In recent times, you may have heard of John Cleese’s attempts to reboot Fawlty Towers with his daughter Camilla Cleese. This news has been heavily criticized and considering Cleese’s recent feelings about the concept of cancel culture, I fear that a lot of the humor in this new revival will be very weak. However, it has also inspired me to look at his other work, and this led me to the sitcom he did for the BBC from 2018 to 2019, Hold the Sunset. Is it as good as this ex-sitcom legend had hoped it would be? Let’s find out.
Background
The show was first announced in late 2016, initially under the name of Edith. Interestingly, the initial description for the series is about a woman who has several men vying for her affection. In the show proper, whilst aside from Phil, Bob was a potential contender for Edith’s affections, it was made clear that it was a one-sided love triangle, so presumably, this would have been a more major part of the series. By that point, Cleese had sported his disinterest in the BBC, saying in an interview in 2015 for ShortList Magazine: “There’s no way I want to work in TV, especially at the BBC. I have a nasty feeling a large proportion of the commissioning editors have no idea what they’re doing.” so it must have been a surprise at the time when he returned to do this show.
What is interesting about this show though is that Cleese had some affection for the scripts, claiming that they were “the most enjoyable scripts I’ve been sent in the last 100 years” and that they were apparently what got him back into the world of sitcoms.
The newspapers were… more mixed in their opinions. The Guardian noted that the show only existed to “reinforce how humour can skip a beat” despite its cast and that it “desperately needs jokes”. The Telegraph was initially more positive to it, describing it as “fizzing with comic energy”, but it had soured by Series 2, noting that by “aiming for broad strokes humour, it ended up with none at all”.
Despite these mixed opinions though, the show debuted with an audience peak of 7.2 million viewers, being broadcast on a 7:30 PM slot and being one of the highest-rated sitcom launches of the decade. Additionally, it ended up 8th in the Weekly Top 30 programs by the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board. However, it gradually slipped over time, and by the last episode in Series 1, it had gone down to 23rd. Whilst I can’t find broadcast data for Series 2, there certainly was not a third series, and considering the fact that the plotline of Edith and Phil marrying was accomplished, I doubt there will ever will be. Nowadays, the show is virtually forgotten, although it is occasionally brought by people to use as evidence that John Cleese no longer has it. In whatever case, he has opposed the occasional review, at one point responding to a criticism that Phil wasn’t surprised at the appearance of his ghostly dead wife by suggesting that the opposite was cliched.
So what do I think of it? Let’s find out.
Premise
The premise is a simple one: widowers Phil (John Cleese) and Edith (Alison Steadman), after a period of dating, have finally decided to tie the knot. However, there is a problem – Edith’s son Phil has decided to have a mid-life crisis and leave his family and cushy job behind for… some reason – he claims to want to recapture his happiness, which means trying to recapture his childhood as much as possible, whilst it is suggested from others that he might be having a mid-life crisis. In whatever case, there is no definite answer, and Phil and Edith now must give up their plans for the time being and try to deal with Roger.
As the show goes on, the cast sees a bit of an expansion – first, Queenie (Annie Reid) is brought over in an ill-thought-through attempt by Roger to provide help to his mother. She’s a bit of a blithe spirit, and Edith describes her as only being tolerable in small doses. Secondly, in the fourth episode, the house sees a burglary by a robber named Bob the Burglar (James Cosmo), who still has feelings for Edith after an early relationship and who soon brings Roger under his wing.
Then there is Sandra (Joanna Scanlan), Roger’s sister – like him, he has a bit of overdependence on Edith, occasionally asking for money from her, although she hasn’t snapped like him. She also gets married to Jack Dugdale (Peter Egan), the slightly confrontational neighbor of Phil, although in my opinion, they did not share a sufficient amount of screentime to convince us of this relationship.
Finally, there is Wendy (Rosie Cavaliero), Roger’s previous wife who he walked out on. She’s nice in an aggressively nice way, but she is willing to spoof the images of her family under their noses for her book in Series 2, The Lemming Family. I did not like that arc – its constant praise feels almost like the show itself is desperate for the audience’s praise, wanting us to see it as a fun romp for all the family.
