It's amazing what you stumble across in the archives of television, and this 1980's TV series is a gem of a find. Set in the 1920's during the age of the Silent Movie, it is wonderfully evocative of it's era - not so much the sets or fashion of the era, but of the hard graft it took for ordinary people to make it in the movies and just to get things running. What makes it more appealing is that although the Roaring Twenties glamour of the Bright Young Things showed off the style and fashions of the time from the upper class point of view, here you get ordinary working class people and their all too real lives - something you don't always see in a production about the 1920's.
The series involves fleapit owner Arnie Cole (Bob Hoskins), who makes his living showing films to the picture going masses with his small group of workers; girlfriend Letty (Sherrie Hewson), heavy drinking but amiable driver Llewellyn (Fraser Cains) and the organist Violet (Sheri Shepstone). Realizing that cinema is going to be big, he decides that making movies is where the money is and decides to set up his own film company. Only trouble is, he has no money and the only one who has capital is Lady Maud (Frances De La Tour) and her brother Clive (De La Tour's real life brother Andrew), with Maud none too taken with Arnie, who she regards as a conman. However, despite having a smart head on her, Maud is still susceptible to flattery, but in this case it's the silver tongued charm of a chancer who leaves her pregnant. Stuck with a impossible situation she makes Arnie an intriguing offer - she will back his new idea, but in return he has to marry her. That he does sets this story in motion, but there are other storylines that add to the interest.
For a start, Arnie needs some stars and a director for the film, as well as a studio to make it in. Deciding that comedy is a sure thing to draw in the masses, they hire Corky Brown, a fading comic married to the beautiful Clara but with also the insecurities of being married to one, with him constantly suspicious of whoever she hangs around with and turning to alcohol to deaden the pain and the growing knowledge that his fame is beginning to fade. His agent is Max Legendre, who has ambitions to be a film director and proves shrewd enough in the contract negotiations, much to Arnie's chagrin as the film gets underway. Also involved are the Brewer family, who tag on the success of their young daughter Dotty in their bid for stardom themselves, despite the fact that Dotty is anything but Shirley Temple sweetness and is also now 16 years old! They also have a older daughter in Clara, who is tired of being overlooked by her family and has ambitions of her own to make it big. If this means having to pose nude for photographs to get noticed by the director and using the infatuated cameraman Percy Bowden to do so then she will, just so she can break away from her family in her bid for stardom. Meanwhile Percy is an understudy learning his trade who is given his chance to be cameraman for Arnie's studio is a surprising act of kindness from Corky. All of these need the studio and films to succeed, otherwise their one chance of stardom is likely to die with it.
What follows is all the trials and tribulations that can and did befall many first time film makers, from the temperamental director who succeeds in alienating the cast, a star name casting that proves older than thought and with delusions of grandeur (and a drug habit), plus an alcoholic has been who they struggle to keep sober enough to shoot the film. One of the reviewers described this as not really a comedy, and in one sense it is true (though it is very funny). It's a richly layered story that combines both comedy and pathos, detailing real lives and fears, with all the worries, jealousies and insecurities that exist in the industry with all involved with dreams of their own. While Corky laments both his failing marriage and career, he at least has had success. For the Brewer family, they are yet to taste it, which is why they pin their hopes so much on the daughter Dotty. What's so intriguing is that as the series progresses, the initially more likable and neglected daughter Clara becomes more selfish in her bid for fame, while by the end you appreciate the reason Dotty is so narky towards her family is that she is fed up of being a kid and wants to be seen as the adult she has become. The constant sniping between her and her father Jack is great fun, and Philip Madoc is very amusing as Jack, who when he is not trying to suppress the urge to throttle his daughter is trying to maintain a happy ship for his anxious and overwrought wife Lily (Sheila Reid). Although he has tried a number of times to leave her, he knows that she cannot cope without him.
There are many that shine in this, including Granville Saxton as Max Legendre the pretentious director, and Peggy Ann Wood as Maud's formidable Nanny, who is horrifed to see who Maud has brought home as her husband. But it is Bob Hoskins and Frances de la Tour who are the main stars of this, and the beating heart of this comedy drama is the uneasy relationship between the two. Much of the interest is that neither really know about the other when they enter a marriage of convenience, and the fun is in them learning about the other. Both are fiesty characters and there are plenty of fights that are great fun to watch. Arnie is a selfish character at times, driven by his ambition to set up his own film studio no matter what and looking for any means to raise money for his project. At one point he plans to sell Maud's house from under her, only to discover that Maud is no pushover. Yet he is also surprisingly considerate, such as the fact that he is prepared to take on Maud pregnant with another man's child. When he sees her at the hospital after she has given birth and she tells him next time she'll provide him with his own son he tells her that as far as he is concerned he is his son. It's a lovely moment, as is the scene when he sees her in her blue dress ready for a party and is unable at first to express how nice she looks. Their practice tango dance is also great fun, and the rapport of Hoskins and de la Tour is superb.
A special mention also for Fraser Cains and Sherrie Hewson. Cains plays Llewellyn, Arnie's sweet natured partner in crime who finds his loyalties tested by Arnie's many money making schemes alongside that of his admiration and consideration for Arnie's wife Maud. When Arnie asks him to bring back Lily to the studio, he eventually refuses due to his affection for Maud until Arnie explains that he has no intention of cheating on Maud. As for Hewson as Arnie's former girlfriend Lily, she gives one of her best performances here. Cruelly abandoned early on when they are rumbled by police filming at a racecourse, she is naturally angry at first when she hears Arnie wants her back for his new film. But she cannot forget the deep love she had for him and returns despite her better instincts in the hope that he wants her back, despite him now married and with a child. The scene where Arnie finally disillusions her is both compelling for his speech as it is heartbreaking to see Lily's hopes crumble at that moment and it is a superb piece of acting by Hewson that proves she is more than a Carry On comedy star.
Although there are occasional drops in tempo in episodes, this is a superb and funny comedy drama that manages to combine the two perfectly to make a richly rewarding series. Despite Arnie's character being a selfish so and so occasionally, you just will for him and Maud and their band of performers to succeed - not least because you have seen how hard they have had to work just to get where they are. And it remains compelling because of the drive and energy of the two main stars Hoskins and de la Tour, whose rapport and chemistry with each other just shines through. It's astonishing to think this is so rarely repeated, but as a comedy and a human drama of the 1920's it is as televisually important as it is heart warmingly funny and one that leaves you warm inside for the endurability of the human spirit.
