I have been waiting for some time for this to appear on DVD and here it is. Loved it when it first appeared, like it even more now. Diana is a role model, ie just the sort of person I want to be when my children do what they threaten, and put me in a home, and Tom would be an irritating but useful companion. Our bodies may give out on us, but the brain does not always follow suit, and from this we get this glorious programme. Jane, (an undersung hero of UK TV) the long suffering P. A. to the obnoxious Harvey Bains who is the only person to be fooled by his facade of niceness, tries so hard to bring Diana and Tom into some sort of religious salvation before its too late, and plays one of the best characters in the programme. Not to forget the randy little chap (Bas?) who has his own way of enduring old age, and Tom's poor son and his dreadful wife. Truly a TV sitcom of brilliance. More, please!
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selffamily17 January 2009
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Sleepin_Dragon15 May 2017You could be forgiven for thinking a comedy set in a Nursing Home could be anything other then magically funny, I can think of few with such a setting, the closest possibly being You're only young twice from the 1970's. Running in the early 90's from 1990-1994, the series comprised 5 series, totalling 47 episodes. The standard does not drop at any point, it's a glorious mix of bittersweet humour and slapstick from start to finish. You cannot help but utterly love the cynical black heart of Diana, or the boyish innocence of Tom. They make a wonderful duo, and truly feed of one another, their different styles of humour contrasting beautifully. As the show goes on you see a slight softening of Diana, and a slight toughening of Tom. The final episode is delightful, and shows you how far the characters have come, and how much they know one another. Jane and The Idiot Bains provide constant laughs, but it's the ageing Lothario Basil who has me in stitches.
It always challenges Society's views towards the elderly, sometimes dark, but always comedy with a heart. 9/10 -
frkerry7 February 2019Aging happens to us all. Much to our gratitude and dismay, my wife and I reside in "assisted living", complete with our very own "idiot Baines". In these circumstances the often grim humor of "Waiting for God" often rings true, and nearly always entertains hilariously. We wish it were still in production!
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Voxel-Ux10 April 2003Here we have a programme centring around two elderly and cynical people in a retirement home located in Britain's version of Florida: Bournemouth. Did I say elderly? Well, only in age, not attitude. Take one Tom Ballard, a gentleman deposited by his son into the retirement home who is one half of the cynical pair. Although cynical, his character expresses this with good humour and resignation, philosophy, and plays upon the ageist attitude that old people are helpless and eccentric, leaving one to wonder whether he is actually mad, or just pretending to be.
The other half, Diana, a worldly woman who sees the effects of society's attitude toward the old now that she is of retirement age and, in contrast to Tom, vents spleen any chance she gets, usually towards Harvey, the young man who runs the Home whose character is a composite of the 20-40 yuppy age group's attitude towards those beyond 65.
The humour is quick-firing, very British, and also pulls no punches with regards to attitudes and observations of society during the latter half of the 80s and into the 90s. All told, an excellent series that will take a long time in the future before it seems dated. -
This is one of my all-time favorite TV shows. The acting is incredible and the characters and story lines seem real. It doesn't sugarcoat the aspect of aging and the show deals with issues our elderly face every day. My children even watched this program when they were young and found it hilarious! Diana Trent is gritty, cantankerous, and possesses a dry wit. She also knows how and when to apply her cane to those in need. I want to be just like her when I am older! Harvey Baines is hilarious and ever so patient with a somewhat demanding Diana. Diana and Harvey are the central characters but the rest of the cast of characters all add their own personal charm. The show is timeless and unlike any I've ever seen before or will probably see again.
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Sylviastel8 December 2001One of the funniest shows to come out of England in the nineties, it has a terrific cast of veteran television and stage players. It's funny and timeless comedy with a bit of slapstick humor and a polished verbal English wit. The wonderful relationship between atheist feminist single Diana and the widowed Tom Ballard is fascinating to watch unlike most relationships, they get better when they're together than apart. Tom's boring son, Jeffrey, can bore anyone to death but he is in a marriage to unfaithful, drunk, and pill popper, Marion, who despises and resents Diana as a threat to their inheritance. The cast includes another heterosexual relationship between old maid plain Jane and the Bayview manager, Harvey Nigel Bains. Harvey constantly mistreats the wonderful sweet Jane. He doesn't know what he's got until he almost loses her. Three great love stories and romances in a wonderful sitcom. The wait is over.