Also, even though she printed it independently, she managed to get a TV interview, and a Literary Award and become a rich author in what seems to be several weeks. Now if only she could give me some of her tips on how to do that…
Oh, and then there is also Georgie (Shauna Macdonald), Bob’s estranged Goth daughter who Roger falls enamored with. I have the feeling that if the show was picked up for Series 3, they may have focused more on this relationship and maybe having Roger figure out what he wants to do because his character doesn’t feel satisfied in that regard by the end.
Opinion
First of note, whilst this show has been compared with older shows like One Foot in the Grave and Sorry!, I find that this show is perhaps closest to No Place Like Home, a sitcom from 1983 in which a couple sees their four full-grown children come home. Whilst I haven’t watched the show yet, it did last for 3 more series than this one and I suspect it is much better than this one.
I think the main issue with this show is that it tried to be two shows at once. At first glance, you would think it wants to be the next big gentle comedy – the jokes are inoffensive, the characters for the most part are warm, and we’re meant to be interested in the romantic lives of the characters to some extent. However, what the show is also trying to do is to be a more stereotypical 80s sitcom, which can be seen in its more farcical plots and its characterization of Roger, and these two elements clash together to create an unfunny show.
The absolute worst part of the series however is Roger.
Oh my god, Roger.
The problem with Roger is that we meant to see him as somewhat sympathetic in the way he is trying to pathetically capture his youth, especially when he gains an attachment to the hand-puppet Methuselah. However, this doesn’t quite come across on-screen and the result is a character who is hard to root for. How can I like a character when all he does is be the load to his mother, and leave his wife for unclear reasons (what reasons he does give sounds ridiculously petty – he claims that it was a terrible marriage, but you don’t really get that from Wendy), trying to scam the dole system, and then both blaming the women for ruining his mother’s birthday party and acting cold towards a sobbing Wendy whilst conveniently ignoring his role in the whole situation by selling Wendy’s car without her knowing. His characterization is also inconsistent at times – he goes from not wanting the house sold because of strangers in one episode to wanting it sold with no explanation given, and he randomly attempts to marry Wendy in the penultimate episode despite showing discontent for her both before and afterward (it might have been for financial reasons, but they don’t make it clear). Let’s just say that when Georgie calls him an “exceptional twerp” in the last episode, I agreed with her.
(Also, he and Wendy have children, but they never even show up and I feel like it’s a waste because it would have been fascinating to see how they dealt with all this).
As for the others, they’re nice enough characters, but they don’t do enough to stand out in my opinion. The way Cleese played Phil is quite passive (certainly quite different from Basil Fawlty), but if they were trying to make him the next Victor Meldrew, the comedy is too underplayed for it to truly hit the mark. Dugdale is also fine and he has such cute dogs, but he doesn’t strike me as “confrontational” and the fact that his screentime is only spent with Phil in Series 1 makes it more difficult in Series 2 when we are expected to see him as having fallen in love passionately with Sandra. The others aren’t remarkable – I suppose Bob had a nice, almost-toxic dynamic with Roger, but again, nothing remarkable.
The comic situations that the cast gets into are a bit uninspired as well – “Bubbly” has the comic punchline of “Roger gets stuck in a window” which is quite dull and built upon flimsy excuses (Roger’s excuse was that he was going on an adventure), and “Roger the Carer” is largely rooted on the caretaker system somehow not pegging that they’re being scammed by Roger to unrealistic extremes (a level of stupidity which they are shown to not have gotten over in Series 2 when he is given another opportunity despite allegedly being convinced that he has gone insane by the others last series).
That said, when they do bother to develop the Edith/Phil relationship, it can be sweet, and the occasional discussion on how they deal with widowhood is good as well – an interesting example comes from the Christmas Special when Phil seemingly imagines seeing his ghostly wife in a situation which is more bizarre than the show usually delves in. It is lovely, however, with his ex-wife basically telling him not to worry about her and to get on with life.
Best Episode
Nothing really stands out to me, but I suppose “Old Flames” – it was actually nice seeing Roger realize that what he may have done (in this case, scam the carer system) was wrong, even if it doesn’t lead up to anything, and I liked the whole plot resolution with Phil and his ex-girlfriend Desiree, which addresses the topics of stalking and how people may realize that it is something to be avoided.
Conclusion
I’m not entirely sure what was in those scripts that convinced Cleese to participate – maybe it was funnier on paper?
I don’t know.
In whatever case, it’s quite aggressively mediocre and you’re better off watching other shows. Still, if you do want to watch it, then it is on the American Britbox. Additionally, the first series is on DVD.