Abigoliah: Hello there, this is All British Comedy Explained, the podcast where I finally learn about British comedy shows I’ve been missing out on. I’m comedian Abigoliah Schamaun, and to guide us through our comedy labyrinth is writer Tom Salinsky.
Tom: Hello there.
Abigoliah: Hello. How are you, Tom?
Tom: Really well. And I feel like I always say I’m really looking forward to this one, but I am really looking forward to this one. And that’s for two reasons. Firstly, this is a personal favourite of mine that I think has been slightly forgotten about. So that’s interesting. But also, this is our first episode where we start with a full Shelf of Fame.
Abigoliah: Oh yes!
Tom: So if you do decide to put this on, something else is gonna have to come off ’cause that’s how it works. This is the dilemma which we have confected for ourselves.
Abigoliah: Oh dear. Okay, well this is gonna be a big one. This is gonna be a big one. Well, tell us what are we listening to? What are we watching? We’re watching, right?
Tom: We are watching, yes. We are watching The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.
Abigoliah: Which sounds like an Odyssey to me.
Tom: Clearly it’s modelled after The Fall of the Roman Empire, things like that. But it’s another domestic sitcom, and it’s another visit to suburbia.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: I think of this sometimes as being like the dark reflection of The Good Life.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: The Good Life is, for all its little kind of conflicts between the Goods and the Leadbetters, it’s basically sunny, optimistic. And as we saw in the “Windbreak War,” even when Margo is being criticized, and even when she’s creating trouble, she is actually fundamentally a good person. She isn’t malicious.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: That’s not to say that this is a story about evil people doing desperate things. It’s not. This is another mainstream primetime BBC One sitcom. But it’s just a bit weirder. It’s just a bit odder.
Abigoliah: I’m picturing like the Married… with Children of its time. Have you ever seen Married… with Children?
Tom: Yes, I’ve seen Married… with Children. No, it’s much more adventurous than that.
Abigoliah: Okay, okay. Well dear listener, if I could take a pause here to tell you that if you are enjoying this episode we also have a Patreon. For £3 a month you can get all of our episodes that appear on the main feed but ad-free. And for £5 a month you get all of the episodes on the main feed but ad-free, plus little mini episodes where we discuss something based on the show we just watched. And for this episode, we will be discussing: Is Reggie Perrin a hero or a jerk?
Tom: At this stage you don’t know who Reggie Perrin is, but I’m hoping that will be an interesting conversation to have.
Abigoliah: I’m looking forward to it.
Tom: Alright, but for now let’s come back to The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. This was first broadcast in 1976. So it’s another mid-70s show. But if you want some precise markers, it’s the year that Steve Jobs formed Apple Computer.
Abigoliah: Oh, wow.
Tom: James Callaghan becomes British Prime Minister.
Abigoliah: Don’t know who he is.
Tom: British Rail introduced the InterCity 125 high-speed train.
Abigoliah: Is it still running?
Tom: I mean not that rolling stock, no. But it was a breakthrough ’cause its top speed was 125 miles an hour, hence InterCity 125. And trains do play a part in this show. And then in America, Family Feud debuted on ABC and is still on the air.
Abigoliah: I was gonna say, and it’s still going! A classic! It’s America’s, I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue.
Tom: It really is. So, the story of Reginald Perrin starts with a writer called David Nobbs.
Abigoliah: That’s not a real name. That’s a character name.
Tom: I mean it’s better than Prunella Scales, but only just.
Abigoliah: I went to high school with a John Boner. B-O-N-E-R.
Tom: No, no, no. Just B-O-N-E-R?
Abigoliah: B-O-N-E-R. And my friend and John were high school sweethearts that got married and she took on his last name. And I’m like, Mackenzie Boner, why’d you do that to yourself? You had a great last name!
Tom: Instead of having a first name and a surname, she’s got a surname and an insult.
Abigoliah: Yeah. God bless.
Tom: Anyway, David Nobbs had got his start by sending in sketches to That Was The Week That Was. And writing for comedians like Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper, Kenneth Williams, any of those names mean anything to you?
Abigoliah: Tommy Cooper, of course I know Tommy Cooper.
Tom: You do?
Abigoliah: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve seen clips of him. The fez.
Tom: Exactly right! Yes, marvellous stuff.
Abigoliah: I know some things.
Tom: He’d written three novels that he did like writing for television. And he had an idea for a story about a man who is tired of the rat race and is looking for a way out. And the BBC turned down his pitch.
Abigoliah: Because they didn’t want a sitcom in the 70s about becoming a content creator or an influencer.
Tom: He’d actually pitched it as a one-off play. But they didn’t want it and so he turned it into a novel instead. The Death of Reginald Perrin, which was published in 1975 and became a bestseller.
Abigoliah: Have you read it?
Tom: I’ve read bits of it, I haven’t read the whole thing.
Abigoliah: Mm.
Tom: Once the book was a hit, television offers started to roll in.
Abigoliah: Of course they did.
Tom: ITV wanted to make it as a two-part drama with Ronnie Barker in the leading role. I think we’ve mentioned Ronnie Barker a couple of times?
Abigoliah: Have I seen him yet?
Tom: No, not yet. He’s one half of The Two Ronnies. So no doubt we’ll cover The Two Ronnies at some point. But these were two different comedy actors who had worked together in the past, notably on The Frost Report, who were paired up rather than Morecambe and Wise who were an existing double act. And so the Two Ronnies were given their own show while continuing to do separate work.
Abigoliah: So like industry people paired them up. They got Simon Cowelled.
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: They’re like Little Mix. Or the Spice Girls.
Tom: I mean, no, but yes. Oh, I’ll tell you when we mentioned Ronnie Barker. We mentioned Ronnie Barker when we were talking to Ben Elton.
Abigoliah: Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. Because he really likes The Two Ronnies.
Tom: That’s right. But Ronnie Barker was much more suspicious of Ben Elton and alternative comedy. And Ronnie Corbett, the other Ronnie, was much more embracing of it.
Abigoliah: Because Ben has in his book, his autobiography, please read everyone. It is a real page-turner. How he met the Ronnies.
