Wednesday, 1 August 2018

Keep It In The Family


Keep It In The Family

We've been rationing 'Quatermass And The Pit' to one episode per night, as it's so good we don't want to use it all up at once. With each instalment lasting just over half an hour, we can have our usual cup of tea afterwards and still have time to slot in something short and undemanding if we feel like it.


Which is why we finally opened the 5-disc DVD set of 'Keep It In The Family', which is available from Network.


I'm not sure what it says about a series when the thing you remember most about it is a glove puppet lion with flyaway hair, but this show is over 38 years old now and not one that I used to watch particularly religiously.



Lisa says she was surprised how much the opening titles had stuck in her memory, with each of the four lead characters (Dudley and Muriel, plus their daughters Jacqui and Susan) in a window of their house.

The title of the series refers to the plot of the first episode in which the ground floor flat becomes vacant and the daughters decide to rent it themselves.



Dudley is a rather odd sort of chap, who illustrates a carton 'Barney - The Bionic Bulldog' when he can get around to it. He is no good at deadlines and seems to spend most of the two episodes we've so far seen finding excuses not to do any drawing.

The lion, by the way, is found up in the attic in the second episode along with some relics of Dudley's days in a skiffle group, including the obligatory washboard.


Looking at the back of the DVD, there are some decent guest actors, including Roy Kinnear and Burt Kwouk. Even the first episode has Neil McCarthy put in an appearance.


Our four leads are Robert Gillespie, Pauline Yates, Stacey Dorning and Jenny Quayle, who regenerates into Sabina Franklyn in the third season. Glyn Houston is Dudley's boss, Duncan, and has some familiar business getting wet thanks to a hosepipe when he turns up in episode two.


It runs for a grand total of 31 episodes over five seasons, with the first episode launching on Monday 7th January 1980, a day after 'Worzel Gummidge' encountered Barbara Windsor's Saucy Nancy.



It was never going to be the sort of show that would set the world alight, but coming from the reliable pen of 'George & Mildred's Brian Cooke, it's amiable enough stuff with a cup of post-'Quatermass' tea.


They can put that quote on the DVD packaging, if they want...


(By Andrew Trowbridge)

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