“The BBC and a cup of tea”

       Can’t find anything worthwhile on television? Do you find yourself using the remote control as a speed dial exercise for your manual dexterity? There’s probably another question I could come up with but if you’ve answered yes to either of the first two then be of good cheer…the BBC is here!

       There have been countless bitties of wonder to engage yourself in this sometimes forgotten opportunity of visual stimulation. When my wife and I first landed here in Maine we weren’t set up for cable and were not in the market for paying premium prices for absent-minded nonsense, at least not until we settled into our new surroundings. Exploring those surroundings we visited our local library which contained a wealth of British comedy, detectives, classic films, and many of them new discoveries.

       Who wouldn’t throw themselves headlong into “Agatha Christie’s Poirot” or “Miss Marple” with their little gray cells, silent intrusiveness, and idiosyncrasies that as we follow their stories we’ve come to accept as part of their mastery at work. “Midsummer Murders”, a long-standing saga of an ever mounting body count in a quite small town in England delivers top grade performances by actors who are serious about their art. If you’ve watched one of the more popular series “All Creatures Great and Small” (a never-ending freight train of humor, tenderness, and madcap circumstances) then you may want to see “Peter Davison” in “The Last Detective” as a detective who’s too nice and is taunted by his fellow coppers for being so, has a wife who can’t decide whether they’re married or not, and has a close comrade who regardless of his inane philosophical droning aids him in his investigations in which he is triumphant (not to exclude his pet St. Bernard who barely fits into the back of his car). “Rosemary and Thyme” the unintentional dynamic duo of gardening gone detective, stumbling onto answers that the police can’t seem to find is one of the most endearing of shows. And I must mention the sometimes campy but never dull even for a moment “Tommy and Tuppence” the adoring husband and wife team who were as interested in each other as they were in their cases (how bloody refreshing).

       The laugh factor also rises to the top with “As Time goes By” featuring “Judy Dench” in a latter-day rediscovering of a love gone lost so many years before. You may need to strap yourself in to watch “Keeping up Appearances” featuring “Patricia Routledge” the ”Lucy” of british comedy who’s exhausting efforts to be proper winds up in the trash can of life perpetually attempting to throw the proverbial blanket over her slovenly relatives…namely “Onslow” appropriately named, eternally in a tee-shirt that should have been torched for sanitary reasons while grasping onto his beer like a life-preserver. And now for something completely different “Monty Pythons Flying Circus” whose profusely acquired taste for whimsical, nonsensical, and often insulting onslaught of bizarre funnies who has challenged the comedic world to laugh for no particular reason allows insanity to do its perfect work, later spawning “John Cleese” in “Fawlty Towers”, a Twilight Zone of a hotel and service gone wrong.

       For the more discriminate viewer watch “Dorian Gray” whose painting ages relentlessly as he remains young, or the flawless “Madame Bovary” regarding the tragic life of a woman who placed vanity first in her life.

       Quality films and shows remain in their league without compromising their integrity and while we may have only had seven channels when we first arrived in Maine, the supplemental abundance of BBC treasures remains with us forever. Another cup of tea? Cheerio!