Sir David Jason, Lord of Denton and Peckham

One evening in 1996 I jotted in my diary this observation about David Jason: “How come he’s so bloody good in everything he does!” The same could be said for all my Treasures but what sets Jason apart from most mere mortals is the sheer breadth of work over such a long period. There’s also the inescapable fact that he appeared in some of the biggest ratings-grabbing shows of the Eighties and Nineties. 

Generations of kids may look back him with fondness as the voice of Toad, Count Duckula and Danger Mouse and for those slightly older he was in Do Not Adjust Your Set in the company of various Pythons. I’ve no solid proof but it’s probable that my first televisual encounter with the former David White of North London was at the age of eight in an episode of ITV’s Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) which used to follow The Big Match on Sunday afternoons. 

I think I also saw him play Dithers, a doddery old hotel employee, in His Lordship Entertains and a few other early Seventies comedies starring Ronnie Barker but there’s no doubt whatsoever that I witnessed his performance in another Barker vehicle starting in 1973. That year, just for a change, David Jason portrayed a younger character, Granville, in the pilot episode of Open All Hours. Although he usually played second fiddle to the One Ronnie’s mean-spirited Northern grocer Arkwright, Granville did occasionally command a whole scene to himself. As with writer Roy Clarke’s other long-running hit sitcom Last of the Summer Wine, I found Open All Hours increasingly cliched and boring, and IMHO whoever persuaded Jason to reprise Granvllle as Arkwright’s septuagenarian successor in Still Open All Hours right up to the present day needs a fresh job appraisal. Not that Jason is bad in it; that’s an impossibility. It’s just the script and studio setting which are so outdated and, judging by the episode I sampled, totally devoid of humour. 

Still in his mid-thirties, David Jason was back in geriatric mode with Ronnie Barker for some episodes of Porridge. His loveable old lag Blanco wasn’t a regular but was one of my favourite and warmest characters in one of the most wonderfully written and beautifully acted comedies of all time. 

During the Eighties his sitcom career really took off but he also played a few less sympathetic characters in longer-form comedy-dramas. In this period, Tom Sharpe’s satirical farces became really popular in print, and one of the TV adaptations which followed included Channel 4’s Porterhouse Blue. As usual, it lampooned the pompous and pretentious, in this case the stuffy academics running a Cambridge college, while Jason’s character was the porter, Skullion. He was the little man we were meant to root for, yet I found him rather unpleasant, the actor imbuing him with both humour and a streak of venom. Then in 1989 David was part of an ensemble cast in David Nobbs’ A Bit of a Do. It wasn’t a big hit with ITV audiences but I enjoyed the vignettes following the trials, tribulations, affairs and plots involving two Yorkshire families in the context of social events such as weddings, parties and dances. Jason was a working-class philandering social climber cheating on Gwen Taylor with the younger, posher Nicola Pagett. You couldn’t help but like him, although my favourite was the young David Thewlis playing his slobbish son. 

A few years later, he struck ITV gold with their adaptation of HE Bates’ Darling Buds of May.  It wasn’t a comedy as such, but a gentle, soft-focus dollop of rural ‘50s Kent nostalgia, attracting almost twenty million viewers each week. How many of them were, like me, only really watching to drool over the then-unknown Catherine Zeta-Jones is unknown but it was Jason’s Pop Larkin who dominated and gave us the catchphrase we were all repeating for years: “Perfick”. 

There was another strong performance in a WW2 drama The Bullion Boys but it was David’s entry into crime fiction which enhanced his reputation as Britain’s biggest TV actor bar none. A Touch of Frost took him back to Yorkshire for roughly ninety-minute single-episode detective stories spanning 42 episodes and eighteen years. As an irascible old-school copper sporting greying moustache and grubby trilby, he hogged every scene, especially in the relatively light-hearted scenes when that well-honed comic timing reaped dividends. No wonder I made that laudatory comment which opened this account; he was outstanding.