Tom: That’s right. Ronnie Barker told him at a BBC party, “I don’t like you, you swear too much.” And Ben Elton, who was a huge fan of The Two Ronnies, was very disappointed and crushed by it. Anyway. Ronnie Barker had written a lovely review of this book. And in fact had read extracts from it on the radio. So David Nobbs was really sort of picturing him now, him in the role. But his agent said, “I think this is not an ITV drama, I think this is a BBC sitcom. I think you should go and meet the BBC’s head of comedy James Gilbert.”
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: And Gilbert is equally enthusiastic and commissioned a pilot script in the meeting.
Abigoliah: Ooh! I mean that’s the dream. That’s the dream, you go in with an idea and someone’s like, “You’re going to the top kid! Straight to the top! Here’s a million bucks. Go make your art.”
Tom: Have you seen The Muppet Movie?
Abigoliah: Has anyone not seen The Muppet Movie?
Tom: So he asked David Nobbs if he had anyone in mind for Reggie Perrin. Ronnie Barker would be wonderful, Nobbs replied. “Yes he would,” replied James Gilbert. “How about Leonard Rossiter?”
Abigoliah: And how did they reply?
Tom: I mean listen, once you’ve sold the script, it’s out of your hands. So Leonard Rossiter was already a star from the smash ITV sitcom Rising Damp, which I remember you objected to the title of.
Abigoliah: Sounds moist. Don’t like it.
Tom: That had begun the year before, 1974. And so maybe this was the BBC trying to pinch an ITV star, just as much as the pitch for Ronnie Barker from ITV was them trying to nick a BBC star.
Abigoliah: I love the fact in British comedy, there is this like network loyalty of actors. It reminds me of the Hollywood studio system back in the day. I would hope that the contracts aren’t as—
Tom: Not quite.
Abigoliah: Don’t take advantage as much as the Hollywood studio structure.
Tom: But you’re right, some actors and comedians and writers had real loyalty either to the BBC or to ITV and others would flit back and forth much more carelessly.
Abigoliah: I think that still sort of exists. Would you agree? Not necessarily like a loyalty, but I know friends who do a lot of BBC stuff. Basically because they did a BBC thing, they were good on it. So another show hired them, and then they just kind of accidentally become a BBC darling or a Channel 4 darling, because one producer likes you, and then they’ll hire you for another project. And then the director of that project will hire you for another thing, and it goes on and on and on. Oh god, to be in that position! I wish, terribly. Go on.
Tom: But having started the meeting with Ronnie Barker in his mind, I think David Nobbs started now picturing Leonard Rossiter, who has this sort of jumpy, nervy quality, which is very different from how Ronnie Barker would have played it, I think. And he thought, “This could actually be just right because the hero of my book is kind of high-strung.” And I think this would work really well. So he sat down to adapt his own book into a seven-part series. Which he thinks often improved it. He prefers the TV show, and he said in interviews, “Sometimes I wish I could go back and rewrite the novel.”
Abigoliah: Oh, really?
Tom: Yeah. But early on, he felt he had to do a lot more work to morph it into a sitcom. And James Gilbert had to kind of bring him back to the novel and said, “Stop putting in all these extra jokes for the studio audience. They’ll get it. You’ve written a really funny book. You don’t have to pander. Trust the characters and the world you’ve created.”
Abigoliah: When you say he was putting in more work, he was adding gags, was he changing the story?
Tom: I don’t think so. I think the story is pretty similar from – ’cause I know the series really, really well, but like I said, I’ve just skimmed the book. But from what I can tell, the book is basically the same story and some of the same jokes.
Abigoliah: So what I’m imagining this overwork of the script and the addition of jokes was like changing the vibe.
Tom: Yeah, exactly.
Abigoliah: Making it more silly, more like “eh? that’s a joke, right guys?” Pause for laughter. Yeah.
Tom: Exactly, exactly. And this is a show which also features one star performer, Leonard Rossiter, but surrounding him is a very big ensemble cast. And we don’t have time really to go into all of the bios here. And in fact, the most interesting actor is not in either of the two episodes I’ve selected.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: Because it’s Geoffrey Palmer who plays Reggie’s brother-in-law Jimmy, who eventually gets his own spinoff series, and we’ve already talked about him because he’s the doctor in the Fawlty Towers “Kipper and the Corpse” episode.
Abigoliah: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tom: So you have seen Geoffrey Palmer and you won’t miss seeing him in this.
Abigoliah: Okay, and I will file that away for the next time you give me a test.
Tom: Yes, assuming that’s how we end this season. We might do something different.
Abigoliah: Oh gosh. You can edit this out, but for real I’m taking the quiz and it’s nine minutes long by the way, and I’ve edited it down to 2:50. Oh my god, it’s fast. But I literally, I’m like, “The next time he pulls this, I am gonna fucking study.” I got—
Tom: Next time is gonna be an obstacle course.
Abigoliah: I’m trying to picture. First of all, I have to plant a row of strawberries like they do in The Good Life, and then I have to check into a hotel à la Fawlty Towers and order a meal and eat the whole thing.
Tom: Then you have to create a PR campaign for Lulu.
Abigoliah: Yes, exactly. And then what am I gonna do for Reginald Perrin? I will find out soon!
Tom: So the seven episodes of the first series were shot in the usual way, which we’ve seen this a lot now. Television cameras in front of a live audience for the interiors, pre-filmed sequences shot on location on 16mm film.
Abigoliah: I don’t think I’ve asked this, but the in-studio sitcoms we’ve been watching, are they the three-camera structure that everyone talks about as the classic sitcom structure?
Tom: It’s usually five. But yeah, this is the basic idea that you have these cameras rolling around on castors. And that’s the reason by the way that they didn’t used to use video for exteriors, because these cameras were huge. They’re like giant Daleks and they have to have a smooth studio floor to roll around on, and they have to have great fat cables that connect them to the tape where the output is gonna be recorded. So there were OB cameras, but again you had to drive a van to the location and connect your cameras to the OB van by cables. I mean the whole thing was nuts. So assuming anyone cameras, video cameras became small and portable like a 16mm film camera, that shooting exteriors on video became plausible.
Abigoliah: Or an iPhone.
Tom: Or an iPhone these days, yes.
