This is such a great series. I found all the episodes uplifting and enchanting. Scriot is great and Mackenzie Crook is brilliant as Worzel.
5 Reviews
Lovely series
jerry-cooke24 December 2020
Saucy Nancy
Prismark1024 December 2020
Mackenzie Crook returns as Worzel Gummidge. This time it is for just one episode. I think Covid put paid to a two part series this time.
While out looking for a door at a salvage yard. Worzel comes across Saucy Nancy. The potty mouthed figurehead that once graced wooden ships.
Saucy Nancy hears the call of the sea. She wants Worzel and orphans Susan and John to take her back to the seaside.
It is a simple charming colourful adventure held together by Crook's quirky performance and it was beautifully filmed. There is a tender windswept scene at the end as Saucy Nancy finds her place in a pub looking outwards while a song is sung.
I remember watching Barbara Windsor playing the role of Saucy Nancy in the Jon Pertwee series. I detected Shirley Henderson channeling Barbara Windsor in her voice.
I did not recognise Vanessa Redgrave who plays Peg, an almost mystical character that mirrors the Green Man from the first series.
While out looking for a door at a salvage yard. Worzel comes across Saucy Nancy. The potty mouthed figurehead that once graced wooden ships.
Saucy Nancy hears the call of the sea. She wants Worzel and orphans Susan and John to take her back to the seaside.
It is a simple charming colourful adventure held together by Crook's quirky performance and it was beautifully filmed. There is a tender windswept scene at the end as Saucy Nancy finds her place in a pub looking outwards while a song is sung.
I remember watching Barbara Windsor playing the role of Saucy Nancy in the Jon Pertwee series. I detected Shirley Henderson channeling Barbara Windsor in her voice.
I did not recognise Vanessa Redgrave who plays Peg, an almost mystical character that mirrors the Green Man from the first series.
Lovely feel good story.
timjohnbates2 January 2021
Can't be Saucy or a Nancy in a family show
xmasdaybaby196624 December 2020
A gentle family fantasy adventure.
Not as strong as the two previous episodes but, again, offering PC messages (no doubt there will be complaints of the children going of on adventure without a grown up to watch over them).
Perhaps an hour is too long but being made for BBC, there are no commercials to punctuate the story.
Enjoyable but not as magical as the 70s/80s show.
Renamed rarely are. A good start to Christmas viewing that will keep the kids occupied.
Shore thing ?
southdavid29 December 2020
The two episodes of Mackenzie Crook's rebooted "Worzel Gummidge" that aired at Christmas 2019 were among the most unexpectedly wonderful shows I saw that year. Charming, with a romantic eye for the British Countryside, but legitimately funny, some of the success came perhaps from me not expecting much. Perhaps that too is why this year's single addition to the series felt OK, but didn't quite hit the same heights.
Worzel (Mackenzie Crook), comes across an old friend of his at a reclamation yard. Saucy Nancy (Shirley Henderson) is a former ship masthead, long since detached from her vessel but still with dreams of returning to the coast and feeling the sea air. Along with two kids who know the truth about scarecrows, Susan (India Brown) and John (Thierry Wickens) Worzel endeavours to transport the foul-mouthed Nancy back to the coast.
I say foul mouthed but being a family show Nancy's language comes in the form of quaint euphemisms and idioms that don't quite track to actual swearwords. Much of your enjoyment of this episode may reflect on how much you can deal with Shirley Henderson's squeaky voice. It was a bit much for me. The story of this episode didn't wrap up as well as the previous two. Vanessa Redgrave has a mystical role as Peg, which I assumed was going to help with the conclusion of Nancy's story, but in effect the two aspects of the story were mostly unrelated. The visual effect, of Nancy turning to and from wood is really well done though.
It was still a good episode, still just as charming and funny as the previous two, it's just perhaps the story wasn't quite a well realised as the previous episodes were and that my expectations were raised by the success of the previous episodes. I still want more though.
Worzel (Mackenzie Crook), comes across an old friend of his at a reclamation yard. Saucy Nancy (Shirley Henderson) is a former ship masthead, long since detached from her vessel but still with dreams of returning to the coast and feeling the sea air. Along with two kids who know the truth about scarecrows, Susan (India Brown) and John (Thierry Wickens) Worzel endeavours to transport the foul-mouthed Nancy back to the coast.
I say foul mouthed but being a family show Nancy's language comes in the form of quaint euphemisms and idioms that don't quite track to actual swearwords. Much of your enjoyment of this episode may reflect on how much you can deal with Shirley Henderson's squeaky voice. It was a bit much for me. The story of this episode didn't wrap up as well as the previous two. Vanessa Redgrave has a mystical role as Peg, which I assumed was going to help with the conclusion of Nancy's story, but in effect the two aspects of the story were mostly unrelated. The visual effect, of Nancy turning to and from wood is really well done though.
It was still a good episode, still just as charming and funny as the previous two, it's just perhaps the story wasn't quite a well realised as the previous episodes were and that my expectations were raised by the success of the previous episodes. I still want more though.
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