Which brings me finally to the role with which David Jason is most closely associated: Del Boy Trotter. From an inauspicious start in 1981 to become the most loved sitcom ever, Only Fools and Horses has seeped into our nation’s psyche, from teenagers to pensioners. Extended to fifty minutes in the late Eighties, every episode was an absolute gem, superb John Sullivan scripts and comedy acting in perfect harmony. 

You didn’t have to be a Peckham street trader living on a high-rise estate to ‘get’ the working–class characters: the good-natured family banter, daft conversations in the ‘local’ and Del’s short-sighted entrepreneurial schemes doomed to failure all flowed naturally. I also appreciated the way the scenarios also reflected Britain’s changing social outlook, first in Thatcher’s get-rich-quick landscape and also the more serious political issues of the day like unemployment and crime. 

I had been an occasional visitor to Romford market and, in the early days, David Jason’s quickfire sales patter was utterly credible and even a straight, law-and-order upholder like me would cheer Del’s flights from the hapless constabulary. Perhaps most memorable of all were the series featuring his transformation into an unlikely yuppie, complete with Austin Reed suits, Filofax and brick-shaped mobile phone. Del became more self-centred in his pursuit of fortune, women and status but Sullivan and Jason ensured that he was always brought down a peg. I cannot possibly exclude as an example the famous ‘through the bar’ pratfall scene. Poor old Trigger! 

Only Fools continued with sporadic Christmas specials until 2003 but with digital channels broadcasting repeats ever since, the series has never truly gone away. There were no bad episodes, no duff characters and it has turned the yellow Reliant Robin into a cultural icon and star of the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony! Besides that, David Jason would frequently utter words and phrases which have entered our everyday vocabulary and stayed there for decades. “Cushty”, “Lovely jubbly”, “Plonker” live on, and are a permanent reminder of David Jason, his delivery, mannerisms and acting greatness. It’s no coincidence that, without him, the Only Fools spin-offs didn’t quite catch on. He is just too perfick.

Tom the Cat - destined never to be top dog

I’ve written before about the importance of cartoons in my childhood viewing repertoire. Somehow The Flintstones passed me by, but I had a soft spot for Bugs Bunny and Top Cat,  two characters full of mischief and playful personalities designed to appeal to children of all ages, not only those under sixteen. Disney Time was a Bank Holiday staple in our household, featuring excerpts from Dumbo, The Jungle Book, Cinderella, etc, while the surreal humour of The Pink Panther Show also tickled my fancy. 

It’s also evident from my first diary, maintained throughout 1973, that I remained an avid viewer of Wacky Races ‘til at least the age of twelve. I would feel immense sympathy for the cowardly canine Muttley, destined never to take the chequered flag with his despicable associate Dick Dastardly. However, as a lynchpin of my youthful TV watching, it’s a cat, not dog, who stands head and shoulders above the rest. 

Poor Tom. His was a head which was frequently battered, flattened and generally grossly mistreated for our entertainment. The same was also true of every other part of his body, from toes to tail. Of course, we were encouraged to root for plucky Jerry the mouse, whose superior cunning usually compensated for his lack of size. Jerry the underdog? Not a bit of it: if a cat could be an underdog, Tom fitted the bill perfectly and he had my unwavering support. Indeed, my appreciation of the cartoons was in inverse proportion to the damage inflicted on Tom. Regardless of the animation quality and amusing routines, I found it difficult to enjoy any film which had him humiliated and outwitted not only by Jerry but also other revolting rodents and even a cute little duckling in Little Quacker. 

Dozens of these films were churned out by MGM in the late forties and early fifties, several of them scooping actual Oscars. Fortunately the American Academy tended to reward the ones which went beyond a mere sequence of violent set-pieces. Two examples were set, not in an anonymous semi-rural house redolent of the Deep South, but in an historic setting. The basic plot of ‘Tom chases Jerry, Jerry gets the better of Tom’ was essentially intact but both Johann Mouse and The Two Mouseketeers also included some particularly clever ideas and delightfully delivered visual gags. 

