Wednesday 30 December 2015

310 The Other One


First  viewed :  November  1977

Unlike  Citizen  Smith , this  new  sitcom  from  the  Esmonde- Larbey  team  never  really  took  flight  and  has  been  largely  forgotten. At  the  time  of  writing  it  doesn't  have  a  wikipedia  entry.

The  main  character  is  Ralph  ( Richard  Briers ) a  self-deluding  sales  rep  whose  bragging  is  an  attempt  to  disguise  that  he's  a  complete  social  failure. The  one  friend  he  manages  to  pick  up  is  decent , passive  divorcee  Brian  ( Michael  Gambon )  who's  attracted   to  his extrovert  behaviour. As  a  study  in  male  friendship  it  certainly  had  its  merits  but  was  conspicuously  short  of  belly  laughs. Gambon  recounts  that  one  BBC  exec  asked  him  if  there  was  going  to  be  anything  funny  in  a  forthcoming  episode.

The  series  provided  Gambon  , a  highly  regarded  Shakespearean  actor , with  his  first  regular  TV  role  since  The  Borderers , nearly  a  decade  earlier   but   household  name  status  was  still  some  way  off.  The  Other  One  survived  for  a  second  series  in  1979  but  it  remained  in  the  shadows.





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