Abigoliah: Which is why you now have to have a video aspect to your podcast, and we’re not annoyed with that at all!
Tom: John Howard Davies, who was also the producer of Fawlty Towers, produced the pilot and then he handed it off to Gareth Gwenlan. And the series was a hit. Went out on BBC One, it was getting eight, nine, ten million viewers. And David Nobbs remembers getting in the lift with a couple of businessmen who began quoting catchphrases from the show to each other just for their own amusement.
Abigoliah: Aww.
Tom: Yes, and it’s quite a catchphrase-heavy show.
Abigoliah: Oh, that’s so cute.
Tom: And so everybody wanted a second series.
Abigoliah: Except Leonard Rossiter.
Tom: No, why?
Abigoliah: Well, he was happy to play Reggie again, but he felt the fact that the series had been based on a book was crucial. Even though as we’ve said, the writer thought the television scripts were better.
Abigoliah: So the first series completed the book.
Tom: Yep.
Abigoliah: And Leonard Rossiter didn’t want to like, Game of Thrones it.
Tom: That’s right, exactly.
Abigoliah: You know what, not knowing what’s gonna happen with The Rise and Fall, I think his instincts might have been correct knowing what happened with Game of Thrones.
Tom: So what he said was, “If you write a second novel, we can use that as the basis for a second series.”
Abigoliah: He didn’t?
Tom: Yep.
Abigoliah: He did?
Tom: Yep.
Abigoliah: That’s love of the art, man.
Tom: So, The Return of Reginald Perrin was published in 1977 and then the television version went out later that year.
Abigoliah: Man, Nobbs is making money!
Tom: Yes, he’s basically getting paid twice to write the same story. It’s actually not a pretty good deal for him.
Abigoliah: I wonder if it was easier to write the book slash sitcom the second time around in so much as if you write the book first you’re already thinking, “How does this become a series?” As opposed to, “I’ve written this book and now I have to turn it into TV.”
Tom: And for my money the first series is definitely the most iconic.
Abigoliah: Of course.
Tom: But the second is the funniest.
Abigoliah: Interesting.
Tom: So I’m going to show you an episode from the first series and an episode from the second series.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: And so in the first series, Reginald Perrin, and this isn’t a spoiler ’cause this is in the titles. Reginald Perrin is so fed up with life that he fakes his own death and assumes a new identity, returning to his old life as pig farmer Martin Wellbourne.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: But he’s sort of drawn back into the orbit of all of his old friends and family and ends up remarrying the same woman.
Abigoliah: Well I was gonna ask because I know you’re gonna ask me about predictions of what I’m gonna see. I feel like we’ve talked a lot about the history, but is Reginald Perrin like a family man?
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: Okay, so he’s a family man, but he wants to leave his life behind.
Tom: Yeah.
Abigoliah: Okay. Cause even the name, The Rise and Fall of, something about this title just makes me think of like a bachelor doing it all on his own.
Tom: This is not a middle-aged Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: It’s actually a little bit of extra context. Although if we could write that down right now because that’s a sitcom idea we should explore.
Abigoliah: Have you ever heard of a Labour politician called John Stonehouse?
Tom: I don’t know who that is.
Abigoliah: So this is quite obscure now, and in fact Reginald Perrin will be more famous than John Stonehouse. But this is a bit of context that might be helpful. In 1974, John Stonehouse disappeared whilst swimming off the beach at Miami.
Tom: In Florida?
Abigoliah: Florida, leaving his clothes neatly folded on the beach. He was widely presumed to have taken his own life and drowned, until it emerged that actually he’d faked his own death and fled abroad under various false identities.
Abigoliah: Oh, wow.
Tom: So that is one of the things that’s kind of feeding into this story.
Abigoliah: And so in the second series, he gets drawn back into his old life or assuming to have all the old characters back. But now instead of doing this dead-end job working for someone else, he starts his own business.
Abigoliah: As a podcaster!
Tom: I mean, in a way, because he finds enormous success running a shop that sells entirely useless products.
Abigoliah: A podcaster! Please subscribe, tell your friends, follow us on social media!
Tom: And his wife partners with him, but even doing this in partnership with her doesn’t cure his anxiety and depression. So in the second series, they both fake their own deaths and run away together.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: And then there was a third novel, The Better World of Reginald Perrin, in which Reggie ends up running a hippie commune. And that became a third television series in 1978.
Abigoliah: Okay. So it ends like Mad Men, basically.
Tom: I mean, a little bit.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: And then one last thing I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you how this all wound up after we’ve watched the episodes. But I’m just gonna tell you one other thing I found out. Lovely story that David Nobbs tells in his autobiography about what it was like working with Leonard Rossiter.
Abigoliah: Mm-hmm.
Tom: So after they’d done a few episodes, I’m pretty sure this is during the first series, he was often at rehearsals. And he dared to suggest to this star actor a potentially better way of saying one of the lines.
Abigoliah: Oh, no.
Tom: Leonard Rossiter thought that this was wrong. But David Nobbs dug in his heels. And eventually, Leonard Rossiter said, “Okay, I’ll try it your way during the recording.” At the recording, it gets a huge laugh. And that evening in the bar, slightly smugly, David Nobbs says, “Well, I was right, wasn’t I?” And Rossiter responded, “No, you were wrong, David. And so was the audience.”
Abigoliah: I like Leonard Rossiter, he’s sassy!
Tom: Alright, so what are you expecting?
Abigoliah: I really don’t know. So I am expecting… I guess I’ll just focus in on the life he’s unhappy with. I know he’s in a dead-end job, so I’m expecting a wife, two children, of teenage to adultish age but still living at home so maybe that like 16, 17 space, because if he leaves babies he’s a monster. So I’m expecting older children, and either a dog or a cat that constantly misbehaves.
Tom: There is an animal of sorts, but it’s not a dog or a cat.
Abigoliah: Is it an elephant?
Tom: Not quite.
Abigoliah: I’m still waiting for that elephant cameo from the Young Ones to pop up.
Tom: I don’t think that elephant was like a BBC contract player.
Abigoliah: Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. But they got him in!
Tom: Yeah.
Abigoliah: Yeah, so that’s what I’m expecting.