Tom and Jerry cartoons could appear in the BBC1 schedule just about anywhere and anytime when children were expected to watch, in those days probably no later than 7pm by which junction all youngsters were of course safely tucked up in bed. T&J were most likely to fill gaps in schedules early on a Saturday evening. If lucky, there might be a double-bill stretching to twenty minutes. Of course, depending on what happened to Tom, that could herald a teatime treat or toe-curling torture. My 1973 Slumberland diary offered little space for real insights into personal observations on life, yet I always found room to note the titles of each T&J cartoon I watched, along with a rating. These were on a scale of A+ to E-, although I don’t think anything warranted either extreme. 

The worst scores tended to be given for the more ‘modern’, 1960s versions of the franchise. I’d know immediately. If the opening credits didn’t include the names of Hanna and Barbera as directors, Scott Bradley behind the music and the full-screen signature of producer Fred Quimby, my heart tended to sink. Another giveaway was when Tom depicted as an overgrown kitten bounding on four legs. Such films rarely merited more than a C. In ’73, the highest values were attributed to That’s My Boy and The Truce Hurts. It’s no coincidence that both featured the two principals along with resident dog Spike (or occasionally Killer!). 

The introduction of a third character increased the possibility that sympathies would shift towards Tom, given that he would be the target of the ferocious canine. I think The Truce Hurts is probably the most fondly-remembered film of all, with its plot involving the three adversaries agreeing an uneasy peace to save further bloodshed. It all came to nought once the dog allocates to himself an unfairly huge portion of a steak. Was this a political allegory, given its 1948 production date? No matter; to this schoolboy it was highly satisfying stuff.  Even more gratifying were the all-too-rare instances when Tom and Jerry set aside their differences to defeat a common foe. In Old Rockin’ Chair Tom, the pair took revenge on a replacement cat introduced by the black housekeeper (we never saw her face) because the incumbent left a lot to be desired in the pest control department. Tom was unemployed, Jerry under greater threat so they united temporarily to restore the status quo. It’s been many years since I’ve seen T&J on the box. Perhaps they retain a place on specialist digital channels, or are they considered too violent for the twenty-first century little angels? I believe a new feature film is in preparation but I won’t be watching. The MGM-era Tom simply cannot be surpassed.

Steven Mackintosh - from there to here

One of the most watchable TV actors of the past two decades must be Steven Mackintosh. He doesn’t often command star status but, like many of my Treasures, he has the ability to elevate a mundane drama into something special. Too scrawny for romantic leads, he has tended to play supporting characters either on the fringes of society or cops you’re not sure whether or not to trust. 

To be honest, I’d forgotten one of his earliest appearances, although I had watched probably every episode. When Sue Townsend’s glorious Adrian Mole books were transferred to the small screen in the mid-Eighties, ITV bravely broadcast them in half-hour slots without a laughter track, which I considered the right decision. The casts were a curious blend of familiar adults (Bill Fraser, Beryl Reid, Stephen Moore, Julie Walters) and unknown teenagers. Whereas Gian Sammarco (Adrian) and Lindsay Stagg (Pandora) didn’t persevere with acting for very long, the boy who played his best friend Nigel in both The Secret Diary… and The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole. certainly did. Good choice. 

Thirty-three years later, he is almost unrecognisable, but I suppose that goes for most of us! In 1993, he was further transformed into a gay rock star in the BBC’s controversial adaptation of The Buddha of Suburbia. I found a lot of the hedonistic scenes uncomfortable to watch but was well worth persevering with. There were superficial similarities between Steven’s Charlie Kay and David Bowie, who was a big fan of author Hanif Kureishi and wrote the series soundtrack. 

Mackintosh also cropped up in relatively orthodox parts around that time. He was a PC in the excellent Between the Lines and sergeant in an Inspector Morse story. Since then, he has risen through the ranks, earning promotions with age. In 1998, he portrayed a missing vice squad officer in Peter Bowker’s engaging six-parter Undercover Heart, although Daniela Nardini and Lennie James probably had more screen time as the cops trying to find him. A decade later he had been promoted to Inspector for the worthy series Criminal Justice, starring Maxine Peake, followed quickly by elevation to DCI in the first series of Luther, at first the straight man to Idris Elba’s intriguingly unconventional lead character before going off the rails. 

