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Telegraph
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Paul Nicholas: We've kept the goose stepping in Fawlty Towers – I don't think that's wrong
Paul Nicholas is trying to pinpoint precisely what it is about Fawlty Towers that makes it so British. He settles on the setting – the slightly drab boarding house common to many a British seaside town. 'I stayed in plenty of them as a kid, although perhaps never with such an extreme landlord as Basil,' he says. 'I suppose you get them in other countries too, but they feel very particular to the English from way back.' Not the humour then? 'Well, yes, of course, the humour. That's very British. All those jokes about the Germans. We are laughing at our isolation to some extent.' Nicholas didn't watch John Cleese's epochal sitcom during the 1970s – he was too busy being a pop pin-up. He's fully immersed in the mayhem of Basil's world now though – he was cast as the addled Major for Cleese's West End adaptation, which received rave reviews last year and is back for another run ahead of a UK tour. The stage show essentially combines three TV scripts spliced together with barely any changes, although mercifully, the racial slurs aired by the Major in the original have been cut. 'People are sensitive to those things and quite rightly, you can't go around calling people w--- and the N-word,' says Nicholas. Cleese maintained in a piece for The Telegraph last year that those lines were written at the Major's expense, but Nicolas argues the only thing that matters is that they are no longer there. 'Because then the comedy comes about one thing, which is the Major being a racist. Of course, there is a willingness to be offended among some people, and they do seem to have a very loud voice. But taking the piss out of someone because they are a different skin colour is the lowest form of humour. We've kept the goose stepping though. The goose-stepping is OK.' I tell him the TV episode featuring this particular scene was briefly removed in 2020 by the BBC from their catch-up service UKTV. A UKTV spokesperson later confirmed this was because of the Major's comments, which appear in the same episode, although at the time, the Guardian pointed out that most broadcasters had long edited out these comments anyway. Nicolas shakes his head at this. 'The Germans did goose step. They were our enemy. If you have a German guest in your hotel and they are pissing you off, you can imitate the ridiculous nature of what they were doing at that time. I don't think that's wrong.' We've met during a lunch break for rehearsals for Fawlty Towers at an east London studio. Nicholas is hurriedly consuming a burger and chips. He is 80, but there is still a clear trace of the pretty boy jaw line and twinkly eyes that made him a favourite among women of a certain age during the 1970s and 1980s, like a blond equivalent of David Essex. He looks a bit embarrassed when I bring this up. 'I wouldn't say I was a star,' he says. 'I had a bit of that, but I was never comfortable with it. I'm relatively shy when I am being me. When I am on stage, I could be anything or anyone.' All the same, Nicholas has had an extraordinary career. He's known most of all as the rascally Vince in the 1980s sitcom Just Good Friends, but his unthreatening boy-next-door sex appeal belies a CV studded with the counterculture rebellion. He's had songs written for him by David Bowie and Pete Townshend and starred as the narrator Claude in the first UK production of the antiwar musical Hair (known in simple terms as the musical in which nearly all the cast take their clothes off). He was Jesus Christ in the original West End production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's flamboyant rock musical Jesus Christ Superstar which was met with protests when it premiered on the West End in 1972, and collaborated with Richard O' Brien on a few early songs for The Rocky Horror Show. His very first act was as the piano player with Screaming Lord Sutch's backing band the Savages, which mixed the French theatre of Grand Guignol with gothic high camp. 'It was the smashing of boundaries which made the 60s exciting,' says Nicholas. 'But today we've been there and done that. We've gone the other way a bit now.' Nicholas, who is now a great-grandfather, is still smooth and still charming, but he is disarmingly unaffected. He comes across as a most unlikely cultural anarchist. A child of the 1950s, he remembers a childhood defined by 'rationing and powdered egg'. His father was the showbiz lawyer Oscar Beuselinck. As Beuselinck was still trying to establish his career, Nicholas barely saw him when he was younger. 