Tom: This is a really hard one to predict. And what I love about it is it wears the clothes of a traditional BBC sitcom like The Good Life.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: And it has this weird darkness underneath.
Abigoliah: Well as you’re explaining it to me, this is why I had to be like, “Is there a family? Is he a bachelor?” Because as you’re explaining it to me I can’t picture it. Like when you explained The Good Life, I’m like, “I get it.” Absolutely fabulous. I knew Fawlty Towers, I knew. But even The Young Ones that I hadn’t seen, it’s like “Four students in a flat.” I’m like, “I get it.” And with this one, I’m like, “What? Wait, who, what? Okay.”
Tom: But this is about that horror of suburbia which we touched on in The Good Life.
Abigoliah: Mm-hmm.
Tom: Like I said, The Good Life is a sunny, optimistic version of this. And like this is not a depressing show. This is not a dark show. This is not Chris Morris.
Abigoliah: Mm-hmm.
Tom: But it’s just weird. And it’s bracingly weird for a show that was on mainstream BBC One. Not even BBC Two, BBC One in the mid-1970s.
Abigoliah: Yeah, I was gonna say I’m excited to see something darkly weird from the 70s. I feel like happy weird is where the 70s lie, but darkly weird is like a modern idea, you know?
Tom: I love this show.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: But I am a little bit 50/50. It is possible we won’t be putting anything off the Shelf of Fame because it’s possible you won’t get this or you won’t like this.
Abigoliah: We’ll see.
Tom: We’ll see.
Abigoliah: Okay, let’s go watch it.
Tom: So really quickly, we’re going to watch episode one of series one. We’re gonna start right at the beginning.
Abigoliah: Mm-hmm.
Tom: Then we’ll jump into the middle of series two. This is quite serialized. Much more so than anything else we’ve seen. These aren’t standalone episodes. The story does build because it was adapted from a novel. But we’ll jump into the middle of series two with series two, episode four.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: Alright, let’s go.
Abigoliah: Let’s see this.
* * * * *
Tom: You seem to enjoy The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. I didn’t get where I am today without seeing somebody enjoying The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. Goodbye, Abigoliah.
Abigoliah: I’m guessing that’s one of the catchphrases.
Tom: Very much so, yes. The story about the businessmen in the lift, I think one of them said to the other, “I didn’t get where I am today…” The other one said, “Great!” And then the other one said, “Super!”
Abigoliah: Oh, really?
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: Okay, so here’s the thing. I’ve never heard about The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin until you told me about it. And whereas there’s other things we’ve watched that I had never seen, but heard of a lot. This one is not one of those.
Tom: It’s not in the zeitgeist.
Abigoliah: And also, if I had watched this without someone explaining it to me, I don’t know if I would have appreciated it. I think I would have been like, “What’s going on?” So that’s like what you need, is for someone to explain…
Tom: All British comedy!
Abigoliah: Yeah! Perhaps we could do it in some sort of format in a microphone. I didn’t get where I am today without having good ideas about podcasts! Okay, so a couple things. One, it made me laugh.
Tom: Good.
Abigoliah: Two, Reginald Perrin is not a good guy.
Tom: Well, this is one of the things I think would be interesting to discuss. Like, is he striking a blow against conformity and against absurdity, or is he just an asshole? You know, it is open to debate.
Abigoliah: You could argue that Basil Fawlty is unlikeable. You could argue that the Young Ones are unlikeable. But there’s something about them that feels like they have heart. Whereas Reginald Perrin, I don’t know if he has heart.
Tom: This is much more brittle, isn’t it?
Abigoliah: It is, and I don’t know if part of it is because of like how sexist he is, and how much of like a dirty old bastard he is. Like, fantasizing about his secretaries. And also the, so like the doctor clearly looking at porn before he comes in, and all of the asides about the women.
Tom: And listen, all of this was par for the course, right? This is mild compared to what you could see in other shows at the same time. You know, wait till we get to On the Buses, if we get to On the Buses.
Abigoliah: Well in my head I was like, “Do they know they’re being sexist? Is this tongue-in-cheek sexism or is it just how it’s done back then?”
Tom: How it’s done more than anything else. I mean, there is a critique there, but it’s quite a mild one. Like I said, this is also a mild version of the kind of sexist humor that was just par for the course. Absolutely par for the course.
Abigoliah: Cause I really couldn’t tell if they were like making a point or if it’s just like, “Isn’t this funny that women are objects?”
Tom: A bit of both. But more the latter than the former I would say.
Abigoliah: The first episode I enjoyed, but part of me was like, “I was really aware I was watching a pilot.” You know what I mean? I was just like, “Okay, get on with it. I can see he’s unhappy with his life. I want to go on the adventure now.” And I didn’t really start to like, really pick up and go, “Okay, now we’re having fun,” until he’s as you as all comedy is, he’s like wakes up in the morning, same same phrase to his wife of like a man never, waits for no man.
Tom: Time and motion waits for no man.
Abigoliah: Time and motion waits for no man.
Tom: That’s a joke that maybe needs a little bit of unpacking. So one of the other things that was the craze from the 60s onwards were what were called time and motion studies. So in other words, someone would come in with a clipboard and a stopwatch and try to figure out, “Are your employees actually making the best use of their time? Are they being efficient?” And unions would hate this because they would say, “Well, you’ve got three people employed here, but our time and motion study clearly shows that they’re doing the work of two, so you can let one of them go.” And so it’s all this industrial unrest that was happening at the time. So he is paraphrasing “Time and tide wait for no man” into “Time and motion wait for no man.”
Abigoliah: I see.
Tom: And as Barry Cryer taught us, the frog has died.
Abigoliah: Yes. A joke is always funny when it needs to be explained 50 years after it came out.
Tom: They live in Poets’ Close, and you always see him walking past Coleridge Avenue and Tennyson Court, I think it is. And then when he’s getting all the invitations, his wife says there’s one invitation to dinner at Elizabeth Barrett Browning Avenue and then an Anon Close.
Abigoliah: Oh, it flew when you were like, “That deserves more…” I was like, “What? What?” The audience didn’t give anything. But the fact that there in Poets’ Close, there would be an Anon as well is very, it’s a very good joke. Anyway, sorry, as you were saying.
