Quote: Steve Sunshine @ May 16 2013, 11:57 PM BST

Whatever happened to Leonard?
Was he ever in anything else?

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Quite a few things, before and after: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0598757/

Quote: Aaron @ May 16 2013, 11:58 PM BST

Quite a few things, before and after: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0598757/

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I think he's also been known to appear in Francis Durbridge thrillers in regional theatres.

I remember Reggie Perrin and Fairly Secret Army.

Was he in Reggie Perrin?

Quote: Steve Sunshine @ May 17 2013, 10:53 PM BST

Was he in Reggie Perrin?

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Thread resurrected against popular demand because I think it's a far better piece of work than Bread whose thread has been revived, and has long fascinated me as an unorthodox and not hilariously funny 'sitcom' which nonetheless seems to work very well imo and was very popular, if not on here.

I'd like to give Butterflies another try.

At the time I didn't enjoy it - when my parents had it on that is - being a child and that ( but then I can remember not caring much for Dad's Army! ).

I dislike Carla Lane sitcoms in general, but wonder if I might now appreciate the adult themes of middle-aged worry and disappointment.

Many late 1970s / early '80s sitcom seemed to be something to do with avoiding marriage / unhappy marriage / divorce (pick your favourite political theory as to the root causes).

It had a nice melancholy quality that I enjoyed, with this woman trapped with a frankly horrible family.

I liked it, but not enough to buy the box set - especially as it's £30.

Quote: Chappers @ 17th May 2013, 8:25 PM

I remember Reggie Perrin and Fairly Secret Army.

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And I remember Geoffrey Palmer

Trick thing, Johnny chit chat.

Quote: Aaron @ 16th May 2013, 11:58 PM

Quite a few things, before and after: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0598757/

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And now, still working aged 80 There's hope for me yet.

I have hit the phase in life where one looks back on it all and tries to think it all through. It's almost as if preparing to be some sort of lecturer on how to approach early sitcom so as to maximise younger people's pleasure. That is a part of the concept in my mind and sometimes I return to being that younger person. On eight out of ten occasions, programmes in this somewhat nostalgic assessment emerge extremely well. Carla Lane would surely be one of the key examples used. To do this properly, it is certainly worth acknowledging the political aspects on which almost every programme about the history of sitcom concentrates. You would get in the Lane example an emphasis on the woman writer, the female perspective and some bits and pieces about social class in "those times", That "what it said to us - or didn't say". I think the fact that she was a ground breaking woman is very important but then having done that bit I would want to move on.

My course would meander for a while around the conundrum of how it should have been that sitcom in the first forty years was in its infancy - a point always requiring a reminder - and yet it could simultaneously be a "golden age". My answer, if it requires any answer, and only as a starting point which is open for debate, is that an infancy when done right is often golden because it equates to an exciting adventure. But then we would talk about how few television channels there were and how all this stuff was thrown towards us and millions of us sat down at the same time to watch it with the idea "I hope this will make us laugh". That non analytical, naïve, truth was all - but it was a BIG all. And I can tell you what happened in individuals in that process. They were open. Very open to the lure. The lure of almost everything. That was the map designed for us so that the powers that be decided what we were getting. Plus they also knew we would be naively challenged and hopefully manipulated into being something other than people in our living rooms expecting latter day music hall. They wanted ratings but they also wanted changes in the perceptions of some and a backlash from others.

So what happened was everybody went "oh a new comedy series, great", very optimistic, and then some minutes in quite a lot would go "oh, I'm not sure about this at all - I don't get the humour". Now that was often indeed political although it wasn't really understood as such in the viewers themselves. If people didn't like something, they just twitched in their chairs not knowing why. It was just a feeling. So if they were anti black or anti gay or anti woman or anti racism or anti homophobia or anti misogyny then obviously that would have been the unspoken and even unrealised issue. But MORE importantly, if they wanted slapstick or belly laughs or "nice" humour or rudeness and they didn't get it then that was the problem for them. In all these situations, there was a certain point where rather than having hatred it was basically confusion about how the definition of sitcom was being changed yet again and they decided to switch off as to them it wasn't funny. So you could call that point the sticking point. It's really, really important, this, in what it says about Britain which whatever its detractors, British, say has always wanted to be a good enough egg. It was never about "I hate black people" or "gays should be camp" or "women can't do comedy". It was all about "hold on, this ain't what I am used to".

But I'm a 50 something and while it was my generation who in Comedy Central tried to chuck the entire old out the average Joe of my generation was nowhere as near as anarchic. We said of both the old and the new "well, let's go with any of this until we get to our personal sticking points". Which does bring in education. Because the ones among us who thought we were more erudite as sons of Steptoe or whatever although we in the longer term were not in all ways were given the skill not to switch off at the sticking point but to seek at that point to think up seeing things through a new lens. And that lens from my point of view with Carla Lane was not at all political in the modern sense of looking back. It said virtually nothing about "the woman" then. It was "I don't totally get this but there is something very special about it so what is it?". The answer was surprising, Phrases like "it is almost poetry" floated hazily across the mind. And then that concept became ever so exciting. "Oh Christ, this really is almost like poetry - I sense it could be beautiful". And after that revelation, there is no going back because it was and it is and she was very, very, special indeed. A Shakespeare in her way. But she had huge populist figures? Yep, half just had the shows on. Half were moving upwards in their cultural outlook,

I like all of Carla Lane's programmes.

Visit them, if there is a slight qualm she herself would stick too long at times on "a point", but my God the woman could write - the characterisation was wonderful - now looking and listening through the poetic lens, cherish her and marvel.

........"A Shakespeare in her way."

That's true as far as I'm concerned.I don't find his comedies funny either.