Bless This House

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
This article is about the British sitcom. For the US sitcom, see Bless This House (US TV series).
Bless This House

Bless This House DVD cover
Genre Sitcom
Starring Sidney James
Diana Coupland
Robin Stewart
Sally Geeson
Country of origin Flag of United Kingdom United Kingdom
No. of episodes 65
Production
Running time 30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel ITV
Original run 2 February 1971 – 22 April 1976
Links
IMDb profile

Bless This House was a popular British sitcom that ran on ITV from 1971 to 1976. It starred Sid James and Diana Coupland. It was written by Vince Powell, Harry Driver, Carla Lane, Myra Taylor, Dave Freeman and Bernie Sharp. It was made for the ITV network by Thames Television. In 2004, it came 67th in Britain's Best Sitcom.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Bless This House centred around life in Birch Avenue, Putney, where travelling stationery salesman Sid Abbott [1] and his wife Jean live with their teenage children, Mike, who is fresh from art college and more preoccupied with protests than finding a job, and Sally, a trendy schoolgirl. The children were 19 and 16 years old at the start of the series. Each week, the old-fashioned parents battled to comprehend the permissive ways of the new generation and consistently amused viewers by being bemusedly out of touch. Their neighbours and best friends were Trevor and his wife Betty.

The show was produced by William G. Stewart of Fifteen to One fame, and featured a theme by Geoff Love. A comic strip version was also produced, written by Angus Allan and printed in TV comic Look-in. The first seven episodes were made in black-and-white.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Episodes

[edit] Series One (1971)

  1. The Generation Gap (2 Feb 71)
  2. Mum's The Word (9 Feb 71)
  3. Father's Day (16 Feb 71)
  4. Be It Ever So Humble (23 Feb 71)
  5. Another Fine Mess (2 Mar 71)
  6. For Whom The Bells Toll (9 Mar 71)
  7. A Woman's Place (16 Mar 71)
  8. The Day Of Rest (23 Mar 71)
  9. Make Love, Not War (30 Mar 71)
  10. Charity Begins At Home (6 Apr 71)
  11. lf The Dog Collar Fits ... Wear It! (13 Apr 71)
  12. The Morning After The Night Before (20 Apr 71)

[edit] Series Two (1972)

  1. Two Heads Are Better Than One (21 Feb 72)
  2. Love Me, Love My Tree (28 Feb 72)
  3. It's All In The Mind (6 Mar 72)
  4. Another Lost Weekend (13 Mar 72)
  5. Parents Should Be Seen And Not Heard (20 Mar 72)
  6. Strangers In The Night (27 Mar 72)
  7. Get Me To The Match On Time (10 Apr 72)
  8. Wives And Lovers (17 Apr 72)
  9. Never Again On Sunday (24 Apr 72)
  10. People In Glass Houses (1 May 72)
  11. A Rolls By Any Other Name (8 May 72)
  12. A Touch Of The Unknown (15 May 72)

[edit] Series Three (1973)

  1. It Comes To Us All In The End (22 Jan 73)
  2. Tea For Two And Four For Tea (5 Feb 73)
  3. To Tell Or Not To Tell (12 Feb 73)
  4. Blood Is Thicker Than Water (19 Feb 73)
  5. One Good Turn Deserves A Bother (26 Feb 73)
  6. The Loneliness Of The Short Distance Walker (5 Mar 73)
  7. Watch The Birdie (12 Mar 73)
  8. Will The Real Sid Abbott Please Stand Up (30 Apr 73)
  9. Atishoo! Atishoo! We All Fall Down (7 May 73)
  10. Entente Not So Cordiale (14 May 73)
  11. I'm Not jealous, I'll Kill Him (21 May 73)
  12. A Girl's Worst Friend Is Her Father (28 May 73)

[edit] Series Four (1974)

  1. Money Is The Root Of ... (20 Feb 74)
  2. And They Will Come Home (27 Feb 74)
  3. Who's Minding The Baby? (20 Mar 74)
  4. A Beef In His Bonnet (27 Mar 74)
  5. The Bells Are Ringing (3 Apr 74)
  6. The First 25 Years Are The Worst (10 Apr 74)

[edit] Series Five (1974)

  1. They Don't Write Songs Like That Anymore (14 Oct 74)
  2. The Gipsy's Warning (21 Oct 74)
  3. The Biggest Woodworm In The World (28 Oct 74)
  4. Home Tweet Home (4 Nov 74)
  5. You're Never Too Old To Be Young (11 Nov 74)
  6. The Policeman, The Paint And The Pirates (18 Nov 74)
  7. Happy Birthday Sid (25 Nov 74)
  8. Freedom Is (2 Dec 74)
  9. Mr. Chairman ... (9 Dec 74)
  10. And Afterwards At ... (16 Dec 74)

[edit] Series Six (1976)

  1. The Frozen Limit (29 Jan 76)
  2. Beautiful Dreamer (5 Feb 76)
  3. Fish With Everything (12 Feb 76)
  4. The Naked Paperhanger (19 Feb 76)
  5. Remember Me? (26 Feb 76)
  6. Something Of Value (4 Mar 76)
  7. Men Of Consequence (11 Mar 76)
  8. Skin Deep (18 Mar 76)
  9. Friends And Neighbours (25 Mar 76)
  10. Well, Well, Well (1 Apr 76)
  11. The Phantom Pools Winner (8 Apr 76)
  12. A Matter Of Principle (15 Apr 76)
  13. Some Enchanted Evening (22 Apr 76)

[edit] Finale

Bless This House came to an abrupt end in 1976, when, just 4 days after broadcast of the final episode of the sixth series, Sid James collapsed on stage at the Sunderland Empire, on the opening night of The Mating Season, after failing to respond to a cue, from a heart attack. He later died on the way to the hospital.

[edit] Film

A film version of the TV series was made in 1972. While it still starred Sid James and Diana Coupland as the Abbotts, Robin Askwith, who had previously appeared in the TV series, played Mike. In addition, it featured "new" neighbours played Terry Scott and June Whitfield. The part of Trevor was also recast with Peter Butterworth replacing Jackson. All the original actors returned for the series three. Additionally, Mike gets married at the end of the film; this had no impact on the television version.

[edit] DVD releases

The first five series and the film of Bless This House are available on DVD from Network (UK, Region 2). The sixth series will be released on 30 April 2007.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ The spelling of their surname varies. For example, the opening credits of early Series One episodes spell it "Abbot" while in the closing credits it is spelt "Abbott".

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../b/l/e/Bless_This_House_99fd.html"