystery. Maybe it's the migraine-inducing gaudy title sequence.

Incidentally, just two nights ago I watched the F&S sketch that inspired Ab Fab (with Dawn in the Saffy role).

It made me laugh enough to think I'll give Ab Fab another viewing soon.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Series Three was hugely enjoyable and I've now started Series Four.

I have the best of both worlds: I can't remember the structure of each episode and what's coming next. But then as many of the sketches start I remember them and get excited about seeing it again.

The film spoofs are just so bloody brilliant. I think I'm appreciating that more now than I used to. I wonder how they decide who gets to play which role. They certainly make each of them work well. On paper I'd have assumed that Dawn would play the more voluptuous Marilyn Monroe while Jen would be tall Jane Russell. But as it turned out, Jennifer made the most wonderful Marilyn. Her facial expressions for each person she impersonates are so well studied.

Jen is so talented. She's very funny and a blooming good actress. I always look forward to seeing what she's going to play next. Dawn is consistently funny, but goes in a different direction. Even when she's playing Pauline Quirke or Linda Blair, she never really stops being Dawn French. Their two styles work well together.

The opera divas singing I Should Be So Lucky never fails to crack me up. I wonder if it inspired Kylie's Abbey Road Sessions.

The Misery sketch looked so damned expensive. It looks like they're spending some serious money as they enter Series Four.

Dawn as Kathy Bates was great. Her outburst (at 4:50 in the video above) had me laughing so hard. I keep re-watching it and laughing from my gut.

"Two cock-a-doodie lesbians go into some mothering bar and then some kinda cock-a-doodie, christing, mothering hilarious thing happens...?"

Jen in the James Caan role kept reminding me of Kenneth Williams.


Oh - and the Shakespeare's Sister spoof. I was laughing before it even got going because I knew what was coming.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Just found this.... and it's brilliant!

I've just listened to this for the umpteenth time and have tears rolling down my face. If I was offered a million to listen with a straight face I wouldn't even bother trying.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I'm about midway through Series Five now.

From Baywatch to Batman, the homages continue to be the highlight of the show. It's uncanny how much both French AND Saunders looked like Madonna in the In Bed... spoof. The House Of Idiot felt a little like French and Saunders do Acorn Antiques.

I've noticed an increase in Dawn French's screen time the last couple of series. She's had a few lengthy solo spots, like the woman trying to travel round the world on her small boat. I find myself getting impatient during these, waiting for Saunders to reappear and get the chemistry going. Was Jen busy with Ab Fab or something?

Did Dawn French take up smoking at some point between '93 and '96, I wonder? In earlier series, I noticed that when she was required to smoke she either had an unlit cigarette or was out of shot when it was meant to be raised to her lips while Saunders puffed away. The first episode of Series Five had a couple of back-to-back sketches where French was drawing on a smoke (though still not inhaling very deeply).

One of the smoking scenes was the Widows satire which featured Ann Mitchell, Helen Mirren and Lynda La Plante herself. Very enjoyable indeed: "What a bleedin' dump".

Curiously, when Mirren later appeared wearing a wig in the spoof of the homely sitcom I thought at first it was Felicity Kendal. And then Kendal herself appeared two episodes later. I hadn't realised how early on Ab Fab had become a cult. There were a number of in-jokes in the sitcom satire, with Julia Sawalha playing Jen's character's daughter and Jen commenting that she's made a career out of playing daughters before slipping into some Eddy-isms.

Mel and Sue have appeared, prompting me to check where they were in their trajectory at this point. My first awareness of them was presenting Light Lunch, and I remembered that began in 1997, but this pre-dates that. On checking, it seems French And Saunders was their first proper TV gig. I had no idea.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Well, I've now finished Series Six, which means I've reached the end of the box set.

I was geared for the worst with Series Six, but it wasn't as bad as expected. I like that it came full circle with them working at the BBC and trying to get themselves on the map - just like Series One. I appreciated that they allowed themselves to be seen as quite unlikeable at times. It did get a bit too meta for my liking at times, but it was watchable enough.

I loved French as Catherine Zeta Jones. That was probably the highlight of each episode for me.

What the hell was that porn webcam thing about though?!



I have Still Alive on DVD, so hope to watch that to round things off over the next couple of evenings. It'll be my first viewing. I'm looking forward to it and again I'm keeping my expectations at the lower end of the spectrum.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Still Alive was quite enjoyable. It was nice to get a flavour of their live shows, taking them back to their Comic Strip roots.

French grated on me at times during it. Her style is very broad pretty much all the time and there was a lot of gurning and shouting: very noticeable in a live performance where it's not carefully edited. Saunders, conversely, was very endearing. She came across as quite shy and somewhat lacking in confidence at times - particularly in the bonus 'behind the scenes' feature. Not to the detriment of the show, I hasten to add. It just felt like Dawn's bluster helped Jen to stay buoyant. I found myself "getting" their relationship in a different way here. I can understand the symbiotic aspect, where Saunders is helped by her partner's energy and love of the spotlight, while French gets great material to perform from it (making assumptions here, but I'd guess that Jen does the lion's share - if not all - of the writing and character creations). And they both seem to genuinely enjoy each other, which is lovely.

