After Henry

After the first few sentences of each episode you can see how it's going to unfold,more amusing than laugh out loud funny and I doubt you will remember any highlights but as in the 70s and 80s women in British comedies were little more than eye candy this must have been a major departure with 3 leading ladies.

I discovered this show by chance on a trip to Ireland and was exhilarated by its comic freshness and unexpected poignancy. The three lead actresses and one lead actor had terrific chemistry, and the writing could make you belly laugh and sob almost simultaneously. It is a mystery to me that "After Henry" has not made its way to these shores, where I'm confident it would join the top ranks of most beloved Britcoms. Are the programmers at PBS all dead in their offices at this point? They would do well to retire their endless reruns of jukebox "specials" and seek out savvy, unfamiliar programs like "After Henry." (If I hear "Amazing Grace" warbled just one more time, there will be havoc in Mudville.)

Television chiefs in Britain, desperate for new comedy ideas, seize on any successful radio series. When it first appeared, the idea of three generations of women under the same roof, and the sympathetic depiction of a gay man not in the first flush of youth were quite fresh. "After Henry" lost something in the transfer to TV, possibly because on TV it made fewer demands on the imagination. The cast, principally Joan Sanderson (qv) as Prunella Scales's mother and Benjamin Whitrow (qv) as the bookshop owner, were fresher, too.

After Henry is a very well-written, amusing and also touching comedy, about a widowed grandmother, widowed mother and daughter living in three flats in a single house. They navigate various friendships and relationships throughout the four series.

Joan Sanderson is an absolute treat in whatever she's in: she alone would be enough to make this worth watching. But add in the always delightful Prunella Scales, and you have a real winner. Janine Wood also plays the rather prickly daughter very competently.

The best bits by far are those with Joan Sanderson, but the whole series is enjoyable. It is rather a product of its time: there are a lot of contemporary references to Australian soaps such as Neighbours (which was a craze among UK viewers at the time).

Sadly the final series (4) doesn't reach any real conclusion, but the show was cancelled due to the death of Joan Sanderson.

The Bottom Line - 2.5 out of 5

"After Henry" is a mid-grade Britcom. Britcom fans such as myself will enjoy seeing Prunella Scales (Mrs Fawlty from "Fawlty Towers"), as she is a fine actress and does admirably here. However, the show isn't memorably funny, the premise of multi-generational households is a well-tilled one and there's little new here, and the remaining cast is mediocre. The general impression left on the viewer after several episodes is that it's a rather run-of-the-mill program.

As an American who loves Britcoms, I try to watch and rent all that I can find on telly and in vid shops. I don't have the luxury of comparing "After Henry" to the regular programming that British viewers see each night. My comments on the show are in relation to the shows I have seen. The best shows would include "One Foot in the Grave", "Blackadder", "Fawlty Towers" and "Red Dwarf". "After Henry" is clearly not in that lofty class, but is passable. You could certainly find yourself watching worse... and better.