Post by Lieutenant Columbo on Feb 19, 2007 8:40:39 GMT
Did anyone watch this, from 1999?
Just thinking about it yesterday... I rated it, yet I don't think it did at all well.
Here's some info:
Mrs Merton & Malcolm
UK, BBC (Granada), Sitcom, colour, 1999
Starring: Caroline Aherne, Craig Cash, Brian Murphy
Although no reference was made to The Mrs Merton Show this series featured the same leading character - Caroline Aherne's prim alter ego - together with her screen son who had also appeared in that earlier show. The premise, however, was altogether different.
Mrs Merton & Malcolm observed the home life of the pair. Although 37, Malcolm acts - and is treated by his mother - like a seven-year-old. It is difficult to say whether he has been kept unnaturally childlike by her treatment or whether, to use the parlance of the programme, he is 'backward'. Malcolm's father is bedridden and remains permanently upstairs, referred to but only seen as a bulky shape beneath the blankets. Neighbour Arthur Capstick pops in to pass the time of day. Ostensibly set in the present day, in the north England town of Heaton Norris, the show reeked of the 1950s in several respects, including the clothes.
This was an intriguing creation, intentionally low-key and permeated with melancholy. The colourful photography and uncommonly lush incidental music helped lighten the mood, but it was still too downbeat for some and there was criticism that Malcolm's character was in dubious taste for comedy. No matter - six months earlier, the same writers had launched The Royle Family the success of which was so immense that Mrs Merton & Malcolm was soon (if unfairly) forgotten.
I'd love to see this again... but never heard any info. on it since it was transmitted - Brian Murphy ("George" off "George & Mildred") was also in it as the neighbour and was on each episode singing to the bedridden Mr. Merton (who you never saw)... all manner of songs including "The Drugs Don't Work"!
Here's to it ever coming out on DVD - I'd have it like a shot!
N.
Just thinking about it yesterday... I rated it, yet I don't think it did at all well.
Here's some info:
Mrs Merton & Malcolm
UK, BBC (Granada), Sitcom, colour, 1999
Starring: Caroline Aherne, Craig Cash, Brian Murphy
Although no reference was made to The Mrs Merton Show this series featured the same leading character - Caroline Aherne's prim alter ego - together with her screen son who had also appeared in that earlier show. The premise, however, was altogether different.
Mrs Merton & Malcolm observed the home life of the pair. Although 37, Malcolm acts - and is treated by his mother - like a seven-year-old. It is difficult to say whether he has been kept unnaturally childlike by her treatment or whether, to use the parlance of the programme, he is 'backward'. Malcolm's father is bedridden and remains permanently upstairs, referred to but only seen as a bulky shape beneath the blankets. Neighbour Arthur Capstick pops in to pass the time of day. Ostensibly set in the present day, in the north England town of Heaton Norris, the show reeked of the 1950s in several respects, including the clothes.
This was an intriguing creation, intentionally low-key and permeated with melancholy. The colourful photography and uncommonly lush incidental music helped lighten the mood, but it was still too downbeat for some and there was criticism that Malcolm's character was in dubious taste for comedy. No matter - six months earlier, the same writers had launched The Royle Family the success of which was so immense that Mrs Merton & Malcolm was soon (if unfairly) forgotten.
I'd love to see this again... but never heard any info. on it since it was transmitted - Brian Murphy ("George" off "George & Mildred") was also in it as the neighbour and was on each episode singing to the bedridden Mr. Merton (who you never saw)... all manner of songs including "The Drugs Don't Work"!
Here's to it ever coming out on DVD - I'd have it like a shot!
N.
