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TV PREVIEWS
Reggie Perrin, Friday 9.30pm, BBC 1
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Remaking, reimagining, rebooting... call it what you like, but you can't walk into a cinema these days without getting hit round the head with a redux. It's not quite as common in TV, but when it happens, it's no guarantee of quality: for every Battlestar Galactica there's a Shane Richie Minder. And for every Survivors there is, sadly, a Reggie Perrin.
Many of you young whippersnappers won't remember what a big deal the original series was. Broadcast between 1976 and 1979, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin starred Leonard Rossiter as a businessman driven over the edge into mid-life crisis by his dreary existence. After he faked his suicide by leaving his clothes on the beach, the phrase 'doing a Reggie Perrin' even entered the language.
Thirty years later, the series has been given a 21st-century makeover by original writer David Nobbs and Men Behaving Badly creator Simon Nye, with Martin Clunes in the title role. Reggie now works as head of disposable razors at a male grooming business, and is alienated by the monotonous grind of his life after 10 years on the job.
Unfortunately, the whole thing is done in a surprisingly old-fashioned way, from the hysterical laugh track to the hackneyed dim secretary and the antiquated sets that look like they've been gathering dust since Terry and June went off the air (ask your parents).
Some of the gags from the original series are revisited, like Reggie's little fantasies and his excuses for being late. However, after a bit of repetition the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Unfortunately there are also some excruciatingly unfunny gags about self-harm, some painfully obvious pratfalls and a few lines that seem to have wandered in from (surprise surprise) Men Behaving Badly.
Like too many remakes, this just seems a pointless waste of talent. It's unbelievable that this has been given a prime slot when funnier and more relevant comedies like Pulling have been, well, pulled. Let's hope they put a bit more heat under Love Thy Neighbour when they get round to “reimagining” that.
by Tom Murphy, Friday 24 April 2009
