A Fine Romance

It's intriguing to me that many of the really good programmes were made in the 70s and 80s. This is a comfortable and funny situation comedy which grows on one like the rambling roses that the landscape gardener would add to his plans. One starts watching, thinking will it be worth it, I haven't seen it for years, and then click! suddenly it reveals its comedy wickedly and hooks you right in there. I can't see any fault in Judi Dench in Comedy - she manages Shakespeare's comedies OK.

If you don't need guns and gossip, this is for you.

Footnote, I had no idea they were supposed to be 37 and 43. I agree, why pretend to be younger? It works very well with ignorance.

This is a delightful British comedy about two people who are too shy and insecure to reveal their true feelings to one another. It's a treat to see Judi Dench a bit earlier in her career. She also gives us a preview to her character in "As Time Goes By". It's a pity that they made so few episodes of this charming series.

Few series have more ably depicted the complicated communication between two people from different backgrounds who are trying to forge a relationship. Mike and Laura start out associating by accident and then by design. Laura is prickly and easily offended. Mike is well-intentioned but inarticulate. Laura is an intellectual with strong family ties (especially to her long-suffering sister). Mike is a landscaper with no family to speak of. They both feel like outsiders looking in most of the time. This series details their mutual yearnings and blunderings in a warm and humorous manner. By the end, I wanted terribly for these two awkward people to get together. A sign of a successful series.

Good acting, good writing, and good supporting characters. Highly recommended.

"A Fine Romance" *is* a charming, low-key show with delightful and appealing characters and performances. We first started watching it on video during a pledge-drive Britcom dry spell on our local PBS station and were hooked with the very first episode. The unfolding relationship between Laura and Mike is sweetly humorous, and the performances of Judi Dench and Michael Williams create completely engaging characters. You really feel for them and their awkwardness and wish them well in their efforts to forge a life together.

As other reviewers have said, this is definitely not a show with an American sensibility, and that accounts for so much of its charm and appeal. The principals are beyond the blush of youth, something rarely seen Stateside, at least in a non-family-centered show. The episodes are often character rather than "situation" driven, and even the situations generally reveal something of the characters; thus, many of the silly, overused devices of the American sitcom are mercifully absent.

In sum, a mild-mannered and well-written show beautifully pulled together by all involved.

This is just the kind of wonderful English comedy that American television would buy and then immediately strip all its charm away by loading it down with sexual innuendo and casting actors wrong for the parts.

Judi Dench is admirable as an actor because she is willing to take on the mundane and see its dramatic possibilities. She has never been a snob about television comedy roles. Her work in it is usually better than 95% of movies filmed. Her husband, Michael Williams, is a master at physical comedy that reveals his character's state of mind. There is even pathos in the series as each character learns that what he or she thought was "settling" is actually a golden opportunity because the other person has valuable qualities.

It's a shame that the world did not fully recognize Mr. William's brilliant comedic talent before his untimely death.