Thread: Last of the Summer Wine

My dad and his wife have been watching the series "Last of the Summer Wine" on DVD.

I have to admit, when I first saw it I thought it was pretty dull and stodgy but it's grown on me. Anybody here ever catch the show? It's apparently pretty long-running on the BBC. I thought it was somewhat amusing that I read somewhere that by the early 2000's it had become one of the most-requested cancellations in England. (I likened it to if the "Golden Girls" here in the U.S. had run on for 30 + seasons.)

The humor in the show is pretty mild but the characters are somewhat charmingly funny sometimes (Bill Owen has some good one-liners and has become the archetypal "dirty old man" in my mind as a result of the Compo character.) I don't think I've seen anything in the show that's made me crack up laughing but it's pretty amusing sometimes.

Last of the Summer Wine ran for 37 years, from 1973 till 2010, every episode was, I believe, written by its creator, Roy Clarke. LotSW was character driven comedy, not punch-line driven by much American comedy. It very accurately reflected the quirks, foibles and worries of the old growing older; portrayed the ability of those with too much time on their hands to waste it in silly ways - It was also excrutiatingly English.

I was brought up with "last of the summer wine" my late father loved it, the actress who played Nora Batty was a frequent visitor to the store where i work and i very nice humble lady she is to. It's a shame the series had to finish but i stopped watching it years ago, however the memory of sunday nights watching the gang get up to no good still makes me giggle. Good old fashioned British comedy at it's inoccent best.

My dad, who is 83, loves this show. He watches it faithfully and I watch it with him whenever I can. I have to agree, it grows on you and there's something very charming and comfortable about the show.

My dad just discovered the show within the last year or so and he's now hooked. I don't think he'd ever heard of it before when I was growing up.

I think my favorite combo by far is Foggy, Clegg and Compo... I don't quite enjoy the other "leader" characters as much as Foggy. Clegg I believe has been the only cast member to appear in every episode. They had to replace Compo because Bill Owen died, and they got the Robin Hood guy and the other old guy (can't recall his name).

Being from the U.S. there are some aspects of the show that I don't get, like I remember one episode where they were all disparaging a particular accent from one part of Britain and I had no idea why. I assumed it was a dialectical issue, like people from the north here in the U.S. making fun of "hicks" or "hillbillies" down south with their southern accents. But usually the humor is above those kinds of regional limitations and oftentimes is pretty quaintly humorous.

Gumby, "comfortable" is a good word for it!