It's no secret that Victoria Wood is a fan of soaps and it's clear that as a child she spent a lot of time watching popular TV, as did most of us. dinnerladies, which at the time of broadcast was presented as a revival of the sit-com has plenty of soap-opera aspects as well, and is all the better for them.
For best results the episodes should be viewed in order, a mobile phone mentioned in the very last episode makes an appearance in the first one. We get to see character development and physical changes, not all of these parts of the story. Over time characters are filled out and we get more idea of what makes them tick. In fact this is done more carefully in dinnerladies than in some drama. In the world of TV, even in the Flintstones it grates when something you think you know about a character is arbitrarily changed, either because that week's writer doesn't know as much about the show as you do or they haven't worked the plot out thoroughly. In dinnerladies tremendous attention to detail is paid.
This is an ensemble piece, like Dad's Army and the other Perry/Croft classics and we can recognise the naïve and gormless youth (Anita) and the daft ineffective officer type, Philippa /Celia Imrie. Some characters have catch phrases and these are worked into dialogue which is more like real speech, the way some people like to dwell on their medical problems.
In films such as Full Monty, Billy Elliot and Brassed Off we get a side order of rather heavy handed politics, the noble worker verses the dead hand of political cost/benefit analysis etc. In dinnerladies the factory and the canteen have an uncertain future; this is a canteen in a manufacturing company for a start. Come to that a canteen is something of an anachronism, the business world is just so vulnerable to re-evaluating what matters, one day providing an in-house catering facility might be the height of corporate fashion, next week they want to use the floor space to provide space for focus groups. But the canteen staff don't see their work as a vocation, this is slinging pies not M*A*S*H. But for some the work is very important, when Stan gets the toaster going in time for the morning rush its Apollo 13 and the joy of being part a team, even if it is a team of women with a non-stop parade of embarrassing women's problems.
But the women have other issues, husbands and parents to worry about and be tormented by. In a favourite episode Thora Hird, Dora Bryan and Eric Sykes make appearances in a "Take your Mother to work day". We get more background story on everyone and when it transpires that Philippa too has a dreadful mother for the first time she becomes a character we have some sympathy for. Perry and Croft didn't do this and the authentic soaps don't always it properly, they often just introduce horrible people who mellow, for no particular reason, over time.
The cast is superb, Anne Reid (Jean) and Thelma Barlow (Dolly) deliver comic lines superbly and, authentically the workplace banter is very funny. If someone smiles at a line it's because that character got the joke, after Acorn Antiques there's no room unscripted behaviour. Julie Walters plays Bren's mum the hideous Petunia. Her main role is to continue to mess up Bren's life. No one pays much heed to her worsening kidney problems, somehow we manage to laugh these off.
Comedy is a funny thing though; we want to have a laugh. And that's why the soaps work best with comedy. The catch phrases, the references to other shows, the horrible people, when we want to have a laugh these are all the cues we need.
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