Two Asides: The Guardians (1971) and The Bed Sitting Room (1969)

Content warning: one mention of racism

Some weeks ago when I posted a post about the various shows that were sitting on my laptop and might become blog posts Mitchell Hadley (at itsabouttv.com) commented that I was writing about the process of keeping a blog going. The other thing I like to do is have at least a couple of draft posts saved up in case, however find that I usually can't resist posting them anyway and end up back at square one sigh. Currently I do actually have two draft posts up my sleeve which is an achievement.

The other aspect of keeping a blog which doesn't appear on the blog is of course the thinking about shows that goes on. Today two shows (well, one's a film) which may receive more detailed treatment on this blog in the future but aren't anywhere near individual blog posts in my head.

First is The Guardians (1971) which depicts a future Britain in the 1980s where democratic government and the monarchy have been overthrown and England is ruled autocratically by an unelected prime minister and policed by a paramilitary force called the Guardians of the Realm. You may of course think that we're not that far off this now, but heigh ho. The show depicts the life of the populace and the struggle between the powers that be and an unorganised resistance called Quarmby.

One of the interesting things about The Guardians is that, reading the reviews on the internet, both Conservative- and Labour-supporting reviewers think that the dystopia depicted by the show has partly come to pass in the intervening years, in the actions of the other side. I think that is a sure sign that this is a powerful drama, although I think it should be stressed that its depicting something which isn't real, and the power of a good drama is to get a good row going and make you worried.

Of significance, I think, is that at the time the show was not shown in Northern Ireland at all, which was in the early stages of the Troubles. Apparently this was for fear that the Guardians would be seen as connected to An Garda Siochana, or that it would appear to glorify terrorist activity.

Now I'm not currently one for these dystopian dramas, although I've only just started this one so don't really have much of an opinion yet. In 2020 I sold my box sets of Survivors and 1990 for obvious reasons, however am struck that this is one which seems to have vanished off the radar, despite being commercially available for some years. I can't account for that, although what I have seen does not depict the typical dystopian future of abandoned streets and nuclear fallout so wonder whether this show also achieves the remarkable feat of not adhering to our idea of what a future disaster *should* look like and so making itself unpopular.

And one final point is that despite being set in the 1980s the show does not imagine the clothes and houses of the future but instead features some absolutely magnificent 1970s style. It's actually worth watching purely for that.

A film which actually does depict a probably realistic dystopian future is The Bed Sitting Room (1969). This film is based on a stage play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus: this mere fact alone indicates that it is, of course, insane.

Something which comes across clearly from the reviews is that while this film is a comedy, it also inspires a lot of discomfort amongst its reviewers. This is why I think it is a better approximation of what life would be like after the apocalypse: it is a film shorn of most of the things which make us recognise film (plot, etc) accurately reflecting a world in which most of the 'infrastructure' of our world has gone. The absent plot reflects a world in which there is no timetable, no routine, no events, in which you don't know what is going on. This is literally what it would feel like to wake up in a wrecked world and find you're one of only a few humans, and it's been turned into a comedy. Hysterical.

I'm going to borrow the plot summary, such as it is, from IMDb:

'In post-nuclear-holocaust England, a handful of bizarre characters struggles on with their lives in the ruins, among endless heaps of ash, piles of broken crockery and brick, muddy plains, and heaps of dentures and old boots. Patriotically singing "God Save Mrs. Ethel Shroake, Long Live Mrs. Ethel Shroake", they wander through this surrealistic landscape, forever being warned by the police to "keep moving", and prone to the occasional mutation into a parrot, cupboard, or even--yes, a bed-sitting room with "No Wogs" scrawled in the grime on its windows. In particular, this story revolves around the odd "love story" of a girl who lives with her parents in one compartment of a London Underground train, the commuter in the next compartment, and the doctor they meet after returning above ground in search of a nurse for the heavily-pregnant girl.' (Credit: Sonya Roberts https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0064074/plotsummary/)

Perhaps I should say that the reason they're singing God save Mrs Ethel Shroake is that with the population of Britain reduced to about 20, Mrs Shroake, of 393a High Street, Leytonstone, although uncrowned, is next in line to the throne.

I'm being deadly serious when I say that another reason this film is uncomfortable is it accurately depicts a post-apocalyptic Britain, which in some ways isn't that different from Britain under our current unelected government. It's uncomfortable because it shows the prime minister cutting dodge deals with Mao Tse Tung, and it shows the police still operating. In a barren country with a population of 20 there would really be no need for police but it's an uncomfortable reflection that even in that situation some people help others but other people are determined to police people.

You may think that I'm overstating the reality of this. But take this as Exhibit A: most of the film is filmed in a disused quarry, but some scenes are filmed on top of a gigantic heap of crockery. This wasn't made for the film: this is real, and was filmed on a real heap of crockery in the Potteries, imperfect ones thrown out for decades by one family. The setting is real and is in Britain. Possibly not the submerged St Paul's, but you get the point.

But wait, before you go there's something we haven't done! Please stand:

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