Executive Stress

There aren't greater actors in a situation comedy than Penelope Keith, Geoffrey Palmer and Peter Bowles - Americans have loved them in their various series for decades

Yet for some reason, this series is unavailable to rent or purchase in Region 1 DVDs. PLEASE make them available!

As a comedy vehicle for Penelope Keith "Executive Stress" written by George Layton is every bit as good as To the Manor Born. This is empirically backed up by iMDB figures. Layton has form and has been the quiet writer of many excellent "Comedy-Drama" series.

The maindraw back is that this was an ITV comedy, Thames to be exact. ITV doesn't have a track record in comedy and Thames even less so with the only Comedy worthy of the name that ever came from ITV being Rising Damp and that was Yorkshire TV.

This is a shame because it is rather good. Had Executive Stress been a BBC production I think it would be remembered rather better than it is. ITV comedy rarely gets repeated, for good reason in most cases, but this deserves it's spot amongst "The Good Life", "Porridge" and "Yes Minister" on the perennial roundabout of repeats with the BBC big boys.

So what held it back? Well the jarring change of main character didn't help. Geoffrey Palmer for Peter Bowles is hardly like for like, brilliant though they both are. Particularly with Peter and Penelope's history.

The aforementioned Thames production just robbed it of that certain something. Exposure for one. No-one watched ITV for comedy. All of the great comedy experience was tied up in the BBC. John Howard Davies was by no means a slouch (The Goodies, Python, The Good Life etc) but all of that experience was within the confines of the BBC. Maybe it's the fact that writers were restricted to about 22 minutes of actual programming once you take credits and adverts out of the equation. This is opposed to the 29 minutes you would get as a BBC writer / producer. Brevity certainly doesn't make things any tighter. Only Fools and Horses really blossomed when that went to 59 minutes. So maybe the longer screentime allows for something "More".

Anyway this is well worth a watch and is one of the better 1980s situation comedies. The fact that it is an ITV production , makes me even more astonished that it came out so well.

Penelope Keith is absolutely delicous as Caroline Fielding Fairchild, a woman who wants to return to the publishing world after spending her best years raising her family and taking care of her husband, Donald.

Over the course of the series, we see Caroline and Donald try to keep the secret of their marriage from their co-workers, and the writers continually found original ways to get the characters out of scrapes. Donald's continual refusal of the advances of the lovely Angela Duxbury leads to raised eyebrows and the most comic of complications.

I first saw this series when it was still quite new (I was only about 10 at the time) but it continues to be one of my favourites. As I've gotten older and experienced a bit of the business world, I see just how accurate the series was in portraying the soap opera world of the rat race. If you have a chance to see this hillarious and delightful series, don't miss it!

"Bewitched'" switched Darins (unfortunately Darin 1 became ill) we at least write out the character and bring in another if similar character- but I dislike this practice of changing out major characters- so this series was "OK" in the tired sitcom variety. but when I saw Donald was now Peter Boyles, not Geoffery Pqlmer, I thought, that's it for me. A little tired and dated, but it's same format today. and the so called American has an awful American Accent- I am tired of seeing Aussies, English playing Americans. But I have yet to see an English show- with an non-American actor do an American accent. who thinks they can do this successfully (except Hugh Laurie). Martin sheen has played 2 Americans and is always a cartoon character.

2 French shows- recently did it- Origins switched out a great actress because she was "too old"- the replacement is dull and bland. and Julien Baumgarten, in Origins, became Caine, the wheel chair bound detective- (yes it pushes credulity). French TV what gives!.

The show was pretty good. Mostly I have a hard time with British comedies, but this one was different and I really enjoyed it. I also don't enjoy the way Americans are portrayed, but at least the American wasn't a total idiot. Better than the comedies I have seen lately. A classic with a twist.