The Walrus and the Carpenter

The idea behind this sit-com was a simple one - two elderly men, wholly unlike each other, become friends in old age through meeting accidentally in a park. One is a highly educated but somewhat unworldly retired schoolmaster (Felix Aylmer); the other an uncouth, rough-and-ready, yet good-hearted retired sea-captain (Hugh Griffith). Each is able to solve the other's problems. The show was warm and clever and funny, a hit with critics and viewers alike, but it ran only one short season of six episodes. Decades later, Barry Took, one of the writers, revealed in his autobiography that any plans for future seasons were jettisoned by the behaviour of Hugh Griffith, whose alcoholism made it impossible for him to work in the tight schedules of a TV show.