The last episode of A.T.V.'s unsuccessful 1981 attempt to revive Johnny Speight's 'Alf Garnett'.
Alf, Else and Min are having a drink in a respectable pub in Eastbourne, their new home. Alf strikes up a conversation with a man from Liverpool, and has fun insulting the man's home city. But he has drunk too much, even by his standards, and passes out. Back home, Alf watches in discomfort as Else and Min tuck into breakfasts while he goes without. Eventually, he vomits in the toilet. A doctor recommends that he be sent to hospital at once. Without telling Else, Alf has been paying for years for private medicine. Rita is soon on the scene, sobbing her heart out as it looks as though her father is not going to last much longer...
I.T.V. tried to tease audiences by hinting that this might be the episode in which Alf croaks. It was not, as we now know, because four years later, Alf and Else returned to the B.B.C. in triumph for 'In Sickness & In Health'. There were two bad notes of continuity; firstly, as my friend 'Cyril Blake' has pointed out, Michael Junior ( John Fowler ) could not have been a teenager in 1981 as he was born ten years before ( this also happened in 'Coronation Street' when Mike Baldwin's ( Johnny Briggs ) illegitimate son underwent a similar metamorphosis from toddler to tearaway ). Secondly, if Alf was with B.U.P.A. in 1981 why was he not with them in 1985 too? I don't recall it being mentioned that he'd let his membership elapse.
Funniest moment - Alf struggling not to be ill while Else and Min eat greasy-looking breakfasts, and chat about the awfulness of alcoholism. Those of us who well remember hang-overs ( sickness, spinning ceilings etc. ) from our youth will have some sympathy with Alf.
Alf, Else and Min are having a drink in a respectable pub in Eastbourne, their new home. Alf strikes up a conversation with a man from Liverpool, and has fun insulting the man's home city. But he has drunk too much, even by his standards, and passes out. Back home, Alf watches in discomfort as Else and Min tuck into breakfasts while he goes without. Eventually, he vomits in the toilet. A doctor recommends that he be sent to hospital at once. Without telling Else, Alf has been paying for years for private medicine. Rita is soon on the scene, sobbing her heart out as it looks as though her father is not going to last much longer...
I.T.V. tried to tease audiences by hinting that this might be the episode in which Alf croaks. It was not, as we now know, because four years later, Alf and Else returned to the B.B.C. in triumph for 'In Sickness & In Health'. There were two bad notes of continuity; firstly, as my friend 'Cyril Blake' has pointed out, Michael Junior ( John Fowler ) could not have been a teenager in 1981 as he was born ten years before ( this also happened in 'Coronation Street' when Mike Baldwin's ( Johnny Briggs ) illegitimate son underwent a similar metamorphosis from toddler to tearaway ). Secondly, if Alf was with B.U.P.A. in 1981 why was he not with them in 1985 too? I don't recall it being mentioned that he'd let his membership elapse.
Funniest moment - Alf struggling not to be ill while Else and Min eat greasy-looking breakfasts, and chat about the awfulness of alcoholism. Those of us who well remember hang-overs ( sickness, spinning ceilings etc. ) from our youth will have some sympathy with Alf.