Wednesday 22 July 2015

185 Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em




First  watched  : 1974

The  move  to  an  early  Monday  evening  slot  finally  gave  me  the  chance  to  see  Frank  Spencer  in  action  after  innumerable  Mike  Yarwood  and  playground  impersonations.

This  fairly unique  sitcom  followed  the  adventures  of  accident-prone  and  socially  inept  Frank  Spencer  as  he  and  long-suffering  wife  Betty  negotiated  the  day-to-day  challenges  of  life. Frank  was  played  by  Michael  Crawford  who  looked  set  for  film  stardom  in  the  sixties  after  appearing  in  Hello  Dolly  with  Barbra  Streisand  but  somehow  let  it  slip. Michelle  Dotrice  in    somewhat  one-note  performance   was  Betty.

Famously  Crawford  performed  all  his  own  stunts  including  the  iconic  and   still  utterly  fantastic  roller  skating  sequence  , a  marvel  of  athleticism  and  choreography. It's  those  moments  that  will  always  give  the  show  an  audience  however  creaky  and  dated  the  rest  of  it  seems. The  Health  and  Safety  implications are  one  reason  why  we're  unlikely  to  see  its  like  again . Some  recent  critics  have  also  suggested  that  Frank's  difficulties  indicate  a  mental  disorder  akin  to  autism  and  now  find  it  distasteful.

Crawford  seems  to  have  realised  early  on  that  he'd  created  a  monster  and  had  to  be  coaxed  back  to  do  a  third  and  final  series,  five  years  after  the  second  one  finished  in  1973  ( though  there  were  two  Christmas  specials  in between ) , with  the  offer  of  a  big  hand  in  the  writing.  As  he  reinvented  himself  as  a  major  theatre  star  in  the  eighties  he  doggedly  avoided  anything  Spencer-related  until  1998  when  he  appeared  as  Frank  again  in  Noel's  House  Party  and  now  seems  at  ease  talking  about  his  days  as  a  comedy  legend.    


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