Love Thy Neighbour (1972 TV series)


Love Thy Neighbour is a British television sitcom which was broadcast from 13 April 1972 until 22 January 1976. The series spanned eight series and 53 episodes and was produced by Thames Television for the ITV network.
The principal cast consists of Jack Smethurst, Rudolph Walker, Nina Baden-Semper, and Kate Williams. In 1973, the series was adapted into a film of the same name, and a later sequel series was set in Australia.

Synopsis

The series was created and largely written by Vince Powell and Harry Driver, and was based around a suburban white working class couple in Twickenham and a black couple as next-door neighbours. One of the leads, Rudolph Walker, who played Bill Reynolds, wrote for The Guardian in 2001, it is about "a black guy and a white guy being damned stupid".

Handling of race issues

Since 1972, when Love Thy Neighbour was first transmitted, it has been criticised for its politically incorrect handling of issues of racism, it was made in an era when Britain was perceived to be struggling to come to terms with mass immigration which Love Thy Neighbour was said to exemplify. According to Sarita Malik, this meant "comedies about race" were really about "blacks signifying trouble" so that consequentially "if the White characters did display prejudice, this was deemed funny or understandable given the 'difficulty of the situation'."
Its writers stated that each episode included both anti-white and anti-black sentiment. In Malik's opinion, in this "mutual racism", racist attitudes were "shown as a reciprocal, inevitable and petty process" rather than being faced with any challenge. As a result, according to Nora Plesske, the premise continued without any change in attitudes or permanent resolution of the conflict.
The views of the main white male character were presented so as to make him appear ignorant and bigoted and were contrasted with the more tolerant attitude of his wife. "In nearly every show, the white neighbour was shown to be wrong", Rudolph Walker wrote in 2001. A contemporary reviewer in the Daily Mirror, Mary Malone, believed "the only characters who leave the screen with their dignity intact are the blacks. Now that's what I call prejudice."
The main male black character was better educated, although also stubborn and capable of using insulting phrases, such as the terms "Honky", "Snowflake", "Paleface" or "Big White Chief" to describe his white neighbour. The comedy invariably fixated on the "Blackness" of Bill and Barbie or rather, as Malik expressed it, "television's interpretation of Blackness." Other black stereotypes, such as regular references to cannibalism from the first episode onwards, became a running joke.
A contributor to the BFI Screenonline website wrote that "the characters and scripts of Love Thy Neighbour are flat, ramshackle, superficial and, because of the often careless and stereotypical exploitation of the central premise, intermittently offensive" while "the comic value of the clumsy and gratuitous slanging matches that were central to the show is difficult to comprehend today, and it all makes for glum viewing."
It has sometimes been considered that Love Thy Neighbour was an attempt by ITV to capitalise on the success of the BBC's Till Death Us Do Part, also the source of great controversy for many of the same reasons. Repeats of Love Thy Neighbour have not been seen on British terrestrial television for many years. Rudolph Walker, who defends the series, regrets the programme's reputation in a "very politically correct climate" and asked in 2003 why "We can't take the piss out of each other and laugh". While Love Thy Neighbour was hugely popular at the time of its broadcast, its commissioner at Thames Television, head of light entertainment Philip Jones, acknowledged in 1972 that it received poor reviews.
The series has since been repeated on satellite television stations in the UK, although each episode begins with a warning about content. In 2003, DVDs of the series were reported to be selling well in Nigeria, parts of the Caribbean and Australia.
The theme song, "Love Thy Neighbour", was composed by Mack Gordon and Harry Revel and sung by Stuart Gillies.

Characters

The unaired pilot episode featured Jack Smethurst, Rudolph Walker and Nina Baden-Semper with Gwendolyn Watts as Joan Booth (played by Kate Williams in the series and film. The pilot episode script was modified slightly for the first episode of the series, which was titled "New Neighbours".
Filming locations
Exterior shots of the Reynolds and Booth residences for the unaired pilot episode were filmed at 90 and 92 The Alders, Hanworth TW13 6NY. Series exteriors were filmed at 102 and 104 Bushy Park Road, Twickenham TW11 9DL. Interiors were filmed at the nearby Thames Television studios at Teddington.
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Sequel and American remake

A spin-off series, also called Love Thy Neighbour, was made in 1979, three years after the British series ended. Consisting of seven episodes, the series saw the character Eddie Booth transplanted to the Sydney suburb of Blacktown. The explanation given for the absence of Eddie's wife and child is Eddie has emigrated first and the family will join him after he has established himself. The antagonism between Eddie and Bill was replaced by the difficulty of Eddie adapting to Australia.
An American version of the show, set in the suburbs of Los Angeles and titled Love Thy Neighbor, ran during the summer of 1973 on the American Broadcasting Company television network. This toned-down version of the British original ran for one series of 12 episodes.

