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| Fawlty’s still funny but class doesn’t raise a laugh any more Fawlty’s still funny but class doesn’t raise a laugh any more | |
| (about 20 hours later) | |
| Aside from its quality, there is one key reason Fawlty Towers hasn’t aged as badly as its contemporaries: the edits. Its producers doubled the average number of cuts per episode, to something approaching what’s common today. So rather than proceeding with the creak and tedium of, say, Bless This House, it whips along – despite stagey blocking, despite farce roots. | Aside from its quality, there is one key reason Fawlty Towers hasn’t aged as badly as its contemporaries: the edits. Its producers doubled the average number of cuts per episode, to something approaching what’s common today. So rather than proceeding with the creak and tedium of, say, Bless This House, it whips along – despite stagey blocking, despite farce roots. |
| But the reason it still feels culturally distant – as testified by the repeat last week of the brilliant Communication Difficulties to commemorate the death of Andrew Sachs – is that its primary preoccupation is class. Sitcoms in the 70s were fixated on the thwarted social ambitions of middle-aged men. The first ever Fawlty Towers episode in 1975 sees Basil hoodwinked by an upper-crust conman; two months later, in an episode of Rising Damp, Rigsby falls victim to the exact same scam. The achilles heel of these two and numerous others was a desperation to rise above the riffraff. | But the reason it still feels culturally distant – as testified by the repeat last week of the brilliant Communication Difficulties to commemorate the death of Andrew Sachs – is that its primary preoccupation is class. Sitcoms in the 70s were fixated on the thwarted social ambitions of middle-aged men. The first ever Fawlty Towers episode in 1975 sees Basil hoodwinked by an upper-crust conman; two months later, in an episode of Rising Damp, Rigsby falls victim to the exact same scam. The achilles heel of these two and numerous others was a desperation to rise above the riffraff. |
| Last Saturday saw an airing, without obvious peg, of the last ever episode of Dad’s Army – immediately identifiable as such by the baggy pace, heady sentimentality and genuinely immense age of the cast (you don’t see wrinkles as distinguished as John Le Mesurier’s on primetime any more). That series hinged on the tension of Mainwaring’s attempts to assert authority over the polished public schoolboy Wilson. Made in 1977, the episode includes a beautifully played heart-to-heart in which Mainwaring explains how he himself battled snobbishness to marry the daughter of the Suffragan Bishop of Clegthorpe [sic], whom he’d had to introduce to ketchup. “Marrying you must have opened up a whole new world for her,” nods Wilson, winningly. | Last Saturday saw an airing, without obvious peg, of the last ever episode of Dad’s Army – immediately identifiable as such by the baggy pace, heady sentimentality and genuinely immense age of the cast (you don’t see wrinkles as distinguished as John Le Mesurier’s on primetime any more). That series hinged on the tension of Mainwaring’s attempts to assert authority over the polished public schoolboy Wilson. Made in 1977, the episode includes a beautifully played heart-to-heart in which Mainwaring explains how he himself battled snobbishness to marry the daughter of the Suffragan Bishop of Clegthorpe [sic], whom he’d had to introduce to ketchup. “Marrying you must have opened up a whole new world for her,” nods Wilson, winningly. |
| Today, class tension is not a live issue in anything like the same way. The departure of David Cameron has loosened the Eton stranglehold a little. The rage of the squeezed middle, more than the squashed poor, is credited for Brexit. Quietly, the inequality gaps have become about wealth itself, as well as gender, race and sexuality – not class. Accordingly, today’s acclaimed British sitcoms – Fleabag, Motherland, Mum, Catastrophe – are not about a 50-year-old property owner failing to better himself. They’re about women struggling with sex, rent, men and children. And sometimes they’re almost as funny. Sometimes. | Today, class tension is not a live issue in anything like the same way. The departure of David Cameron has loosened the Eton stranglehold a little. The rage of the squeezed middle, more than the squashed poor, is credited for Brexit. Quietly, the inequality gaps have become about wealth itself, as well as gender, race and sexuality – not class. Accordingly, today’s acclaimed British sitcoms – Fleabag, Motherland, Mum, Catastrophe – are not about a 50-year-old property owner failing to better himself. They’re about women struggling with sex, rent, men and children. And sometimes they’re almost as funny. Sometimes. |
| The dress code for Christmas | The dress code for Christmas |
| Magazines at the moment are chocka with frocks for this year’s festive dos. The slinkiest heels to take you from work to party to A&E, the best clutches to leave on the bus. Pregnancy relieves you of such concerns: whatever you wear you’ll just look whopping, yet people will feel the need to not be too bitchy. | Magazines at the moment are chocka with frocks for this year’s festive dos. The slinkiest heels to take you from work to party to A&E, the best clutches to leave on the bus. Pregnancy relieves you of such concerns: whatever you wear you’ll just look whopping, yet people will feel the need to not be too bitchy. |
| But, in fact, such sartorial loopholes are available to all, for the dominant aesthetic of Christmas secretly conspires against the dress code dictated by the Sunday supplements. Turn up at a party wearing oversized pullover featuring gurning turkey, and people will applaud your seasonal cheer. Hair is granted a particularly free pass, with everyday outfits allowed to be capped with a bobble hat. Even at posh suppers, the wearing of a paper crown from the cracker is actively encouraged. If you look a tip, Christmas is truly a gift. | But, in fact, such sartorial loopholes are available to all, for the dominant aesthetic of Christmas secretly conspires against the dress code dictated by the Sunday supplements. Turn up at a party wearing oversized pullover featuring gurning turkey, and people will applaud your seasonal cheer. Hair is granted a particularly free pass, with everyday outfits allowed to be capped with a bobble hat. Even at posh suppers, the wearing of a paper crown from the cracker is actively encouraged. If you look a tip, Christmas is truly a gift. |
| Time’s running out for Rolex | Time’s running out for Rolex |
| I’ve been given a couple of nice watches for Christmas, and proved horribly adept at losing them. They were lovely but, I hope, not massively expensive. Investing an inordinate amount of money in something not only that you’re likely to take off a lot, but that is so conspicuous, so eminently stealable, has long seemed strange to me. | I’ve been given a couple of nice watches for Christmas, and proved horribly adept at losing them. They were lovely but, I hope, not massively expensive. Investing an inordinate amount of money in something not only that you’re likely to take off a lot, but that is so conspicuous, so eminently stealable, has long seemed strange to me. |
| So it’s good to see the world’s super-wealthy are cottoning on. Not only have sales of Rolexes plummeted this year, but the incidence of them being returned for a refund has skyrocketed. The credit crunch is thanked, but I think it’s more down to the eventual emergence of common sense. Plus, of course, nobody needs a watch any more. | So it’s good to see the world’s super-wealthy are cottoning on. Not only have sales of Rolexes plummeted this year, but the incidence of them being returned for a refund has skyrocketed. The credit crunch is thanked, but I think it’s more down to the eventual emergence of common sense. Plus, of course, nobody needs a watch any more. |