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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 184485" data-attributes="member: 23">For the best part of a week now, I've been getting stuck into my next Britcom box set. I'm already midway through the second series. <img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81rp4pkK0xL._SL1500_.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />I remember thoroughly enjoying Waiting For God when it first aired. That seems no time at all, so it's a little unnerving to think that we're nine months short of the thirtieth anniversary. At the time I thought of it as One Foot In The Grave set in a retirement home. Pensioners who are refreshingly forthright and occasionally course making qualified criticisms of the system and the world in general. This remains true. Having watched the earlier You're Only Young Twice for the first time on page one of this very thread, the similarities in premise - if not execution - are very much there, as expected.With Bayview being a business run by a stingy incompetent who can barely stomach his residents, there's also a touch of the Fawlty Towers. There's a suggestion of this in the theme music. The Nash Ensemble's arrangement of Schubert's Trout Quintet has a similarly jaunty vibe to Dennis Wilson's Fawlty Towers. There's also a hint of Keeping Up Appearances to it, as the segment used creates a sense of crossing the "t's" and dotting the "i's" with flourish. Though in the case of Waiting For God, this is an allusion to the perfection ironically proffered in Bayview's brochure. And perhaps to the verbal coups de grâce regularly delivered by Tom and Diana. Michael Aitkens's writing is nicely balanced. The frequently bile spewed by lead characters is softened by more traditionally fluffy sitcom characters like Jane. Janine "I've got very beautiful lips"Duvitski seems to have made a career out of playing these whimsical, slightly dopey optimists who are dominated - and often bullied - by more aggressive characters. And not surprisingly. She does it well, and I've yet to see her in something where she doesn't immediately win me over, like the people equivalent of a sad-faced, enthusiastic puppy. I wish I had a better memory for dialogue* because Diana summed Jane up perfectly in a line I can't quite remember. It was something along the lines of Jane's "gooey rice pudding niceness oozing all over the floor". While each time I watch Harvey I can't help thinking that he's exactly what you'd get if Simon Cowell and David Griffin had a love child.Stephanie Cole is a delight, of course. Diana is my strongest memory of watching all those years ago and she's as relevant and memorable as ever. At the back of my mind during her scenes is a little guilt that I have still to watch Tenko in full, despite owning the DVD box set for the best part of two years. For whatever reason I barely remember Graham Crowden at all, and was a little surprised to see him get first billing here. His character, Tom, has the capacity many eccentrics have to be obscenely rude to someone's face while smiling in such a way that it seems almost innocuous (or at least preemptively negates any potential response). That toothy grin and booming voice combined with pure eccentricity make me think of Tom Baker, and I've learnt just today that  Crowden was indeed first choice to play the Fourth Doctor. I'm not sure how much I'll have to say about the series as I go along, simply because the greatness is in the wonderful writing and I fear I'd end up simply gushing or quoting lines verbatim. But I couldn't not touch upon it here as I'm enjoying it so very much. *Speaking of quotes, there are a few <a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Waiting_for_God" target="_blank">here</a> which give a taste of the winning combination of existentially profound meets joyously anarchic. </blockquote>

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