'We weren't very well off, we lived on a council estate in my nan's flat in north London. Everything closed on a Sunday. England always seemed to be grey and drab.' The only splash of colour came from the musicals his mother would take him to see at the local cinema. 'I wasn't very bright. I couldn't spell or add up. Life was quite hard going and movies, music and dance were an escape. I was always attracted to Singin' In The Rain because it looked warm, there was sunshine.' His home life was tough in other ways. The three-times-married Beuselinck would become a lawyer to stars including Sean Connery and Richard Harris, and was known throughout London as both a fabulous raconteur and an appalling womaniser. When he died in 1997, the Guardian obituary described him as a 'randy, abusive, brilliant tyrant who made most people laugh and some cry'. He often made jokes about how much he paid out in alimony and is said to have sacked a secretary caught with another man in his office for fear she might become a rival to his reputation. Nicholas, though, is fairly forgiving of a man who, in later life, admitted he regretted not being a better father to Nicholas and Nicholas' younger step-brother Richard. 'He came from quite a poor background. His father was a chef on a ship. So he didn't have it easy,' he says. 'He left school to work for a law firm as a 14-year-old boy and qualified in the end as a lawyer. He didn't have much time for me and my mother because he was trying to create a path for himself. But their relationship was not good. They were not at all well suited, and there was a lot of shouting. When I was about 12, they split up. I thought: thank God for that.' Either way, Nicholas certainly possessed his father's same drive and desire for reinvention. Desperate to become a performer, he sent off for piano lessons because his mother couldn't afford a teacher, 'although when I got them in the post I couldn't understand them. And also, we didn't have a piano'. He formed a band at school and, after leaving school in 1962, joined The Savages as a keyboard player. One of Screaming Lord Sutch's more famous acts was a Jack the Ripper sketch, and Nicolas would put on a frock and play the female victims. 'It was the high point of his show. He'd stab me, then pull out a rubber heart and rubber lung. Later, he went to the butcher and got the proper stuff.' He is surprised when I point out that this act would not go down well today. 'You don't think it would? It's factual, though isn't it? It happened.' In the mid-1960s, he started branching out as a pop singer. In 1967, Bowie, who at the time was still known as Davy Jones, wrote for him the jail break single Over The Wall We Go, which was promptly banned by the BBC for fear it would inspire copycat prison breakouts. 'I didn't mind at all,' says Nicholas. 'It gave me good bragging rights.' Nicholas soaked it all up, joining the Aldermaston 'ban the bomb' marches, and with Sutch, played at the Star Club in Hamburg, where the Beatles would later play. 'England was opening up. The 50s had been very tight arsed; people had been recovering from the war. But in the 1960s, people were restarting their lives.' In 1967, he won the role of the narrator Claude in Hair. The production had to wait until the abolishment of theatre censorship in 1968 before it could open because it contained scenes of nudity and the F-word, but as soon as it premiered, it became a sensation. Part of the show includes a scene where the audience joined the cast onstage. One night, Nicolas noticed Princess Anne was standing right next to him. 'She came a few times actually. It's funny because we are supposed to be very reserved in this country but inviting people up on stage only happened in London. It didn't happen in New York. You probably couldn't do it now because of health and safety. ' Then came Jesus Christ Superstar, in 1972, in which Nicolas played Jesus himself. The show was met with protests on opening night because of its perceived blasphemous nature, but Nicolas argues the production was never intended to shock. 'To call Jesus Christ a superstar was a bit transgressive and we did have people protesting. But when he was crucified, audiences were moved by the whole thing. It wasn't a cheap stunt. It was a pretty honest portrayal – there was nothing deliberately offensive about the production.' It's quite a CV. Did the 1960s and 1970s feel freer than today? 'Probably. You didn't have people watching you. The fact we could say f--k on stage and stand there with no clothes on, particularly in this country, would indicate that anything could go. Today, you can't say certain things, and that's fine, particularly if you are denigrating people for their race.' All the same, he broadly dislikes today's more morally censorious climate. 