Galton and Simpson Comedy, The

1 9 6 9 (UK)
6 x 30 minute episodes

This series from London Weekend Television presented six superb new plays from comedy royalty scriptwriting team Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.

The premier episode – ‘The Suit’ (aired on 19 April 1969) – starred Leslie Phillips as Howard Butler, a married man who is having an affair with his receptionist, Penny (Jennie Linden).

While dallying with her at her flat, a burglar (Frank Jarvis) steals his clothes and money.

The police catch the burglar and return Howard’s suit and belongings to his wife (Jan Holden) before he returns home in some borrowed clobber . . .

In ‘Friends in High Places’ (26 April), three archly comic guardian angels take pity on fat, bald 55-year-old George Gosling (Bob Monkhouse) as he bickers with his harridan wife (Patricia Hayes) and argues with his disrespectful children.

The angels (Frank Williams, Arthur English and Richard O’Sullivan) arrange for him to be miraculously returned to the age of 25 when he wakes up the following morning.

There is consternation from the family and jubilation (and anticipation of a lecherous life with the birds) from George. But swinging happily from the platform of a bus after leaving home to begin his new life, George crashes into a lamppost and is killed.

The cast included Valerie Leon and Sally Geeson.

Basil Puddifoot (Harry H Corbett) – a lonely, romantic-minded “freelance rodent operator” (or ratcatcher) – moves to London for work in ‘Never Talk to Strangers’ (3 May) and meets Olive (Rosemary Leach), an equally lonely young lady in his boarding house who works in a rubber factory.

With the help of a crossed telephone line, he becomes an airline pilot called “Jeremy”, and she becomes a Vogue fashion model. And so they get to “know” each other through their Walter Mitty-like fantasies rather than getting together in real life.

‘Don’t Dilly Dally on the Way’ (10 May) featured comedy favourites Jimmy Edwards and Pat Coombs as Arthur and Joyce Croucher – a couple who had just sold their cramped little bungalow after living there for 23 years.

They each had very different memories of the place, and she refuses to go, while he can’t wait to leave and move to a new house. Then, the new owners arrive.

In ‘Pity Poor Edie . . .  Married to Him’ (17 May), Alec Hemphill (Milo O’Shea) has been off work for five years. He is bone lazy and has lived off his wife’s earnings, sitting at home gambling and moaning.

Things have to change when Edie (Gwendolyn Watts) finds out she is pregnant.

‘An Extra Bunch of Daffodils’ (24 May) introduced Lawrence Warner (Stratford John), a serial killer who has killed off five wives for their insurance money. His sights are now firmly on potential wife number six (Patsy Rowlands).

Episodes

The Suit | Friends in High Places | Never Talk to Strangers | Don’t Dilly Dally on the Way | Pity Poor Edie . . . Married to Him | An Extra Bunch of Daffodils