In Sickness and in Health

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For the Demented Are Go album, see In Sickness & In Health.

In Sickness And In Health
Format	Sitcom
Created by	Johnny Speight
Starring	Warren Mitchell Dandy Nichols Carmel McSharry Eamonn Walker Eileen Kennally Una Stubbs
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	47
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC1
Original run	1985 – 1992

In Sickness and in Health was a BBC television sitcom which ran between 1985 & 1992 it was also a sequel to both the highly successful Til Death Us Do Part which ran between 1966 & 1975 & Till Death... which ran a year in 1981.

1 The First Series
2 Series Two-Six
3 After the cancellation
4 Theme tune
5 International versions
6 DVD Releases
7 References
8 External links

[edit] The First Series

This comedy series debuted in 1985 and took the former Till Death Us Do Part characters Alf Garnett, played by Warren Mitchell and Else Garnett (Dandy Nichols) from their Wapping house to a lower class one level apartment in the East End of London. Else is now confined to a wheelchair and Alf grumbles about having to push her around everywhere. The council send a black, gay man named Winston, played by Eamonn Walker, to do housework and help care for Else. Despite Alf's dual-prejudices against Winston, eventually the two became used to one another, and Winston took Alf to watch his beloved West Ham United. Alf nevertheless gave Winston the nickname Marigold.

Alf and Else's daughter Rita (played by Una Stubbs) occasionally appeared, and often Alf was seen drinking with his friend Arthur (played by Arthur English) in the local pub. Upstairs lived Fred Johnson (played by Ken Campbell) a man stubborn like Alf but he and Alf rarely got along. When angry he famously bumped his head on the wall. Freds wife (first played by Eileen Kennally from Series 1 to 4 and then from Series 5 to 6 by Tricia Kelly) was an odd-ball woman and suffered from nervousness.

[edit] Series Two-Six

The first series ended on October 13, 1985 and was very popular in the ratings. On Boxing Day a Christmas special was aired with huge success.^{[citation needed]} But just as plans for a second series began tragedy struck. Dandy Nichols died on February 13, 1986.

When Dandy died, the decision was taken to continue the series, as the ratings and audience appreciation had been excellent. An episode was written in which her character died of natural causes. Left alone after all the other mourners have gone home, Alf, the belligerent old curmudgeon who had always treated his wife appallingly, gently touched the handle of her (now empty) wheelchair and sobbed "Silly old moo!".

In Series Two, Carmel McSharry joined the cast playing Alf's new landlady, Mrs. Hollingberry. The two were not friends at first but later became close friends.

After the Third Series Eamonn Walker left the show and Mrs. Hollingberry was forced to look after Alf. Eventually, Alf began courting her and they travelled to the Outback to be married. But Alf got jilted and moved back to London.

In 1992 after two years off the air the sitcom returned for one last season of six episodes in which Alf discovers a ton of banknotes and becomes very rich. During this series Mrs. Johnson ran off with another woman. The last episode aired on April 3, 1992.

[edit] After the cancellation

The series had 47 episodes and, unlike its predecessor, all the episodes are known to have survived. The show pops up from time to time on satellite and cable stations in the UK. Network DVD has considered releasing the first series to DVD, although it hasn't announced any release date.^{[citation needed]}

Although the final show was originally broadcast on April 3, 1992, Warren Mitchell would continue to perform as Alf Garnett on special sets; this meant on stage in front of a live audience, and similarly to an invited audience consisting largely of celebrities and public figures. In 1997, a number of shows were arranged for ITV (Granada). Mitchell also returned to the studio set to act in a number of mini-shows consisting of one scene per presentation; these would either be in his front room in the company of Mrs. Hollingberry or in the pub with a drinking partner. The material was written by Johnny Speight after the end of In Sickness and in Health and is clear from many of Alf's dialogues, these include a reference to the Labour Party returning to power in 1997 with Tony Blair. Following the death of Speight in 1998, Mitchell announced that he would retire from performing as Alf Garnett.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Theme tune

The theme tune to the programme was written and performed by Chas & Dave, although they changed the lyrics when the character of Else died and Alf was left alone.

[edit] International versions

In 1991 a Dutch version of the series, In voor en tegenspoed ("In good times and in bad"), debuted on Dutch TV. According to the end credits only the first 12 episodes were based on Speight's original scripts. Two more series of episodes were written by Paul-Jan Nelissen and Marc Nelissen. The Dutch Alf Garnett is called Fred Schuit (played by Rijk de Gooyer).^[1] He lives in Amsterdam, supports AFC Ajax, drinks jenever for medicinal reasons, and doesn't trust a TV-set unless it's made in Eindhoven. The series was awarded two Awards of the Dutch Academy.^[2]