On The Buses Page 6

The nay-sayers who put a blanket rejection on this series should at least try out the best On the Buses episodes, which I reckon compare favourably with any other series of the period.

Last night I viewed two Series 3 episodes from 1970: the first,'Busmens' Perks' detailed Stan using knock-off paint from the depot spray-shop in order to decorate Arthur and Olives' bedroom in green and yellow bus paint, this one is OK and worth a look, but hardly a true gem.

However, 'Brew it Yourself' [23/1/70] in which two pints of Stan's home brew beer sees him legless and about to take a bus out and collared by Blakey, is a well-executed, impeccably-scripted and performed comic outing, very entertaining by any comedy standards...with Varney putting over a very good 'drunkard' act.

Also contains a fair few world-of-1970 'reference points': remember the days when breathalysers contained crystals that turned green after 'blowing into the bag'?

A thoroughly entertaining entry, and the Benny Hill episode I viewed directly after this [5/3/80] was lacking in comparison....usually these Hill offerings hit the mark for me, perhaps it was the ommission of the speeded-up chase at the end in this episode that disappointed.

Series 3 update:

'The Snake' [6/2/70]

This episode is very untypical of the period, with sympathetic handling of overseas cultures [Indian in this case] and a distinct lack of xenophobia when dealing with 'people from abroad' [apologies for kowtowing to the PeeCee set on here], especially in the first half, although there are a couple of gratituitous sexist shots of ample cleavage: it's really quite mild though.

Part two is more of the usual farcical cavortings, with Stan unwittingly releasing a large snake from Jacks' washing holdall into the Butler household.

'Mums' Last Fling' [13/2/70]

------is a firing-on-all-cylinders mini-triumph, as Doris Hare's character falls for the dubious charms of a shifty con-man, played with considerable gusto by 'Tommo' Godfrey. Great period references in this one: maxi-coats, thigh-length boots, etc.

This third series is much more assured and confident than the very early b/w episodes, I'll wager.

The episode of "On The Buses" I watched tonight may well be the first I've seen in its entirety since being at junior school. I'm not quite sure which episode I was watching but it involved a gardening competition between Jack and Blakey. The very last episode - number 74 - was apparently called "Gardening Leave" but that may have been a different one. I don't know. I'm not sure that I found it particularly hilarious but it was very interesting to me and I would be willing to defend it for a number of different reasons. I'll say a bit more when I've got my thinking about it organised. That won't be today but it will hopefully be later this week.

That was indeed the final episode. Although it's called Gardening Time, not Gardening Leave.

I think On The Buses is an absolute treasure. Some legends in the show. I think it is one of the controversial sitcoms because some people found it sexist. I wasn't particularly interested in Series 7 (the last one) because some of the personnel had left. In my opinion I thought it lost some of its witty charm and the atmosphere was completely different. On another note, I found some bits embarrassing, that includes during Series 1-6. I think it has aged rather well. Some of the humour in the early series was quite original. I noticed the series was racist in some parts but that didn't matter because it was the 70s. The films were quite entertaining and hysterical. Overall, a sitcom with good humour and outstanding. Some bits were a bit extreme and very distinguished which made things laugh.

Interesting comments - and, yes, "Gardening Time". Thanks, Aaron, for the clarification. I have had a muddled week. On the basis of that one episode, what did I think? That "On The Buses" did have charm almost in spite of itself. A distinction could be made here between programme production and programme content. I will have a go at these points but unfortunately with limited time it will be a bit of a ramble.

To take the latter first is to take the less than charming. Content wise, it is certainly rough around the edges. Doris Hare as Mum Butler seemed harder edged than I remembered. She lacked the dappy quality of, say, Hilda Braid's Flo or Liz Smith's Nana. I had thought of Stephen Lewis's Blakey as a moaner which, of course, is accurate but he also came across as more peculiar and even creepier than in my memory. And Jack, as played by Bob Grant, also seemed slightly creepy when, for example, compared to a Sid James.

The latter is a difficult point to make. Grant became a very troubled soul and it would be harsh to be overly critical. The politically correct might well say that having an older man chasing young dolly birds was the main problem rather than him per se but in truth I don't buy that argument. The uneasiness I found was more about his persona, not that I could describe that exactly, but it did feel darker to me than presented.