'People always go too far. People should feel freer to say what they feel without someone snitching on them and ruining their career. It is sad when people lose their livelihood because they've said the wrong thing; it's ridiculous. People should be a bit more forgiving.' He's currently got two sitcoms of his own in development and admits he's had a pause for thought himself. 'I did remove a couple of things. My wife [Linzi, his second] said you won't get away with that. So yes, you are always aware of that. But you want a project to succeed. You don't want it to fall at the first hurdle.' Did he ever behave back then in a way that shocks him now? 'At the start, I wasn't very clever in terms of the ladies,' he says. 'Women had just got the pill and I was a little bit free and easy, to be honest with you, so I'm not particularly proud of how I behaved. Although I should point out this was prior to being married [he married his first wife, Susan Gee in 1966 and they had two children]. If you were in a band, your encounters tended to be one-night stands. And girls used to wait, although not necessarily for me. I always resented the bass player; he always seemed to do quite well. But the odd girl did seem interested.' He's being a bit disingenuous: his personal life was complicated. He had already had two children by different women when he married Gee. That marriage then ended when Nicolas met the actress Linzi Jennings – they married in 1984, and have two children together; they now live in Highgate and Nicholas proudly shows me a photograph of his two-year-old grandson – he has 12 altogether and three great grandchildren. Yet in 1977, his first wife died aged 38 in a car crash. 'That was utterly horrible. Initially, my mother helped out with the children. But they already knew Linzi, so eventually we all moved in together. It was pretty dreadful to lose someone like that so suddenly. You pick up the phone and you hear. It was as devastating as one can imagine.' He is wary about quantifying the impact on the children he had shared with Gee, who were eight and 10. 'All I know is that we did what we could to get them through.' After Superstar, Nicolas worked in both theatre and film and resurrected his pop career. He had three UK top 20 hits, including Reggae Like It Used To Be, Grandma's Party and Dancing With The Captain, while his 1977 single Heaven on the 7th Floor reached the US Billboard top 10. The videos on YouTube are extraordinary. He embodies the sort of squeaky clean, nudge nudge wink wink charisma much more likely to appeal to the mothers of teenage girls rather than the girls themselves. 'I got a bit of fan mail but not like the Beatles,' he says. 'I certainly didn't get women throwing themselves at my feet.' Still, he had enough female fans to win him the role of Vince in the 1983 John Sullivan sitcom Just Good Friends. The show focused on Vince and Penny (Jan Francis) who meet five years after Vince jilted her at the altar. He got the part only because the women in the typing pool at the BBC lobbied the sceptical casting director; he also sang the theme tune. He's remained a jobbing actor ever since, starring in numerous West End musicals and plays, appearing as Gavin Sullivan in EastEnders and in 2017, The Real Marigold Hotel. In 2021, he released a rap single Bad Bad Rapper. It's curiously quite good. All the same, it's hard to square the man in front of me with that of the man who once delivered leaflets for Lord Sutch when Sutch stood against Harold Wilson in the 1966 election while wearing leopard skin pants. Has he always been politically active? 'Actually I don't really have any politics. In fact I've never voted. I did vote for the Greens once. 'But I've never really felt passionate enough about any one party to say, 'I'm for you'.' He is certainly no fan of the outsized personality politics of someone like Sutch, however much on the fringe Sutch remained. 'I was very disappointed when Trump got in. I honestly didn't think he would.' What does he think of Nigel Farage? 'I don't pay attention to Farage and Reform. Although I can understand it. I've got a friend who was a Thatcherite, and he is now voting Reform. Farage speaks to that kind of old Conservative who misses whatever it is that they want.' I suspect Nicholas is an old hippy at heart, although he protests that's not the case either. 'I don't live for the 60s. A lot of it was people sitting around smoking dope and falling asleep. We had more energy in the 1970s. There was Thatcher. People thought: 'I've got to get on with things.' There wasn't so much sitting around hoping things would happen because they never do.' Given that he is now entering his seventh decade as a performer, not sitting around could be his personal philosophy. 'I'm just a guy who likes to work.'
