Last Of The Summer Wine: The Complete Collection [DVD]

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Yes, there are only 31 series total but for some reason starting around series 10 or 11 they get ahead of themselves and mislabel them and add an extra 1 to the count. One thing that intrigued me about the boxset was that the BBC had edited all three episodes into a continuous 85 minute film, with opening and closing credits shown only once. I would love to see the Documentaries and the interviews plus any other material released on DVD some time soon.

I’ve already pointed out that, despite how long they’ve known each other, they gravitate into a group not out of choice but necessity. The distinctive harmonica was played by Harry Pitch, who had featured in the 1970 one-hit-wonder " Groovin With Mr Bloe". Since its original release, all 295 episodes, comprising thirty-one series—including the pilot and all films and specials—have been released on DVD. The men never seem to grow up, and they develop a unique perspective on their equally eccentric fellow townspeople through their stunts. There is a follow-up, ‘Curried Soul’ (on which the piano is played by aspiring sessionman Elton John) which, despite it being the follow-up to a massive hit, Radio 1 is curiously reluctant to play, even as something for the DJs to talk all the way through.The situation escalated to the point that Bell filmed a scene in which Nora Batty put her house up for sale. Each of these recurring characters contributed their own running jokes and subplots to the show, often becoming reluctantly involved in the schemes of the trio, or on occasion having their own, separate storylines. After the death of Owen in 1999, Compo was replaced at various times by his real-life son, Tom Owen, as Tom Simmonite, Keith Clifford as Billy Hardcastle, a man who thought of himself as a direct descendant of Robin Hood, and Brian Murphy as the cheeky-chappy Alvin Smedley.

There is also a featurette series 6 December 1982 titled The Funny Side of Christmas from the US Vintage 1995 disc. It remained popular, with repeat series regularly mustering a 5,000,000 audience, but the tide of protest against it even being allowed to exist grew more intensive every time the show was broadcast. Products labelled '*item fulfilled by Exertis on behalf of hmv' will be supplied to you directly by Exertis via their approved couriers.The announcement today that Peter Sallis has died at the age of 96 finally rings down the curtain on the Last of the Summer Wine era. The site for the exterior shots of Last of the Summer Wine was, in part, suggested by television producer Barry Took, who was familiar with the area. I remember my Uncle going off the show at series 3, because Clarke shifted the emphasis from a three-way bicker to Clegg and Compo ganging up on the oblivious Foggy (about which I’ll have something to say when I come to the final series 2 episodes), but at least in these three episodes, there was a strong note of Clegg and Blamire ganging up on Compo rather than an anyone-is-fair-game approach. This time, it came from the smug, self-satisfied and patronising, those who considered themselves very much above that sort of thing, incapable of stopping to question the idea that something they don’t want to watch should therefore not be broadcast, despite the fact that, if they are limited to terrestrial TV, they have at least four alternatives available at the same time, and literally hundreds more with satellite. Wainwright and Mrs Partridge had been jettisoned after series 1 because Clarke couldn’t see their potential for development.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not wish to see this uninspired and meaningless revival proceed but if there is an audience for it, sometimes we should remember that they have no less right to have programmes that suit their taste than we do. Though the trio were all working class, they represented the classic Upper/Middle/Lower stratas within their ranks. But over the years the series changed and, after twenty years or so I lost interest sand stopped watching it, except for the extraordinary series of episodes that dealt with Bill Owen and Compo Simmonite’s death and, in protest, the last series, when the show was cancelled by the BBC because the wrong sort of people enjoyed it. Peter Sallis starred as his younger self’s father, and the series was very successful in finding actors in their late teens/early twenties who could convincingly portray the people they would grow up to become, forty-plus years later.And at last, after 31 series in 39 years, long-established as the world’s longest running sitcom, Last of the Summer Wine was cancelled. FOTSW was set in 1939 and featured the trio of Clegg, Compo and Uttherthwaite, plus the young Foggy, and other similarly aged youngsters, in their late teens, with the Second World War approaching (War was declared in the final episode, which saw Clegg’s cousin Brad enlisting). And of course we arrive at Sid’s Cafe, with Sid (the great John Comer) and Ivy (Jane Freeman) bickering at the tops of their voices. The first two episodes are very much a quasi-picaresque approach, the trio moving from place to place as an excuse to vary the scenes of their dialogue but ‘Pate and Chips’ struck out in a welcome direction by not only taking up a change of scene to Upperdyke Hall, but introducing, very briefly, Compo’s nephew, Chip, complete with lovely wife Connie and four or five kids (they ran around so much you could never get an accurate count). A selection of many famous comedy characters telling the story of the Batsman, this included Norman Clegg as portrayed by Peter Sallis.