Last Night’s TV – Reggie Perrin
This was awful. I don’t often begin my reviews with such negativity, but truly, as much as I love Martin Clunes in every other role he’s ever had, as Reggie Perrin, I’m afraid I feel he was grave robbing…
Well, maybe not him per se but certainly the commissioning editors at the BBC as well as Simon Nye and David Nobbs – who wrote the adaptation – certainly are; and actually, David Nobbs wrote the original Reggie Perrin series’, so what he was thinking, I can’t imagine!
I guess if you’ve never seen the original, then a) you won’t really get what’s going on and b) you might feel differently, but to remake Reggie was, in my opinion anyway, a big mistake; there can be only one Reggie Perrin and that’s the late, great Leonard Rossiter…
In this remake, they’ve shifted Reggie from his ever more tedious work life at Sunshine Desserts to Groomtech, and in the original series, Reggie’s boss, CJ, the mustached tally-ho dingbat whose catchphrase of “I didn’t get where I am today by…” never got old. And speaking of old, to my horror, the new Reggie’s boss is a young man and nothing like CJ, other than his sometimes pomposity.
Reggie Perrin's boss Chris
The original Reggie had similar ‘flights of fancy’ to the new Reggie but his relationships aren’t nearly as believable. Granted, last night was the show’s first outing so maybe I need to give it time for those to develop, but take for example how the original Reggie fantasised about, and sometimes tried to seduce, his secretary Joan Greengross who was played by Sue Nicholls – who’s currently Audrey in Corrie of course.
Jasmine
The writers of the new Reggie tried to replicate this theme of course in that Reggie’s boss Chris introduced him to the beautiful Jasmine Strauss, who’s the new head of balms and lubricants, and as Reggie’s wife Nicola – played by Fay Ripley – isn’t that interested in him, Reggie’s attraction to Jasmine begins, hence the Reggie-Joan thing.
And of course there were the new Reggie’s train journeys, reminiscent of the original ones, but again, it can’t be replicated… it just can’t.
It’s like having Helen Mirren stand in for the Queen on Christmas Day… it’s just not on and would go down like a lead balloon, as I fear will the new Reggie Perrin, unless the younger generation – who’ve never witnessed the genius of the original – fall in love with it.
And certainly the new Reggie has a very impressive cast, I’ll give it that. Apart from Martin Clunes there’s Fay Ripley, Wendy Craig, Geoffrey Whitehead, Neil Stuke and Lucy Liemann but they don’t cut it for me either, as great as they all are as actors.
Just in case you’ve never seen the original, here’s a fantastic clip that was one of my favourites when it first aired in the 70s. Reggie, his wife and daughter, along with her husband and their kids, go on a day trip, and Reggie loses it and goes on an hilarious rant…
And this one was another classic and favourite scene starring Leonard alongside Jeffrey Palmer who of course played Wendy Craig’s husband in Butterflies.
And here’s the original opening sequence…
As I said at the beginning, I can’t blame Martin Clunes; he’s a great actor, as are the rest of the cast, and I’m sure they’re all doing their very best to do the original justice, but The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin was one of the most justifiably venerated comedy shows of all time and I honestly don’t think it can be remade with any credibility.
What did you think of it?
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Nice review, but I feel nostalgia has somewhat clouded your reason.
Of course the original is much better, it had one of the best comic actors ever, in it for crying out loud (Im a big fan of the original I bought the whole series DVD quite recently.)
That been said, I still laughed quite few times at this new version, as remakes go its not that bad.
Lets face it remakes are for the new gen anyway. not all farts like me that watched in the old days.
No, nostalgia has not clouded his reason. The new version is pants. And the clips demonstrate that. The old series snaps and crackles with tension. The new one plods along, just like any other mediocre sitcom, kinda like My Family on Mogadon. I didn’t laugh once & gave up after 15 mins of boredom.
It’s the writing & the direction that let down the new version. The actors do their best, but they just don’t have the energy to spice up such mediocre material. The most entertaining scenes for me were the ones with the two young marketing geeks.
I agree with everything Lynn said. I might have smiled once or twice but it was the ghastly canned laughter that was the final nail in the coffin.
As per this review, what, what, what is the point? Why spend the money? Ahhhh! its so infuriating – as soon as I head they were doing this I just knew there was no way it would stand up to the original.
Why not just show the original. This banal remake is pointless.
The first comment here says ‘..its not that bad’ – so the BBC should be spending our money on producing ‘not that bad’ are you serious? There is absolutely no justification on remaking something that is inferior to an existing original. Again, why not just show the original to all those who have never seen it?
The only people interested in this banana will be Communists, Maoists, Trotskyists, Neo Trotskyists, Papists, log haired weirdos, psychopaths, fascists and vice admirals.
Remakes are not made for the original fans they are made for younger people, who dont give a crap about the original. old good idea + new production = easy money
Come off it ive seen much worse comedy than this on the BBC in recent years. And as for wasting money there is loads of unwatchable crap on the bbc why target this program?
And besides it might get better, the first season of many shows are crap, blackadder I for instance
I’d have to agree with Richard. There have been many worse BBC comedies recently, e.g. My Family and this is only the first episode.
I read an interview with David Nobbs who said that he agreed to the remake because he felt that enough had changed in society to make it worthwhile. I think the problem though, is that it was always going to be nearly impossible to please fans of the original; it would either be a direct copy or far too different. I actually thought that the changes were quite good: Reggie working at a male grooming company has a lot of potential for satire, and Martin Clunes’ take on the role was much more world-weary compared to Rossiter’s manic Reggie.
The shocking thing watching those clips was how much more intrusive the new laughter track is; it completely ruined it.
[...] an exorbitant fee is that they are ‘forerunners in original programming’ yet lo, a remake of Reggie Perrin turns up on the BBC. I know that the BBC get thousands of proposals and scripts for new and [...]
This program is absolute rubbish, a complete waste of some very good actors talents,yes i am a big fan of the original & why oh why do program makers insist on trying revive a character that soley belongs to Leonard Rossiter. now seen it twice, haven’t laughed once, it just isn’t funny, and that laughter track is just completely embarrasing. Cant’t the BBC think of anything original to do instead and leave this true comedy classic alone !
Dear Sirs,
I couldn’t agree with you more. The failure seems to be mostly in the miscasting of the actors, good though they may be and the perfunctory way in with the catch phrases were said.
Yours,
AC
Gave this a chance but this new version seems to be going nowhere. As it uses the same name you have to compare it to the original.
The original gave a sense of somebody who really did feel like he was going mad and wanted to escape his world of stereotypes, whereas this version just gives the impression of somebody stuck in a rut, feeling depressed and acting a bit unconventionally.
If a remake does not at least equal the original then it is not really worth remaking it.
This new version appears to be another attempt to capitalise on “The Office” popularity. I would rather see the programme makers take a risk on something original.
“If a remake does not at least equal the original then it is not really worth remaking it.”
You can’t know that, unless you make it in the first place.
Well, I’ve watched several episodes now.
And all I can say is its pretty poor, I must have been in a very good mood when I saw first one, since the rest of the episodes are truly awful.
Their wont be a season 2
Firstly let me say I thoroughly agree with your comments regarding the recent”updated” version of Reggie Perrin. I feel a tad sorry for Clunes as Leonards shoes are impossible to fil. Bit surprised Clunes agreed to the roll in the first place…
Which leads me onto Rising Damp, Ive heard on the TV grapevine that ITV are looking to reprise the rolls of Rigsby and co..
NO NO NO dont do it, it cant be done, they have already chose the actors for the pilot that is due out early 2010.
Long live Reggie and Rigsby!