Tom: Of course. Of course.
Abigoliah: I wonder if that’s in the novel ’cause that would read really clearly.
Tom: Yeah, it would. I’d have to I haven’t got a copy of the novel upstairs, they published all three novels in one volume.
Abigoliah: Oh, how heavy.
Tom: It’s pretty hefty. It’s like a thick paperback.
Abigoliah: I bet. Um, so when he, so what I was saying is it’s like, “Okay, time and motion waits for no man. This is how he goes to work.” And we’re seeing like his day to day. And then he does it a second time. And then, ’cause comedy happens in threes, is when it starts to break. And he’s like, “I’m gonna be late. I don’t care.” And it’s when he went out and ordered three courses of ravioli that I was like, “I like where this is going. And now I really want ravioli.” Um, yeah. And then like certain lines I thought was funny. The wordplay in it is very good. And the back and forth, the stroking the nipple of the strawberry ripple, is like how many, how many times did we have to say that before we got it in our head. I did in the first episode, see this is the thing, it’s like I liked it. But did I like it? ‘Cause I wrote a couple times. It’s like when he starts to break the form, before we get to the ravioli, I just wrote down, “I have a burning desire to check my phone.”
Tom: Yeah.
Abigoliah: It was on the third train ride.
Tom: Yeah.
Abigoliah: And uh, and then the second episode, selling rubbish. By the way, uh one time when I was at Machenlleth Festival, I met a guy who ran an antique shop. Who, so at Machenlleth everyone performs in weird venues, so one of my friends was performing his show in the antique shop. And afterwards, the guy who ran it was like, “You guys can each have a thing you want.” I got a coat!
Tom: Nice.
Abigoliah: And I was like, “I can really have this coat?” And he just goes, “I receive junk, but I sell treasures.” And his Grot shop is like exactly what that antique shop, I was like, “Oh that’s all antique shops. They all see theirself as Grots.” Um, can we pause a moment and talk about Leonard Rossiter himself. Because I think he’s such a star vehicle for him, and he’s such an extraordinary actor, and he was in a lots of stuff. And he was in straight movies, as well as other sitcoms. But I think he’s never better than this, and he’s just right at the centre of this big ensemble.
Abigoliah: So here’s something that I was thinking in my head. Is that really what his face looks like?
Tom: Yes!
Abigoliah: Like cause the way he was able to turn down his mouth and always look so dour, in my head I was like, “Is he pulling that the whole time?”
Tom: I mean not really. You see him on interviews. He makes that, those are the faces that he makes when he’s feeling emotional.
Abigoliah: Those are his natural faces. He’s cartoonishly good.
Tom: He’s brilliant, I think. The timing is extraordinary. And like he said, lots of very, very dense wordplay. And other actors just sit around and wait for their moment to say “great” or “super”, but the timing has to be spot on. And it’s all in front of the audience. And there are a couple of little stumbles from a couple of the actors, and you can see they didn’t want to go back and do a retake.
Abigoliah: I, I liked him as a character. I thought he was really lived in. Like I said, I was like, is this, it didn’t feel, so there are a lot of sitcoms, especially if you look at old-timey sitcoms, where you can tell people are acting. There’s a way of acting in I think especially broad comedies and farces where it’s just like, you know it’s acting. Where him, if you took out the laughs, it could have been a drama. Like he’s really rooted in the character. I did like him as an actor a lot. I thought he was, I thought he was very good. I wrote “commitment to things being”, and then I can’t remember what I wrote.
Tom: Mundane maybe?
Abigoliah: Maybe mundane. Something full. Woeful?
Tom: Yeah. Cause as I said, there is real pain at the heart of this. Particularly in that first series which is all about him trying to escape the grinding banality of his everyday life.
Abigoliah: It’s incredibly dour. Is that the right word? And even the way each episode ended. It doesn’t end with like, again going back to like the classic sitcom. It usually ends with a button of like one last joke or one last heightening and everyone’s like, “Ah, you know,” like.
Tom: On the DVD audio commentary John Cleese often points out at the end of episodes like at the end of the “Kipper and the Corpse” where he’s being driven away inside the laundry basket. He says, “I mean that’s a bit silly, but you can be silly when it’s the last shot.”
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: Because you don’t have to deal with the consequences of what that means.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: You just fade out on that.
Abigoliah: But this doesn’t give you that resolution. No, and it just, like the second episode just ended with him seeing that his old, old business is going under and him just going, “Oh what…?” I mean, sort of see where this is going. He re-employs all the people that he used to work with at Sunshine Desserts, including his wife. And ends up realising he’s recreated the very life that he was trying to get away from.
Abigoliah: Well when we, okay.
Tom: It’s like, it’s like Kafka.
Abigoliah: Yeah. Well when we got to Grot, first of all because there’s so many cuts to his imagination and his inner monologue, which also feels very modern I think.
Tom: Yes. I was, I was like, there’s something like this that’s modern now but I couldn’t quite, there was a 90s cable series called Dream On.
Abigoliah: Maybe.
Tom: Which had clips of old TV shows because the premise was this guy was brought up by the TV. And then Ally McBeal really took that idea and ran with it.
Abigoliah: Yeah, okay. Yeah, that’s what I was like, there’s something I’ve watched that’s like this. Ally McBeal. But when they went to Grot, kind of like blowing up and you start to see billboards and it gets bigger and bigger, I thought that was all imagination until he walked in to his new headquarters. And then when he sits down and he’s like, “Oh, isn’t this great? And which phone am I gonna use?” You can start to—
Tom: A lovely running joke in the next episode where he always wants to tell his secretary which phone he’s on. Like, uh, “Hello, Miss Erris. Uh, it’s Perrin here. On red.”
Abigoliah: I, you can start to see when he sits down and is talking to himself, “Ah, it’s behind me. I don’t need to talk to myself anymore.” You can see him starting to turn already of like, “Oh, he doesn’t want to be here.” So I kind of assumed in the next episode we would be in a different situation. But it makes more sense that there’s a slower build before he abandons the idea. Um, like is all of season two him doing Grot?
