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<blockquote data-quote="Mel O&amp;#039;Drama" data-source="post: 389362" data-attributes="member: 23">The final series in The Garnett Saga is 1998&#039;s The Thoughts Of Chairman Alf:<img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic-sg.winudf.com%2Fvideo%2Fimage%2F32bce09f-8873-4e0b-b458-a2535decd4fa.jpg&amp;f=1&amp;nofb=1&amp;ipt=5b102d2016382a9fe718e4c540a66da749ce537ccd41cb169fa7ea2386e46c18&amp;ipo=images" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 540px" />I already had a little taster of what could be in store a little while back in my chronological watch:Comparing versions, there are some notable differences here.Firstly, despite the tagline on the DVD cover, Alf is not as bigoted as ever. Not by a long chalk. His diatribes pull their punches, and there&#039;s no danger of pushing the envelope.Secondly, there&#039;s no question here that the audience - though extremely fond of the character - is of a very different outlook to Alf and will not permit him to &quot;get away&quot; with his views:It&#039;s quite a different story in the 1998 series. The audience is far more diverse and the age range broad. There are a lot of twenty-somethings. Something I found strange was that they kept interrupting with questions, rather like An Audience With... but with hoi polloi in lieu of &quot;celebs&quot;. At least I think they are ordinary people - and I certainly didn&#039;t recognise anyone - but they seem so cocky and overconfident and full of themselves I did wonder.I&#039;m assuming the interruptions were encouraged - and perhaps even scripted - but they did seem to get a bit much. One young woman not only asked her question, she kept firing back a cocky challenge to each reply Alf made as though this was Question Time or something. There was a tangible air of political correctness, as though the audience feared enabling the character and so couldn&#039;t simply allow the satire to happen they had to be actively challenging it at every turn. It&#039;s notable that many of Alf&#039;s comments - particularly his sexist ones - have been met with boos (albeit good-humoured ones) rather than laughs.IMDb says he&#039;s interacting &quot;with a live studio audience in Australia&quot; for this series, but I&#039;m far from convinced this is the case. Every accent so far has sounded British and all the topical British humour and references to football teams lands every time.Warren Mitchell continues to impress with his dynamic energy, his memory for dialogue and his commitment to character. I suspect there&#039;s a lot of necessary ad libbing - especially with this audience - and he not only does this well, he draws on Johnny Speight&#039;s dialogue to do this. No matter what the topic or question, he has a classic Alf line in response. It&#039;s as though he&#039;s catalogued every line of dialogue Johnny has ever written for him, and can pull it out at will. Very impressive indeed.Having watched just two episodes, I&#039;m already a third of the way through this series which will be plenty, I think.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mel O'Drama, post: 389362, member: 23"] The final series in The Garnett Saga is 1998's [I]The Thoughts Of Chairman Alf[/I]: [IMG width="540px"]https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic-sg.winudf.com%2Fvideo%2Fimage%2F32bce09f-8873-4e0b-b458-a2535decd4fa.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=5b102d2016382a9fe718e4c540a66da749ce537ccd41cb169fa7ea2386e46c18&ipo=images[/IMG] I already had a little taster of what could be in store a little while back in my chronological watch: Comparing versions, there are some notable differences here. Firstly, despite the tagline on the DVD cover, Alf is [U][I]not[/I][/U] as bigoted as ever. Not by a long chalk. His diatribes pull their punches, and there's no danger of pushing the envelope. Secondly, there's no question here that the audience - though extremely fond of the character - is of a very different outlook to Alf and will not permit him to "get away" with his views: It's quite a different story in the 1998 series. The audience is far more diverse and the age range broad. There are a lot of twenty-somethings. Something I found strange was that they kept interrupting with questions, rather like [I]An Audience With...[/I] but with hoi polloi in lieu of "celebs". At least I [U][I]think[/I][/U] they are ordinary people - and I certainly didn't recognise anyone - but they seem so cocky and overconfident and full of themselves I did wonder. I'm assuming the interruptions were encouraged - and perhaps even scripted - but they did seem to get a bit much. One young woman not only asked her question, she kept firing back a cocky challenge to each reply Alf made as though this was[I] Question Time [/I]or something. There was a tangible air of political correctness, as though the audience feared enabling the character and so couldn't simply allow the satire to happen they had to be actively challenging it at every turn. It's notable that many of Alf's comments - particularly his sexist ones - have been met with boos (albeit good-humoured ones) rather than laughs. IMDb says he's interacting "with a live studio audience in Australia" for this series, but I'm far from convinced this is the case. Every accent so far has sounded British and all the topical British humour and references to football teams lands every time. Warren Mitchell continues to impress with his dynamic energy, his memory for dialogue and his commitment to character. I suspect there's a lot of necessary ad libbing - especially with [U][I]this[/I][/U] audience - and he not only does this well, he draws on Johnny Speight's dialogue to do this. No matter what the topic or question, he has a classic Alf line in response. It's as though he's catalogued every line of dialogue Johnny has ever written for him, and can pull it out at will. Very impressive indeed. Having watched just two episodes, I'm already a third of the way through this series which will be plenty, I think. [/QUOTE]

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