After some time away, it's back to British bedlam with a sitcom I fondly remember from childhood:
It's surprising to me that
Never The Twain ran for eleven series between 1981 and 1991. I'm feeling that I probably haven't seen many of the later episodes. Not that it matters much because, while I remember watching regularly in the mid-Eighties, I can remember no specifics about story at all beyond the premise (and I'd even forgotten some of that) and, of course, Jack Trombey's instantly recognisable theme tune:
Domino:
In much the same way that the animated opening titles for Donald Sinden's earlier series
Two's Company perfectly set the scene for the battle royale between his snobby character and the vulgar person with whom he's forced to interact on a weekly basis, so does the simply animated opening for
Never The Twain. In the earlier series, Sinden was a stuffy British lion, formally dressed and talking down to Elaine Stitch's brash American eagle, parading round in an evening gown. While there are no lyrics to drive home the premise this time round, the visuals tell us everything. We zoom in to the window of an antiques shop where we see Sinden's Simon Peel as a regal marble bust with mane of flowing hair, nostrils flaring as he postures before turning to throw a contemptuous look at a Toby Jug of Windsor Davies as Oliver Smallbridge. The wallpaper behind them suggests home, as does the framed picture that crashes down between them. It looks very much like the the embroidered platitudes one could find on elderly neighbours' walls that usually had such platitudes as "Bless This House" or "Home Sweet Home". But the wording here is the programme's name, suggesting how deeply rooted the rivalry is.
What had I remembered? Well, that they were rival antique dealers as well as feuding neighbours. That their respective children were engaged (Smallbridge's daughter and Peel's son). That's about all. And I may not even have remembered that much were it not for already having the first episode on a compilation DVD from around twenty years ago.
Some other bits came back as I watched. Such as
Corrie's Chalkie Whitely being Peel's au pair, whom he passes off as his butler.
And I'd completely forgotten about the past romantic rivalry between them, with Smallbridge having had dirty weekends with Peel's wife while they were still married. In these first episodes they've engaged in a new romantic rivalry with Honor Blackman.
There are, then, lots of different angles. Each of which can be mined for comedy: the business rivalry; the neighbours at war; the romantic rivals; and the star-crossed lovers.
I remember
NTT being on the gentler side as sitcoms go. Not groundbreaking or trailblazing, but something that can be relied upon to raise a weekday smile (if memory serves, it used to air either before or after
Corrie). While this is true, I'm laughing out loud more than expected. Johnnie Mortimer has some serious sitcom pedigree. Having co-created and written the likes of George and Mildred Roper, his great ear for repartee is put to good use here. Plus he's writing for two really funny actors, each wholly reliable when it comes to playing a certain type of character (archetypes, you could say. Or caricatures if you're being less flattering) to great effect.
Donald Sinden's facial expressions and elongated vowels never fail to raise a smile. There's one word in the first episode that is hilarious. When he finds out his son is engaged to his rival's daughter, he utters the word "married?!" from the back of his throat in a high pitched way that sounds as though he's being throttled and has lost his voice. I've always been fond of him as a comedy actor, and
NTT was probably my first awareness of him, before discovering earlier work such as the
Doctor films and the already-mentioned
Two's Company. He's an acclaimed serious actor as well, and I feel bad for not being famiiar with his non-comedy work. But seeing him in a filmed live performance of Coward's
Present Laughter truly impressed me as to how skilled a performer he is under any circumstance.
I think NTT was also my introduction to Windsor Davies (though
It Ain't Half Hot Mum was endlessly repeated so I imagine I'd have been watching both around the same time). And then of course there's
Carry On Behind and
Carry On England where Windsor was most one of the more enjoyably watchable things in a stale film series. He's essentially the same character in all three. But it works.
Each of these actors gets what's funny, and make choices that keep the audience interested and entertained. I'm a bit worried to learn that Mortimer only wrote occasional episodes past Series Two, and hope that it remains as much fun when he passes the baton to other writers. But I'm not really in it for the story: the way in which it's told is what I'm hoping will keep me engaged.
I decided it was pointless to hold onto the old tapes, most of which were from the late-1980s to the mid-1990s. I keep telling myself they'd likely degraded and would only get tangled in any VCR I found to play the things. It's not like you can hold the tape up to the light to watch them.