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
The iconic houses from some of Britain's greatest sitcoms... and what they look like now
Basil Fawlty hammering hapless waiter Manuel or being knocked out by a plunging moose's head. Victor Meldrew looking on in disbelieving despair as a squadron of garden gnomes lands on his doorstep. Pretentious social climber Hyacinth Bucket - while insisting her surname is pronounced like 'Bouquet' - peering at friends living next door for fear they might just be getting one up on her in neighbourhood bragging rights. Or else flatmates Mark Corrigan and Jeremy Usbourne numbly succumbing to watching the TV in their drab Croydon towerblock, with occasional diversions such as losing a snake at a house party or capturing and gagging a love rival. These are just some of the familiar scenes and settings beamed into millions of homes - and such homes featured in Britain's most beloved sitcoms have also gone up for grabs in real life, while prompting curious visitors taking selfies outside. A three-bedroom terraced house that provided the backdrop to classic BBC show One Foot In The Grave has just gone on the market for £337,500, in the Walkford suburb of Christchurch, Dorset. The exterior will be familiar to many, as are other homes which can continue to attract sitcom-loving visitors - yet some are situated far from where they were meant to represent on screen. The towerblock known as Nelson Mandela House in Only Fools And Horses was famously said to be in Peckham, south-east London, on the fictional Nyrere Estate - yet in reality the exterior of the building home to Trotter brothers Del Boy and Rodney was filmed on a council estate in Acton, west London. And it was revealed last year Ealing Council has earmarked the block, real name Harlech Tower, for tearing down in 2027 in an £850million regeneration scheme - but aficionados still have plenty of properties familiar from TV to check out in real life. One Foot In The Grave Scenes shot outside the property now up for sale in Christchurch included when a troupe of garden gnomes was delivered by mistake to Victor as well as another in which a Citroen 2CV car was somehow parked in his skip. Estate agent Ben Jenkins has said the home's TV history is bound to 'drum up a bit of interest' in the home. Next door to it is the house where Victor's nemesis neighbour Patrick, portrayed by Angus Deayton, lived. One Foot in the Grave ran for six series and seven Christmas specials. Although the location is not referred to in the show, many of the location scenes were shot around Christchurch and Bournemouth. The interior of the house was not used for the show, with internal scenes shot at BBC Television Centre in London. The 'well-presented' property has 920 sq ft of accommodation with a hallway, lounge, kitchen/diner and conservatory on the ground floor and three bedrooms and a bathroom on the first floor. The home with a private rear garden and a garage in a nearby block is being sold by local estate agents Mitchells, who describe it as an 'attractive house in a lovely quiet location' and say it has been well maintained. Fawlty Towers The hotel that inspired 1970s sitcom Fawlty Towers, written by and co-starring John Cleese and Connie Booth, was knocked down and replaced with retirement flats in 2016. The location for the comedy was based on the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, Devon, where Cleese stayed with the Monty Python team in 1973. The 41-bedroom hotel ceased trading nine years ago before Churchill Retirement Living began demolishing it to convert the site into 36 retirement apartments. The Gleneagles and its 1960s ex-owner Donald Sinclair were the prompt for fictional hotelier Basil Fawlty - and Torquay's 'exotic' palm trees have been cited by Cleese among the reasons for setting the show in the seaside resort. Cleese, now 85, has previously said: 'I chose Torquay when I was writing Fawlty Towers with Connie because there is something really rather exotic about Torquay, with the palm trees - the English Riviera, as Basil referred to it once. 'There is something comical about dumping this horrendous little English hotel in slightly swell surroundings.' The Asheldon Road business was owned by Donald and Beatrice Sinclair and the Pythons were reportedly seen by Mr Sinclair as a 'colossal inconvenience' during their visit. Cleese later said: 'We never shot Fawlty Towers in Torbay. I came to Torquay with the producer, the child-star John Howard Davis, and the set designer and we visited the Gleneagles Hotel in 1975, when we met the very charming and efficient fellow who bought it from Mr Sinclair, but it was very disappointing not to meet and experience Mr Sinclair.' Men Behaving Badly The 1990s sitcom created and written by Simon Nye was unusual in starting on ITV in 1992 and running for two series there before switching to the BBC. The original episodes starred Martin Clunes and Harry Enfield as laddish flatmates before Enfield left, with Neil Morrissey joining in his place. It was suggested in the series that the property shared by the pair was in south London, along with references to neighbouring Surrey. And key scenes showing the outside