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Private Notes
a tribute to the acting talents of the late Leonard Rossiter by friends, family and fellow actors.
Reggie and Elizabeth's quiet Christmas morning is interrupted by family, friends, coworkers, and even a tramp. On December 27th, 1982, at 8.05pm, Frank Muir introduced an hour of sitcom shorts specially made for the Christmas season. The sixty-minute programme was entitled "The Funny Side Of Christmas", and featured five- to ten- minute, and mostly one- or two- scene, situations of some of the BBC's most popular programmes of the time - all of which are now defined as 'classic television'.
The history of classic comedy shows. A look at 1970s sitcom The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, including interviews with writer and stars.
A look at the classic 1970's sitcom "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin", a vehicle for the late Leonard Rossiter; includes interviews with writer David Nobbs and actors Geoffrey Palmer, John Barron, Sue Nicholls and John Horsley.
Reggie's life as a sales executive at Sunshine Desserts is getting too much for him and the strain is starting to show.
Reggie's plans for a relaxing weekend are scuppered when the family decides to visit a safari park.
Elizabeth is away, so Reggie decides to invite his secretary Joan over for a secret tryst... but constant visitors from family and friends prevent this.
With Elizabeth still away, Reggie hosts a dinner party (without any food) for his business associates.
After a disastrous public speech to the Fruit Association at Bilberry Hall, Reggie decides to take drastic action...
After his fake suicide, Reggie tries out a number of different new identities.
Reggie returns as Martin Wellborn, attends his own memorial service, and wins back Elizabeth.
Reggie has returned from his wanderings disguised as his old friend Martin Wellbourne. He has remarried Elizabeth and gone back to Sunshine Desserts. Clearly this situation cannot last for ever.
Reggie is reduced to working at Mr. Pelham's pig farm and Elizabeth decides to get a job. After a disastrous morning working for Tom's estate agents, Reggie returns to the piggery, as himself, but does his back in, so Elizabeth decides that she will become the bread-winner. She gets a job as secretary to C.J. at Sunshine Desserts but does not want Reggie to know, so she claims that her employers are the British Basket Company. Reggie is suspicious as his efforts to find the company come to nothing. C.J. tries it on with Elizabeth at home whilst his wife is away but stops himself in time. Then, on Monday morning Reggie follows his wife and discovers where she ...
Reggie has an idea for making a fortune: a shop that sells total rubbish. It will be called "Grot." Reggie suspects Elizabeth of having an affair, leading to a punch-up in the firm's car park and a black eye. He returns to the piggery but gets the sack after his employer finds out who he really is. Elizabeth also gets the sack after altering some of C.J.'s letters. Reggie goes to visit Jimmy, who is hoarding guns under his bed. He tells an appalled Reggie of his plan to form a private right wing army to rid the country of all do-gooders and - as he sees it - scroungers. Having told Jimmy his plan is rubbish, Reggie forms his own idea. He will open a shop selling rubbish...
Grot is a huge success selling all sorts of useless products. Reggie asks C.J. for a start-up loan to establish his shop Grot. C.J. thinks it's hush money to keep quiet about his hitting on Elizabeth and lends it to him. Grot sells highly unusual and often impractical things but people buy them, either because they are unique, such as square hula hoops, which in fact become a craze, or as presents for relatives they dislike, like Tom's turnip wine. Grot becomes a huge success and Reggie quickly has the wherewithal to repay the loan. However, when he returns to Sunshine Desserts to see his old boss he finds things have changed.
Sunshine desserts goes bankrupt and Reggie hires his old coworkers and boss to Grot. Reggie is about to open his fiftieth Grot shop whilst Sunshine Desserts has gone bust and is now a thing of the past. Generously Reggie decides to employ C.J. but makes him wait an extra week for his interview and enjoys having power over him. He asks Joan to be his secretary again but she and Tony are already having marital problems, which Reggie sorts out before employing them both. Elizabeth is annoyed that Reggie has yet to offer her a job with the shop, but eventually he does - even imagining her mother as a hippopotamus, just like old times.
