The beginning of a great tv program, with a solid writing plan, and some great performances. This could have/should have lasted another series or two. As much as I loved Bill as Selwyn, and then Moffet, it was his performance as Mr. Claude Greengrass that sealed his place in my own personal Hall of Fame. Wonderful actor and entertainer...... This is great fun......thanks to the uploaders. Enjoy before the BBC shuts it down because they aren't making any cash......
+Whiskey River (Doc) to be fair, this was ITV...Yorkshire ITV, to be exact. You can always tell ITV comedies in the 70's-early 2000's because the studio lighting is always brighter. As a rule of thumb, it's true; bright studio lighting = ITV comedy. You're right...a great comedy, this-lovely cynical one-liners...but I guess people found it too hard to adjust to Maynard as the Gaffer after Selwyn...
I always thought the BBC sitcoms of this era were a little bit more sedate and had a middle class tone even when they were depicting working class characters the ITV ones had less refinement , delivered more belly laughs and were less pc
4 years later and still here, hopefully this never gets deleted as i didnt know about this amazing show till i found it in recommended and dont want to see it lost to history.
@@pauloliver6813 the writer didn’t like Maynard’s gift for ad lib and refused to complete the next series (which had already been outlined), so The Gaffer got the chop.
I like how the old school Brit shows have two parts in their older shows. I assume that when commercials were played, once a show. These days shows would have 7 parts in an hour long show because off all the commercial breaks
Yes because ads were only shown on itv (we only had two channels back then. ITV (independent television) and bbc) every fifteen minutes and they lasted only long enough to boil a kettle and make a cup of tea, so around five minutes worth of ads! Was born in the sixties, so remember it well… 😆
Very funny old-school comedy, great jokes, many of which are sadly against the law now. But also a very funny set up. Only the British can be funny like this.
Exellent actor saw him first in first as i child in the gaffer then saw him again in Hart beat and the royal. He always plays the loverble rouge who says aexactly what he means. He naver seems to age he looked old then and looks just as old now.
I really don't get how on the buses still gets a free pass when other, far less crude & sexist comedies never get shown, or are censored. Even without the sexism, it's all so squalid & desperate!
It's why the series finished early! Maynard kept changing the scripts and heading off them...it lost us a fourth series according to writer White anyway, but he did write a novel finishing the story Gaffers Guerillas!!
According to Maynard in an interview, during his time on Heartbeat he was writing most of his own material. The writers would give him the basic framework, and he’d do the rest. In a sense, Greengrass as we knew him was his own creation.
@@sgrannie9938 I'm sure he did ad lib, and I know others did later, Gwen Taylor (always great) for one brought a lot of personal experience to the role. I wonder if Bill exaggerated a bit though, because I remember reading an interview from the time where he said his character was the most popular with the audience (quite likely), but also that people 'actually call the show Greengrass'! I had my doubts even then, & now I think he was probably angling for a spin off!
Brilliant comedy, probably all in the same universe as Rising Damp and Open All Hours...... Shame that Maynard couldn't have been a bit more agreeable with the producers as there would probably have been another couple of series and maybe even a feature film......
@@sgrannie9938 From what I’ve read about Bill Maynard, he could be a bit cantankerous to work with and he liked to ad-lib a lot on the script as well. Series three ends setting up more episodes which was going to take place in Australia apparently. Such a shame we never got to see that as I reckon it would have been hilarious lol