For all his fictional TV career, Mackintosh just never seems to look older. The hair may have become a bit greyer and wispier, even running to stubble on that sharp chin, but he retains that distinctive slim, angular appearance. That youthful vibe helped when portraying a young man confronting the sexual abuse he suffered at a children’s home in BBC Wales’ harrowing film Care in 2000. It also earned him a BAFTA Best Actor nomination, with which I couldn’t quibble, although Michael Gambon inevitably took the honour. 

Unlike the veteran thesp, Steven Mackintosh possesses a very ordinary face, and I mean that as a compliment. Besides cops he is also an ideal actor for roles requiring anonymity, as in 2012’s Inside Men. The everyman air has also seen him well cast opposite bigger female stars.  He was Jane Horrocks’ neglected hubby in The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, which had the rather implausible premise of a supermarket manager running for Parliament and riding a tide of populism to become PM. Yes, I Know we have seen Donald Trump in the White House and Leicester City winning the Premier League, but this storyline stretched credibility to breaking point. 

A few years ago, he even co-starred with a global film star in Toni Collette. However, the ‘open marriage’ theme to Wanderlust was not altogether to Angie’s or my taste, given we were relative newly-weds! The acting was fine, and I empathised with Mackintosh’s character, but we didn’t persevere with the series beyond episode one. 

Also in 2018 he had an important part in Channel 4’s bleak adoption crime drama Kiri, although it was clearly a Sarah Lancashire vehicle, and in 2015 supported Emily Watson in the emotional 7/7 bombings film A Song For Jenny. I suppose this packed a more powerful punch for me given that I was travelling to work in London on that traumatic morning, and one of the victims lived a few streets away.  

Four years earlier he was in another drama based on the aftermath of an iconic terror attack, From There to Here. As he was playing the sleazy low-life brother of Philip Glenister. I felt this was Steven Mackintosh going back to his roots on the wrong side of the tracks. The series revealed his attempts to recoup debts making him an unwitting accomplice in the 1996 Manchester Arndale Centre explosion. Just another example illustrating Steven’s supporting actor golden touch.

Beard, Banjo and Banter - Sir Billy Connolly

1975 was a strange year for pop music. Pitched against the Bay City Rollers, Rod Stewart, Queen et al, we had various novelty records. The Goodies and Jasper Carrott went Top 5 with their ‘Funky Gibbon’ and ‘Funky Moped’, while Windsor Davies and Don Estelle added some TV frivolity to an otherwise straight rendition of ‘Whispering Grass’, all the way to number one. Then, in November, along came a weird-looking Scot, providing alternative lyrics to Tammy Wynette’s recent hit ‘D.I.V.O.R.C.E.’. It, too, topped the UK charts and the performer certainly added a new dimension to Top of the Pops. 

His name was Billy Connolly, and he quickly became a nationwide media darling. His hit song wasn’t that funny – certainly not as hilarious as he seemed to think during his live TOTP act – but to a fourteen year-old he was a revelation. Actually I had seen him on television already not once but twice, although I’m not sure I’d made the connection straightaway. Earlier that year I’d almost certainly watched his leather-jacketed, vulgar debut on Parkinson in which we were introduced to Billy Connolly the comedian and one-time folk singer, already well-known in Scotland. In the autumn I’d also been shocked yet enthralled by Peter McDougall’s hard-hitting Play For Today, Just Another Saturday. Focussed on the sectarian divide in Glasgow prised open by the provocative Protestant marches, the drama featured Billy playing a version of himself, complete with what was, to the English, an almost incomprehensible accent.

So within a few short months I was appraised of this amazing entertainer who was to demonstrate many more strings to his bow (banjo?), of which more later. In the world of drama, he proved himself a very capable cinema star and in ’93 returned to the small screen in another McDougall dark comedy, Down Among The Big Boys. This time Billy played the lead role, as a seasoned armed robber, but his natural sense of fun also came in handy. 

