The Fall and Rise

I didn't have any movies to watch Tuesday night, and since I was doing laundry, a pretty sedentary form of housework, I spent my time between the washing, drying, fluffing, and folding at the TV. Yes, I know you're shocked.

I've been thinking about something lately, something from my past. And that something is an old British sitcom called "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin." I'm going out on a limb here with what I'm about to say, because 1) few people even know this show, and 2) the few who do aren't nearly as enamored with it as I am. However, I think if there is indeed a Mighty Triumvirate of British TV Comedy, with one pillar being "Monty Python" and the other being "The Office," then surely the third pillar has to be "Reggie Perrin." It's that level of affinity I feel for this show.

And since I was movieless and at the TV anyway, and awash in laundry, pardon the pun, I headed to the back bedroom and uearthed my decades-old VHS, "Reggie Perrin, Vol. 1." That would be Vol. 1 of 2, the last time our local PBS station showed Reggie (probably around 1984), I made the effort to get them all taped, and did so save for one episode. (The Lost Episode!)

So I popped in Vol. 1 and began to watch, from the very beginning.

I remember at the time I discovered Reggie Perrin, I'd never seen anything like it in the whole of my life. And even now, just last night, after all these years and a million and one sitcoms later, it still holds up as a damned original piece of work. And yet, it's really odd. On the surface it looks like any other sitcom on the planet. In fact, it actually took me a few weeks to realize that I'd never seen anything like it in the whole of my life!

Reginald Iolanthe Perrin is a 46-year old cog in the wheel in the management department of Sunshine Desserts. He has a wife, son, daughter, a house in the suburbs, and a cat named Ponsonby. He's miserable. About the only thing that keeps him going is his active imagination, which we see snippets of from time to time.

(Aside: I never thought too much of "Ally McBeal" because during the very first episode when we started to "see" what she was thinking, I snarled up and said, "Shit, they're just stealing from Reggie Perrin." And I never really forgave them for that.)

Reggie's wife is too understanding, his son's an out-of-work actor, his daughter's not only married to the biggest prig in the universe but they have two very nasty children as well, his mother-in-law reminds him of a hippopotamus, his boss is an oaf, his co-workers are boobs and yes-men, and his brother-in-law Jimmy (the incomparable Geoffrey Palmer), a man of no fixed personality, shows up from time to time to sponge food and drink off the family.

And in the middle of all this, Reggie's the head of the new Exotic Ices campaign at Sunshine Desserts. Mango delight, fig surprise, and strawberry-lychee ripple (Reggie's suggestion for advertising on this one: "I like to stroke my nipple with a strawberry-lychee ripple"). But things are not going well in the world of the new Exotic Ices campaign, and they're getting worse for Reggie. In fact, he's on the verge of a major breakdown. And so he makes a decision.

On the day he's to address the fruit sellers' annual meeting (their tie emblem is the "very unfortunate two apples and a banana"), he gets blasting drunk, delivers a scathing diatribe on Life Today, and drives off. To the seashore, where he leaves his clothes on the beach and fakes his own suicide.

After that it's a series of disguises, towns, and jobs (like sewer worker and pig farmer), until Reggie realizes how he misses his old hated life, then disguises himself as Martin Wellborne, gets a job at Sunshine Desserts, and starts courting his wife Elizabeth. (She finally lets Reggie know after she accepts his marriage proposal she knew it was him the whole time.) And now the whole thing starts all over again.

And it ends with Reggie and Elizabeth leaving their clothes on the beach.

After their faked double-suicide, the two try to devise a new way to make a living. Reggie comes up with, well, an idea only Reggie could come up with. A small shop named "Grot," which sells nothing but rubbish. Square hoops, the son-in-law's horrid homemade wines, Reggie's dentist's unsavory paintings, broken bits of furniture.... It becomes a raging success, with Grot branches springing up all over England. As Grot the shop turns into Grot, Inc., Reggie needs more employees, so he begins hiring the old Sunshine Desserts crowd, putting all of the gang in jobs completely unsuitable for them. And they turn out to be inspired appointments, making Grot more successful than ever. And yep, you guessed it. Just as Grot is on the very verge of becoming 1975 England's answer to Microsoft, the whole thing starts all over again.

And it ends with Reggie, Elizabeth, and the whole Sunshine Desserts/Grot gang on the beach, sans clothes, faking their suicides.

Now we've got a whole community of people needing new lives. And what's the root of "community?" Why, "commune," of course, and so Reggie and the gang buy a big house in the suburbs and turn it into a commune that preaches peace and love ("Peace and Love City, Arizona"), happiness, and good mental health.

Now, this is where I can only imagine that the writers/creators of this show just said, "Fuck it, fuck all of you, let's just see how weird it can get." And it got pretty weird indeed. In other words, it was the show's disrobing at the beach.

All of this action, all of this change, all of this movement - in 21 episodes of a TV show. That still blows my mind.

And may I say briefly (some would say that's impossible for me) that while it was wonderful, the sheer audacity of the writers to create this show that went all over the map 12 times and back, at the heart of the show, what made it so special, was Reggie himself.

Reggie was truly a hero for our times, and was played to absolute perfection by actor Leonard Rossiter. It's impossible to not fall in love with Reggie the character, and Rossiter's 1000-words-a-minute delivery has to be seen to be believed. And oh, how I wish you could see it.

The first time my British friend Tina came to visit, in 1988, we were lolling around in a hotel room in Cincinnati, and I asked her if she was a Reggie fan. Yes, she was, she replied. And then added, "You know the guy who played Reggie died a few years ago, didn't you?"

I didn't, and I was crushed. I couldn't imagine a world without Reggie in it. I didn't want to. That feeling lasted for a long time.

But then as time passed I realized that Leonard Rossiter the fine actor may be gone from us, but as long as I have my old video stash, Reginald Iolanthe Perrin will always be around to inspire, amaze, and make me laugh. A lot. Bless his heart.

By the way, you're all invited to The Pod for snacks and Reggie videos. Anytime.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Note to self: popcorn for dinner is not such a great idea.
* Second note to self: never trust the TV Guide listings.