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gingergargoyle5 September 2011Yes I had to put a spoiler warning on this because I can not talk about this show with out expressing how educational it is on issues pertaining to the senior community. Always with enough humor to take the edge off, but still enough of a spotlight to get their point across. From senior sexual relations to "being dumped" by your family to cancer to diabetes to fraud prevention to death.
It takes a good long look at Europe's treatment of the elderly and offers a subtle warning of "someday this will be you too" ... not just age-wise but also health-care-wise.
This series is more than just being about cranky Diana & her loopy friend Tom, his boring son Jeffery & his drunk/slutty wife Marion, gypsy Harvey and the long-suffering Jane who pines for him.
I will guarantee you that if you get a chance to see this show you won't regret it and the story lines will stay with you years down the road. -
What a wonderful antidote to the usual crap on television--especially in its depiction of old people. All too often, in films and TV, old people are endowed with either great wisdom, insight or are gosh-darn cute. WAITING FOR GOD throws all these clichés out the window, showing us that old people can be nasty--just like anyone else! The film has two leads--Diana and Tom. While Tom isn't a major grouch, he is a bit of a trouble maker and loves being eccentric. Diana, on the other hand, is a nasty old crank that could care less about people she deems are beneath her--and that is practically everyone! And her anger and clever meanness is given plenty of righteous opportunity to come out at the old folks home they live in, as Harvey (the manager) is a total moron and his assistant, Jane, is just...well, pathetic.
Week after week, Diana (with assistance from Tom) make their lives miserable--along with Tom's truly awful son and daughter-in-law. There is a lot more I can say about the show, but the bottom line is that excellent writing, truly original characters and a nice sense of irreverence make this a must-see...especially if there is a little Diana within you. -
shaunaruss13 September 2020This show is funny & bittersweet - great entertainment. The acting is very good and the writing is excellent. Too bad they could not have left the laugh track in the very distant past! If not for the laugh track, I would have given this 8/10 and just might anyway by the end of the series!
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At the time of writing this, one of the satellite channels in Britain is showing Waiting For God again, and in one of the adverts for it, somebody mentions that what makes this so funny is the refusal of these older people in the Bayview Retirement Home to act like the stereotypical "old person".
The characters are brilliant and strikingly diverse. Diana Trent, you can clearly see, has potential to cause anarchy in one of the places you'd least expect to find it - a group of apartments for retired older people in Bournemouth. One of my favourite moments is when she "summons" the manager Harvey Nigel Baines ("Jane, you're touching me") to her dinner table by means of hooking her walking stick round his neck and pulling him to the floor. How many stereotypical "old ladies" do that? Tom Ballard is great because you're never entirely sure if he's in full possession of his mental faculties or whether he's in another world entirely. Sometimes he's climbing Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary, sometimes he's having tea with Greta Garbo, and sometimes he seems completely normal. The residents of Bayview may be old enough to draw a pension, but otherwise they're still sharp enough and intelligent enough. The great thing about Waiting For God is that it shows that - even though they're sidelined by the rest of society - age cannot prevent these people (particularly the home's Casanova Basil) from living exactly as they have done for the first seventy-odd years of their lives.
This was first shown when I was little and even fifteen years later it's still as good - if not better - than I remembered it at the time. One of the very endearing characters in this sitcom is Jane, probably best described as Harvey's secretary, who clearly has a massive and unrequited crush on him and - as the programme progresses - it's clear that one way or the other she will get Harvey, but the great thing about her is that she isn't a completely tragic figure. In spite of the fact that Harvey walks all over her and blatantly has no romantic interest in her whatsoever, she is determined to sabotage as many of his other "dates" (although they hardly have a chance to get that far) as she can.