Other appearance

Smethurst and Walker appeared as relaxing actors having a drink together in the studio bar when George Roper walks in while searching the Thames Television TV studios in the 1974 film Man About the House.

Film

Episodes of the series

Pilot

Series 1 (1972)

  1. "New Neighbours"
  2. "Limbo Dancing"
  3. "The Petition"
  4. "Factory Dispute"
  5. "The Seven Year Itch"
  6. "Refused A Drink"
  7. "Sex Appeal"
  1. "The Housewarming Party"
  2. "Voodoo"
  3. "Clarky Leaves"
  4. "The Bedroom Suite"
  5. "The T.U.C Conference '72"
  6. "Religious Fervour"
  1. "All Star Comedy Carnival"

    Series 3 (1973)

  2. "The G.P.O"
  3. "The Car"
  4. "Eddie Returns From Holiday"
  5. "Lion and the Lamb"
  6. "The Lift"
  7. "Barbie Becomes Pregnant"
  1. "Hines' Sight"
  2. "Friendly"
  3. "Working on New Year's Eve"
  4. "Eddie's Mother in Law"
  5. "The Ante-Natal Clinic"
  6. "Two Weeks To Babies"
  7. "To The Hospital"
  8. "The Big Day"
  1. "The Mediterranean"
  2. "Bananas"
  3. "Teething Problems" broadcast February 1974)
  4. "Eddie's Birthday"
  5. "Cat's Away - Part 1"
  6. "Cat's Away - Part 2"
  7. "Ghosts"
  1. "Reggie"
  2. "Jacko's Wedding"
  3. "Duel at Dawn"
  4. "The Darts' Final"
  5. "Royal Blood"
  6. "The Nannies"
  7. "Club Concert"
  1. "Famous Crimes"
  2. "The Lady and the Tramp"
  3. "Protection of the Law"
  4. "The Opinion Poll"
  5. "Manchester... United"
  6. "The T.U.C Conference '75"
  1. "The Local By-Election"
  2. "Eddie Becomes A Father Again"
  3. "Christmas Spirit"
  4. "The Coach Outing To Bournemouth"
  5. "For Sale"
  6. "Power Cut"
  7. "The Lodger"
Until 2016, the series' DVD releases had been somewhat muddled. Confusing earlier releases were superseded by the Love Thy Neighbour: The Complete Series nine-DVD box set from the Network imprint. It includes the unscreened pilot episode, all eight series in their intended running order, the Christmas 1972 short sketch for All Star Comedy Carnival, the 1973 New Year Special and a new transfer of the 1973 feature film in its theatrical aspect ratio. It coincided with a standalone release of the feature film on Blu-ray.
Series 1–4 were originally released by Pegasus Entertainment, and Series 5–8 were released by FremantleMedia. Once Fremantle realised the issues with the DVD, it decided to completely release all the series in the correct order. The film has been released by Studiocanal. The following list shows the previous two sets of DVD releases:

Pegasus DVDs (no longer available)

The often quoted missing 'April Fool' episode does not actually exist. During the 1974 run of the show it was postponed one week which led to it running longer than intended and receiving billing in the TV Times for more weeks than it should. The Bananas episode was delayed and the Eddie's Birthday episode scheduled to be broadcast on 25 February was not actually broadcast until 4 March. "Bananas" was then added onto the end of the series on 1 April where the TV Times added an April Fool reference to the description that appeared for the earlier screening. So the April Fools episode is actually Bananas which is included in the DVD set. The Coach Trip was due to be aired with series 7, but due to unknown reasons was not broadcast. It later appeared as part of series 8, with the new title The Coach Outing to Bournemouth.
The DVDs list eight series, which is now known to be accurate when Network checked through the original scripts whilst compiling the compete series DVD set. Series 4 is the pregnancy story arc and the final episodes written together by creators Vince Powell and Harry Driver. Series 5 continued to be broadcast straight after series 4, following the illness and subsequent death of co-creator Harry Driver and as such, are solely written by Powell.
After the initial Broadcast of 'The Big Day', in which Jack Smethhurst plays the new baby as well as himself, there was an extra film of Nina Baden-Semper and Kate Williams with their real new born babies. This extra bit was not on the Pegasus DVD, but is on the Network DVD of Series 4.