1990 was a great year for Britain. Margaret Thatcher finally left 10 Downing Street, that was great, but perhaps even greater was the debut for Victor Meldrew in 'One Foot in the Grave' a sitcom which in my view will rank as one of Britains very best.
In the opening episode, Victor Meldrew (Richard Wilson) is made redundant from his job having reached sixty. He lives at home with his wife (Annette Crosbie) and he has way too much spare time on his hands to moan about things (though mostly he is right to). He is also unbelievably unlucky with life.
Having wrote this sitcom David Renwick had no doubt who he wanted to play Victor Meldrew, Richard Wilson. This was hardly surprising, considering the wonderful job Wilson did during the second series of Renwick's 'Hot Metal' In it, he played Dicky Lipton, a man with a lot to complain about, yet hardly surprising considering the work-force he had. So as Victor was a man who had a lot to complain about and Richard Wilson was a master of complaining, with a hilarious high pitched voice when he is in shock, Renwick practically wrote the scripts for Richard Wilson. However at first, Wilson wasn't so keen seeing the character as a bit too old for him. He declined. So someone else was needed. Les Dawson nearly got the role, but eventually Wilson decided to accept. You couldn't imagine anyone else in the role. I'm sure Dawson would have done a funny job, but it wouldn't have had that great realism to it had he played Meldrew. Richard Wilson was simply superb in the role, a performance which is up there with some of the best in British television.
Playing Victor's wife Margaret was Annette Crosbie. She to was wonderful in her performance, showing great patience at times, yet also not above the odd cracking up moment. Hilda Braid was one of the many actresses considered for the role originally. I loved Hilda Braid as a comic actress, she was wonderful as Florence in 'Citizen Smith' yet rather like Les Dawson as Victor, she would have struggled to get across the great realism as Margaret and would probably have been too nice to have been hard-line like Margaret had to be sometimes.
There was also other great characters in 'One Foot in the Grave' Doreen Mantle was perfect as Margaret's friend Jean Warboys. For example, in one episode, she has to go to the dry cleaners to pick up Victor's suit. She comes back with a gorillas costume. She genuinely thinks Victor has a gorilla costume and doesn't consider the thought that they may have given her the wrong suit. The way she doesn't seem this odd is comic acting at its very best. Also great in the cast were the neighbours Owen Bremman as Nick Swainey appeared in the opening episode 'Alive and Buried' as a man working for age concern. He put in a fantastic performance, so when the Meldrew's moved into their new house in series 2, David Renwick had the great idea to make him Victor's next door neighbour. He was a great character, again with many odd traits about him, such as him hosting a 'Dixon of Dock Green' evening at his house in one episode. In the penultimate episode 'The Dawn of Man' he is given a wonderful dramatic moment with Margaret where he reflects on his rather sad life. It was such a nice moment, here's a man people had laughed at due to being so odd on so many occasions, yet it was shown he had a personal sensitive side as well. On the other side of Victor's fence was Patrick and Pippa (Angus Deayton and Janine Duvitski). Both played their parts extremely well with Victor and Patrick constantly at war with each other. As is the case in UK sitcoms, when you get two couples living next door to each other, the husbands dislike each other whereas the wives get along like a house on fire.
Yet having a great cast is one thing, but the writing in 'One Foot in the Grave' was also top rate. David Renwick's scripts had a bit of everything in them, thus showing why it appeals to so many people. It was firstly incredibly funny. Excellently structured story lines were the norm, with great misunderstandings occurring. Examples of which being Victors pubic hair being shaved off by a madman. Renwick also broke sitcom norms, with whole episodes taking place in the same location such as a traffic jam. In fact in one episode, it only consisted of Victor in the house on his own moaning. Yet the greatest thing about Renwick's writing was the pathos. There were so many dramatic moments, such as in one episode a blind man was murdered in his own house. And of course in the final instalment, Victor himself was killed due to a hit and run driver. At first it looked like David Renwick had wrote a suburban sitcom, with the sofa etc. However once you watch a few episodes you realise it isn't like this, it shows the dark side of life and does so greatly. One of the best episodes for this was 'Hearts of Darkness' which starts off with a very funny day in the countryside by Victor and co. but ends with Victor discovering disgusting abuse given to old people in an old folks home.
'One Foot in the Grave' will hopefully live on for many years due to repeats and the complete series being released on DVD. Victor Meldrew is one of the greatest sitcom characters and for me he is right up there with Captain Mainwaring, Norman Stanley Fletcher and Basil Fawlty. Such a wonderful show and in my opinion, the only sitcom that can rival it is 'Dad's Army'
