missb
25-03-2005, 22:57
I have recently bought the first series of Early Doors on DVD and I just want to let everyone know how good it is. I first watched the series allocated to BBC2 a couple of years ago and recently series 2. It's a northern down-to-earth laugh- a -minute gentle humorous programme that lifts the spirits. It's a simple plot of a pub in Manchester with a grumpy aged customer, a philandering local, a married pair of loonies, a asthmatic mother from hell and a middle-aged pair of bent coppers!
Craig Cash is a great writer.
Watch it and smile: -)
SEE BELOW EXERT FORM EARLY DOORS/BBC WESITE
The Grapes is an old-fashioned big northern pub, almost spit-and-sawdust, the type that still closes between lunchtime and the early evening. The sudden activity upon a pub re-opening at 5.30 is known in tavern lore as 'early doors'.
Ken is the publican, a beer-bellied landlord of the old school who knows all the heinous wrinkles of his trade (pouring cheap spirits into expensive bottles, 'borrowing' change from the charity box, fiddling the football sweepstake), a man who enjoys a seemingly inexhaustible supply of old wisecracks and witty put-downs - and, thanks to constant exposure to the pub jukebox, has a word-perfect knowledge of unlikely pop lyrics.
Ken's wife has run off with his best friend so he lives with his mother Jean - a manipulative gossip who elicits quiet crumbs of comfort in others' misfortune - and with his loving adopted-daughter Melanie, a college girl who helps out in the pub and harbours a desire to track down her biological father. Also upstairs is their home-help, Winnie, browbeaten by Jean but who goes back far enough to be able to winningly correct Jean's selective memory.
The first series introduced the bar regulars: jack-the-lads Joe, a factory worker, and his pal Duffy; old Tommy, a depressing gloom-merchant constantly lamenting his lot; married couple Joan and Eddie, a pair of simpletons who suffer verbal diarrhoea (especially Eddie, who is obsessed with the minutiae of life); unmarried mother Janice, whose baby boy, Calvin, could be the product of 'a knee-tremble in Ladbrokes doorway' with the married Duffy; customer and sometime barmaid Tanya; and Liam, Melanie's boyfriend, a pleasant lad but easy prey to the waggish Joe and Duffy, who try to lead him astray. The pub also has two other regulars, though they drink not in the bar but in the rear kitchen: a pair of uniformed cops, Phil and Nige - corrupt, lazy, incompetent wastrels who drink (for free) on duty, deal in stolen goods and use police equipment for private purposes.
The second series was much in the same vein - a romance loomed for Ken and Tanya; Liam had been replaced in Melanie's affections by the similar Dean; Phil and Nige had taken to smoking confiscated hashish in the kitchen, though still on duty; and Duffy was deep down in the dumps after his wife left him for a high-earner.
Early Doors featured sparkling writing and near-perfect performances, and carried an authenticity all too rare in TV renderings of pub life. Almost all the characters were witty, ready to deliver hoary old one-liners and hurl secondhand insults at one another merely as friendly decoration to their conversations. The show also packed a convincing emotional punch with its believable warmth between dad and daughter, Ken recognising Melanie's need to trace her real father even though he ached at the prospect of suffering a diminished role should she do so. There was also a pleasing camaraderie between the customers - Old Tommy, Eddie and Joan were, on occasions, painfully annoying but they were accepted and tolerated by the others and treated with the same familial respect (or rather disrespect) as anyone else.
Craig Cash is a great writer.
Watch it and smile: -)
SEE BELOW EXERT FORM EARLY DOORS/BBC WESITE
The Grapes is an old-fashioned big northern pub, almost spit-and-sawdust, the type that still closes between lunchtime and the early evening. The sudden activity upon a pub re-opening at 5.30 is known in tavern lore as 'early doors'.
Ken is the publican, a beer-bellied landlord of the old school who knows all the heinous wrinkles of his trade (pouring cheap spirits into expensive bottles, 'borrowing' change from the charity box, fiddling the football sweepstake), a man who enjoys a seemingly inexhaustible supply of old wisecracks and witty put-downs - and, thanks to constant exposure to the pub jukebox, has a word-perfect knowledge of unlikely pop lyrics.
Ken's wife has run off with his best friend so he lives with his mother Jean - a manipulative gossip who elicits quiet crumbs of comfort in others' misfortune - and with his loving adopted-daughter Melanie, a college girl who helps out in the pub and harbours a desire to track down her biological father. Also upstairs is their home-help, Winnie, browbeaten by Jean but who goes back far enough to be able to winningly correct Jean's selective memory.
The first series introduced the bar regulars: jack-the-lads Joe, a factory worker, and his pal Duffy; old Tommy, a depressing gloom-merchant constantly lamenting his lot; married couple Joan and Eddie, a pair of simpletons who suffer verbal diarrhoea (especially Eddie, who is obsessed with the minutiae of life); unmarried mother Janice, whose baby boy, Calvin, could be the product of 'a knee-tremble in Ladbrokes doorway' with the married Duffy; customer and sometime barmaid Tanya; and Liam, Melanie's boyfriend, a pleasant lad but easy prey to the waggish Joe and Duffy, who try to lead him astray. The pub also has two other regulars, though they drink not in the bar but in the rear kitchen: a pair of uniformed cops, Phil and Nige - corrupt, lazy, incompetent wastrels who drink (for free) on duty, deal in stolen goods and use police equipment for private purposes.
The second series was much in the same vein - a romance loomed for Ken and Tanya; Liam had been replaced in Melanie's affections by the similar Dean; Phil and Nige had taken to smoking confiscated hashish in the kitchen, though still on duty; and Duffy was deep down in the dumps after his wife left him for a high-earner.
Early Doors featured sparkling writing and near-perfect performances, and carried an authenticity all too rare in TV renderings of pub life. Almost all the characters were witty, ready to deliver hoary old one-liners and hurl secondhand insults at one another merely as friendly decoration to their conversations. The show also packed a convincing emotional punch with its believable warmth between dad and daughter, Ken recognising Melanie's need to trace her real father even though he ached at the prospect of suffering a diminished role should she do so. There was also a pleasing camaraderie between the customers - Old Tommy, Eddie and Joan were, on occasions, painfully annoying but they were accepted and tolerated by the others and treated with the same familial respect (or rather disrespect) as anyone else.