Review for The Glums: The Complete Series

Introduction

I'm now dipping into second hand nostalgia. I was five years old when the Glums aired on British television. I remember Jimmy Edwards, I remember Ian Lavender, and I remember Patricia Brake, but I can't remember a single thing about the show. What I do recall is that my parents loved it. I remember my mum impersonating Eth's plaintive 'Ronnnn!' on occasion, and I remember my dad having a distinct appreciation for all things Pa Glum. I must have watched the show with them when it was aired on LWT, but I can't recall the experience. Thanks to the magic of Network DVD, dedicated to bringing classic British television back to the masses, I get to experience it with them all over again, three decades later.


The Glums started off as a radio sketch show comedy, part of the BBC's Take It From Here back in the fifties, created by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, but it wasn't until the late seventies that they made their television debut, first as short sketches used in Bruce Forsyth's Big Night, and then in an eight episode series that ran on LWT. Jimmy Edwards reprised his role of the long suffering Pa Glum, while Ian Lavender and Patricia Brake were cast as Ron and Eth, replacing June Whitfield and Dick Bentley from the radio sketches.


Each episode or sketch would begin in the same way, with closing time called at the pub, and with Pa Glum using another anecdote about his dim son Ron, and his eternally betrothed Eth, to wheedle another glass of the brown stuff from the landlord Ted. And cue flashback…

These two discs from Network DVD collect all eight episodes of The Glums, as well as the sketches that were broadcast as part of Bruce Forsyth's Big Night, six episodes on disc 1, two episodes plus some ninety minutes worth of sketches on disc 2.

The Discs

The Glums was originally filmed on videotape, and the transfer from Network quite naturally reflects that. But the episodes certainly have scrubbed up well, with wobbly-videotape artefacts a rarity on these discs. Otherwise the image accurately reflects the original television broadcasts. The audio too mirrors the original mono, with a DD 2.0 English track on the discs. The hard of hearing may be disappointed at the lack of subtitles, but for everyone else, this is television from the era where performers enunciated, not mumbled, and every punchline comes through clearly.


As they aren't accounted for in the listed runtime, I guess the Bruce Forsyth's Big Night short sketches can be called extra features. They are presented in one big 86-minute chaptered lump, and a menu select screen for them wouldn't have gone amiss. These are just as relevant as the actual series episodes, and certainly shouldn't be considered an oversight. Notable is the first sketch, which actually recounts how Eth and Ron got together. Also worth watching is the final sketch, where you get to see Brucie and Ian Lavender introduce the skit, with Lavender delicately corpsing behind his jacket.

Conclusion

The Glums is the quintessential seventies sitcom. It's not so strong on character development, or story progression. It's about creating a situation that allows for an efficient and pleasing delivery of a punchline, using a cast of quirky, memorable and likeable characters. It's utterly formulaic, routine, and even predictable to the point where I was anticipating the payoff long before it was delivered. Pa Glum begins by recounting a tale to the landlord at his local, before a flashback ensues with Ron and Eth on the sofa, prior to being interrupted by Pa Glum. The situation develops henceforth, to be concluded by the arrival of the punchline ten minutes later, and the whole process would begin again after the commercial break, or in the next sketch. I loved every minute of it, and that's despite me watching it in the worst possible way for a routine sitcom, over the space of just a few days. This is a show to be taken at leisure, an episode a week at most.


The Glums is another class comedy, as so many of the era were, concentrating on a cockney family with aspirations for elevation, but always falling flat. It's the characters that make it so special, with the heart of the family, the dim-witted fulcrum around which the show balances, the utterly brainless Ron Glum. It's usually his inadequacies as a member of the human race that inspires one of Pa Glum's anecdotes in the pub. He's slow, dopey childlike, and apt to take things literally, at face value. He only really comes to life when he's in the mood for getting frisky with his intended, Eth. That's usually when Eth would least appreciate the attention, and just before Pa Glum walks in behind an "Allo, Allo Allo!" and just ahead of a pithy one-liner. Eth is Ron's eternal fiancée, constantly trying to convince Pa Glum that a wedding should be imminent, and trying to get Ron to better himself, or just get a job.


Coming from a family of loafers, Ron's inherited his father's dislike for a hard day's work, and an appreciation of the welfare state. Pa Glum is the cockney grandee, broad of girth and even broader of moustache, whose predilection for a suit and bowler hat mark him as a man reaching beyond his station in life, educating his vocabulary with a combination of spoonerisms and malapropisms. He's always coming up with some scheme to avoid spending money or get something for nothing, and he's quick to explode in buffoonish rage at the antics of his son. But he's also quick to see the funny side of things, again at the expense of Ron or Eth, or more commonly his never seen or (coherently) heard wife, Ma Glum.


That's the groundwork for a series of classic sketches, and including the ones in the Brucie's Big Night extras, that amounts to 20 sketches, and one full half hour story. What's surprising is given how formulaic these are, how edgy they can also be. It truly is a comedy for the family, with Ron's childish inanity easily appealing to younger audience members, while there also is a little satire, and no little sauciness as well, especially when it comes to Pa Glum's observations, usually delivered with a knowing twinkle in his eye. The combination of slapstick, wit, wordplay and general silliness had me grinning constantly, and laughing uproariously at sketches such as the one where Pa Glum gets his toe stuck in a plughole, or where Ron goes on a TV quiz (with Bob Holness), or where Pa Glum comes up with a plan to extract a few pounds from an insurance company, or where Ron gets a sixpence stuck up his nose, or where Pa Glum pawns the missus' teeth.


The Glums is hilarious stuff that I am delighted to have rediscovered. It's time to wheel out the old 'they don't make 'em like they used to' cliché. They're only clichés because they are true.