14. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

by Jaime Grijalba.

“Wi not trei a holiday in Sweden this yër? See the loveli lakes. The wonderful telephone system. And mani interesting furry animals. Including the majestik moose. A moose once bit my sister… No realli! She was Karving her initials on the moose with the sharpened end of an insterpace toothbrush given her by Svenge – her brother-in-law -an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: ‘The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist’, ‘Fillings of Passion’, ‘The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink’…”

They didn’t wait did they? They didn’t even wait! In the first seconds of the film we are presented with the first joke, and one that works great for those who take special attention to the intial credits of a movie: a fake swedish subtitling of the credits presented at the beginning of the film, followed by a constant sacking of the people in charge of them, followed by a complete rendition of them, what started being serious and epic (white letters over black screen, ominous score) to something completely silly and over-the-top that is at the same time completely hilarious (flashing colors screen with flashing letters naming llamas as producers, directors and actors, all accompanied with a bunch of mariachis screaming ‘ayayayays’ as if there was no tomorrow). This could be the perfect representation of the comedy of the Monty Python troupe and of this movie in particular, every scene starts as something completely serious, ominous and epic, just to be transformed into a gag, a joke, a silly intervention, chronologies getting mixed up, wordplay and above all laughs without end. It’s… Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Do you have a copy of the film? Yes? No? Doesn’t matter, let’s take a journey through this masterpiece of comedy and let’s amuse ourselves towards the commentary we can both make, it’s going to be one hell of a journey, let’s start.

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46. Upstairs, Downstairs 1971-1975

by Allan Fish

(UK 1971-1975 3,172m) DVD1/2

What are we going to do with Uncle Arthur?

p  John Hawkesworth  d  Bill Bain, Derek Bennett, Raymond Menmuir  Simon Langton, Herbert Wise, James Ormerod, Cyril Coke, Lionel Harris, Christopher Hodson, Joan Kemp-Welch, Brian Parker  w  Alfred Shaughnessy, Jeremy Paul, Charlotte Bingham, Julian Bond, Raymond Bowers, Terence Brady, Maureen Brady, Joan Harrison, John Hawkesworth, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Deborah Mortimer, Rosemary Anne Sisson, Anthony Skene, Fay Weldon, Peter Wildblood  created by  Jean Marsh, Eileen Atkins  m  Alexander Faris  art  John Clements, John Emery, Roger Hall

Gordon Jackson (Angus Hudson), Angela Baddeley (Mrs Kate Bridges), Jean Marsh (Rose Buck), David Langton (Richard Bellamy), Simon Williams (James Bellamy), Rachel Gurney (Lady Marjorie Bellamy), Hannah Gordon (Lady Virginia Bellamy), Meg Wynn Owen (Hazel Forrest), Nicola Pagett (Elizabeth Bellamy), Lesley-Anne Down (Georgina Worsley), Christopher Beeny (Edward Barnes), Jenny Tomasin (Ruby Finch), Pauline Collins (Sarah Moffat), John Alderton (Thomas Watkins), Jacqueline Tong (Daisy Peel), Raymond Huntley (Sir Geoffrey Dillon), Karen Dotrice (Lily Hawkins), Joan Benham (Lady Prudence Fairfax), Anthony Andrews (Lord Robert Stockbridge), Ian Ogilvy (Lawrence Kirbridge), Gareth Hunt (Frederick Norton), Anthony Ainley (Lord Charles Gilmour), Charles Gray (Sir Edwin Partridge), Cathleen Nesbitt (Lady Mabel Southwald), Keith Barron (Gregory Wilmot), George Innes (Alfred), Nigel Havers (Peter Dinmont), Celia Imrie, Freda Dowie, Ursula Howells, Robert Hardy, Georgina Hale,

If ever a series came to define prestige British television in the seventies, it must surely be Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins’ extended variation on Noël Coward’s Cavalcade.  It tells the fortunes of the inhabitants, both masters and servants, of 165   Eaton Place, London, from 1904 to 1930, encompassing the Edwardian era, the Titanic sinking, World War I, the roaring twenties and the Wall Street Crash.  It encompasses every form of drama and melodrama, played out in an inimitably reserved fashion.  In many ways, 165 became a microcosm not just for the period of British history it related, but for the audiences of British television of its era.  Even now, it is profitably reshown on satellite TV in the UK and on Masterpiece Theatre in the US, not to mention on DVD.  It became a byword for quality and, thirty years on, that quality remains basically undiminished. 

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