Tom: Yeah, so Grot is an idea that is hatched in episode three. We watched episode four. And then five is the continuing success of Grot and him re-employing everybody. Uh, and then six and seven are him trying to escape.
Abigoliah: The downfall of Grot.
Tom: The fall and rise.
Abigoliah: The fall and rise. Duh! Duh! It’s in the fucking title, Abigoliah. So each season is a fall and rise.
Tom: Exactly, yeah. So in the third one is about him doing like a, this hippie commune. And once again ending up employing everybody.
Abigoliah: Of course.
Tom: Uh, to do this new project. And, and with similar consequences. So the third one’s fine, you know, this cast is so good, the writing is so solid, you’ll have a lovely time watching the third one. But it feels a bit like, yeah, we kind of know the terrain now.
Abigoliah: Yeah, it, it sounds like to me like, you know how I think The Hangover is a perfect example of this. It is a great funny, perfect hilarious stupid movie with such a brilliant premise. And then they made The Hangover II, and you’re like, “Is it great?” And you’re like, “It’s the exact same thing but turned up a bit.” Like yeah, it’s like didn’t, like I got it the first time. Um, but I did watch it in theatre. Yes I did. I liked it. I did. I don’t know if I want to put it on the Shelf of Fame. Because I’m, I’ll be honest. It’s not that I didn’t like it, but this is the first one that’s truly baffled me.
Tom: Well, you think about that, and I will tell you what happened next.
Abigoliah: Please do.
Tom: So after the huge success of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, David Nobbs could do whatever he liked.
Abigoliah: Mm-hmm.
Tom: Uh, Mike Nichols talks about this being the “green awnings” phase of your career.
Abigoliah: Oh, I like that.
Tom: So when he had made The Graduate, he was in a similar position. Hollywood studios would commission anything he wanted to do. And he said, “I bet I could walk into a studio and commission a film called Green Awning in which there’s a green awning over a store, and people walk under it and that’s the whole of the pitch, and they would give me ten million dollars.”
Abigoliah: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tom: Uh, so that’s where David Nobbs is. And his next project is another BBC sitcom, which he claims got some of the worst viewing figures in history.
Abigoliah: What was it called?
Tom: It was called The Sun Trap. It’s about British expats in Spain, and it doesn’t even merit its own Wikipedia page. Let alone a DVD release.
Abigoliah: Really? Wow. And yet somehow you have every episode on an external hard drive.
Tom: I do not have every episode of The Sun Trap, I’ve never seen it.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: Uh, he did rather better with a show called A Bit of a Do, which was a vehicle for David Jason, who is another really big sitcom star.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: Uh, he is the star of Only Fools and Horses.
Abigoliah: Okay, which will definitely come to at some point.
Tom: And then as I mentioned, the character of Reggie’s brother-in-law Jimmy, played by Jeffrey Palmer, was given his own spin-off called Fairly Secret Army, which was a riff on a drama series called Secret Army.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: Um, and then there was a single one-off Reggie Perrin sketch in 1982 as part of a BBC Christmas special called The Funny Side of Christmas. That’s not part of the narrative, it’s just a little self-contained thing. And then in 1984, Leonard Rossiter died of a heart attack.
Abigoliah: Oh, Jesus.
Tom: He was 57.
Abigoliah: Jesus.
Tom: And he was in the middle of performing in a Joe Orton play, Loot, in the West End.
Abigoliah: So, did he die on, or did he have a heart attack on stage?
Tom: Not on stage, no, but in the middle of the run.
Abigoliah: Jesus, that’s so tragic.
Tom: And any plans to make any more Reginald Perrin shows were abandoned.
Abigoliah: Of course, yeah. I mean, you couldn’t, you couldn’t put anyone else in that role.
Tom: Except.
Abigoliah: Oh, no. Did they try to do an American version?
Tom: Uh, no, actually, but I guess David Nobbs was in need of a hit. But somebody thought, we can definitely do a new Reginald Perrin series, we just eliminate the Reginald Perrin aspect.
Abigoliah: That’s the whole point of…
Tom: So in 1996, we got The Legacy of Reginald Perrin, which is all of the rest of the cast, but no Leonard Rossiter.
Abigoliah: So without the linchpin, what did that look like?
Tom: It’s about, uh, Perrin’s will. And what he bequeaths to all of the other characters. And this did not work.
Abigoliah: Yeah, I don’t think so. I feel like it could work as a one-off Christmas special, almost as like an In Memoriam of Leonard, of Leonard Rossiter. I’m learning as I go. Uh, but they tried to do a whole series.
Tom: Yeah. And it didn’t… no.
Abigoliah: Oh god.
Tom: And then.
Abigoliah: No, they didn’t try again.
Tom: Over 10 years after that in 2009, the BBC announced that David Nobbs and Simon Nye, who had written Men Behaving Badly, were teaming up to reboot the show. So now just titled Reggie Perrin and starring Martin Clunes, it was poorly reviewed and the ratings were lousy. The BBC doggedly gave it a second series in 2010, but the ratings were even worse. I think what happened is people who had never seen the 70s show didn’t get it.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: And people who had seen and loved the 70s show thought this was a pale imitation.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: And then David Nobbs died in 2015, aged 80.
Abigoliah: Well he lived a long good life.
Tom: Yeah. And there was talk in 2019 of a Reggie Perrin stage musical. Uh, with Mike Batt writing the songs and Jonathan Coe and David Quantick writing the script, but all I can find on the internet is the announcement that this project is going ahead and then nothing else.
Abigoliah: I mean, as far as reboots go, that could possibly work because it takes the story and puts it into a different form.
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: Like to keep making the sitcom without Leonard Rossiter seems silly, but to be like, “Okay, now we’re gonna do a stage play.” Like they have done with Fawlty Towers. Like, like Spamalot, the musical. You know, it can… wait, is that a thing? Yeah, we talked about that, we talked about that. Um, but to so I’d be curious to see what that is like as a musical. I really would.
Tom: And this by the way is why, and I was surprised you hadn’t picked up on this up until now. I was happy to break my rule about no adaptations for this.
Abigoliah: That’s what it was, I forgot in my head I was like what’s the rule? Of course because it was adapted by a book.