of their home building were filmed in the south-west London district of Surbiton - with Morrissey seen outside a terraced home in the area that last sold for £1.45million in 2021. Other scenes were north of the river in the west London borough Ealing including at a pub called the Kings Arms, in the show that co-starred Caroline Quentin as Dorothy, the girlfriend of Clunes' character Gary, while Leslie Ash was Deborah, the love interest of Morrissey's Tony. There were also visits to Marine Parade on the coast in Worthing, West Sussex, as well as the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorchester, Dorset. The sixth and final full series of the sitcom, broadcast in 1997, also included scenes in Brentford as Gary and Dorothy prepare to marry at the local town hall - only to opt against doing so. That season also included the group discussing 1970s sitcom The Good Life - which had also been set in Surbiton. Gavin And Stacey What's occurring in the world for Gavin And Stacey fans has been the appearance for sale of a home showcased in the BBC smash hit, starring Mathew Horne and Joanna Page in the title roles. The home of Stacey's uncle Bryn, who lives across the road from her and widowed her mother, was made available in Barry, South Wales, for £212,000. The sitcom ran for three years from 2007 with final episodes broadcast on Christmas Day 2009 and New Year's Day 2010 - only for further festive comebacks in 2019 and last December 25, when an audience of 12.5million viewers tuned in. The comedy was written by James Corden and Ruth Jones, who appeared in it as Smithy and Nessa, along with co-stars including Alison Steadman and Larry Lamb. A couple who previously lived in the home showcased in the first series of Gavin And Stacey have spoken about it becoming a tourist hotspot - and how they made the decision to move out after seeing its prominence on screen. Lisa Edwards, resident there with husband Michael, wrote on Reddit ahead of last Christmas's reunion special: 'We had people knocking on the windows late at night asking for a tour. When we moved out we got a bit sick of all the attention as we had people knocking on our door to have a look around.' Meanwhile, Glenda Kenyon, who owned fictional Stacey's home across the road, has described showing around thousands of fans who have visited in tribute to the show - as she put the property up for sale in 2014. She said at the time: 'I have loved living here and being part of the Gavin and Stacey family. When they asked to use my house for filming I agreed but I had no idea it would become such a popular TV show.' Open All Hours The corner shop from another 1970s sitcom classic - which has been revisited in a new version in recent years - went up for auction last year. The property in the Doncaster suburb of Balby went under the hammer on October 15 with a guide price of £150,000, before selling for £145,000. The home on an unassuming residential road in the South Yorkshire city appeared in Open All Hours as the exterior of Arkwright's convenience store. That fictional shop was owned by the main protagonist Albert Arkwright - played by comedy legend Ronnie Barker. The building - which was converted into a unisex hair salon - had narrowly avoided demolition in 2008 after campaigners saved when it previously went up for auction but failed to sell. Open All Hours, which was ranked eighth in a poll of Britain's best sitcoms in 2004, follows the antics of Arkwright and his young nephew Granville - played by Sir David Jason. The series was created by Roy Clarke who is the writer behind other legendary English comedies including Keeping Up Appearances and Last of the Summer Wine. It ran for four seasons between 1976 and 1985 before in 2013 a sequel series titled Still Open All Hours was commissioned with both Clarke and Jason involved, Barker having passed away in 2005. Keeping Up Appearances Dame Patricia Routledge, now 96, played snobbish social climber Hyacinth Bucket - repeatedly insisting her surname was pronounced 'Bouquet' - in BBC1 sitcom Keeping Up Appearances. The comedy penned, like Open All Hours, by Roy Clarke ran on BBC1 between 1990 and 1995 and also featured Clive Swift as Hyacinth's put-upon husband Richard. The series depicted Dame Patricia's character competing with upper-middle-class neighbours Elizabeth and brother Emmet. And the real life property where her neighbours lived on the programme went on the market in recent years for £495,000. The exterior of the four-bedroom detached house in Binley Woods in Coventry regularly appeared in the sitcom. Annabel Dixon, from property website Zoopla, said: 'Hyacinth was often name-dropping her sister Violet, who "had a Mercedes, swimming pool, sauna and room for a pony". 