Room At The Bottom - The Complete Series

This rather unusual sit-com (made by Yorkshire TV in 1986) is in fact a re-working of a series that initially was aired back in 1964 but proved to be a major flop! As for this revived series, complete with new cast, it turned out to be a lot more popular and thanks to the Complete Series DVD set we can see why.

Playwright John Antrobus (here in collaboration with Ray Galton) created this savage satire about what actually goes on behind closed doors at a major commercial TV company called Megla. And as such might just be seen as a project that would be of considerably more interest to someone involved in the entertainment industry than Joe Public, but that perhaps would be to take this comedy series a little too seriously.

Nesbitt Gunn (the versatile and ubiquitous James Bolam) has been demoted from his job as head of drama (after producing a series of adventurous flops) and put into 'light entertainment'. He decides to barricade himself in his office out of protest. However, our Nesbitt is far from being a character of dogged strength and determination and it isn't long before his colleagues succeed in getting him out of his self-imposed prison. He is moved to the bottom floor (light entertainment that is). Unfortunately for Nesbitt the owner of Megla TV just happens to be an out and out monster (one can't help but wonder whether Antrobus had based this character on a real person…) The monster in question is one Kevin Hughes (this must have been fun for actor Keith Barron) who well and truly has it in for our Nesbitt.

The initial episodes of this series, despite the plethora of in-jokes, appear rather hackneyed and labored. To make matters worse we are bombarded with canned laughter at every weak and invariably predictable one-liner. After the first four episodes you may be tempted to give up the ghost but hang around a bit longer: at the end of the First Series things start to pick up and become far more creative and original!
Nesbitt finds himself in a number of awkward and amusing situations. All of this is down to the highly manipulative Mr. Hughes who simply can't stand our near lovable idiot at any cost. The titles of the individual episodes will give you a pretty good idea of what to expect and a number of genres are pastiched or shall we say paid homage to.

If the performances of Bolam and Barron (a very fun double act this, although it would have been nice for Nesbitt to win just once) are not enough for you we have some of Britain's finest character actors from 'both mediums' on show and they are only too happy to send themselves up. Enter cast regulars Deborah Grant (as Nesbitt's former nympho girlfriend ‘Celia Pagett-Smythe’), Richard “I don't believe it” Wilson as the gay ‘Chaplain Toby Duckworth’ - would you believe it? We also have noted stage actor Oliver Cotton as Nesbitt's rival and usurper ‘Tom’. We can thrill to the delights of a blotched-faced Freddie Jones, here stealing the show as drunken chef ‘André Shepherd’ (who actually gets the better of the loathsome Mr. Hughes). We also see Michael Jayston as gay German TV executive ‘Helmut Staalmaker’ (slightly embarrassing this one, well, it was '86), George Baker as the Director General of the stingy BBC, Philip Stone as the Russian ambassador, and Marina Sirtis as ‘Carla’, one of wicked Kevin’s many mistresses. That is to name but a few. The second series even has a more strident score by Alan Hawksmoor.

As mentioned before, it is a moot point to say that the series is of more interest to those employed in the 'Industry' but it is marked improvement on some of the other often pointless and quite frankly dated sit-coms that are re-released these days, sigh.