No, Honestly

I watched this delightful series when it appeared on our local WTTW station in the mid-seventies. Almost four decades later, I purchased a multi-region blu-ray player once I discovered a DVD set of the complete series was available (but not for our region). After shelling out almost $300, I was happily reunited with one of my favorite British series. I only wish there'd been more episodes.

Ditto for all of the comments that have been made before about this delightful series. But these three tapes are about the first seven episodes. Get these first, because in January, 2001, Acorn Media will release the final seven episodes! Get your orders in early!

This is one of those TV gems you doubt will ever appear on video as it is so obscure, especially to the American audience. Thankfully, it is now available in the US and it is a pleasure to see this wonderful TV series again after 26 years.

Husband and wife John Alderton and Pauline Collins play husband and wife Charles (CD) and Clara Danby who have been married some ten years. CD and Clara tell (a studio audience) of their early days together (which are shown in flashback) when he was a struggling actor, and she was (and still is) a rather ditzy debutante, the product of even ditzier parents. With nothing much in common but love for one another, the hilarity results from their very differences.

Alderton and Collins had appeared together earlier in Upstairs Downstairs, and she of course was Oscar-nominated much later for Shirley Valentine. This TV series has been overlooked for too long, and is an absolute delight. The chemistry between CD and Clara is remarkable, because of the chemistry between Alderton and Collins.

The theme tune was a huge hit in Britain for composer and performer Lynsey De Paul. The show has aged well (apart from the fashions) and looks and sounds great thanks to Acorn Media which has provided us with this belated video edition. The picture and sound quality is stunning, and hats off to Acorn for not tampering with the show as it was originally presented. The London Weekend Television seventies logo is still there, much to the delight of us Brits in America. There is no self promotion on the part of Acorn, a company with which I am NOT associated.

Treat yourself to No, Honestly. You will not be disappointed. No, honestly.

STARTING WITH A simple enough premise this series manages to elevate its comic delight to a level that bigger budgets and guest stars couldn't accomplish. And just what is this mystery element? If one only knew, we could bottle it and sell it to Producers in London, Paris, New York, Hollywood and Bombay.

THE "TOP SECRET" central tenet of NO, HONESTLY is a weekly half hour of a now older couple; who reminisce about their days as a stupid, young newlywed couple. That's it and it is skillfully brought off by the co-mingling of good writing, fine acting and masterful characterization.

HOW THIS IS accomplished is certainly due, at least in part, to the fact that the married Couple on screen, "C.D. and Clara" were then and are now in fact Man & Wife. The very talented folks are John Alderton and Pauline Collins. Their chemistry, energy and charisma make the characters jump off the screen and into real life.

ANOTHER ASPECT OF the episodes is the similarity to the old act performed and perfected by George Burns & Gracie Allen. From the Vaudeville Houses, Radio Program, Movies and Television, it was Straight Man George's deadpan and the Naiveté of Gracie that served as the engine in driving their act to the top.

THE SIMILARITY BECOMES obvious in many of the sequences. We do well recall a particularly relevant example. In one episode, when C.D. mentions the word, "collateral", Clara asks; "Isn't that the stuff that Americans get in their blood from eating too much butter?"

Since Colin Wilson's review says much of what I had planned to say, I thought I might expand on some of the details. The reference to Burns and Allen is very apt but with a difference. Burns' timing to Gracie's inanities is slow, letting the audience have their laugh at her line before laughing at his reaction. With this Alderton and Collins, the delivery is rapid-fire; and indeed there are times when I had to ask my wife, "Did you catch that last remark?" because some of the zingers went by too quickly. And of course, those based on British idioms need footnotes for us Colonials.

As with Hyacinth Bucket's family relations, Clara's loopiness is obviously inherited from her parents, who will insist on misinterpreting everything they are told. Into this menage, Royal the super-Jeeves butler fits in perfectly.

The concept of chronological plots in these seven episodes is a good one from their first chance meeting to their (well, it was only 1974!) off-camera wedding night. And, by the way, their reason for not wanting to be known as newlyweds is explained--and fairly logically too, for Clara!--at the start of the episode.

The funniest two of the seven are those based on mistaken identity, that hoary device that goes back to Terence. The 3rd episode has C.D. arrive at his future in-laws just in time to be mistaken for the plumber with predictable results. The 5th episode is more elaborate, when an orphaned C.D. asks two fellow actors to appear as his parents at a dinner given at Clara's, just when her family has to hire temporary help to serve it. Once we accept the silliness of his not wanting to be known as parentless and the premise that no one in these scripts ever really tries to explain a thing in a normal manner, the results are not predictable at all; and this single episode alone is, I think, worth the price of the set.

Now if Acorn Media will only reissue these two wonderful comedians in the "Wodehouse Playhouse" series of "Mulliner" stories, life would be that much more perfect.