Minder

Minder is about Arthur Daley(George Cole)who is a second hand car salesman,but he also sells dodgy gear that falls off the back of lorries or things that are stolen.As you would think in a business like this he would need some protection from small time crooks or the owners of the merchandise,so he hires Terry Mccann(Dennis Waterman)as his Minder.Terry more often looks after Arthurs friends,which always results in something bad happening to someone. Minder is an excellent show.It has everything,its a good comedy and drama and there's the occasional car chase and there's a lot of good fight scenes from Dennis Waterman.Cole and Waterman are a brilliant duo,I would recommend this fantastic programme to everyone that enjoys good action and comedy.

Hands down the best comedy drama series of them all, Minder still feels fresh and funny 25 years after it ended, unlike many of the sitcoms which appear like museum relics today. Minder had the advantage of being an hour in length, and i prefer its more leisurely pace and subtle humour over the sitcom's all out grab for laughs, and thankfully there's no laughter-track telling us what's "funny".

George Cole's Arthur Daley is up there with the very best comedy creations, a scoundrel so good he would have graced any Shakespeare play or Dickens novel; his hired muscle Terry McCann, although having done time is an innocent by comparison and Arthur is always dropping him in it.

The supporting cast is top draw especially Arthur's nemesis Inspector Chisholm and Dave the barman, and Minder's location work offers a fascinating glimpse of a London that no longer really exists.

Minder ran for 10 series (we can forget Channel 5's feeble reboot) but i think the show peaked in its earlier, grittier days and the later (series 7 onwards) episodes were nowhere near as good. At its best very few tv comedies could hold a candle to it.

Minder is an 80s classic that follows the adventures of the wiley businessman Arthur Daley, always on the lookout for a nice little earner, and ably assisted by Terry McCann, his trusty (although sometimes reluctant) minder. George Cole and Dennis Waterman make for a great team with chemistry to spare, with support by Dave, proprietor of the Winchester Club (who has to endure Arthur clocking up those VATs on the slate). Arthur's dodgy dealing often brings him to the attention of the law or other less than salubrious characters, which usually means that Terry has to sort things out with his fists, and so invariably ends up with his boat race in a right two and eight. Minder is a very entertaining show and always worth a revisit, although the sparkle is tarnished somewhat when Terry leaves to be replaced by Arthur's nephew, Ray (and the least said about the 2000s Shane Ritchie-fronted reboot, the better).

Brilliant British TV series starring George Cole as Arthur Daley, a shady businessman and used-car dealer on London's "alternate economy". Dennis Waterman is Terry McCann, Daley's business associate and bodyguard, or "minder", hence the title. The show ran for several years and usually centered on Arthur hatching some half-baked scheme, only to escape just a half-step ahead of the police or British mobsters. Patrick Malahide played Det. Sgt. Chisholm, a low-rent Javert who always seemed to let Arthur and Terry slip through his fingers.

I was 8 years old when this started, and when I left home aged 18 it was still on. The theme tune followed me through the 80s - Bagpuss came and went, Dangermouse arrived, a raft of American programmes designed to sell toys (which was a brand new idea then) crashed onto UK shores, the Commodore 64 bleeped and caroused in the corner, acid house music chipped and blooped onto the radio..... and Arthur & Terry were still there. I saw a handful of episodes as child & teenager, and always found the on- screen chemistry pulled me in...... but I did feel that it had become a bit of a dinosaur by 1990. I left home and virtually forgot about it, until ITV4 started re-running it again.

The writing was, and is, simply superb. Secondary characters are strongly developed and given good lines, something non-existent nowadays (see Taggart, Waterloo Road, Monarch Of The Glen) and almost every episode hangs together as a complete thing, ends tied up, viewer satisfaction assured. That takes good writing and good acting. Another, unintentional but wonderful, boon for the programme was that due to 75% of each episode being filmed on location outdoors over 15 years, it captured London in a constant state of flux that is clear and visible, something no other show has. It's fascinating to see London in that era, changing from series to series. And there's that chemistry between Cole and Waterman, which really shines through. That was fairly rare in a TV series back then, but is now like hen's teeth.

Its success with 15-24 year olds today is surprising, yet gratifying. It says, perhaps, that things like story, good acting and love of craft do not age, or lose their brightness.