The Lovers!

For this film version of the classic Granada TV sitcom, Paula Wilcox and the late Richard Beckinsale reprised their roles of sexually inexperienced Mancunians Beryl and Geoffrey in the Manchester of 1972. While Beryl’s idea of love is more traditional, philosophically inclined Geoffrey gets irritated by the very mention of the word ‘marriage’ – with hilarious and frustrating consequences for both.

Shot in the same year as the story is set, three young women stand giggling and chatting in front of the George Best boutique during their lunch break (they all work as secretaries) hoping to catch a glimpse of the famous footballer but the shopkeeper mockingly displays a sign with the words ‘He’s in Majorca, kindly bounce up and down elsewhere’. At the same time three young lads - also on their lunch break (they all work as bank clerks) – can’t decide who should chat up which of the three lasses… dear gawd, is this how things were done back then? While ginger Neville (Anthony Naylor) has his eyes set on Sandra (Susan Littler) and all round nerd Roland (Nikolas Simmonds) opts for Veronica (Rosalind Ayres), the hesitating Geoffrey Scrimshaw (R. Beckinsale) ends up with Beryl Battersby (P. Wilcox) simply because he was too slow to make his choice. After a somewhat hesitant start things initially seem to go well: Beryl enthuses that Geoffrey has a bit of an intellectual bent (in her opinion he can do everything and anything) and thus his brain cannot possibly be in his d**k (oh, but it is!) while Geoffrey appreciates the fact that Beryl shies away from too much intimacy upon their first dating session but soon rifts appear when it emerges that old-fashioned Beryl wouldn’t dream of going the full way until she’s married while Geoffrey is all in favour of the new and trendy permissive society, in short, you don’t need to be married first in order to enjoy sex.

So begins the troubled courtship between the two young lovers who simply cannot decide whether they are suited or unsuited for a future together, with much bickering followed by splitting up followed by making up followed by splitting up again – much to the chagrin of Beryl’s long-suffering mum (Joan Scott) and Geoffrey’s parents (Stella Moray and John Comer respectively). In between we are treated to various Manchester locations as they were back then, plus various football matches (Geoffrey is obviously a keen Manchester United supporter). Things seem to fare considerably better for Neville and Sandra though when she is ‘up the duff’ Neville’s dream of a permissive society comes to a crashing end and he does the honourable thing by marrying her, crikey, Sandra seem totally excited about the prospect of becoming a mother and a housewife! At the opposite end of the pole, things between Roland and nymphomaniac Veronica don’t quite work out – during the course of the film she tries it on with just about everyone including an impromptu date with Geoffrey in an amusement den complete with a stripper named Serena. When Veronica invites the hapless Geoffrey back home her little brother – woken up by the noise – lectures him on how to make babies! Even more bizarrely the boy’s voice is dubbed by a deep female voice trying to sound like a child, presumably this had to be done because of the sexually explicit dialogue the boy had to utter.
In the end, after having split up and reconciled numerous times more, Geoffrey and Beryl enter an empty football stadium and ponder over their different outlooks in life, with Geoffrey remarking there are plenty of fish in the pond for Beryl to choose from and find the right bloke. In the final scene (set a few months later) Beryl and Geoffrey are sitting next to each other again, albeit this time in a crowded football stadium bedecked in the Man United colours, with her looking at him utterly smitten. The caption ‘Not really the End’ appears.

THE LOVERS! certainly benefits from a strong chemistry between Paula Wilcox and Richard Beckinsale (who tragically died seven years later aged only 31 from a heart attack) though quite a few aspects of the film have aged badly, for example the lads seem to have one-track minds what with eying up every passing female wearing a mini skirt (and most do) or the embarrassing (if not altogether offensive) scenes set in Geoffrey’s workplace with him and his mates geeking and gawking at every female employee walking up the stairs and thus exposing plenty of leg – it might be forgiven if it were one of those ‘Carry On’ films but director Herbert Wise opted for a different type of humour (with varying degrees of success) and the result is a humour occasionally bordering on juvenile and pathetic like the scene in which Geoffrey attends a party and is invited by a bra-wielding feminist party-goer to smoke some grass… only to be told minutes later (after having fallen sick) the spliff in question contained real grass from the lawn and not the illegal kind. Outch!

Based on Jack Rosenthal’s (a fellow Mancunian just like Paula Wilcox) hugely popular sitcom, the playwright also penned this movie version although stretching the usual 30min sitcom shenanigans to a full 90 minutes doesn’t always work. Still, for fans of nostalgia this release will no doubt be considered a treasured trip down memory lane.

Newly restored on Blu-ray THE LOVERS! comes with various bonus features including optional Fullscreen version, new interviews with composer Carl Davies and production designer Peter Mullins, theatrical trailers, image gallery and limited edition booklet.