'So the grande dame would surely approve of this unusual opportunity to snap up the home of her twitchy neighbours, Elizabeth and Emmett. Its features include a landscaped garden, heated swimming pool, hot tub and wooden summer house.' Rosemary Healey, longstanding owner of the home used as Hyacinth's, told the Coventry Telegraph in 2023: 'We get lots of people coming to take photos and occasionally get people knocking on the door. It's never been a problem though.' A house put up for sale (pictured on the right) is next door to TV's Hyacinth Bucket's property (pictured on the left) Outnumbered The house that featured in the BBC hit series Outnumbered went on the market in 2020 for £1.795million. The Victorian-era property in Wandsworth, south-west London, boasted a master suite and four further bedrooms. It was described by estate agents as a 'high quality property' which sits just a stones throw away from Wandsworth Town Station. The building provided the backdrop for the popular comedy series which starred Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner between 2007 and 2014. Measuring 2,217sq ft, the home included an extended reception area, a large family bathroom, a shower room and a cellar and utility room. Outnumbered featured the characters Pete and Sue Brockman trying to balance their careers with their three unruly children Jake, Ben and Karen. The comedy was watched by 9.4million viewers at its peak and ran for five series between 2007 and 2014, with a Christmas special following in 2016 and another on December 26 last year. Dennis and Skinner became a real-life after appearing together in the series and married in 2022. Fresh Meat The comedy drama about student life in Manchester was broadcast on Channel 4 between 2011 and 2016, lasting for four series. It starred stand-up comic and regular BRIT Awards host Jack Whitehall and was written by Peep Show and Succession creators Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong. The student home occupied by the main characters was a Victorian property in the well-to-do Manchester suburb of Whalley Grange. Meanwhile, pub scenes were filmed in the Kings Arms in Salford, owned by the Housemartins and the Beautiful South singer-songwriter Paul Heaton. The comedy, centred around the fictional Manchester Medlock University, also shot footage at the real-life Manchester Metropolitan University. Whitehall's co-stars included Charlottie Ritchie, who also appeared in Call The Midwife, and Peep Show actor Robert Webb. Property records for the house used in Fresh Meat as the students' base show it last sold in January 2003 for £199,950. It was previously bought for £68,000 seven years earlier - but some properties in the same street have sold in recent years for more than £750,000. Peep Show Another of Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong's Channel 4 successes was Peep Show, starring as flatmates David Mitchell and Robert Webb. Exterior shots of the pair's home in Croydon were filmed at a towerblock called Zodiac House in the south London borough. Yet the property underwent a rebrand for the series and was called Apollo House. The opening titles of the sitcom, showing Mitchell and Webb peering into a TV rentals shop window, were shot north of the river Thames in Crouch End, near Highgate. The comedy series which was broadcast on Channel 4 between 2003 and 2015 focused on the lives of Mark Corrigan and Jeremy Usborne. Two-bedroom apartments in Zodiac House have been put on sale in recent years for up to £300,000. Once a brown building with dark green balconies, the block has been modernised - and concept images have shown more room for improvement and expansion planned. A Rightmove listing for one of those on offer stated in 2023: 'This two-bedroom apartment on the third floor of Zodiac Court has marvellous and unrivalled views of London, and the property must be viewed to be truly appreciated.' The Inbetweeners Read More How the Inbetweeners grew up! As the cult series turns 15 and Simon Bird plays 'another version of Will' in new Channel 4 sitcom, FEMAIL reveals where the original cast are now Various homes in Hertfordshire were used for the Channel 4 sitcom The Inbetweeners, which ran between 2008 and 2010 and spawned two spin-off movies. The properties in Abbott Langley, near Watford, appeared as the family homes of schoolmates Will, Simon, Neil and Jay - played respectively by Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, Blake Harrison and James Buckley. Other performers featuring in the show included actress Emily Atack and stand-up comedian and Taskmaster presenter Greg Davies. Scenes at the fictional Ridge Park Comprehensive School attended by the lead characters were filmed at Ruislip High School in west London. Other schools were also used for some of the shots, according to commentary on a DVD release of the show. Abbots Langley residents have previously told of seeing the main four actors in the area as part of the production shooting, the Watford Observer reported. And Bwark Productions, who were behind the series, confirmed they were carrying out filming in the area. The Hertfordshire village also featured in the 2011 and 2014 Inbetweeners films. Channel 4 sitcom The Inbetweeners starred (left to right) James Buckley, Blake Harrison, Joe Thomas and Simon Bird - with school scenes shot at Ruislip High School in west London Properties in Abbots Langley in Hertfordshire were used for where the schoolmate characters lived, including this one said to be the home of Neil played by Blake Harrison Jay, portrayed by James Buckley, resided at a property used here in the village near Watford The Vicar Of