"One Foot in the Grave" (1990) TV series 1990-2000

User Rating:

8.7/10   

Seasons:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Release Date:

4 January 1990 (UK)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Victor Meldrew is a retiree with an attitude who seems to attract bad luck. If he's not driving his...

Plot Keywords:

Grouch | Pessimist | Senior Citizen | Old Man | Married Couple

Awards:

9 wins & 14 nominations

Cast

Richard Wilson	...	Victor Meldrew (42 episodes, 1990-2000)
Annette Crosbie	...	Margaret Meldrew (41 episodes, 1990-2000)
Doreen Mantle	...	Mrs. Warboys / ... (18 episodes, 1990-2000)
Owen Brenman	...	Nick Swainey / ... (15 episodes, 1990-2000)
Angus Deayton	...	Patrick (14 episodes, 1990-2000)
Janine Duvitski	...	Pippa (14 episodes, 1990-2000)

Runtime:

30 min (34 episodes) | 70 min (1 Episode) | 60 min (3 episodes) | 40 min (2 episodes) | 50 min (1 Episode) | 90 min (1 Episode)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

New Zealand:PG (season 1) | Australia:PG

Filming Locations:

Algarve, Portugal

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Trivia:

The 1995 Christmas Special was initially intended as the series' finale, and would have seen Victor being killed while saving Margaret from being attacked by a madman. The 1997 special was then intended to end the series with Margaret dying from a heart attack bought on from the strain of Victor's misadventures, but on both occasion the production crew got cold feet. It wasn't until the final series in 2000 that the team, in David Renwick's words, "plucked up the courage to kill Victor."

Quotes:

Victor Meldrew: What in the name of Sanity?!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Angus Deayton: One Foot in the Groin (1996)

Surreal without special effects

This series is surreal in ways which would be instantly recognizably to Jaques Tati or Laurel and Hardy. In fact, every day situations are stretched just a little bit further and you have something which strays from conventional sit-com. The reality is that unplanned retirement does make people fill in their time with pointless activities and obsessive behaviour. Victor Meldrew's relationship with the world has been fractured and, suddenly, he's out of step with everything. Gadgets defeat him, people and their activities bemuse or disgust him. There is a certain predictability just as there is with the humour of Tony Hancock whom Victor closely resembles. But Victor is more three dimensional than Hancock: he has real disappointments, the fact that he is childless, old-age hasn't brought him respect, even from his wife. Even at his last gasp there is muddle and laughter. In fact, much of the humour is very black and some of our laughter is a way of dealing with shock- Grandpa Meldrew's skull, Margaret's mother's death and the episode where Victor thinks Margaret has died - then the nurse thumps the heart monitor back to life after he has reviewed their very human life in flashback and laughter follows. This is not Terry and June or the Honeymooners, it is a post Monty Python and Fawlty Towers version of the sitcom - it resembles the old type very superficially but, despite some extravagance of plotting it is much closer to reality and, like much sophisticated humour, involves a certain amount of pain and embarrassment for its wit. There are variations on trouser-dropping farce and misunderstood comments overheard - but here it is the character which drives the comedy, not the plot. There is enough in it for the belly laugh but there is also the humour of a Jane Austen, pointing up and dealing with the absurdities of the human condition!