Tom: But this is so associated with Leonard Rossiter, with this TV incarnation, most people don’t know it was ever a book. Uh, and as I, as we talked about, there was no particular reason to write two more novels before doing two more TV series except that the star insisted upon it. But that is another indication that Leonard Rossiter is Reginald Iolanthe Perrin.
Abigoliah: I mean that’s huge star power to be like, “I need the book before…”
Tom: Yeah. Uh, and so to me this doesn’t feel like an adaptation, it’s not the same as Jeeves and Wooster where there have been countless radio, TV, movie adaptations and dozens of different actors have interpreted this part in their own way. One other person had a go, and nobody thought it was any good. And Martin Clunes by the way is a brilliant actor, but lightning doesn’t strike twice like that.
Abigoliah: No. And so Nobbs felt like he, he tried a couple sitcoms and they didn’t work out. So he just felt like a little bit of a do is, is, is good. It’s solid. It’s not era-defining, but it’s perfectly good.
Abigoliah: But did he feel like his whole life he was living in the shadow of Reginald Perrin?
Tom: It’s what you say, it’s the first line of your obituary.
Abigoliah: Mm. And so he just kept trying to bring it back to life.
Tom: Yeah. And this is a pattern we’ll see at least one more time before we finish this season.
Abigoliah: Mm. Um, alright, any predictions about what might happen in other episodes? I’ve, I’ve kind of given you the sweep of the series, but is there anything else that struck you?
Abigoliah: I mean, it’s, it’s kind of hard, this one’s hard. This one’s almost harder than like trying to predict a sketch show. So in the first series, after he runs away, is he going through a series of, of events to find himself? Like, does he try to for one episode become an aeronaut and fly hot air balloons?
Tom: The first thing he does is comes back as a pig farmer called Martin Wellbourne.
Abigoliah: Yes, you mentioned that.
Tom: He sticks false teeth in and adopts a kind of West Country accent.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: But he discovers that mucking out pigs is disgusting.
Abigoliah: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As tedious as his life dictating letters and arriving 11 minutes late to Sunshine Desserts was, this is worse.
Abigoliah: I mean, people think farm life is, is idyllic until you live on a farm. And it’s gross. It’s incredibly hard work and there’s hardly any money. And I know that cause I’ve watched Clarkson’s Farm. There’s a comedy we should visit. It’s brilliant! Ten points. Um, yeah that was kind of my only guess is that he, he goes off, you said pig farmer. So in my head I was like okay does he try to like become a hot air balloon guy? I don’t know why I got fixated on hot air balloons but.
Tom: Might have been, uh, more than the budget could stand.
Abigoliah: Yeah fair enough. Um, I just feel kind of baffled by it. Like, do you want to know where I’m gonna put it on the shelf?
Tom: Yeah, have a look on the Shelf of Fame, see, is there anything which now you think might make room for The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.
Abigoliah: I mean I have a proper look at my notes, even though I know I’m gonna be honest, I think I know the answer. Okay, here’s the thing. Did I laugh out loud? Yes. Did I enjoy it? Yes. But I’m so baffled by it that I don’t want to put it on the Shelf of Fame. However, I will say with The Goon Show and Monty Python, in my head I was like, I’m gonna go watch more and try to understand it, and I felt like I was giving myself an assignment. Whereas this, that’s why I asked you, I was like, is this on BBC? Where can I find this? Cause I’m like, I want to watch this, because I’m very curious about it.
Tom: Series one is on iPlayer at the moment.
Abigoliah: Okay, so I’ll definitely check out series one. Um, but I mean there really is nothing like this that we’ve covered.
Tom: No, it’s, it’s so original.
Abigoliah: It almost feels like it’s breaking the form of this sitcom. More so, in a way, than, again, you know, more so than The Young Ones did, more so than Monty Python tore apart sketch, even though they did.
Tom: This is subversive.
Abigoliah: I guess that’s the difference. The Young Ones is in your face. The Young Ones announces that it’s tearing up the form of a sitcom, whereas this looks like a domestic sitcom. It looks like The Good Life.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: It’s not.
Abigoliah: It’s not. And it, it makes it cre– it’s very, as we talked it’s like this is gonna be dark. And now that I’ve watched it I’m like, I think it’s quite sinister.
Tom: I wouldn’t go as far as sinister myself.
Abigoliah: Maybe I don’t know what sinister means.
Tom: No, you definitely do.
Abigoliah: But also, in other episodes, is wife, the Elizabeth.
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: Does she play a bigger role?
Tom: She does, uh, again it’s the 70s, it’s written by a man, it’s a star vehicle for a man, you sort of have to expect that the women are going to get short shrift, but she does have considerably more agency especially when she starts partnering with, uh, Reggie in Grot.
Abigoliah: Well because in The Good Life I feel like the women get a huge, huge arc, and like even Margo who’s like a, “Oh we don’t like her,” who by the way I love.
Tom: That’s, that’s four leads, and that’s the difference.
Abigoliah: Yeah of course.
Tom: Four leads whereas this is one hero with lots of different characters orbiting.
Abigoliah: Anti-hero I think we’d say.
Tom: Anti-hero if you like. Lots of different characters orbiting. And then, uh, you’re never quite sure who’s gonna be in what episode or not. So, uh, Doc is only in the first episode but he is definitely one of the ensemble cast. Oddly, uh, what’s her name I think it’s, somebody Pigeon, uh, who is always quoting the statistics, I think she’s only in the two episodes that we watched.
Abigoliah: Yeah, okay.
Tom: She just happens to also be in, in four, so her being in series two episode four is a callback to her being in series one episode one, she it’s possible she’s in a couple other episodes but she’s not one of the core, unlike, uh, “great and super”, and CJ, uh, who are all definitely part of that core ensemble cast. And, uh, more of Reggie’s family as well.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: Uh, he has a son as well as a daughter, uh, and a brother-in-law.
Abigoliah: I think, I was talking to my partner the other day about, you know, how you pitch stuff, and he wants to talk to a producer who, you know, commissions ideas. And they said what you’re always looking for is familiar with a twist. Because familiar is like, everyone’s done it, who cares. Completely out of the box is too risky, familiar with a twist. And as you explain what The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin is, it’s familiar with a twist. So it’s like the regular sitcom but with this dark turn to it. And I think maybe that’s why I find it so much more, it makes me more uneasy than the Young Ones, than the Goon Show, than, you know, it’s like where am I? Because it’s familiar but I’m like no there’s, yeah.
