Citizen Smith

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Citizen Smith
Genre	Comedy
Running time	30 minutes
Creator(s)	John Sullivan
Starring	Robert Lindsay Mike Grady Cheryl Hall Hilda Braid Peter Vaughan Tony Steedman Anthony Millan George Sweeney Stephen Greif David Garfield
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original channel	BBC One
Original run	April 4, 1977–December 31, 1980
No. of episodes	31
IMDb profile

Citizen Smith was a British TV sitcom (britcom) from the 1970s. The show was written by John Sullivan who went on later to write the hugely successful Only Fools and Horses.

Sullivan was a scenery shifter at the BBC, and wrote a script after deciding he could do better than some of the scriptwriters whose works he was helping to produce. After approaching producer Dennis Main Wilson, a one-off episode "Roof Over My Head" was produced for Comedy Special (a showcase for new talent which had succeeded Comedy Playhouse). The pilot was a success, and four series and a Christmas special were produced between 1977 and 1980.

Citizen Smith starred Robert Lindsay as "Wolfie" Smith, a young Marxist urban revolutionary living in Tooting, South London, who is attempting to emulate his hero Che Guevara. Wolfie is the self-proclaimed leader of the Tooting Popular Front (in reality a small bunch of his friends) the goals of which are "Power to the People" and "Freedom for Tooting". In reality, he is an unemployed dreamer and petty criminal whose plans fall through due to laziness and disorganisation.

From a couple of episodes into the run, Wolfie lives with his religious friend Ken (Mike Grady) in a flat in the house of his girlfriend's family - Shirley (Cheryl Hall, Lindsay's wife), her vague mother (Hilda Braid), who mistakenly calls Wolfie "Foxy" and her authoritarian and conservative father (Artro Morris (Pilot episode), Peter Vaughan (series 1-2), Tony Steedman (series 3-4)). Other regular characters in the series were fellow-revolutionaries Tucker (Anthony Millan) and Speed (George Sweeney), and local gangster Harry Fenning (Stephen Greif). After the first two series, Shirley was written out as having gone to work in Italy. Series four saw Ronnie Lynch (David Garfield) replacing Harry Fenning as the local gangster.

For the first two series, the opening credits of each episode were accompanied by a stirring rendition of the socialist anthem the Red Flag, and always featured Wolfie emerging from Tooting Broadway tube station. The opening sequence always ended with him shouting "Power to the People" in a comedic context, for example, waking a sleeping baby, or shouting it while standing on top of a statue. This was altered from Season 3 onwards. The opening was much the same, retaining the Red Flag, but the "Power to the People" line was always used the same way. In addition, the cast names were accompanied with an onscreen clip of them, rather than just the names that had been used before.

A video clip of the title sequence is available at this BBC web page: I Love 1977

"The Glorious Day" which Wolfie was always plotting came at the end of the third series, in an episode of the same name, in which the Tooting Popular Front 'liberate' a Scorpion tank and use it to invade the Houses of Parliament. Many fans feel that this should have been the last episode, with "The Glorious Day" being the show's peak and a satisfying conclusion, and the final series generally being much weaker.

The series was concluded in the penultimate episode, with Wolfie fleeing Tooting to escape Ronnie Lynch, closing with a shot mirroring the opening credits, of Wolfie entering Tooting Broadway Underground Station. However, one further episode, with Wolfie and Ken on holiday abroad, was shown as the 1980 Christmas Special.

In the last-but-one episode, Wolfie's full name was revealed as Walter Henry Smith - W H Smith!

One third series episode was called 'Only Fools and Horses', which writer John Sullivan went on to use as the title of his next hit comedy.

Wolfie is a Fulham FC supporter, which is supposed to be an in-joke that no self-respecting Marxist would support a middle-class team like Fulham FC, but rather another team like say Millwall FC or Wimbledon FC. He is often seen wearing a Fulham (black and white) scarf.