The industry of the male gigolo is a fairly lucrative one, with the UK as one of its top markets. The idea is quite simple – men are paid to go out with other women and be their companions. Sometimes, in fact, they serve the role of an opportunity for sex. But why am I saying this, you ask? Well, it’s because this week on “The Obscure Sitcom Files”, I’ll be looking into a sitcom that shows this field in fashion: Just a Gigolo.
Background
Once upon a time, Tony Slattery was an up-and-coming TV star, known for appearing in a decent amount of TV shows and sitcoms of the 1980s and 1990s. Of course, his nervous breakdown after he left Whose Line Is It Anyway? put the scupper on a lot of this, but this hadn’t quite occurred in 1993, so he wound up doing the sitcom Just a Gigolo, made after a poor investment in the musical Radio Times.
In spite of Slattery’s endorsement for the show however, the show quietly dropped in the ratings and was quickly cancelled (of course, the fact that it went out at an 8:30 time slot on weekdays, which is perhaps not the best slot for a sitcom about a sex escort, may not have helped). In fact, it is so obscure that no home video release has ever been made for the series – as a consequence, although most of it is up on Youtube, Episode 1 is absent and I had to reconstruct how the premise came to be on old Newspaper clippings of the time.
Speaking about it in his book, Radio Times’ Guide to TV Comedy, Mark Lewisohn simply remarks that it was a funny sitcom, but that the premise would not stretch any further than the 7 episode run that the show gathered in the end.
Synopsis
The plot of the series begins when Primary School Teacher Nick Brim (Tony Slattery) is mistaken for a gigolo when he goes to the office party of his brother Simon (Paul Bigley). In spite of this however, he only has eyes for wine bar owner Natalie (Rowena King). Sometime after this, both are apparently fired by their jobs (although why is something I am in the dark about – Simon at least, I can see being fired for incompetence) and as such, the duo is left broke enough that they’re forced to scavenge for change just to get a single beverage.
Simon can best be described as a refugee from Men Behaving Badly and other flatmate sitcoms of the era, being quite sex-crazed and doing such stuff such as lugging around a cardboard cut-out of a blonde woman and giggling at a ridiculous book called “Lust for Passion”. In spite of this however, he is much less successful with love than his older brother, most notably when he ends up with a woman named Sandy who ends up not liking him very much in the final episode. He’s the one who wants his brother to become a gigolo, enough that he’s willing to set up gigolo dates using dole money.
Nick isn’t as certain, since he feels that it will complicate his love for Natalie, but money is tight, so he gets into the habit of the gigolo, such as one conducted by a prank-loving woman, one by a nervous wreck of a woman who has not left the house in months, and one by an actual dog (although that one, he relegates Simon to). Aside from the humor of the quirky dates, some of the humor comes from Nick’s relatable awkwardness during these dates.
The relationship with Natalie and the core romantic element of the series all culminate in the last episode, where their date is ruined by Simon, but Nick finally manages to give Natalie a huge enough snog to last them through the credits. The series was definitely trying to set up a bit of an ambiguous ending there, with it being left unclear whether Nick did come clean with the truth or not when Natalie asked about what he did for a living, but the series wasn’t picked up again, so we’ll never know. Personally, I think he did.
Opinion
This sitcom is basically a vehicle for Tony Slattery and it shows, with moments like Nick’s description/charades pertaining to his gigolo date to Simon in the second episode and his accidental strip dancing in the final episode being the highlights of the series.
That said, whilst Paul Bigley doesn’t excel as well in his role, he gets a decent amount of screentime as well, with plots such as his attempt to bag a Russian wife from fictional TV show That’s Outrageous! and his attempt to write a book making for some decent jokes. Plus, he does form a good comedic dynamic to his brother, serving as the immature one to his brother’s slightly more mature one.
That said, Rowena King as Natalie doesn’t show up as often and I think it does hurt the series because we don’t get as much character fleshing out as we do with the brothers, certainly a bit of a problem since a good core of the series revolves around her relationship with Nick, and she comes off as a bit bland as a result. That said, her more serious portrayal in contrast to the more comedic personas of Tony’s dates definitely allows her to stand out from them. Speaking of them, the comedic dates were also definitely fun to watch and if the show was picked up for another series, I would have liked to see how the show would have continued to utilize the premise as well as how it would have been impacted by the development of the Nick/Natalie couple.
Being a show from the 1990s has naturally dated it – for instance, there’s a joke in Episode 3 that is based around the fact that a potential date for Nick, Wilma, now identifies as a man, which wouldn’t slide as easily. This isn’t helped by the fact that, whilst the gigolo aspect allows it to stand out from others like it, it does feel like one of the roommate sitcoms which had gotten popular in the wake of Men Behaving Badly. Still, there have been worse sitcoms out during that time.
Favourite Episode?
It’s a tie between Episode 3 and Episode 7. I liked Episode 3 for having the best comedic date of them all, a prank-loving woman named Bebe who has a habit of throwing pie in people’s faces. In fact, what I liked in particular about it was the exploration of such a character and how it in itself can wear thin over time – she did end up burning through several husbands after all.
That said, I also liked Episode 7 as well, partly because one of the characters is played by Julia St. John and I always like it when people I recognize from The Brittas Empire pop up. That, plus we got Tony having to do a strip routine and the ending helps to serve up tension and also provides a decent enough conclusion on its own to the Natalie/Nick relationship.
Conclusion
It isn’t too remarkable, but it is a decent enough way to kill several hours when you’re alone at night. If anything, it did start a brief session on research of the topic of the gigolo for me. If you do want to watch it though, the second episode is provided below (credit to scotswriter for the footage).
Newspaper Articles Used For Research
