Last night, a double-bill of episodes saw me enter my next Britcom:
While, of course, I have an awareness of the series, to say I have a relationship with
Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em would be putting it a little strongly. Something in the memory banks tells me it used to be repeated on a Saturday teatime. And it probably aired before something I watched regularly as I have foggy memories of half watching the climactic calamity of the week while anticipating the beginning of something else. It never wowed me, and I don't remember sitting through an entire episode. But neither did I dislike it. In twenty first century parlance, I suppose "meh" would sum up the way I viewed it at the time.
Watching the first two episodes last night, it occurred to me that it could still go either way. There's some great stuff, but also some stuff that - even today - may not wow me.
The theme music is instantly recognisable. Just the first two notes are enough to conjure up images of berets, trenchcoats, tank tops, "bits of trouble", disasters on wheels and "Ooh Betty"s. It's perfectly appropriate for the series: whimsical, airy fairy and a little bit annoying. It's also a complete earworm.
On Frank himself I'm lukewarm. He dances the line between eccentrically interesting and just plain daft, and it seems as though he's mugging constantly, even though he possibly isn't. He's certainly a very broad character - almost cartoony. Perhaps he seems more so because of the character's legacy of Mike Yarwood impressions and schoolyard retorts.
The supporting cast - such as they are at this point - are great. Most notable, of course, is Michele Dotrice, who makes Betty an extremely likeable character. She deadpans wonderfully. Her fiery support of Frank - against whom she won't hear a bad word - and her "can do" encouragement of his search for employment gives the series a beating heart while at the same time adding a touch of pathos with her understanding how he's perceived by others. In many ways the support/defend/exasperation cycle makes her very much a proto-Margaret Meldrew. Some years ago I saw Michele play Miss Prism to David Suchet's Lady Bracknell, and she stole every scene in which she appeared. She was just wonderful. And completely unrecognisable from the passive Betty I vaguely remembered (misremembered, probably. Just as there's more to Michele than Betty, there's more to Betty than meets the eye, methinks). The actress playing Betty's mother in the first episode showed promise. She gave Frank a couple of looks that spoke volumes.
So far, the guest cast are enjoyable.
Bowler's George Baker was in the first episode. The rest of the small roles are a who's who of "I know that face from somewhere" British comedy of the era, with character actors like John Ringham and Joe Dunlop and some familiar character archetypes such as the short-tempered wealthy American investor.
In general I'm not a fan of slapstick, but Michael Crawford performing some tricky and dangerous manoeuvres is commendable. Him performing his own stunts is the stuff of legend, and increases the investment in the moment considerably. The first episode's big stunt saw him fall under - and then (eventually) out of - a filing cabinet which would have required split second timing. The second episode had Frank's head down a toilet while arching his back and planting his feet in the passage outside the WC, which looked most uncomfortable. He doesn't just do this stuff. He does it well. And he does it in a way that's funny. And he does it entirely in character. There's a touch of breaking the fourth wall to it - the audience applauds Crawford's stunts in a way they wouldn't if a stunt double took over. But that works fine for the show, and it keeps two important factors: truth and immediacy.
While not laughing out loud, I found myself smiling and feeling a gentle warmth, so that's all good. With the Seventies sitcom being apparently dangerously controversial at the moment, it strikes me that
Some Mothers... is also so far fairly gentle and (to my eyes, at least) there's little to offend. There was moment of double entendre when Frank complained his suit trousers were too tight and Betty assured him "when you walk in there you'll look just like one of
them" (meaning businessmen). Ah - the days when just a euphemistic suggestion of gayness could get a hearty laugh from the audience*. But if anything the line proves the strength of this particular series. The writing isn't always the sharpest. But the performances overcome it. Michele's delivery, Michael's reaction and the staging of the scene (he with his back to her, compounding the miscommunication; she looking down to fiddle with her sleeve immediately after the line and so unaware of his reaction) make gold out of a potential lead balloon. It's a funny moment.
*
There's something tacky-but-innocent about some Seventies sensibilities. Or at least those exploited in sitcoms. Looking at history through the lens of the sitcom suggests that the audience were in many ways so much more easily pleased than today, which is charming. These sensibilities would also make the audience vulnerable to manipulation later in the decade. Throwing in a line like this - hinting at the socially taboo for a guaranteed laugh - reminds me of what Spielberg said about Roy Scheider using the word "shit" moments before the shark burst forth from the water in Jaws. It was placed there because he knew that the 1975 audience would laugh uncomfortably at the then-taboo word, and he wanted the satisfaction of attending screenings and watching awkward laughter turn into screams of terror, which is exactly what happened. In British sitcom terms, John Cleese and Connie Booth would go on to utilise this discomfort to make a point in the highly topical Fawlty Towers episode which this week was removed from a BBC streaming site in a somewhat disingenuous response to real world events. Cleese, Booth and the majority of the audience seemed to understand that characters using racist terms so starkly and openly showed what an ugly thing it was and made it more difficult to deny its existence. It shone a light on attitudes that for many years had been reinforced by sitcoms' use of cute euphemisms and double entendres at the expense of a group of people. If the audience laughed harder it's because they were all the more uncomfortable. As perhaps they needed to be. Whether or not this contributed towards turning the tide away from racism being an acceptable thing is debatable. At the very least it serves as an important time capsule - an ugly reflection of attitudes held in real life by some at the time. 
