Desmond's Page 2

Enjoyed watching an episode yesterday on London Live. It brought back many memories and the script and acting were, if anything, better than I recalled. Norman Beaton and Carmen Munroe were both fine actors. 1993. A time when British West Indian culture was distinct and often attractive and not long before the advent of everyone becoming Anglo-American corporate gangsta clones. I am assuming that the team which put the series together was black and white? Anyhow, the episode featured the concept of a "partner" which we were told was like a Christmas Box style collection for someone that emanated from the 1950s when immigrants found it impossible to get bank loans. It's interesting now as a sort of forerunner to crowdsurfing perhaps.

I'm continuing to re-review this programme and it is climbing the charts with every episode. It's seriously underrated. The writing is very good, they chose the right people for the characters, Beaton's acting was outstanding and Carmen Munroe and her character an absolute joy. The one in which Desmond looks into the mirror and points to it saying something like "I'm glad you are here, I want to talk with you" (regarding aging) is on the same sort of level of John Sullivan's more poignant moments in OFAH.

Everything about the programme which was in its day to be frank one which was only enjoyed by those of us who didn't culturally select out black people (and there were a lot who did) now fascinates me. The theme tune. Beaton the person who had a very high IQ and was a teacher in Guyana before coming to Britain to become a legend in certain circles. Along with his consummate professionalism he was someone who over indulged and by his own confession spent time with crooks and prostitutes. A real contradiction. And then when he returned to Guyana at 60 to retire, he dropped dead at the airport almost as if he had had a premonition and chosen to end his life back there.

Ram Jam Holder is a fascinating man as in a different way was Gyearbuor Asante . Many of the other actors (though not all) should have achieved more after Desmond's than they did. The writer Trix Worrell has done some very wide ranging things and is someone clearly of significance and yet somehow he's still something of a mystery.

And one of the really weird things, I think, in these days when the distinctions people make between black and white are often much less great is that the programme can be watched with no feeling as there was then of it breaking down social barriers. Instead the family and the community in the barber shop seem to represent more how life felt for everyone then - black and white - while the main distinction is on how everything is different now culturally and socially to the way we all were. I really love the programme.

I remember LOVING the daughter (and son) and wishing more of the storylines were about them, but it was 90% about the older characters. I still loved it though.
And the character with the slightly exaggerated accent was hilarious. (Matthew?) Reminds me a bit of the character Felix Dexter did in his stand up.

Quote: zooo @ 27th August 2016, 9:08 AM

I remember LOVING the daughter (and son) and wishing more of the storylines were about them, but it was 90% about the older characters. I still loved it though.
And the character with the slightly exaggerated accent was hilarious. (Matthew?) Reminds me a bit of the character Felix Dexter did in his stand up.

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Kim Walker was brilliant as Gloria and the two sons were good too.

http://showbizgeek.com/what-ever-happened-to-the-cast-of-desmonds/

Gyearbuor Asante was Matthew and sadly died aged 58 in 2000.

I agree there is a direct link between Matthew and the character brilliantly played by Felix Dexter.

The character played by Carmen Munroe was pretty much the ideal mother figure unless anyone can think of someone in television comedy who fitted that description more accurately.