Episode Reviews Part 14
In an interesting twist on "It Pays to Advertise" and "Calling All Customers", the staff, trying to come up with a money-making scheme that won't get them arrested, establish an after-hours night club, the Club Rendezvous ("It's all happening here!"), and set about filming an advert for it to be shown at a local cinema.
Trivia:
- Mrs. Yardswick, the canteen manageress, hails from Peckham.
- Visitors to London can find Grace Brothers department store located in the High Street.
- The episode's end credits are shown projected against a cinema screen.
Best Bits:
- Mr. Humphries dressed as a cinema usherette (to stand in for his mother), flashing his torch every now and then.
- Mrs. Slocombe's telephone call to Tiddles informing her she'll be late coming home ("I'm trying to get my pussy on the phone!") Unfortunately, her neighbor, Mr. Akbar, answers the phone instead.
- After Miss Belfridge brings in £20 worth of snacks for the after-hours meeting, Mr. Rumbold craftily dictates a memo to Mr. Grace claiming £20 had been "misplaced" and promising a full investigation.
- Mrs. Slocombe's gigantic makeup case at the advert filming.
- The reaction of the staff to seeing the end of a French sex film (Miss Brahms: "They're taking their clothes off!…I said they wasn't going swimming!") at the seedy cinema that will be showing their advert.
- Mrs. Slocombe's "hair on end".
Club Rendezvous Personnel/Advert Cast:
- Mr. Humphries (a.k.a. Pierre from Paris): chef/advert director.
- Captain Peacock: pianist (with the immortal line "I shall be performing 'Night and Day' on the piano.")
- "Betty" (Mrs. Slocombe): hostess.
- Mrs. Yardswick: cloakroom attendant/receptionist/Playboy bunny (judging from the costume). Miss Brahms turned the position down, claiming attendants were "dead common" and adding she just wouldn't be right for the job.
- Miss Brahms: waitress.
- Mr. Spooner: doorman.
- Mr. Harman and Seymour: customers.
- Mr. Rumbold and Miss Belfridge: sophisticated customers. (Miss Belfridge is apparently too sophisticated to handle the champagne and passes out.)
Bons Mots:
- Humphries (in usherette garb): Why don't you come have a look at Something from Outer Space at 7:30?
Peacock: I'm already looking at it.
- Humphries (in the canteen): Lend me your ball-point.
Spooner: What for?
Humphries: This coffee melts the lead in my pencil.
- Humphries: We're not 20th Century-Fox, you know! [Ironically, Fox Video distributed AYBS? video tapes in the U.S.]
"Night and Day" (click to download MIDI version)
Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom
When the evening shadows fall,
Like the tick, tick, tock of the stately clock
As it stands against the wall,
Like the drip, drip, drip of the raindrops
When the summer shower is through,
So a voice within me keeps repeating,
"You. You. You."
Night and Day, you are the one;
Only you beneath the moon and under the sun.
Whether near to me or far,
It's no matter, darling, where you are.
I think of you, Night and Day.
Day and Night, why is it so
That this longing for you follows wherever I go?
In the roaring traffic's boom
In the silence of my lonely room,
I think of you, Night and Day.
Night and Day, under the hide of me,
There's an oh-so-hungry yearning burning inside of me.
And it's torment won't be through
'Til you let me spend my life making love to you,
Day and Night, Night and Day.
After the French film, the staff eagerly anticipate the début of their new commercial. Due to technical problems, only the audio portion plays, and the dialog is somewhat misinterpreted by the raincoat-clad men in the audience. At the point in the advert announcing the club's location, the embarrassed staff rise and begin singing "All Things Bright and Beautiful."
Conclusion:
An amusing farce with good costumes, even if the basic plot is a bit of a retread.
This amalgam of "The Apartment" and various "we've got to spend the night at the store" episodes ("Camping In", "Is It Catching?") has the staff sharing a set of flats at the top of the store to economize on travel fares.
Trivia:
- Unlike "The Hold Up", Mrs. Rumbold actually gets a bit of dialog in this episode.
- Last appearance by Mrs. Peacock.
- The "babies" in Mr. Humphries' care are rather obviously dolls!
Best Bits:
- Mr. Humphries' arrival via skateboard wearing a Seattle Seahawks jersey, shoulder pads, and a bicycle helmet.
- The flat's Murphy bed that leads directly to the WC.
- Intending to keep Tiddles with her during the first night in the flat, Mrs. Slocombe smuggles her pussy to work, hiding her under a hat on the Ladies' Wear counter.
- Cedric the birthday boy, wielding a mean water pistol:
Mrs. Slocombe: "Oh, what a dear little boy!" [Squirt!]
Captain Peacock: "It's his birthday."
Mrs. Slocombe (angrily): "What a pity I can't give him something."
As Mummy shops for hats, Cedric plays with his new clockwork mouse but makes the mistake of placing the mouse in front of the hat concealing Tiddles. Cats being cats, Tiddles chomps up the toy mouse.
