Adanor
Dedicated Member
Did Stella (the woman who replaced Nora) have the same hair color as Lucille O'Ball?
Did Stella (the woman who replaced Nora) have the same hair color as Lucille O'Ball?
Adanor
Dedicated Member
If you add about 40 years to Rose in Keeping Up Appearances, you get Roz. She is swathed in rosebud pink and like Rose, talks endlessly about her many conquests of other women's husbands.
manfromoswestry
Dedicated Member
For me, the 2 least favorite LOTSW characters that come to mind were the librarians -- Miss Probert and Mr. Wainright. The mannerisms of both characters just annoyed me for some reason.
Sarkus
Dedicated Member
Yeah, I agree that the early librarians never worked out. There was something a bit off about both the Series 1 pair and the Series 2 pair.
Eli was good early on but got to formulaic. Especially when they started using him in small appearances with special music where the trio would just sit back and watch him.
As for later, while I agree that Babs was a big mistake, count me as someone who liked Mrs. Avery. The idea that Tom had succeeded in getting his "battleaxe" woman was an interesting angle, but I do get how it didn't quite work for Nora Batty fans who were already wondering (like Kathy Staff) what exactly they were going to do with her once Compo was gone. From what I understand, Clarke and Bell were really unsure of the shows future after Bill Owen died so they probably thought they needed to take some risks and introduce some new characters in the hopes that would convince the BBC to give the show a post-Compo shot. The problem is that when you introduce 3 new charactes and have only a few episodes to develop them for the audience its just about an impossible situation.
Elmc
Dedicated Member
Oh, her left from her right ?? that one. yes she did good.
Sarkus
Dedicated Member
Dream Acres is probably my least favorite Summer Wine episode. Too bad they gave that one the movie treatment.
And I think Norman Wisdom made four appearances over the years. Coming from the perspective of someone who didn't have much of an idea who Normal Wisdom was going in, I agree that they aren't anything special.
Elmc
Dedicated Member
Oh yes, Amos . . don't like him either. I sometimes fast forward to where Clegg drops his mug and where Foggy stops the guards.
I think it is that I find it not fitting to put in characters that are seemingly nefarious or evil. That doesn't belong here. I was even quite surprised when they had Compo pocket the customer's money in "Who's Minding The Cafe Then"
Philosopher Clegg
Dedicated Member
The worst semi-regular character? I wasn't that keen on Toby played by Trevor Bannister, who was quite an obnoxious alpha male type, which I suppose was intended.
Worst regular-character? I think Hobbo wins this hands down.
Worst regular-character? I think Hobbo wins this hands down.
I have always felt that it was a very difficult task to re-create the magic of the early series :-
Sid and Ivy, Nora and Wally, the wonderful Clegg and Compo plus for me at any rate the best of the third Blamire, Foggy and Seymour. Edie and Wesley fitted in well as I don't think they were replacing anyone. I think that is where the problem lies :- you can't replace those wonderful characters as the actors who played them brought them to life in such a personal way.
Sid and Ivy, Nora and Wally, the wonderful Clegg and Compo plus for me at any rate the best of the third Blamire, Foggy and Seymour. Edie and Wesley fitted in well as I don't think they were replacing anyone. I think that is where the problem lies :- you can't replace those wonderful characters as the actors who played them brought them to life in such a personal way.
As far as Hobbo is concerned I always assumed he was an alternative, not a replacement, same goes for Tom. Billy, Alvin etc were just additions, though probably trying to fill a void left by Compo (he was so larger than life)
Least favourite would have to be Babs, Mrs Avery and that teeth gritting norman wisdom!
Philosopher Clegg
Dedicated Member
In a way this was inevitable and one of the major problems that LOTSW would face as time passed. For a long time they were able to meet the challenge when people left or passed on. When Brian Wilde left, Michael Aldridge, an actor of quality joined. I once read, it may have been Roy Clarke who said it, but had Bill Owen passed away between series there is a chance it would have ended there and then. You could never replace Compo, but the quality remained high for some time after. Had it continued it's difficult to see how you would now replace or find an alternative to Frank Thornton after he passed away. Fact is you couldn't replace him which probably would have left Clegg in occasional scenes with Howard.
Roy Clarke liked Russ Abbot, but he was a lightweight in comedy acting terms compared to what had gone before. Increasingly the series seemed to look to well known faces from comedy in the 70's and 80's to join and sometimes this worked, I thought Brian Murphy was good and enjoyed Bobby Ball's little cameos, but I don't think it worked with Russ Abbot. To be fair to Abbot he is a reasonably good actor, but I do think that the Hobbo character was one of the few that was poorly written, a milkman who believed he was a spy!? His back story wasn't believable whereas Foggy, a similar fantasist was very believable (out of interest I am currently watching the first series again, and noticed that Blamire would occasionally talk up his military exploits to which in one episode Compo replies that he worked in the military stores, shades of Foggy being just a Corporal signwriter there!). We will never know how Hobbo might have developed, but the character lacked the stature of what had gone before.
amos hames
Dedicated Member
Hobbo wasn't great I agree but he filled a gap when Clegg and Truly were relegated to bit parts
Philosopher Clegg
Dedicated Member
But it was an important gap in what was an attempt to create a new trio. Hobbo was the new tall man authoritarian type figure, who would talk about his "team" in the same way that Foggy would talk about "my men". In the final series Hobbo overshadowed Alvin and Entwistle, who at times to me almost looked surplus to requirements as emphasis was placed on Hobbo's character. In this trio I quite liked Alvin, but was never sure that Entwistle fitted either, if only because he ran a business, so where he got the time for wandering who knows. I thought like Wesley before him he fitted well as a supporting character. Given the importance of Hobbo it was important to get this new character right, but it didn't work for me and thus the final trio didn't really work either, others may feel differently.
Sarkus
Dedicated Member
I think the mistake they made was using too many "known" actors as time went by. The show became kind of place where older actors of note were still welcome. And I say this an American who has hardly seen much of what Abbot and Murphy and such were known for. But if you look at the original formula, Bill Owen was known of but not a big star and never really had been, while Salis and Bates were straight-up character actors. When Bates was replaced by Wilde he was a pretty well known guy, but Aldridge was not. Clifford wasn't a known star but represented an attempt to bring in a new generation of actors (Owen, Salis, Bates, and Aldridge were all born in the early 1920s or before, Clifford was born in 1938.) At least that is how I understand it.
I read your note twice before replying, Sarkus. I do see what you mean though. As a Brit, all of the newer characters are well known to me, but I have other American friends who only know Brian Murphy, Keith Clifford, Russ abbot, Norman Wisdom etc through their PBS shows. You should know Burt Kwouk from films of course (Pink Panther, Inn of the Sixth Happiness,) he is our best Oriental actor. I say Oriental as he seems to switch from Chinese, Japanese, and Burmese at will! I am watching The TV series, Tenko, just now. It is thirty years old and still a great program, Kwouk plays a rather different character in this from Entwistle, the man from Hull.
manfromoswestry
Dedicated Member
The two librarians from the first few series, Mr. Wainright and Miss Probert, I found rather annoying. A good thing they were short-lived on the show.