Nice that it was a bit of a retrospective as their way of saying goodbye and it's novel that the medium allowed them to go a bit further with some of the sketches. Not that going further is necessarily an improvement. We didn't need to see the Fat Dick Men's willies, for instance, but it was a logical move.

I feel ready to say goodbye to French & Saunders now, but it's been a nice bit of nostalgia.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I'd first discovered them in Girls On Top

It was my favourite comedy when I was about 12 - it seemed so daring and unbelievably funny. I got it when the DVD came out and sadly it had not dated well at all. It was certainly not as funny as I remembered and nowhere near as clever as I thought it was. It's many years since my last rewatch. Maybe I should watch it sometime soon.

Last night I finally started a re-re-re-re-rewatch with the first three episodes. GOT is probably the TV programme I've watched more times than any other - mostly based on episodes I'd recorded onto VHS in the Eighties and viewed ad infinitum - so there's something very comforting about watching it.

Perhaps inevitably, much of the humour in Girls On Top revolves around the massive clash of personalities between the equally voluble and volatile Shelley and Amanda, with Jennifer playing less of a part in the dialogue but indulged with extended physical comedy sequences based on her immense lack of intellect and self-awareness.

I love all five main characters in this show. In my first viewing back in '85, Tracy Ullman was the only name I recognised going into this but French and Saunders were the standouts for me, this (probably) being my introduction to them.

However, it is Candice who really steals the show, not least on account of her often lengthy 'solo' sequences taking place in a surreal, dreamlike world of glamorous discos and exclusive nightclubs, where it is never entirely clear to the viewer whether or not this is all simply taking place inside her head.

I'd forgotten this comment and will be bearing it in mind as I watch Candice's scenes away from the flat. It's never occurred to me that the scenes we watched were anything other than reality. The tales of her exploits she regales the others with on her return are another matter entirely.

Some observers have maintained the series was simply a carbon copy of The Young Ones, and superficially this criticism would appear to hold some weight. The basic setting is the same, and even the characters themselves are not that dissimilar – Amanda and Rik are certainly very close contemporaries, with Shelley effectively taking the place of Vyvyan, Jennifer as Neil and Candice as Mike.

I've always seen this parallel and still can to this day. Having completed a full viewing of The Young Ones just this week, though, it's obvious the tone between the two is quite different.

What is perhaps most surprising about Girls On Top in retrospect was how much they were able to get away with in a prominent pre-watershed timeslot. While there is no actual swearing, there is a fair amount of what would be generally deemed ‘bad’ language, and a good deal of explicit sexual references, many of which were arguably still shocking in the mid-eighties.

This was a huge draw for me watching this as a pre-teen. It was one of the first TV shows that I claimed as mine, rather than something we viewed as a family and felt very daring and rebellious. It's quite possible my parents watched with me, but it probably didn't appeal to them as much and is probably not the most comfortable viewing for a parent to watch with their child.

Watching it in hindsight, thirty two years on, it's really not that shocking. It's certainly far more gentle than The Young Ones. Maybe it's because I'm more worldly (ha), or because times have changed.

Or maybe it's because I still know every single bloody line of GOT and have become completely desensitised. Unfortunately, this is also clouding my judgement as to whether or not the show is good or funny. Despite the huge gap in my viewings, I've never really cut the ties with this show and it's been playing on a cycle somewhere at the back of my mind for over three decades.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I can never quite decide whether or not the second series of Girls On Top is as good as (or, dare I say it, better than) the first. Once again my objectivity is blurred by having watched it so many times and anticipating its original airing with far more excitement than should be legally allowed

It's certainly very different. Tracey Ullman's absence changes the dynamics quite significantly. Candice's shade fests with Shelley are replaced with some barbs between Shelley and Amanda. It's now Amanda that Shelley orders out of the flat when it suits the plot. I agree with the article above which says how jarring the change in Jennifer's character is. Though personally I quite enjoyed the Jennifer of series two (she had felt like the weakest of the four characters in the first series this time round). Joan Greenwood continued to be a complete sport and stole every scene she was in.

Despite the boundaries arguably having been pushed still further in the second series (the seemingly endless references to gynaecological examinations alone would tick this box) it still feels a little less edgy and alternative to me.

After the disappointment of my last re-watch I went in with expectations lowered which resulted in me enjoying it far more this time round. The entire series was a nice, easy watch, and it was fun to revisit my introduction to French and Saunders and one of the shows that somehow initiated the rebellion of my teenage years (such as it was).