Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt

Oh No it's Selwyn Froggitt is a television comedy show, that I had heard of but not actually managed to watch, when it was originally broadcast.

It is one comedy that has not been rebroadcast widely, but it has now appeared on the Freeview channel That's tv, and I am taking the opportunity to watch it.

All I can remember of the show is that it stars Bill Maynard, its funny reading his comments about appearing in it, that he felt "the danger of it taking over his life" but I have to ask him, where would your career be without it?

The show is set in the fictional Yorkshire town of Scarsdale, Selwyn Froggitt is a leading light on the Committee, of the local Working Men's Institute.

Much to the chagrin of the other Committee members, Jack, Mervyn, Clive, and Harry.

Selwyn Froggitt lives with his mum and his brother Maurice, he really is an archetypal barm pot, that's a colloquial expression from that neck of the woods, that refers to a character who is to say the least, rather slow on the uptake.

But what Selwyn lacks in marbles, he more than makes up for in enthusiasm, indeed he seems to possess more, than his fair share of gumption.

... as a Statesider who spent a sabbatical year in Sidmouth 1978-79, I must take exception to the lack of respect for the followup show, "Selwyn." I'm happy to have been able to get all but the last season of "Oh No, . . ." on videotape before Yorkshire TV decided to discontinue it, but "Selwyn"'s best moments are every bit as hilarious as "Oh No, . . ."'s. One episode in particular, in which Selwyn ties up a checkout queue by trying to be helpful by coming up with exact change is still a high-water mark in gestural/physical comedy for me. Paul Lynde showing the photos of his disastrous safari adventure in "New Faces" is the only such one-man cameo I've ever laughed harder at (& that was live in Chicago back in 1952). The question is, why won't Yorkshire release all the Selwyn episodes for the whole world to enjoy and cherish?

Finally released on DVD is a series I found hilarious as a child. This and 'Some Mothers'and 'The Goodies' were the height of comedy for an 8 year old (I caught the repeats).

Man Child Selwyn, well meaning but a walking disaster area, creates mayhem despite the best of intentions and goodwill.

Maynard actually saves the show with a powerhouse performance of energy, attacking unexceptional scripts with gusto and delivering a well balanced performance injected with physical comedy.

Watching as an adult, its hard to miss the bleakness of the show though. Looking at it post Eighties it shows a narrow way of life and outlook, peopled with characters of limited horizons. The Pilot Episode shows why some characters were wisely changed: The office characters (with their sexual overtones)wisely discarded, the Mother greatly softened and the homosexual suggestions of the older brother removed with the introduction of a girlfriend. Looking at this episode the Family seem like a bunch of genetic misfits. Selwyn should be a sad case, a socially inept, stupid middle aged man with no love life(ever) but Maynard, as stated, saves this situation remarkably.

Perhaps most interestingly, it shows a certain outlook and lifestyle that would be lost forever after the defeat of the 1984 Miners Strike. Or perhaps it simply lost out to progress itself.

Whether it was worth preserving is something you can judge better for yourself by watching this series.

'Oh, No! It's Selwyn Froggitt!' was a truly hilarious ITV Yorkshire sitcom, centred on an extremely annoying but chillingly plausible character. American television has no counterpart to Selwyn Froggitt ... the nearest equivalent would probably be Cliff Clavin off 'Cheers', but that's a very distant resemblance.

Froggitt (brilliantly played by veteran comic Bill Maynard) is a hopelessly incompetent labourer in the Public Works department of the Scarsdale town council. Huge of body but tiny of intellect, Froggitt is equally inept whether he's digging a ditch for a water line, wiring a building, or fixing the plumbing. More than one house has burnt to the ground (or exploded outright) after Froggitt made the repairs.

At night, Froggitt can be found propping up the bar at the Scarsdale Working Men's Club, where he is heard expounding on all sorts of subjects he knows nothing about. (These are the scenes in which he most nearly resembles Cliff Clavin.) Froggitt is also the Institute's recording secretary, largely because nobody else wants the job, and he fancies that this confers some sort of status on him.

At home, Froggitt is a constant source of annoyance to his mother (veteran actress Megs Jenkins) and his brother Maurice. 'Oh, No! It's Selwyn Froggitt!' has never (to my knowledge) been shown on American tv, probably because so many of the characters speak in thick 'oop north' Yorkshire accents and the dialogue is full of British references. Still, there's a great deal of physical comedy in this series (largely due to Froggitt's ineptitude), and this sitcom would probably find an appreciative audience if it were shown Stateside.

This series was so popular that it was eventually adapted as a stage play (in Britain only, of course) and followed by a sequel, called simply 'Selwyn', which featured the same character (played by Maynard again) as a director in a holiday camp. This was a much weaker premise: it didn't make sense to have Froggitt in a position of authority (even in a holiday camp), and 'Selwyn' wasn't very funny. But 'Oh, No! It's Selwyn Froggitt' is gut-bustingly hilarious. I split myself with laughter whenever I watch this show.

From the same writer as Open All Hours and Last of the Summer Wine, to an extent this feels as though young Granville had got his own show: Froggitt shares Granville's gentle, well-intentioned nature and his tendency to both dreaming and rambling. But he's lacking an appropriate foil (like Arkwright), and the worst thing about is the constant tittering of the studio audience at not very much. That's ITV for you...