What I sense is that the casting for the programme might have been better. There were only 11 years between Hare and Varney. That was ridiculous. And Anna Karen was certainly not the ugly girl she portrayed. But at least her character worked for me as I felt some sympathy there plus, as an aside, where would the career of Janet Street-Porter have been had she not had her as something of a role model?

Turning to the more charming aspects, the memories of early ITV came flooding back. To say that the way the programme was made was unsophisticated would be an understatement. The bus garage, to the extent that it was seen, was like a cross between a setting for a children's television programme in that era and a basic theatre set. The cutting away to the scenes around the streets and houses was unrefined to the point of looking artificially inserted. That, I think, was partially of its time. By the mid 1970s, not dissimilar production on programmes like "George and Mildred" appeared comparatively seamless. It may also have had something to do with limited budgets and the frequent debilitating strikes in broadcasting in that period.

So, yes, there was an air of that era's economics and politics running through it. And oddly enough, that and the associated points are all pluses for me. I think there is charm there because in those basics there is inadvertently a very distinct - and rather innocent - cultural atmosphere. It definitely has a resonant "vibe".

Although situation comedy had been around for some time, and there had already been more sophistication, the genre was still very much in development. That was probably particularly true of commercial television which was still learning to compete with the BBC within a very narrow and rigid competitive structure. And what, I think, you get with "On The Buses" is a genuine working class product. After all, ITV was catering more to a working class audience. So the shoestring look of the programme does seem genuinely appropriate and it aligns well with the insular and rather forlorn competitiveness in the content. Crucially, there was a lot of truth in its overt dolly birdism being the limit of any real aspiration, lovely as that could often be.

No wonder, then, that the taste police are quick to condemn it. Many aspects of alternative comedy a decade or so later enabled crucial liberal points to be made but there was always something rather suspect about what it dictatorially required. When every clever clever joke about the disabled child of a page three model is accompanied by an uncompromising position on the alleged sexism in a Benny Hill, certain questions need to be asked. Is there actually a sense of intellectual superiority lurking behind the post 1980 political earnestness that is merely another form of snobbery? Lady Jo Brand and others might have an opinion.

Not only does class background matter but also the extent to which there is a willingness for early class identification to continue. We all became more aspirational and sophisticated during the 1970s - programme makers, audiences, people. That, though, didn't wholly translate into ways of thinking and even living.

There isn't huge personal progress in the move from the terraced houses in "On The Buses" to Nelson Mandela House in "Only Fools and Horses". That particular line is in direct parallel to the changing living experiences I noted in older members of my family between those two programmes. They made exactly the same "non" transition between 1970 and 1980. So for all of its limited production, I did find something very authentic about the basic quality of the houses and the gardens of the episode of "On The Buses" I saw. And the tight boundaries in which it operated were more true to its time than the aspirations in a Steptoe which essentially were based more in emotional responses to cultural change than real life, if better written.

I accept too that I might be prepared to be more relaxed about "On The Buses" than some who are older than me because I was still a child when the series ended. A bit of sophistication comes with ageing and some who give the series a hard time may do so having been teenagers when it was broadcast. That means that I can have some affection for it in a way that I might not with some series that went out in my teenage years. For example, by the time of "Mind Your Language" I had developed more critical faculties.

None of this matters in the overall scheme of things. Of most importance is that the programmes can be enjoyed by younger generations too. But what it might just do as well as enabling me to consider it in relation to my past and "the past" is to give some contextual insights from which different impressions - or nuances - may be formed. It moves it beyond the facts of when and how the programme was made.

Phew!

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 30th October 2014, 1:23 PM GMT

Phew!

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There is one that goes more directly from A to B but these days I am mainly on the scenic route.

Just been announced: Stephen Lewis has died.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/actor-stephen-lewis-dead-buses-6247667

RIP

RIP 'Blakey'.

A wonderful comedy actor and not a bad writer either!

Sad news. 88 though, a good age. Much more than many of his former colleagues. I shall watch some On The Buses tonight.

Has anyone noticed the gay subtext of On the Buses? Stan and his moody brother in law can't keep their eyes off one another.