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Pardon the Expression: The Complete First Series (TV)
R2 - United Kingdom - Network Review written by and copyright: Paul Lewis (4th May 2009). |
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The Show
 A spin-off from the long-running soap opera Coronation Street (Granada, 1960- ), Pardon the Expression (Granada, 1965-6) features Arthur Lowe in the role of Leonard Swindley; between 1960 and 1965, Lowe had played Swindley in Coronation Street, where the character was the proprietor of the local branch of the women’s clothes shop Gamma Garments. Swindley left Coronation Street after his marriage to Emily Nugent (Eileen Derbyshire) was called off at the last minute; Swindley’s departure from Weatherfield took place when the character was promoted to the head office of Gamma Garments. In the first episode of Pardon the Expression, Swindley is given a new job, as the assistant manager of a regional branch of the Dobson & Hawk department store. Swindley finds himself presiding over a mostly-female staff; his sympathies with the floor staff often place him in conflict with the store’s manager Mr Parbold (Paul Dawkins). However, Swindley finds allies in the down-to-earth canteen manager Mrs Edgeley (Betty Driver) and the prim floor manager Miss Sinclair (Joy Stewart). Pardon the Expression ran for two series, with the second series introducing the comedy actor Robert Dorning as new manager Wally Hunt, Mr Parbold’s replacement; following the second series, another sitcom featuring Swindley was broadcast. Entitled Turn Out the Lights (Granada, 1967), this series featured Swindley and Hunt as amateur sleuths who, each episode, encountered supernatural events in their role as self-appointed ‘ghost hunters’. When Jimmy Perry wrote Dad’s Army (BBC, 1968-77), according to legend he was inspired by the relationship between the characters of Swindley and Hunt – which in Dad’s Army became mirrored in the relationship between Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson – and reputedly considered casting Lowe and Dorning as Mainwaring and Wilson. Lowe eventually acquired the iconic role of Captain Mainwaring, whilst Wilson was played by John Le Mesurier; however, Dorning became a regular performer in the series, playing a variety of smaller roles. As scripted by many of the key team behind the writing of Coronation Street (including Jack Rosenthal, Harry Driver and Vince Powell, all of whom would go on to create and write for some of ITV’s major 1970s sitcoms), the character of Leonard Swindley made a natural transition from soap opera to situation comedy: the character’s pomposity and blusterful persona were perfectly matched for the world of the sitcom, finding their precedent in Tony Hancock’s performance as Anthony Aloysius Hancock in Britain’s first television sitcom, Hancock’s Half Hour (BBC, 1956-61). Throughout his later career, Lowe would become strongly associated with such characters, largely through his performance as Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army, but elsewhere he played similar characters in, for example, the BBC’s sitcom Potter (BBC, 1979-83), the remake of The Lady Vanishes (Anthony Page, 1979), The Ruling Class (Peter Medak, 1972), O Lucky Man! (Lindsay Anderson, 1973) and the ‘Car Along the Pass’ episode of The Galton and Simpson Playhouse (YTV, 1977). The focus on the internal politics of the department store is, in retrospect, reminiscent of the BBC’s later series Are You Being Served? (BBC, 1972-85), and although Lowe is the star of the show Pardon the Expression features an ensemble cast, with Lowe enlisting the help of the other staff in order to break up a strike by the floor staff (in ‘The Trouble With Ada’) or acquire a contract for providing the school uniforms for a local girls’ school through seducing the headmistress (in ‘The Headmistress’). Episodes: Disc One: 1. ‘The First Day’ 2. ‘The Headmistress’ 3. ‘The Trouble With Ada’ 4. ‘Mannequin Parade’ 5. ‘The Dance’ 6. ‘The Wedding’ Disc Two: 7. ‘The Pensioner’ 8. ‘The Visitor’ 9. ‘Birthday Present’ 10. ‘The Little Boy Lost’ 11. ‘The Old One Two’ 12. ‘The Brain Drain’
Video
Shot on video in black-and-white, the episodes understandably suffer from some visual wear-and-teat; however, considering the rarity of this series and the age of the source material, this is to be expected. The episodes are presented in their original broadcast screen ratio of 4:3; the original break bumpers are intact.
Audio
Audio is presented via a two-channel mono track. This is surprisingly clear. There are no subtitles.
Extras
There is no contextual material.
Overall
Pardon the Expression is a rare series: to the best of my knowledge it has not been repeated on terrestrial television, and it has never been available on home video. The chance to watch Arthur Lowe in an early defining comic role is to be savoured, and there seems to be a clear lineage from his performance here to the role of Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army. Pardon the Expression is often very funny, featuring some classic sitcom situations; it is sad that the series has been almost forgotten, and so Network’s release of this rare situation comedy is to be praised. Hopefully, Network will release the second series of the show (and, with luck, the eccentric sitcom Turn Out the Lights). For more information, please visit the homepage of Network DVD.
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