Dibley Read More Own a piece of classic TV history: Grade II-listed cottage from much-loved show is up for sale for £695k - so do you recognise it? The redbrick cottage from TV's The Vicar of Dibley was initially put up for sale for £900,000 - before the owner slashed the asking price to £695,000 in 2022. TV fans were given the chance to snap up the Grade II listed period property that was home to Dawn French's title character Geraldine Granger on the hit sitcom. The two-bedroom home, named Church Cottage, sits in the village of Turville near Henley-on Thames, Oxfordshire. The front of the cottage featured heavily in the hit BBC series as villagers called around to share their problems with TV vicar Geraldine Grainger. It became a Grade II-listed property in 1986 and was lived in by the same tenant for more than 60 years. The owners of Church Cottage said when putting the property on the market: 'It has been very exciting to own a property that has appeared in such a popular sitcom and its connection with the Vicar of Dibley has often proved an interesting talking point among friends and family. 'It was lovely to see the house on screen and I hope the new owners will be very happy here.' Estate agents marketing the home described it as being 'in the heart of the quintessential English village of Turville, surrounded by the rolling countryside of the Hambleden Valley' - ahead of its most recent sale amounting to £495,000. BBC comedy The Vicar Of Dibley starred Dawn French (pictured) as Geraldine Grainger Appearing alongside her was the late actress Emma Chambers, who died aged 53 in 2018 The redbrick cottage from TV's The Vicar of Dibley was initially put up for sale for £900,000 - before the owner slashed the asking price to £695,000 in 2022 The Good Life Read More Revealed: Incredible value of four-bedroom home where beloved 70s sitcom The Good Life was filmed Much-loved 1970s sitcom The Good Life - fronted by two neighbouring couples played by Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal, Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington - was notably set in south-west London suburb Surbiton. Yet the homes in which the leading four were seen were actually about 30 miles away, north of the river Thames and in the north-west London district of Northwood. The property used as the home of Tom and Barbara Good, portrayed by Briers and Kendal, was owned by Michael and Margaret Mullins - and the four-bedroom home, later sold for £475,000 in 2007, has been valued at £1.5million today. The sitcom that made its BBC1 debut in April 50 years ago and whose fans included the late Queen Elizabeth II showed the middle-class Goods swapping the rat race for suburban self-sufficiency. Briers died aged 79 in February 2013, while Eddington - who also played Jim Hacker in Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister - had passed away in November 1995 aged 68. It was revealed last week that Dame Penelope, 85, who played Margo Leadbetter, will be back on TV screens for a one-off episode to celebrate 50 years of The Good Life. She is set to present a feature-length retrospective called The Good Life: Inside Out that will filming locations, scripts, props and more from the original shoot. The documentary - due to air on comedy channel U&Gold later this year - will see the actress step back onto a recreated set, bringing Margo and husband Jerry's drawing room to life once more. Much-loved 1970s sitcom The Good Life, set in Surbiton in south-west London, starred (left to right) Richard Briers, Felicity Kendal, Paul Eddington and Penelope Keith The property used as the home owned by Tom and Barbara Good, played by Briers and Kendal, was actually in the west London district of Northwood Dame Penelope Keith (pictured in 2019) is set to present a new programme marking the sitcom's 50-year anniversary - the first episode was screened in April 1975
Telegraph
11-04-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
My week in Bahrain has shown why Britain is going down the pan
All he needed to say was 'I'll be with you shortly'. Not too hard, right? I'd been sitting alone at a bar in Oxford for a good ten minutes when the waiter walked past me twice, just across the counter, without so much as a nod. So, I overcame my British reserve and fear of bothering anyone and asked him if I could order a drink. There was an awful pause. Hostile, it was, followed by a look that said: 'What did you say, slimeball?'