Ann Way Season: Introduction and Mind Your Language - Don't Forget the Driver
I so enjoyed doing a 'season' of posts focusing on the work of actor Denis Shaw that I've decided to do another similar series of posts focusing on another actor, this time Ann Way (1915 - 1993). Surely everyone recognises her by her characteristic appearance and usually being cast in the role of dotty old lady. Unfortunately biographical details are vanishingly few online for her; to the extent that I haven't even been able to find an obituary for her. However she acted more or less consistently until the very last year of her life. I am delighted to see from IMDb that her first role was as a sixth former in The Belles of St Trinians, 1954!
When I did the posts on Denis Shaw I found that doing that exposed me to shows that I wouldn't otherwise have thought to watch, which was interesting. Ann Way's opus isn't different and already I have episodes of a couple of shows that I haven't seen saved up ready to blog about.
I also have the same regret that I had with Shaw's work which is that Way's early work coincided with the heyday of wiping TV shows in Britain so much of it is unavailable. For example she had a role in several episodes of Emergency Ward 10 which may or may not exist but are not online. She also had a role in one episode of a show which I have only recently discovered existed, Harpers West One, which was a show set in a department store in London, and which is definitely completely wiped. It was also broadcast in 1962 so it's not likely that someone has an episode on a video in their attic. Another show she acted in that i would dearly love to see which is missing believed wiped is King of the River, 1966-7, about a family barge business.
There is a further problem that some of her work is commercially available but is so expensive that I'm not in a position to buy it for one episode. For example Way acted in an episode of Dr Finlay's Casebook where Dr Cameron comes across a solitary piper who believes himself to be amongst a full battalion, which I would give my back teeth to see. However I won't part with the money to buy two full series of the show which would be necessary to see one episode!
The final problem with Way's work is that some of it is in shows which I wouldn't consider cult. I have rather avoided giving a definition for cult however I work on the assumption in my head that it is what I like. A characteristic of cults is they have a charismatic leader and I am the leader of the cult so this makes perfect sense. Even though Crossroads is a legendary TV series I just don't think it's weird enough to appear here. Similarly Last of the Summer Wine is a series which I just wouldn't call cult.
Mind Your Language: Don't Forget the Driver
The hugely popular series Mind Your Language is in my opinion a show which definitely wouldn't count as cult. Although other people seem to love it so probably would consider it cult. It broadcast across three series in 1977 to 9, with a further series in 1985 or 6. It is essentially a sitcom set in an English learning class in a college of further education, taught by the much-loved actor Barry Evans, who I've actually been considering as a possible for a series of his own.
Don't Forget the Driver is about the class having an outing on a Sunday to a stately home. Or in fact it is more about the organisational vicissitudes ot actually getting there, because by the time they get there the house has actually closed for the day. Way's role is confined to a short appearance as the history teacher in the college, whose job it has been to organise the coaches but for one reason or another, only one has been arranged. She comes across as her normal wonderfully dotty persona.
I wasn't entertained by this episode and in fact didn't laugh once. Out of a less than half hour run the first eight or nine minutes are confined to the students showing how bad they are at English, and there's another bit of that later on when they run out of petrol. It just isn't funny, to my mind. So you may wonder why the show is still appearing here and the answer is in the photograph which illustrates this post. Ann Way is in the centre of the picture. But the two men on the right have brough back a memory of those HUGE tins of beer which you used to be able to get but which I haven't seen for decades. They might not be very good at English but have plugged straight into the great British tradition of getting blind drunk on coach trips.
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