By the Sea

By the Sea (full title The Two Ronnies Present - By the Sea), is a 1982 BBC film starring The Two Ronnies, and written by Ronnie Barker under the pseudonyms "Dave Huggett and Larry Keith".

The film followed the extended family of "The General", played by Barker, as they went on an eventful seaside holiday. It was set on the Dorset coast in "Tiddly Cove", actually the coast between Bournemouth and Swanage. Ronnie Barker was a keen collector of saucy seaside postcards, and published several books of them. The humour of By the Sea was very much based on the colourful style of these.

Production

The film is notable for being completely free of speech, with the score by Ronnie Hazlehurst and various sound effects in their place. The humour is instead entirely visual, and relies on comic stereotypes (the old randy general, the busty girl, the cheeky schoolboy, etc.). It was the follow-up to another Two Ronnies film, The Picnic, featuring the same characters.

Before it was shown, the BBC commissioned producer Alan J.W. Bell, the director of Last of the Summer Wine, to improve the film. No scenes were re-shot, but he re-structured the film and commissioned Ronnie Hazlehurst to write an original music score. To add comic effect, the film was also slightly speeded-up.^[1][2]

Broadcast and release

The 55 minute film was shown on BBC 1 at Easter 1982, but has rarely been repeated, although in recent times it has been shown several times by ITV3, who currently hold the rights to the Two Ronnies library. A limited VHS release of By The Sea and The Picnic was available in 1990 and deleted in 1994. By The Sea and The Picnic were both released on DVD on 24 September 2012 as part of The Two Ronnies: The Complete Collection. .^[3]

References

External links

• By the Sea at BBC Online BBC Comedy Guide
• By the Sea at the Internet Movie Database