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<blockquote data-quote="Mel O&amp;#039;Drama" data-source="post: 239045" data-attributes="member: 23">Next up on O&#039;Dramavision is another series that&#039;s brand new to me.<img src="https://networkonair.com/3924-large_default/no-honestly-the-complete-series.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />John Alderton and Pauline Collins appearing together on the cover of No - Honestly makes me smile. Just because they&#039;ve made so many series together it almost feels like a punchline in itself. Just like Dennis Waterman&#039;s &quot;write the theme tune. Sing the theme tune&quot; penchant was tailor made for Little Britain to rib on a regular basis.Before diving in to buying the DVD set, I took a peek at the clip on their official YouTube channel. And even then I wasn&#039;t sure what to make of it.[MEDIA=youtube]eSVWEm_wvC4[/MEDIA]Is it a sketch show? A sitcom? A series of flashbacks? I suppose the answers would be &quot;No&quot;, &quot;Yes&quot; and &quot;Kind of&quot;. The straight to camera stuff &quot;present day&quot; stuff is only a minute or two at the start and end of each episode, remembering a specific event in their dating history. Besides that it&#039;s a straight up sitcom, set a decade or so earlier. And&nbsp; follows a linear story as well. The remembrances so far are chronological. They remembered meeting in the first episode; the aftermath of an early date in the second; and C.D. meeting Clara&#039;s father in the third.The staging of the &quot;main&quot; sitcom is exactly my cup of tea. Long scenes which are mostly one-to-ones between the couple (the second episode spent much time with the two of them sitting in a car and talking). And guest actors are well-cast. Geoffrey Hughes was in the second episode (this would have been right before his Corrie debut). And the actors playing Clara&#039;s eccentric father and his haughty butler (naturally C.D. thought the father was the butler, and vice versa) were spot on.The premise and tone of the series reminds me very much of The Lovers. I was actually a little surprised to see this wasn&#039;t written by Jack Rosenthal. The writers Charlotte Bingham and Terence Brady are also a husband and wife team who share many credits so perhaps this is partly autobiographical. I wasn&#039;t familiar with them, though I&#039;ve seen some of the stuff they&#039;ve written, perhaps most notably their later series Pig In The Middle starring Liza Goddard, who also appeared in the sequel to this very series: Yes, Honestly (which sadly seems to be out of print).Despite their many appearances together, I&#039;m not sure I&#039;ve seen Alderton and Collins together before. The former is most familiar from my recent watch of Please, Sir! The chemistry works well between them and they bounce well off each other, which I&#039;m sure isn&#039;t something that can be guaranteed even with a husband-wife team. Pauline Collins in particular is very watchable. On paper her performance sounds terrible: there&#039;s a lot of big-eyed ingenuity and ditziness and her dialogue is riddled with malapropisms. Exactly the kind of stuff that can get on my nerves or seem somewhat cheap. But it&#039;s actually genuinely funny and even endearing to hear her refer to Charles&#039;s suit as his &quot;whistle and pears&quot;.&nbsp; And I must confess that C.D.&#039;s explanation of the term &quot;cobblers&quot; (cobblers awls) was informative to me. I don&#039;t think I&#039;d thought deeply enough to investigate that one.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mel O'Drama, post: 239045, member: 23"] Next up on O'Dramavision is another series that's brand new to me. [IMG]https://networkonair.com/3924-large_default/no-honestly-the-complete-series.jpg[/IMG] John Alderton and Pauline Collins appearing together on the cover of [I]No - Honestly[/I] makes me smile. Just because they've made so many series together it almost feels like a punchline in itself. Just like Dennis Waterman's "write the theme tune. Sing the theme tune" penchant was tailor made for [I]Little Britain [/I]to rib on a regular basis. Before diving in to buying the DVD set, I took a peek at the clip on their official YouTube channel. And even then I wasn't sure what to make of it. [MEDIA=youtube]eSVWEm_wvC4[/MEDIA] Is it a sketch show? A sitcom? A series of flashbacks? I suppose the answers would be "No", "Yes" and "Kind of". The straight to camera stuff "present day" stuff is only a minute or two at the start and end of each episode, remembering a specific event in their dating history. Besides that it's a straight up sitcom, set a decade or so earlier. And follows a linear story as well. The remembrances so far are chronological. They remembered meeting in the first episode; the aftermath of an early date in the second; and C.D. meeting Clara's father in the third. The staging of the "main" sitcom is exactly my cup of tea. Long scenes which are mostly one-to-ones between the couple (the second episode spent much time with the two of them sitting in a car and talking). And guest actors are well-cast. Geoffrey Hughes was in the second episode (this would have been right before his [I]Corrie[/I] debut). And the actors playing Clara's eccentric father and his haughty butler (naturally C.D. thought the father was the butler, and vice versa) were spot on. The premise and tone of the series reminds me very much of [I]The Lovers.[/I] I was actually a little surprised to see this wasn't written by Jack Rosenthal. The writers Charlotte Bingham and Terence Brady are also a husband and wife team who share many credits so perhaps this is partly autobiographical. I wasn't familiar with them, though I've seen some of the stuff they've written, perhaps most notably their later series [I]Pig In The Middle[/I] starring Liza Goddard, who also appeared in the sequel to this very series: [I]Yes, Honestly[/I] (which sadly seems to be out of print). Despite their many appearances together, I'm not sure I've seen Alderton and Collins together before. The former is most familiar from my recent watch of [I]Please, Sir! [/I]The chemistry works well between them and they bounce well off each other, which I'm sure isn't something that can be guaranteed even with a husband-wife team. Pauline Collins in particular is very watchable. On paper her performance sounds terrible: there's a lot of big-eyed ingenuity and ditziness and her dialogue is riddled with malapropisms. Exactly the kind of stuff that can get on my nerves or seem somewhat cheap. But it's actually genuinely funny and even endearing to hear her refer to Charles's suit as his "whistle and pears". And I must confess that C.D.'s explanation of the term "cobblers" (cobblers awls) was informative to me. I don't think I'd thought deeply enough to investigate that one. [/QUOTE]

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