With the rating success of Last of the Summer Wine. Roy Clarke was commissioned to write the pilot episode about the characters when they were younger. In their first bloom of youth.
First of the Summer Wine takes place in the months leading up to World War 2. It might as well be The Diary of Norman Clegg, aged 18 and 3/4 as it riffs Adrian Mole.
It is young Clegg, Seymour, Compo, Wally Batty and a few others talking about girls and wanting to get off with them. Wally is attracted to Nora who at the moment has little time for him. Foggy is just happy playing soldiers.
Peter Sallis appears as Clegg's father. A shy man who is happy to paint his fence and avoid communicating with young Clegg.
This is a nostalgic comedy drama and therefore vastly different from Last of the Summer Wine. No rolling down hills on tin baths or three men hurtling down on a bike. The looming war is an important factor, something that will change these characters.
This pilot episode did lead to a series. However I think the tone of the series just did not cut through with the audience. Basically it was teenage fumblings with girls. The boys were awkward or just dim. The girls were more sensible or just plain snobbish.
The series also had continuity nightmares. Seymour had only just been introduced in the parent show as someone who had never met Compo and Clegg. Where was Blamire or all those kids they were at school with who would be mentioned once on the parent show as the characters reminiscence?
Even Foggy was initially introduced as a stranger to them before he was retconned as an old school friend. The viewers certainly noticed.
Outside of the nostalgia factor of the 1930s which would had been lost to a younger audience at the time this was broadcast. I think the pilot episode can consider itself lucky to have been greenlit into a series.
First of the Summer Wine takes place in the months leading up to World War 2. It might as well be The Diary of Norman Clegg, aged 18 and 3/4 as it riffs Adrian Mole.
It is young Clegg, Seymour, Compo, Wally Batty and a few others talking about girls and wanting to get off with them. Wally is attracted to Nora who at the moment has little time for him. Foggy is just happy playing soldiers.
Peter Sallis appears as Clegg's father. A shy man who is happy to paint his fence and avoid communicating with young Clegg.
This is a nostalgic comedy drama and therefore vastly different from Last of the Summer Wine. No rolling down hills on tin baths or three men hurtling down on a bike. The looming war is an important factor, something that will change these characters.
This pilot episode did lead to a series. However I think the tone of the series just did not cut through with the audience. Basically it was teenage fumblings with girls. The boys were awkward or just dim. The girls were more sensible or just plain snobbish.
The series also had continuity nightmares. Seymour had only just been introduced in the parent show as someone who had never met Compo and Clegg. Where was Blamire or all those kids they were at school with who would be mentioned once on the parent show as the characters reminiscence?
Even Foggy was initially introduced as a stranger to them before he was retconned as an old school friend. The viewers certainly noticed.
Outside of the nostalgia factor of the 1930s which would had been lost to a younger audience at the time this was broadcast. I think the pilot episode can consider itself lucky to have been greenlit into a series.