Reggie is bored with his success and plans to destroy Grot by hiring totally unsuitable people Scared by the fraudulent success of Grot, Reggie decides to kill off the monster he has created by giving executive posts to men he sees as incompetents - Doc Morrissey, Jimmy, Tom and an Irishman called Seamus in the hopes that they will destroy the shop chain. However the business goes on to even greater heights as a result, thanks to Tom's advertising slogans, leading to a television advert, and a useless machine made by Jimmy, which becomes the latest must-have item. He is mindful to sack them but feels he cannot fire in-laws and ends up by giving Seamus, who has seen ...
Reggie's plan fails. He tries more extreme tactics which also fail. Only one more thing left to do... Desperate to kill off Grot Reggie goes to extreme lengths,such as insulting chat show hosts on whose television shows he appears. He also insults a job applicant who mistakenly believes he is making a pass at him so he pretends to be gay when visiting the branch manager, only to find that he is gay and is attracted to Reggie. He dresses in drag in public but by now everybody is used to Reggie's eccentric behaviour and see it as the norm. Finally he and Elizabeth go back to the beach and fake a double suicide, only to discover that they have set a trend and scores of ...
Reggie decides to open a commune helping people to live in peace and harmony. But first he needs staff...
Having recruited all the old faces, Reggie welcomes his one and only guest to "Perrin's"
After an unique advertising campaign, "Perrin's" gains another guest.
Business is booming and Reggie is content... but for how long?
Money and jewelery begin to disappear at Perrin's and a female guest starts to be suggestible with the male staff.
Perrin's loses face in the community as McBlane attacks a Salvation Army woman and there is a backlash against his "Peacekeeping Force"
Perrin's closes and everyone says their goodbyes. Reggie gets a new job but finds himself again working for C.J. and his brother F.J. Is the coast calling again?
Reggie and Elizabeth's quiet Christmas morning is interrupted by family, friends, coworkers, and even a tramp. On December 27th, 1982, at 8.05pm, Frank Muir introduced an hour of sitcom shorts specially made for the Christmas season. The sixty-minute programme was entitled "The Funny Side Of Christmas", and featured five- to ten- minute, and mostly one- or two- scene, situations of some of the BBC's most popular programmes of the time - all of which are now defined as 'classic television'.
Following Reggie's death, his family and friends gather together at his funeral and then at the reading of his will. They are then informed by his solicitor that all of Reggie's money is to be divided equally among them. Each of them will inherit one million pounds but there is one condition, they must do something truly absurd in order to earn the money.
Each individual begins their attempt to earn the money. Their efforts at ridiculous behaviour include cross dressing, fancy dress and making marriage proposals to virtual strangers. Realising that these schemes will not suffice, they decide to pool their resources and to work together. They concoct a plan to march on Whitehall on behalf of the elderly and the redundant. Jimmy is elected as the group's leader.
The group starts to seek support for their venture and visit impotency clinics, gentlemen's clubs and sheltered accommodation to recruit followers. Unfortunately they return largely unsuccessful. Their numbers however are swelled by Joan's boyfriend Hank who has been made redundant. The group decide to plan their tactics before they attempt to garner support again. Meanwhile both C.J. and Doc Morrissey attempt to romance Miss Hackstraw.
Elizabeth decides that they ought to set up a think tank and a policy research unit. Together they come up with several ideas to combat ageism including young-age pensions, face drops and fashion shows for older people. The group spirit is further reinforced by Tom and Linda's reconciliation and their decision to re-marry.
Suspicious of C.J.'s recent nice behaviour, Jimmy orders that he should be followed. It transpires that C.J. has told the story of the group's exploits to a journalist, Morton Radstock who is subsequently injured in a car accident. C.J. then repeats the story to another journalist, Welton Ormsby. Ormsby decides to join the group however due to his recent sacking. The episode concludes with Tom and Linda's wedding and Jimmy and Miss Hackstraw becoming romantically involved.
The quest continues apace with Jimmy instructing that every coach in the U.K. should be booked to take supporters down to Whitehall. The number of recruits continues to multiply and even C.J. is now behind the cause and agrees to make a donation in order to ensure its success.
The big day arrives and the group, with many thousands of supporters, arrive in London as planned. While many march on Whitehall, Jimmy takes over the BBC News studio to further inform people about the demonstrations taking place throughout London. The scheme fails however as journalist Morton Radstock has given the police full details of what was to take place. The group must therefore return to Miss Hackstraw to see whether they have done enough to claim their money.