It also earned him a few early Eighties guest slots on The Kenny Everett Television Show and that fave show of mine and my fellow university students, Not The Nine o’Clock News. They include this amusing skit opposite his future wife Pamela Stephenson mangling her words as Janet Street-Porter, and as another formulaic guest being interviewed by a sycophantic Rowan Atkinson. Of course, Billy has been a chat show regular for yonks. Nobody appeared on more Michael Parkinson programmes, and when he was advertised as being on the bill, I knew I would definitely be staying up late after Match of the Day! There he was again on Saturday Night Clive in 1990 and Melvyn Bragg was guaranteed a huge audience for his South Bank Show when Connolly was the subject. 

I think I saw one such edition in 1979, then again in 1992 by which time he’d shaved off his distinctive beard. Billy Connolly was the ideal arts show guest. Besides a genial comic genius, he was riveting when describing his childhood, mining even the bleakest moments for humour. He has also always been particularly intelligent and articulate on more serious subjects such as mental health, happy to venture beyond the safe, crowd-pleasing anecdote. 

And yet what so many of us love about him is his straight-talking. I’m no fan of his old booze and cocaine lifestyle but he can always be relied upon for saying what many are thinking, however politically-incorrect, even on a live awards show. He has never been afraid to show his emotions either, as during a Live Aid break following one of the harrowing reports from Africa. Of course, being the trooper he is, Billy recovered sufficiently to introduce his friend Elton John. 

He may have experienced a poverty-stricken upbringing but by the mid-Eighties he seemed very much at home amongst the biggest names in global entertainment. I don’t think Elton was in the ITV studio but another of Billy’s landmark TV triumphs was on An Audience With…Billy Connolly, also in 1985. There have been many ‘Audience With…s’ since then, featuring a gallery of contemporary celebs (Ooh, there’s Angela Rippon and that bloke from ‘Bulman’!), but Connolly set the bar ludicrously high, at a level perhaps only Victoria Wood in her prime could reach. 

In the ‘90s he struck a deal with the Beeb to make a few series which melded beautifully Connolly the stand-up and Connolly the perfect travel companion. Michael Palin was terribly nice but you felt the Scot would take you further off the beaten track and do so with wry or withering comments. His ‘World Tour of Scotland’ was for me essential viewing. It showcased not only hilarious excerpts from his comedy tour but also his appreciation of the world beyond the theatres, especially the great outdoors, the wilder the better! Several years later, it was during his World Tour of England, Wales and Ireland that I first heard his observation that “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes”, a motivational remark which even merited a card on the wall of a Somerset County Council conference room. He was also informative and often used his own ancestry to lure us in to his adventures,

Billy’s love of folk music was never far from the surface, as on his travels around Australia, New Zealand and the USA, where he bestrode a motorised trike along Route 66 resembling a superannuated extra from ‘Easy Rider’. My only quibble concerns his obsession with playing the banjo. Now, I’m not dissing the instrument, nor Connolly’s clearly proficient playing, but he never misses a chance to whip it out in every pub, bothy or bar, even his freezing tent on A Scot in the Arctic. Stick to the jokes and history lessons, please, Bill! 

But that’s the wonderful thing about Billy Connolly. He just appears to be so at ease with people - the more unconventional the better – and he brings out the same in them. Of course he may be a very different person away from the camera but he never fails to entertain on the small screen. I have seen various leading comedians live on stage but Connolly is The One That Got Away. I still regret making the effort to secure a few tickets to watch the master in action. Given his Parkinson’s diagnosis, this regret will never be rectified. Kay, Izzard, Bishop, they all ‘own’ the auditorium but Billy seems the most effortless, and owns not just an audience as a single entity but each individual in it.

One of his most memorable TV performances came, with appropriate post-watershed language, on the night of BBC’s inaugural Comic Relief in 1986. Well before the Big Yin’s series Down Under, he was particularly insightful and mirthful on the subject of Australia, but it’s his whole joyous personality that’s on display. I can think of no other comedian who leaves me not only laughing but involuntarily imitating (extremely badly, of course) his Scottish accent, speech rhythms and beard strokes. I cannae help it, y’know…. That’s the magnetic personality unique to the living legend called Billy Connolly.