I don't know whether Waiting For God is on DVD but it certainly should be. -
taadams@hotmail.com30 November 2018These classic British comedies state timely and their humor. I rate this one up there with Their best. I wish it would come back.
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Anyways...as a young snot-nosed pike I did watch glimpse of this show. Yea even while a little kid I would watch anything. The show was interesting and very different from my usual brainwashing programs.
However, It was a good little English show made for English people. I didn't understand the jokes at the time because I'm not English even though I speak English. -
HailMary8 May 2000"Waiting for God" takes place in the corners of the earth in the Bayview Retirement home. This program goes beyond the normal rules of the sitcom and instead takes television to a new level. This program brings a new light to the treatment of the elderly, religion, the meaning of life, and love. I have never seen such a good TV program, I doubt that I ever will again.
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sadie_m_lady5 November 2019Diana totally makes this show I love her and Tom is such silly fun I love it I love it I can't wait for it to be on Brit Box The people combined in this show make me want to go live here
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sadie_m_lady8 February 2020I love this show from the very first episode Diana and Tom were a hoot. Please put on Brit box so I can watch again and again
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sadie_m_lady11 March 2020I want to be just like them when I grow up they are a hoot and so is this place Poor Harvey Bains ba ha ha
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lesleyannrobbo27 April 2021Stephanie Cole is a fabulous actress who manages to pull off the portrayals of playing elderly woman really well even in waiting for god she was in her late 40s here she plays the gritty, no nonsense Diana trent alongside Graham Crowden who plays tom ballard and their antics together make it hilarious viewing this comedy is a must watch.
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I watched this show when they aired the series on PBS many years ago - another unforgettable British comedy that I would love to view again.
The show surrounds a retirement village where Tom meets the crabby Diana. The two form a friendship which turns into a romance. Diana remains crabby while Tom is a bit nicer which leads to some of TV's funniest moments.
10/10. -
wkxtcgm16 November 2020I'm rewatching this for the first time in a very long while.
No show has ever matched the hi-jinx and dry Brit funny of a sour atheist Diana teaming up with next door outlandishly funny Tom, that often pretends to be more senile than he is, so you don't notice when he's not doing OK.
Neither of them really like people (or their families that dumped them there), but they have opposite approaches to push people away so they can eventually die without a fuss.
They just kinda read each other and become immediate unlikely friends, mutually deciding to spend the rest of their lives terrorizing the hell out of everyone for fun, especially staff in the 'home', while hanging out on their back patios together, having adventures, tea, and waiting for God to take them (who never shows up anyway). -
barbrickey177 August 2020I love this show very, very much. I feel like it's really underrated, because it is. Waiting for God is without a doubt one of the best british sitcoms of all time, and I could watch it over and over again. It's brilliant. The actors are beyond amazing, and the episodes are always absolutely hilarious. Stephanie Cole, Graham Crowden, Daniel Hill and Janine Duvitski are some of the best actors in the buisness if you ask me and not one of them have ever had a bad scene in this show, they are giving it everything they've got and it certainly pays off. I would recommend this show to anyone, anyone of any age because there is no way you will not enjoy it. It's a feel good show, it's packed to the brim with actually funny jokes, mostly about old people but it is still funny beyond belief, and it's honestly one of best shows I have ever watched. Stephanie Cole is just the absolute best as Diana, Graham Crowden shines as Tom, and Daniel Hill and Janine Duvitski make the perfect sideline characters as Harvey and Jane. Each episode is always so funny, it's impossible not to have a fit of laughs. I love the earlier seasons the best, but the later ones always amaze me as well. It's hilarious, very funny and real. If you are every having a bad day, this is the show to watch!
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joestevensus-107274 May 2020I watched the 3 seasons on Britbox and they were quite humorous for the most part. The leads are well cast and have chemistry. After their relationship changed a bit, the the show seemed to trend downwards somewhat. Certainly worth streaming.
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marktayloruk7 July 2020I'm someone more like Tom who wishes he was like Diana.Would like a prequel dealing with her earlier life.Also-if Diana had met Victor Meldrew...