Last of the Summer Wine

Series 5 and 6

1996, reissued 2009

Comedy, Britain

ABC DVD

R4

Reviewer: Bob Estreich

This gentle little British comedy turned out to be the BBC’s longest-running comedy series. It premiered in 1973 and the thirtieth series concluded in 2009. It’s a testament to Roy Clarke’s fine scripts and the brilliant character acting of the lead players. This 3-DVD compilation includes all of series 5 and 6 as well as the Christmas specials of 1978, 1979 and 1981. At this period the actors had settled into their character roles and the show was at the start of its very long peak.

The story revolves around three ageing men living in a quiet little Yorkshire village. We have the tight-fisted Foggy (Brian Wilde), the ex-Army type (actually a Corporal of Signwriting) who is full of ideas about how he can brighten up their retirement. The ideas usually involve someone else doing the work. The bane of his life is Compo (Bill Owen), an unrepentantly scruffy little man of undesirable habits, a host of mysterious girlfriends throughout his life “My life has not been wasted” , and a reputation for eating anything. His aim in his remaining years is to satisfy his carnal lust for Nora Batty, a local housewife. He deflates Foggy’s wilder ideas mercilessly and is assisted in this by widower Clegg (Peter Sallis – the voice will be familiar if you watched any of the Wallace and Gromit animation shows). Clegg is the only one to have been married, and he is the thinker of the group. He mentions in the first show that he is coming to doubt his sexuality because he enjoys ironing.

The characters and actors changed through the show’s long history but these series are in many ways some of the best. The later actors had a big job to live up to the standard of these men. Many were extremely competent actors themselves but somehow Owen, Sallis and Wilde made the parts their own and were a hard act to follow. One nice point about the show was that other people in the village received the same attention to their characters and appeared often enough that the audience became familiar with them as well. This was a good move as occasionally it was necessary to write a character out of the story. They could be replaced with another character with whom the audience was already familiar, which kept the continuity going. It must be remembered that the actors themselves were not young and probably never anticipated the show going as long as it did.

Last of the Summer Wine is essentially a show about boys being boys even in the sunset of their lives, but the authority figures in the shows are without a doubt the women. There is the previously mentioned Nora Batty, the object of Compo’s lust. If he was to succeed in conquering Nora would he survive the experience? Ivy, the tea shop owner’s wife, is almost as much of a battleaxe as Nora and wields a mean wooden spoon.

The plots themselves were simple and funny. How do you steal a train? Why are married men furtively heading off into the woods with bedrolls? How are you going to get a very tall flagpole up a very steep hill? Why would elderly men take up hang gliding? Slapstick abounds.

The show pokes fun at the idea of growing old gracefully. There is something grim about the idea of just waiting around to die, but that doesn’t happen here. It is just a happy romp over the traditional approach to old age, and a great laugh.

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This review will appear in Volume 2 No.6 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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