Comedy Playhouse (TV Series) Of Funerals and Fish (1973) User Reviews

Back to the very start.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 7/10 · 20 January 2019]

I wonder if they realised this was the start of a British institution. Summer Wine started off back in 1972 with this pilot episode. Thirty eight years later it would sadly come to an end.

What gets me most, is you'd never know this was a pilot episode, if I didn't know any better I would have assumed it was much later on. It all feels very fresh, some lovely down to Earth humour.

Cyril, Compo and Cleggy the original trio, for me the best years came with the arrival of Brian Wilde, but Cyril's superiority was amusing enough.

Some very fun moments, I always loved the librarian and his mistress, lots of fun, but as was so always the case, it's Bill Owen that was pure joy to watch.

It started here

[Prismark10 · 7/10 · 18 October 2017]

This is the pilot episode of The Last of the Summer Wine made in 1972. If only they knew at the time it would last until 2010.

I was a toddler when this was first shown but it is a shock seeing the cast in this first episode; they have more dark hair than I have these days.

Clegg visits his late wife's gravestone. She died in 1971 but was born in 1909. This would make Clegg in his early 60s unless he married a much older woman. I know by the time Compo appears in one of his last episodes his date of birth was retconned to 1923 making his character under 50 when the program was made.

Clegg worked for the Co-op for many years but has been made redundant and now widowed recently he spends his time with Blamire an old school friend who might have recently returned to his old town from a stint in the army and Compo, the scruffy one whose wife left him for a Pole and whose television got repossessed again.

The set up for the series is already there in the pilot. Three old men wistfully recalling the past while living in a grimy industrial town. Compo has a liking for Nora Batty, although I noticed the street was busy with other neighbours out and about. Nora's unseen husband was also referred by another name.

Sid and Ivy are in the café arguing with Ivy already a harridan. Then there is the library which was used a lot in the early days managed by randy Wainwright who had passion for Mrs Partridge.

There were less of the rolling green hills of the Yorkshire dales and sliding tin baths down a hill of later years. Our trio bicker, reminiscence, talk about sex and politics. Clegg even uses the word orgasm while Blamire and Compo argue about tribal politics which spilled over in real life. Bill Owen was a staunch socialist and Michael Bates was a Tory.

"Will there still be Wednesday's when your dead"

[ygwerin1 · 6/10 · 10 June 2022]

Here we first meet the original trio of OAP's Norman Clegg, Compo Simonite and Cyril Blaimire, along with Compo's next door neighbour Nora Batty, and cafe proprietors Sid and Ivy.

Norman Clegg's misus often gets mentioned in subsequent episodes, but here we see him taking flowers to her grave Norma Clegg.

And there are a couple of different characters, in a different location the library, the people are Mr Wainwright the head librarian and a married librarian Mrs Partridge. He is the over sexed sudo intellectual, whose principle preoccupation appears to be letching after her. While she is supposedly prim and proper, her unsatisfied yearnings are steadily simmering.

I would like to think that the show was recorded before a studio audience, rather than having a laughter track tacked on, but I wouldn't be surprised if anyone, finds some of the laughter rather off-putting.

Not an auspicious start

[professoritterrohl · 4/10 · 18 April 2019]

This is where it all began and this pilot is a long way off what the series would become. There are no elements of slapstick, farce or visual gags to be seen. Instead the show relies solely on dialect. This makes the pace somewhat laboured so the location constantly changes in an attempt to move the pace along. The Compo character would remain consistent throughout the years; however its noticeable how different Clegg was in the early episodes. He was a more confident cocky character and quite a long way removed from the Clegg of later years. The episode is a bit of a time capsule to life in the 70's as we get views of the town and a glimpse of the lives of ordinary folk. Its noticeable how class plays a part in this episode through the characters Blamire and Compo which was a common theme of many sitcoms of the time. The episode doesn't have much in the way of plot; instead its focus is mainly on establishing the characters. Unfortunately the episode is uneventful and the jokes are rather unfunny and dated. The lustful librarians are a welcome relief and can be viewed as a forerunner for Howard and Marina. Worth watching to see how it all started but a weak episode.