Perhaps the most typical and therefore best loved of ITV's many 1970s studio-based 'domestic' sitcoms, with most of its humour rooted in generation-gap blues, Bless This House dominated the station's comedy output for half a decade. It starred Sid James in what, for him, was his first appearance on TV as a family man, although the obsessions for which he was previously known - his beer, his bird-fancying (the birds being young women, of course), his pipe and his football - remained a constant.

As the cheery but regularly frustrated Londoner (he must have said 'O my gord' in every episode), a successful travelling stationery salesman by trade, Sid thought himself head of a household that also numbered his wife Jean (well played by Diana Coupland) and two young-adult children: Mike (Robin Stewart), aged 18 (at first), whose dress and philosophies reflected the late-hippy period and gave Sid cause to worry about his son's sexual preferences; and Sally (played by Sally Geeson, sister of film actress Judy), who, though just 16 at the start of the first series, embraced not only the principles of the free love generation but, it was suggested, partook of it too. Neighbours Trevor and Betty frequently popped in to stir the troubled waters, the excessively laddish Trev seeing Sid's point of view (usually over a pint at the Hare and Hounds, on Clapham Common in south London) and Betty seeing Jean's. Plots incorporated all the standard sitcom situations: misunderstandings, small lies growing out of all proportion, conclusion jumping, fantastic coincidences and pride-fuelled fiascos - but it was all delivered with a rude energy and helped along by Sid James's and Diana Coupland's likeable screen personae. Snubbed by the critics perhaps, but the public watched it in droves and episodes regularly appeared in the national ratings top ten.

Bless This House was unusual in that its director/producer William G Stewart (the deviser/presenter of C4's daily quiz-show Fifteen To One from 1988 to date) fostered the American-style school of sitcom writing, commissioning episodes from a variety of authors. Vince Powell and Harry Driver, who created the series, contributed a dozen scripts but Carla Lane, while penning The Liver Birds for the BBC, wrote 25, including 22 out of the first 42 episodes. And as usual for 1970s hit sitcoms, there was a weak spin-off cinema-movie too, made in 1972 by the Carry On producer Gerald Thomas, scripted by Dave Freeman and featuring all of the Abbott family except Robin Stewart.

Mark Lewisohn

To buy these DVDs, click on the links below
The Complete First Series	The Complete Second Series	The Complete Third Series
The Complete Fourth Series	The Complete Fifth Series	The Complete Sixth Series
Series 1 to 6 Complete	Bless This House [1971]	Bless This House [1972]

 

Last Update: 14:11:2007