- In their new flat, Mrs. Slocombe has Miss Brahms waiting on her (and her pussy) hand and foot. The senior salesperson commandeers the sofa, leaving her junior a difficult-to-escape bean bag.
- Miss Brahms, Mrs. Slocombe, and Mr. Humphries serenading the babies with "Mighty Like a Rose".
- Their neighbor Peacock's "light music" (chosen to entertain Miss Belfridge, no doubt).
Bons Mots:
- Rumbold: Staff are not supposed to stay in the store overnight! [After 12 years, now he tells them.]
- Humphries (on the phone to Mr. Grace): I'm not bent on making trouble; I'm not bent on anything!
- Mrs. Slocombe: Will my pussy be at home in a strange place?
- Peacock: Just to be able to pop up here and put one's feet up…it could regenerate one.
Mrs. Slocombe: It could even regenerate two!
- [After Humphries and Spooner argue, they decide not to share a flat after all.]
Harman: Will there be any alimony or is it an amicable divorce?
Humphries: Don't start; I've got a very short fuse!
Harman: That's the rumor that's going around in packing.
- [At home in the flat.]
Mrs. Slocombe: Would you like a cup of tea?
Miss Brahms: I'm dying for one!
Mrs. Slocombe: Well, when you make it, make one for me as well.
- Mrs. Slocombe: Would you like a bean bag?
Humphries: I prefer Tetley's.
- Mrs. Slocombe: Come and sit next to me, Mr. Humphries, and give me a baby.
Humphries: I only came in for a cup of tea!
"Mighty Like a Rose" (click to download MIDI version)
Sweetest little fellow
Everybody knows
Don't know what to call him
But he's mighty like a rose
Looking for his Mommy
With eyes so shiny blue
Making you think that heaven
Is coming close to you
When he's there a-sleeping
In his little place
Think I see the angels
Looking through the lace
When the dark is falling
When the shadows creep
Then they come on tiptoe
To kiss him in his sleep
Sweetest little fellow
Everybody knows
Don't know what to call him
But he's mighty like a rose
Looking for his Mommy
With eyes so shiny blue
Making you think that heaven
Is coming close to you
When they learn that Mesdames Peacock and Rumbold are on their way up to the flat, Mr. Rumbold and Miss Belfridge hide in the flat's Murphy bed—but not for long, as Mrs. Peacock accidentally opens the bed. Rumbold hurriedly closes the bed, and it opens again with Mr. Humphries and Miss Belfridge each holding a baby.
Conclusion:
Hilarious flat sequence.
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The 69th and final episode of Are You Being Served? allowed former 1960s pop star Mike Berry (Mr. Spooner) to showcase his talents as the singing junior salesman is discovered after a performance in the London Department Stores' annual concert and fame and fortune beckon. Unfortunately, the rest of the staff insist on hitching a ride on this latest shooting star. |
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Trivia:
- The BBC originally aired this episode April Fool's Day 1985.
- Nick Ross, who played the host of the fictitious TV show Around London, was actually a real-life BBC current-affairs presenter.
Best Bits:
- Mrs. Slocombe's shouting across the shop floor at Captain Peacock as if they were traders at Billingsgate Fish Market.
- Mr. Spooner's write-up in the paper—just beneath the greyhound results.
- Mr. Harman's unique introduction of his fellow workers' act (only after producing 4 [or 5] ferrets and the flags of all nations from his trousers).
- Captain Peacock's "big hi-fi with the two speakers" (most hi-fi sets do have two speakers).
Bons Mots:
- Humphries: And if it's all right with you, I'd like to drop my trousers and display my y-fronts.
- Humphries (on the prospect of Spooner's demotion): You can't get much lower than the men's department.
- Peacock (as he peers over Mrs. Slocombe's shoulder with a pair of binoculars trained on the sheet music during rehearsal): All I can see is two big semi-quavers!
- Cleaner (swooning over Spooner): He sends me!
Peacock: Not far enough.
- Mrs. Slocombe (on pop stardom and age): Ella Fitzgerald is twice as old as I am! Somebody's got to step in her shoes.
- Humphries (posing during the photo session in Rumbold's office): Could you hurry up, please? I'm running out of sincerity.
- Sam, the TV director's assistant (after the debacle with the backing tape): It's just not my day! [This is the last bit of dialog ever spoken on AYBS?.]
Mr. Spooner's voice gives out during the staff's performance on Around London, so the demo tape recorded back at Grace Brothers is used as a back-up. The tape runs at 7 1/2 i.p.s., but the TV studio's equipment operates at 15 i.p.s., producing a "Chipmunks" effect and some amusing miming.
Chanson d'amour
Chanson d'amour,
Play en-core
Here in my heart,
More and more.
Chanson d'amour,
Je t'adore
Each time I hear
Chanson, chanson d'amour.
Click to download:
- MIDI version
- WAVE version featuring Bert Spooner and the Left Bank (1.7 MB)
- Compressed versions of the above WAVE file:
Conclusion:
Great costumes (although Mr. Humphries' seems more 1970s than 1980s) and a nice ending to the series.
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©2000 Emily Jackson
