Before I begin this review, I must mention a recent 'Guardian' article by comedian Frankie Boyle, in which he expressed an apparent dislike for 'sitcoms in which a tuba is used to provide incidental music'. The only one I can think of is 'Hancock's Half-Hour'. Boyle is entitled to his opinion, of course, but I find it odd that anyone should judge a show purely by its music. Surely the scripts and performances are far more important?
Onto 'Mind Your Language'. 'I Belong To Glasgow' opened the third season. The title sequence omitted both 'Ingrid' ( Anna Bergman ) and 'Zoltan' ( Gabor Vernon ) which was not surprising as they'd both left the show. Zoltan went back to Hungary, but Ingrid's departure went unexplained ( she returned for Season 4 a few years later ).
The wealthy 'Sheikh El Hamid' ( Ahmed Khalil ) turns up at the school, opens his wallet, and secures a place in Mr.Brown's English class. But not for him personally; his Scottish chauffeur is both surly and unintelligible ( not unlike the 'McBlane' character from Season 3 of 'The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin' ). Brown has an impossible task on his hands...
Not the best episode by a long chalk, but still amusing; the wonderful and alas deceased Russell Hunter ( a.k.a. 'Lonely' from the classic spy drama 'Callan' ) plays the chauffeur, who Brown rechristens 'Jock'. He also played a character of that time in Powell's 1975 sitcom 'Rule Britannia!'. The use of nationality nicknames, as Vince Powell notes in his autobiography 'From Rags To Gags' was not intentionally malicious; as well as 'Jock', Irishmen were referred to by the English as 'Paddy' and Welshmen as 'Taffy'. The names were used as a matter of course.
Funniest moment - the class asks Brown what language Jock is speaking, English, replies the teacher, but spoken in a Scottish dialect. At which point, Giovanni leaps to his feet, saying: "I know all about these dialects! I see them on television. Dr.Who and the Dialects!". By a curious coincidence, Terry Nation's creatures had recently menaced Tom Baker's definitive Doctor on B.B.C.-1 in 'Destiny Of The Daleks'.
Onto 'Mind Your Language'. 'I Belong To Glasgow' opened the third season. The title sequence omitted both 'Ingrid' ( Anna Bergman ) and 'Zoltan' ( Gabor Vernon ) which was not surprising as they'd both left the show. Zoltan went back to Hungary, but Ingrid's departure went unexplained ( she returned for Season 4 a few years later ).
The wealthy 'Sheikh El Hamid' ( Ahmed Khalil ) turns up at the school, opens his wallet, and secures a place in Mr.Brown's English class. But not for him personally; his Scottish chauffeur is both surly and unintelligible ( not unlike the 'McBlane' character from Season 3 of 'The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin' ). Brown has an impossible task on his hands...
Not the best episode by a long chalk, but still amusing; the wonderful and alas deceased Russell Hunter ( a.k.a. 'Lonely' from the classic spy drama 'Callan' ) plays the chauffeur, who Brown rechristens 'Jock'. He also played a character of that time in Powell's 1975 sitcom 'Rule Britannia!'. The use of nationality nicknames, as Vince Powell notes in his autobiography 'From Rags To Gags' was not intentionally malicious; as well as 'Jock', Irishmen were referred to by the English as 'Paddy' and Welshmen as 'Taffy'. The names were used as a matter of course.
Funniest moment - the class asks Brown what language Jock is speaking, English, replies the teacher, but spoken in a Scottish dialect. At which point, Giovanni leaps to his feet, saying: "I know all about these dialects! I see them on television. Dr.Who and the Dialects!". By a curious coincidence, Terry Nation's creatures had recently menaced Tom Baker's definitive Doctor on B.B.C.-1 in 'Destiny Of The Daleks'.
