The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin

There is no shortage of excellent sitcoms - the U.S. gave us Seinfeld, and Soap, the Brits Good Neighbors, Fawlty Towers and Butterflies. The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, rises above even these, and is a true masterpiece of television.

What makes The Fall and Rise so exceptional is its incredible depth. While other shows were content to earn certain points and then coast (e.g. Seinfeld acts as a catalog of ridiculously mutated and twisted social convention, but rarely moves beyond it) The Rise and Fall never lets up on its observations, criticisms and offering of wild and crazy solutions, providing a hero who sees everything wrong with the world and is desperate and willing to change as much as possible.

The absurdity of corporate culture, suburban monotony, flaky post-hippie child-rearing concepts, condescendingly manipulative advertising and marketing, sexism, racism, class conflict, are hung, drawn and quartered for laughs. And Leonard Rositter's posturing and snarking make it surreal. It is Voltaire, Brecht.

Of course, the hero's plans rarely turn out as he expected, and Perrin is constantly thrown off course as each of his absurd plots is met by an even more absurd response from the world. Rositter's Perrin reacts with even more absurdity, all the while stammering and mugging to underline the fact that, well, that's life.

The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin, is a must to television viewing as Mozart is to music, Citizen Kane to cinema, and Dickens to reading. You will probably like it, but even if you don't, it will do you great good, and be the yardstick by which you judge all other related material.

From what I gather this was a 1970's British television series. What I saw was a 100 minute film, albeit with a laughtrack, so it may well have been a condensation of several programmes of the series.

No matter. This was FUNNY. I don't mean quiet chortle funny; I mean laugh out loud, uncontrollable giggle, hearty guffaw funny.

Leonard Rossiter of "Rising Damp" fame (a television series that I DID see) is Reginald Iolanthe Perrin, a middle aged marketing executive suffering a severe midlife crisis. He fantasises about having an affair with his secretary, torturing his overbearing boss (John Barron giving a marvellous performance) and escaping from the drudgery which is his life. After drinking too much wine before giving an embarrasing luncheon speech he effects his escape by faking his own death. Away from the constraints of work and family life he finds that his new found freedom is not all it's cracked up to be and he finds himself longing for his wife. Now he has to find a way to come back...

The situations and dialogue are hilarious, while the performances of very British characters are uniformly excellent. Even after repeated viewings the bittersweet ending still gives me goosepimples.

Highly recommended.

PBS aired the series in '79 and '81. I wandered into the first episode by accident and was immediately hooked. And since this was the age when VCRs still cost over a thousand bucks, I had no option but to try and memorize the series....

And then recite the lines to my friends who'd missed the two seasons that aired.

PERRIN was possibly the first series to use seemingly unconnected visuals to illustrate a character's state of mind, a trick later used in series like DREAM ON and ALLIE McBEAL.

I'm still struck by the role the surf plays in PERRIN as a place to dump old cares, worries, and lives in exchange for new lives. The final sequence of the second season has also stayed with me-- Reggie and his wife go to the beach to assume new lives, then discover an entire beach full of people doing the same thing. Reggie smiles and says "Look Elizabeth, it's catching." In the past 20 years, when things looked bleak, I'd think of finding my way to that beach....

That the series is finally on videotape is fantastic. That there is a third season I never knew about is beyond words!!!!

After years of trying to find this on VHS, I now find that it IS available. The problem is, now I have a DVD player, and would prefer to have this series on DVD.

This was one of my favorite Britcoms, although I haven't seen it in quite a while. Having two great Britcom actors: Leonard Rossiter ("Rising Damp") and Geoffrey Palmer ("Butterflies"), this series was bound to be a winner. Rossiter, of course, as the title character, really is almost a one-man show with everyone else supporting him rather than having major roles. When Perrin, talking to himself after his failed (or, some would say, faked) suicide attempt, realizes he cannot go back home, and decides that he will use, as his new name, the first thing he sees as he looks over a fence, then realizes that "cow pat" would NOT be a good name, one knows that the series is just getting started, and will really take off from there.

PLEASE make this available on DVD!

Let's try to get the BBC to release Reggie on American format DVD!! Apparently, BBC America is responsible for all commercial content in the States, and I was given the following information by BBC in the UK.

Write or call:

BBC Worldwide Americas 747 3rd Avenue 6th floor NY, NY 10017 USA Tel: 001 212 705 9300 Fax: 001 212 888 0576

It's available in the UK, I just think they don't realize what a fan base there is here in the US. I just re-read both "The Fall and Rise of" and "The Return of" for the hundredth time, but I'd give anything to own the series.