Anybody seen this 1980s David Nobbs sitcom?
The reason I ask is this. I went to an exhibition today headed by Nobbs. At the end, I got my Reggie Perrin boxset signed by him and I asked him about this sitcom. He told me that once he'd created Perrin, he was in a position to do whatever he wanted for the BBC. So he came up with this sitcom. He came up with the idea as he knew people who were amongst the first wave of Brits to go and live abroad. He went to visit them. At night in the bar when they were all pissed, they told him under no circumstances move to Spain. "It's rubbish, never rains, not a decent lawn from Malaga to Madrid, never get a workman out when you need then etc." Then the next day at the pool when they were sober they told him "Come over to Spain. So much better than England. All it does it rain. Not a decent lawn North of Watford. Can't get a workman out when you need him."
The problem was nobody in Britain could relate to it. Had it been a sitcom about dodgy Spanish plumbing it would have got a lot more laughs. As a result, it was the worst viewed sitcom on the BBC ever at the time of broadcasting (apart from in Guernsey, where many viewers there could understand it). It got me thinking, it was probably well ahead of its time. It would probably be a lot better received today and could be one of the forgotten gems of sitcom. Shame really that we'll never know as it's highly unlikely to get a DVD release, let alone a repeat.
However, The Sun Trap aside, I really enjoyed my meeting of David Nobbs today. Fascinating man who told some outstanding anecdotes.