Sunday 19 March 2017

635 The Old Men At The Zoo



First  viewed :  15  September  1983

This  was  an  interesting  BBC2  drama, a  five  part  adaptation  of  Angus  Wilson's  satirical  novel  by  the  ever-reliable  Troy  Kennedy -Martin. My  mum  tuned  in  for  her  favourite  actor  Stuart  Wilson  but  didn't  like  it  and  abandoned  it  after  the  first  episode. My  viewing  was  interrupted  by  the  inconvenient  fact  of    starting  at  university  during  its  run  and  I  missed  the  final  episode.

Wilson  plays  Simon  Carter, a  TV  personality  in  a  not  too  distant , largely  pedestrianised  future  , who  accepts  a  job  at  a  London  zoo  run  by  a  gerontocracy  of  eccentric  old  men, some  benign, others  highly  dangerous. He  soon  finds  he  has  to  jump  to  the  tune  of  another  old  man, a  megalomaniac  press  baron, Lord  Godmanchester   ( Robert  Morley ). Europe  is  on  the  verge  of  a  nuclear  war  with  the  OPEC  countries  and  Godmanchester  wants  the  zoo  evacuated  to  Wales, nurturing  the  wildlife  reserve  visions  of  crackpot  director  Leacock  ( Maurice  Denham ) . After  Leacock's  bra-less  hippychick  daughter  ( Jan  Harvey )  dies  in  an  overzealous  bout  of  bestiality  with  her  dog   ( mostly  offscreen  thankfully )  he  switches  loyalties  to   the  equally  insane  Bob  Falcon  ( Robert  Urquhart )  whose  age  doesn't  prevent  him  screwing  Carter's  wife.

It's  not  perfect  by  any  means. Much  of  it  was  shot  on  VT  and  the  budget  was  a  bit  unequal  to  bringing  the  wide  sweep  of  the  novel  to  the  screen. It's  also  flabby  in  places; much  of  the  first  episode  is  concerned  with  the  death  of  a  young  keeper  whose  gonads  are  mashed  by  a  giraffe  and  there's  an  extended  scene  at  his  funeral  introducing  characters  that  we  don't  see  again.  Nevertheless it  had  a  thought-provoking  premise,  an  excellenr  cast   and   many  bleakly  comic  moments.

At  the  time  of  writing  you  can  watch  it  right  through  on  YouTube.  

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