British Comedy Guide

Rock & Chips Page 5

I didn't see it but I never understood in OFAH how Denzil went to school with them but had a Scouse accent. Was this ever explained?

I only caught the last few minutes, when Lyndhurst was standing on a balcony looking at some woman with a baby. I'll be interested to see what the ratings were for it, though. If they're big, we'll definitely have more.

Only caught a bit of the end, but Lyndhurst's eyes seem to be getting closer together all the time. How long before he goes full-Cyclops?

Quote: Dolly Dagger @ January 25 2010, 9:40 AM GMT

I didn't see it but I never understood in OFAH how Denzil went to school with them but had a Scouse accent. Was this ever explained?

Was explained in the Only Fools episode 'The Class of '62' saying how he moved to London when he was thirteen.

I really enjoyed it last night. The only negative thing was that enough wasn't made of Del's mates, such as Trigger. But I was very entertained watching it and was great to see characters in it who had roles in the series, such as very minor ones, like Reg's mate Clayton, who briefly appeared in the series 6 episode 'Danger UXD'

I liked it and laughed a lot, but like Afinkawan, suspect it was because of understanding the original so well, so no idea how it would stand up by itself. Maybe it was meant for the fans though?

It wasn't a comedy as such, but there were a lot of funny moments. Joanie uses a lot of the wrong phrases as Del did later on and, at times, James Buckly had Del spot-on.

If anything, I expected Freddie the Frog to be a lot more sinister than Nicholas Lyndhurst made him out to be, to be honest. I was quite sympathetic to the character in the end. I was a bit disappointed we didn't actually see him die (Del said he sat on the detonator doing the job, didn't he?).

Still, I was impressed with the style and how they went a different way with it. Would have been nice to get more of Del's early story as he was pretty much a bit-part character here, but maybe that's for 'another' prequel...

Dan

I thought it was great. Excellently performed by all. Just the right amount of comedy to complement the drama. Nicholas Lyndhurst was great as Freddie 'The Frog' Robdal and so was Kellie Bright as Joan.

It was pretty much the Freddie and Joan story and yet a lot of the publicity for the show majored on the young Delboy?! Having said that, Kellie Bright was excellent as Joan and Robert Daws superb, once again, as the pervy cinema manager. As has been mentioned previously, it helped to know the characters back story from OFAH episodes and, to a certain extent, I found myself mentally ticking boxes as the story developed. Comedy highlight for me was the roll call of Smiths in the waiting room.

I found it frustrating. Simply because it wasn't needed. Saying that, looking back I preferred it over 'Sleepless in Peckham', but that's not saying much at all. The show had taken away the two main things that the audience loved about OFAH, the actors and the gags. I'm not sure the mainstream will be interested in the backstory, especially when you put aside the fact it's a prequel, it's not exactly a cracking drama at all.
It wasn't the worst thing in the world and I actually found the ending quite sweet, but I really wouldn't want to see it as a series as I don't think John Sullivan can write anymore. Some of the jokes were awful, but he got away with it before because it was in a studio audience based sitcom, he can't get away with it in a dramady. To highlight why John Sullivan's writing ability has been defunct in the last 10 years is the character Trigger. Trigger was arguably one of the best characters in the original OFAH series, he was slow but he thought he knew what he was doing, he still felt he was one of the lads. In the last couple of Christmas specials and this dramady he's turned so dumb he's actually coming off as mentally ill. "He's odd. When I saw him he was roaring with laughter at the television" "There's nothing odd about that?" "The television wasn't on". See? It's just really lazy writing, just like how in the last Christmas special Trigger became so dumb he didn't know what blinking was. He was in his fifties and he didn't know what blinking was? How about in the next one John, Trigger starts pissing on the sofa, but it's funny right, because he's like 'i thought this was the bathroom?' Yeah? :I
Basically I thought a lot of it was cringeworthy and simply unnecessary. John Sullivan really doesn't know when to let things go does he? Imagine if The Office continued for years and years? It would lose all it's credibility? Imagine a prequel to The Office where Brent's in a band and Gareth is the hall monitor at school? Sounds okay on paper, but really take a moment and think what it would be like? Yeah? Well John Sullivan should have took more of those moments before he made this, in fact before he made any post 1996 episodes.

It was pointless. In fact, the word 'pointless' was invented for Rock & Chips.

Why do we need back story acted out? It was just as effective when Del said in one sentence what was summed up in 90 minutes.

Basically, there was no plot. All we had was a series of incidents wherein Freddie contrived to get Reg out of the house so he could go round and see Joan. That's it. That was the entire 'story'. Also, Grandad was a bit creepy and Freddie seems too shrewd to sit on a detonator. And didn't Del think when he saw Rodney grow up, 'You look just like Freddie". You know, the guy neither he nor the others remembered in The Frog's Legacy.

It was also ruder than Fools - considering Sullivan's recent bitching about rudeness in comedy.

It got 7.4 million viewers - 27% of the total viewing audience.

I thought it was excellent and succeeded in doing what it set out to do. It wasn't meant to be a laugh riot but it's the best thing that John Sullivan has written in some time imo and also featured a fine cast. Nicholas Lyndhurst was great and Robert Daws, as always, superb. The younger cast, although the story didn't really revolve around them, also did a decent job and didn't really leave me pining for the original actors.

I agree that the Grandad character didn't really serve much of a purpose and one or two of the jokes fell flat but, on the whole, I'm glad that they made it and would be happy if they were to continue.

A bit dissapointing, really.
The only bit I enjoyed was seeing the OFAH flat empty - a bit like a stage before the curtain rises.
Made you think of all the great gags that were going to/did take place there.
Which then forced a less than flattering contrast with the current offering.
Found a lot of the writing lazy, especially stringing out ancient gags like 'instant cofee' and passing them off as dialogue.
Can't believe that when everyone was shouting 'Rodney?' in disbelief, it didn't end with Trig going 'Dave?'.
Would have been the biggest laugh of the night.
Which isn't saying much.

Oh yeah, the flat. Seemed much too small, and was missing a doorway.

I thought it was brilliant and fail to see what the hell people are going on about when criticizing the programme.

Maybe it's just another case of over analyzing it.

Oh and that coffee joke I must say I'd never heard before so it was a new fresh joke to me.

Quote: Richard Wells @ January 25 2010, 3:32 PM GMT

Oh and that coffee joke I must say I'd never heard before so it was a new fresh joke to me.

So, it was sort of like a fresh coffee joke, then?
Ba-doom Tish!
Sullivan would be proud...

I enjoyed it.
But for some reason I was expecting it to be about Del Boy, and it was clearly focused on his mother and Rodney's dad. So I was left wanting a bit more of Del and his friends too.

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