Tom: And The Good Life tells you that people are decent.
Abigoliah: Mm-hmm.
Tom: Uh, and life will be okay. And somebody literally plowing their own furrow is actually no bad thing. And it’s fine. This tells you life is awful, and there’s no escape from it.
Abigoliah: Oh my god, I just realised, Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin, he’s the adult Charlie Brown.
Tom: He kind of is. Yes!
Abigoliah: Because no matter how hard he tries, it never works out.
Tom: That’s right.
Abigoliah: Oh my god.
Tom: The football will always be taken away at the last minute.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: Why do I let her do this to me? Why, why?
Abigoliah: Maybe she’s right. After all, if you can’t trust your own psychiatrist, who can you trust? This time I’m really gonna kick it. I’m gonna kick the habit. This is the end of all my faults! Argh! And now for the surprise. Would you like to see how that looked on instant replay?
Abigoliah: And no matter how much you try to change your life, you’ll always wind up back in the same place and be unhappy. This is not going on the Shelf of Fame. This is not the message I, Abigoliah Schamaun, need to hear in 2026. You can change your circumstances as much as you want, but no matter what, wherever you are, there you’ll be and you’ll be unhappy about it.
Tom: As a piece of art…
Abigoliah: It’s gorgeous.
Tom: I like a squeeze of vinegar.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: I like that bracing, acerbic quality.
Abigoliah: Yeah, I mean I, I totally agree with you there. But again as we talked about before, comedy is always subjective and I think where you are in your life reflects what you’re into. And before we got on mic we were talking about how I’m avoiding social media scrolling because the world is awful. And if we look at how I’ve ranked things on the Shelf of Fame, I remember you being really surprised that like, Not Only But Also was put above The Young Ones because I liked The Young Ones. But Not Only But Also is light entertainment.
Tom: Yeah. It’s warm and and silly and funny and…
Abigoliah: Yeah. And, and I personally am not in a place right now where I am, I’m appreciating art with a little vinegar, but I’m not embracing it fully.
Tom: Well I wonder what this means for our episode for next time.
Abigoliah: Oh yeah. Do you know the only thing I know about this is, uh, the one image you showed in our wrap-up of last, last season, of the guy with the black eye. Hancock’s Half Hour.
Tom: Yes. With a black eye?
Abigoliah: Yeah, doesn’t he have a black eye in the photo?
Tom: No, just a shadow I think. He’s just wearing a hat.
Abigoliah: Oh, I thought it was a black eye, looking gloomy.
Tom: Oh, never mind, that changes everything.
Tom: Uh, so this again is, uh, a real mixture of light and shade.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: And it’s a very early sitcom.
Abigoliah: How early? Cause you said this is probably one of the earliest ones we’ll do.
Tom: Well, uh, there are some who would claim that it is the first proper sitcom on British television.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: Uh, and it started on radio in the 50s, uh, but we’re going to be watching the TV show.
Abigoliah: And the TV show did it come out in like ’55?
Tom: About then, yes. Mid-50s.
Abigoliah: I’m good. I’m good.
Tom: Yeah, yeah. Uh, so not all the episodes exist, but we will watch series five, episode one, and series seven, episode five. If anyone wants to get ahead of us.
Abigoliah: And that is Hancock’s Half Hour.
Tom: That’s right.
Abigoliah: I’m very curious about that. Alright guys, well, uh, hey, let us know what do you think of The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin? Because I am perplexed as all. Did you guys know about this? Do you remember this? Did you ever see it on TV growing up? I know some of the listeners are not going to have watched it in the 70s because I feel like podcast listeners were either born in the 70s or later.
Tom: Yes, probably.
Abigoliah: I’m, I’m just just a guess here. Um, but it was repeated quite a lot, so I wouldn’t have watched it in 1975, but I would have seen repeats.
Abigoliah: Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I I assumed. Uh, when you, sorry I, just and then I will do, I will do the plugs at the end. But when you watched it growing up, so again you probably were watching this at the same time you were watching The Good Life and the Young Ones.
Tom: And I’m growing up in a suburban home with parents and two children and watching my dad go to work every morning.
Abigoliah: Yeah, I mean was this…
Tom: Wasn’t commuting but, uh…
Abigoliah: Was this kind of eerie to watch in some way?
Tom: Not eerie, but it really did reflect my life in a way that it would reflect very few people’s lives today.
Abigoliah: Yeah. And as a child you thought it was funny?
Tom: I really did.
Abigoliah: There’s just, I get, there’s a there’s an undertone…
Tom: Yeah, I don’t think I fully appreciated the dark undertone.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: But then when I came back to it, then I remembered how funny it was and then I appreciated the dark undertone.
Abigoliah: Well going back to like the Charlie Brown, uh, if you watch the shorts or I guess they’re movies but what are they like a half hour, or you read read the old comic strip, as a kid I always thought it was funny and then you go back and watch it as an adult and you’re like, here’s some real, here’s some real discussions going on amongst these children.
Tom: Existential nightmare.
Abigoliah: Yeah. Alright guys, thank you so much for listening to All British Comedy Explained. Please let us know, what do you think of The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin? I’m so curious. As always, if you’d like to support the podcast, please do so by hitting subscribe. You’re listening to it right now, thank you so much, and maybe share it with a friend. Um, we are on social media, you can follow us on that. If you’d like to watch the podcast as opposed to listen to it, we are on YouTube. And also, this season we have launched a Patreon. For £3 a month you can get our episodes ad-free. For £5 a month you can get all of our episodes ad-free that appear on the main feed, plus bonus mini episodes where we will tackle a subject linked to the main episode. And for this episode we will be talking about, is Reginald Perrin a hero or a jerk? We’re gonna record that right now and now that I’ve seen the show, I have some feelings.
Tom: Okay.
Abigoliah: So until next time everyone, I’m Abigoliah.
Tom: And I’m Tom.
Abigoliah: Thank you so much, goodbye!
Tom: Cheerio.