The Seven Faces of Jim: The Face of Genius
All the way back to 1961 for one this, one of a three series comedy series called collectively Faces of Jim. The first series was called The Seven Faces of Jim, the second Six More Faces of Jim, and the final one just More Faces of Jim. I have no idea whether this had any impact on its popularity, and it's one of those series that has precious little about it on the internet so we're in rare territory here. The Jim of the title is Jimmy Edwards, a very poular actor in the years just before the sort of late sixties TV where my interest starts. Perhaps most famously he was the father in The Glums, which started off as part of a radio series before becoming a TV series of its own. In fact he was many of the things which would have made me profoundly dislike him: he went fox hunting, was a lifelong Conservative and even performed for Ian Smith in Rhodesia. Some of his performances are also, in my humble opinion, a bit dodgy, and I'm sure that nobody nowadays would want to star in a long running TV series and film which largely revolves around spanking. It's all a bit Freudian.
For that reason I was a bit wary when I found a few episodes of this show online but this episode, at least, is an absolute delight. I have commented before on the far-reaching tendrils of Quatermass, and in fact have previously posted on a parody of Quatermass done by Tony Hancock. This episode very clearly has been touched by Quatermass and once again gives it a comedy spin. It's also full of well-known names, so this is another of those occasions when I'm going to talk at uncharacteristic length about the actors.
Edwards plays a scientist who has a Thing which has come from outer space, and wants to find out what it can do. His wife, played by Prunella Scales, visits him in the lab and unexpectedly turns into a man, played by comedian Dick Emery, who has appeared on this blog before. Emery wears the female clothes worn by Prunella Scales as the wife, goes home with Edwards and to my delight they address each other as 'darling' for the rest of the programme.
The next morning Edwards's assistant the colonel (previously played by Paul Eddington) turns up and it turns up the Thing has turned him into a woman, played by June Whitfield. Everyone touched by the Thing's spores changes gender.
It is of note that the audience roar with laughter throughout the show, even as Edwards and Emery are discussing how they are going to get on with their life when their towels all say His and Hers. If there was any controvery about this show, it hasn't gone down in the history of TV as far as I know.
Edwards writes to the Prime Minister to explain what has happened after the Thing's spores escape from the lab completely and addresses him as Dear Sir or Madam. The news is read by a man whose name is given as Judith Chalmers, and who says that players changing their sex before half time can finish the match. While obviously none of this is actually real, it's striking that it would be a lot more problematic with transphobes today.
One of the more interesting things about this show is that it looks a bit different when you know that Emery was a notorious womaniser and Edwards, although married to a woman for many years, was eventually outed as a homosexual. As so often we're in the past here, and it's completely different territory but not as the conservatives would have us believe the past is.
I don't really have a criticism of this show, which is really a bit of fluff and so doesn't need that much in the way of criticism. At half an hour its length is just right for the sex change conceit not to become boring.
This episode of Faces of Jim is an absolute delight.
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