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Buster Merryfield had for years been a bank manager & had only done Am/Dram'. My parents knew him & acted in plays with him.

When he retired from the Bank he took to real acting was was very lucky to get the role as Uncle Albert, by all accounts he enjoyed having his fame so late in his life.

i always thought he overacted in ofah meself.

No mention of The New Statesman anywhere? Cosy, old-style Aunty Beeb twaddle, symptomatic of a once mighty corporation staring worriedly at the future. And doesn't this sort of thing place pressure on the newer sitcoms now expected to really deliver the goods first time up? OFAH was awfully shaky to begin with, as was (a more deserving winner, methinks) One Foot in the Grave. Let's hope it doesn't dampen their latest widely-hyped talent-drive.

That is the problem with BBC running a program with no input from ITV.
I thought that the New Statesman was an absolute hoot !!

Still makes me laugh but when you consider how few episodes were made is doesn't deserve to be up there with long running successful shows IMHO

Then ask how much of the Fawlty Towers Fame is down to the cast including John Cleese

cheers
B....OZ

It may be my addled brain just doesn't get thing right any more, but I thought that The New Statesman was a C4 offering.
I heard stories around that time that Messrs. Atkinson Elton & Curtis had to scrap plans for the latest Blackadder series because of it ( plans for Blackadder to be a recent Tory MP), because it would have been too similar.

It was funny though, and deliciously non-PC

From Aunty herself:



I heard about the Blackadder similarities too. It probably went the same way as the proposed Blackadder Five - set in the sixties with the usual crew as a hopeless hippy band (drummer called Bald Rick.) Atkinson chose The Thin Blue Line instead, which, so they say, was aiming to capture the charm and innocence of Dad's Army. Fell somewhat short, eh men? Wake up, Jones etc...