Starring Tara Fitzgerald

I really can’t put my finger on specific reasons why I have selected Tara Fitzgerald as one of my Treasures. A sensuous mouth alone is not enough. It’s not as if she specialises in one of my favourite television genres. Nor can I recall her playing many characters I can recognise or with whom I can identify. Her early roles always seemed to involve smoking – not an appealing trait – a habit which may have contributed to Tara’s unusually deep vocal timbre. And yet…

Back in the Nineties, Fitzgerald developed a reputation as a classical stage actor and star of independent films, while her early TV work was primarily in productions more suited to Mum and Dad than me. I’m sure I only saw her in Channel 4’s 1982 serial The Camomile Lawn because of the massive controversy stirred by the prudish Daily Mail brigade, and in the Beeb’s Anglo-Saxon Attitudes the same year as Dad was particularly predisposed to the work of novelist Angus Wilson. 

She has also donned many a bonnet and corset over the years, and Mum would almost certainly have admired her in Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, along with The Virgin Queen in 2006. My only recollection of watching Tara in a costume drama was as Daphne du Maurier’s wild-haired headstrong heroine in Frenchman’s Creek, a sort of posh Poldark on the high seas. 

All very tempestuous stuff but I had already been slightly smitten during Channel 4’s broadcast of their Film 4 production Brassed Off in 1996, with not a ripped bodice in sight. Set in the mid-Eighties miners’ strike, it was part love letter to colliery band music, part comedy, part political drama and part romance. The latter featured Ewan McGregor and Fitzgerald, whose arrival in a traditionally male brass band as undercover Coal Board spy and talented flugelhorn player raised more than a few eyebrows. Who can forget the fleeting coffee invitation scene, as seductive as any in the entire history of cinema?! I don’t think it was Ewan’s tenor horn she was after…. 

Probably Tara Fitzgerald’s most enduring role was as forensic scientist Eve Lockhart in Waking the Dead. Her Victorian dresses and band uniform replaced by a bland lab coat, she slipped organically into the established cast led by fellow Treasures Sue Johnston and Trevor Eve and even reprised the part in a spin-off The Body Farm. Unfortunately its Tuesday night slot clashed with my choir rehearsals and I couldn’t be arsed to video it. Sorry, Tara. In any case, feeble audience figures meant it wasn’t re-commissioned and that was that. 

In 2014 she portrayed a lesbian character in series one of Kay Mellor’s drama In The Club. While not one of the leading parts, her Susie was a crucial link in the complex chain of relationships woven throughout the absorbing programme. This proved to be the last time I recall seeing Fitzgerald as a well-rounded modern woman, but she has popped up in several programmes requiring an uptight or downright creepy middle-aged matron, usually resident of a creaking mansion. 

There was 2018’s spooky Welsh thriller Requiem, in which Tara played an antiques dealer interested in the supernatural, also reminiscent of her part in an older Murder In Mind episode set in a Victorian haunted house. She was the socialite suspect Tansy in the excellent first TV outing of Cormoran Strike in The Cuckoo’s Calling and an admirably aristocratic Lady Hermione in the recent atmospheric adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders. 

Such has been her inclination towards haughty, husky-voiced, hard-faced biddies that I was amazed to be reminded that Tara Fitzgerald is still only 53, which leaves her many decades more to play dowager duchesses and flirtatious silk stockings nostalgic for their youth. So what is it which has secured her Treasure status? In the end, I reckon it must be her ability, without resort to quirks or exaggerated mannerisms (that’s you, Shirley Henderson!), to steal scenes at will. I should endeavour to catch her future performances but I do draw the line at re-runs of Game of Thrones.

It's Garry Shandling's Turn.....

I’ve never been one for American comedies. In the Sixties the abundance of imports like Dick van Dyke, Lucille Ball and Green Acres left my young self cold, although I did have a sweet spot for Bewitched! In the Seventies, I shared Dad’s love of the old Sergeant Bilko episodes, and we all appreciated M*A*S*H, but not much else from the US of A made us chuckle, let alone split our sides. The Eighties didn’t offer much more either, but maybe I didn’t give them a genuine opportunity. 

