Martin Clunes Regenerates As Reggie Perrin
BBC1 Relaunches Classic 1970s Sitcom
First, the good news. Martin Clunes makes an excellent Reggie for the noughties – nicely acerbic and world-weary at the same time. He’s frustrated with his job, his boss, commuting – just like so many others. Reggie really is the everyman, although unlike most people, he says what he thinks because frankly he doesn’t care anymore. “It’s the new me. I’m entering a new phase of self-fulfilment and rigorous honesty.” The joy of watching Clunes is simply wondering what he will say and do next.
In an interview on the BBC’s website, Clunes says the plan was not to do a straight remake, rather “they wanted to do for Reggie Perrin what they did with Doctor Who”. A new Reggie for the new millennium, presumably. The setting and characters have been updated, but there are still nods to the original 70s sitcom. The theme tune is essentially the same, and Clunes is seen walking by Sunshine Desserts, the company where the first Reggie passed many frustrating days.
Reggie’s escapist fantasies are still firmly in place, from snipping someone’s headphones on the train to get people talking to each other again, to various encounters with an attractive female colleague. And every morning Reggie is still late, with ever more outlandish excuses, “27 minutes late Vicky, wrong kind of passenger at South Norwood”.
Where Are The Laughs?
The bad news, alas, is the show is just not that funny. Despite being scripted by Simon Nye, who wrote Clunes’ hit show Men Behaving Badly, and the creator of the original Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, David Nobbs, the belly laughs are few and far between. The best moment comes when Reggie, forced by his boss to come up with a product using pumice, demonstrates the Disposable Razor Raft, a handy little “boat” to rest your razor in when shaving in the bath.
Stuke Comes Unstuck
While most of the supporting cast acquit themselves admirably, particularly Fay Ripley as Reggie’s wife, Neil Stuke merely grates on the nerves as Reggie’s boss Chris. Doing little more than reprising his Jack-the-lad role from the 90s sitcom Game On, Stuke completely fails to convince as the manager of a grooming products company. He might just about pass as a wideboy city trader, mobile permanently glued to his ear and forever flashing the cash on fancy cars and expensive nights out, but a grown-up responsible for an entire company? No chance.
So the question remains – will Martin Clunes continue to carry Reggie Perrin, or will it improve as the series continues? Only if there is a great deal less of Neil Stuke, or if the writers make him much less annoying. If the other characters are given a chance to develop, it might actually be worth staying in for on Friday nights.
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