. Then finally he uttered a pointed: 'Do you mind? I'm busy'. British customer service can be excellent. And it's tough to generalise. But I'll give it a go and suggest that the instances where it's awful are now more common. The surly ones are getting surlier. The rude ones are more vile. The aggressive ones are more hostile, like the barber whose look when I asked for a scissor cut (as opposed to an electric razor trim) was like I'd told him he was fat, ugly and destined for failure. This isn't my speculation. UK customer satisfaction is at its lowest for a decade, according to the Institute of Customer Service, and falling. In fact, it's only when you leave our shores for a few days, as many are now doing, and go some place with outstanding service, in shops, banks, hotels, you name it, that you realise just how far we've sunk. I'm in Bahrain on business for a couple of weeks, and the contrast is utterly chasmic. Now, okay, I know what some will say. They'll say that the Middle East has a terrible human rights record, with negligible worker protection. Of course, you'll get outstanding service when your average worker has no recourse to union backing, earns a pittance and risks being booted out on a whim. That certainly can be true, despite big advances over the last decade. But if Bahrain can learn from us about rights, we sure could learn from them about responsibilities towards customers. I don't mean anything unctuous, overly familiar or obsequious. I just mean a sense that your customer matters. Like greeting them with graciousness, helpfulness and civility, which is commonplace in this little island. A friendly smile hurts no one. Tell that to my barman in Oxford and he'd chin you. But in Britain the overall standard is lower, and you still get Basil Fawlty horrors. Like the restaurant near me with a waiter who treats you like an inconvenient dolt. Yet even he's a stroll in the sunshine compared with the owner, until recently, of a pub a short drive away. This man was one of the most colossally rude and aggressive human beings I've encountered. He was so hostile (almost physically) to some children that I took to TripAdvisor to pen a review that went as far beyond utterly stinking as I could muster. Not that he seemed to care. In his comment underneath, he called me 'a lying numpty'. Classy. Yes, we in the UK have a lot to learn about service. That nothing-is-too-much-trouble culture in Bahrain translates, in extreme cases in the UK, to a don't-push-your-luck-sunshine feel. Is it because we must all be oppressed victims? Is it too much emphasis on rights, and not enough on responsibilities? Whatever. The trouble is, it's getting worse.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
My week in Bahrain has shown why Britain is going down the pan
All he needed to say was 'I'll be with you shortly'. Not too hard, right? I'd been sitting alone at a bar in Oxford for a good ten minutes when the waiter walked past me twice, just across the counter, without so much as a nod. So, I overcame my British reserve and fear of bothering anyone and asked him if I could order a drink. There was an awful pause. Hostile, it was, followed by a look that said: 'What did you say, slimeball?'. Then finally he uttered a pointed: 'Do you mind? I'm busy'. British customer service can be excellent. And it's tough to generalise. But I'll give it a go and suggest that the instances where it's awful are now more common. The surly ones are getting surlier. The rude ones are more vile. The aggressive ones are more hostile, like the barber whose look when I asked for a scissor cut (as opposed to an electric razor trim) was like I'd told him he was fat, ugly and destined for failure. This isn't my speculation. UK customer satisfaction is at its lowest for a decade, according to the Institute of Customer Service, and falling. In fact, it's only when you leave our shores for a few days, as many are now doing, and go some place with outstanding service, in shops, banks, hotels, you name it, that you realise just how far we've sunk. I'm in Bahrain on business for a couple of weeks, and the contrast is utterly chasmic. Now, okay, I know what some will say. They'll say that the Middle East has a terrible human rights record, with negligible worker protection. Of course, you'll get outstanding service when your average worker has no recourse to union backing, earns a pittance and risks being booted out on a whim. That certainly can be true, despite big advances over the last decade. But if Bahrain can learn from us about rights, we sure could learn from them about responsibilities towards customers. I don't mean anything unctuous, overly familiar or obsequious. I just mean a sense that your customer matters. Like greeting them with graciousness, helpfulness and civility, which is commonplace in this little island. A friendly smile hurts no one. Tell that to my barman in Oxford and he'd chin you. But in Britain the overall standard is lower, and you still get Basil Fawlty horrors. Like the restaurant near me with a waiter who treats you like an inconvenient dolt. Yet even he's a stroll in the sunshine compared with the owner, until recently, of a pub a short drive away. This man was one of the most colossally rude and aggressive human beings I've encountered. He was so hostile (almost physically) to some children that I took to TripAdvisor to pen a review that went as far beyond utterly stinking as I could muster. Not that he seemed to care. In his comment underneath, he called me 'a lying numpty'. Classy. Yes, we in the UK have a lot to learn about service. That nothing-is-too-much-trouble culture in Bahrain translates, in extreme cases in the UK, to a don't-push-your-luck-sunshine feel. Is it because we must all be oppressed victims? Is it too much emphasis on rights, and not enough on responsibilities? Whatever. The trouble is, it's getting worse. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