Trailers for BBC2 and Channel 4 teatime fare such as The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Diff’rent Strokes and The Cosby Show never appealed, in part because of the wild laughter which seemed to follow every line, whether – to me - it was funny or not. I did try to watch Friends once but couldn’t stick with it; so prominent was the constant whooping from the studio audience that I felt like a guest at a party where I knew nobody and everyone else were best buddies. Perhaps I just wasn’t attuned to what makes Americans laugh. 

Then, one Sunday night in 1987 I happened across It’s Garry Shandling’s Show on BBC2. I evidently harboured low expectations because my diary entry summed it up as “surprisingly watchable”. Well, from such faint praise grew a deep affection. It was like nothing I’d seen before. Yes, there was irritating studio hilarity, but the live audience was very much part of each show, as were the crew. And then there was the star himself. 

I’d never heard of Garry Shandling, blissfully unaware of his reputation as a stand-up comedian and occasional guest host of NBC’s huge Tonight show. However, I quickly warmed to his somewhat gauche, self-obsessed TV celebrity persona amidst the organised chaos of the show’s format. Basically it subverted the whole sitcom genre. First and foremost, it smashed the ‘fourth wall’, addressing viewers directly - like Mrs Brown’s Boys, only funny - and even physically involving them in scenes. I particularly loved the idea of Garry driving a toy electric car from one set to another! And then it wasn’t entitled The Garry Shandling Show, but It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, that apostrophe a subtle but vital contribution to the gag. 

Most scenes purported to be in Garry’s own Californian condo living room but the cast knew they were part of a TV show. There were plenty of guest stars, but their names, like many of the cultural and TV references in the script, were way over my head. Yet it didn’t matter. Each show would begin with an opening skit or monologue prior to the jaunty, almost childish theme song. My favourite was when the star actually led the audience in performing it. Such were the Gordian knots weaved by the show’s premise that one memorable storyline had Garry facing eviction for broadcasting the TV show from his condo (actually a stage set based on his actual home – keep up!) because it broke the fictional condo association rules. Priceless. 

Apparently, the real-life Shandling was offered the lucrative roles of replacing Johnny Carson, then David Letterman, as one of the States’ top Saturday night chat show hosts but he turned both down. Instead his next triumphant series featured himself in a parody of a top Saturday night chat show, The Larry Sanders Show. And I’d like to thank BBC2 for broadcasting it over here, albeit in a graveyard slot, otherwise I’d probably never have watched it. Nobody else I knew saw it, so it felt like my own private pleasure. 

Unlike Garry’s previous programme, Larry Sanders… was for proper grown-ups. It had very naughty words and occasionally featured what we’d euphemistically call ‘adult themes’. However, Shandling’s character, similar to Steve Coogan in The Trip, was a more neurotic, vein and venal version of himself. Larry – not Garry, remember! – was simultaneously an insensitive, pompous prick and vulnerable celeb trying to maintain his position at the top of a notoriously greasy media pole. One false move, and you’re toast, and his slimy sidekick Hank, played by Jeffrey Tambor, was ready to pounce, although he was nowhere near good enough. 

It appeared to be a fairly realistic depiction of television ego battles, whether in producer Rip Torn’s office, the writers’ room or even on the set during commercial breaks. The awkward interlude with the excellent ‘studio guest’ Robin Williams playing himself was especially brilliant. All the characters were well rounded and I thought Shandling’s acting superb. Awards boards tended to agree, and the show earned multiple acting/writing nominations for Emmys and Golden Globes. 

I don’t recall seeing Garry Shandling on any other programme broadcast over here. He presented the annual celebfests such as the Grammys and Emmys, though not the Oscars, but if he appeared on UK chat shows I must have missed them. When he died in 2016, aged just 66, I only found out by means of a single-column obituary in, probably, The Guardian. Don’t worry, Garry; you’ve received the ultimate accolade of being one of this Brit’s TV Treasures.