One Wink Plot
Lovejoy furnishes a house for a wedding, is paid a £400 debt in the form of an overweight greyhound, and finds the bridegroom dead inside a suit of armour. By morning the armour has gone, and so has everyone's willingness to believe him.
Review
I've been away for a bit. Life and lethargy got in the way of what has actually been a very good run of Series Two Lovejoy episodes.
It's Remembrance Sunday here in Chislehurst, and today is the parade. In the week leading up to it, the BBC aired Battle of Britain, with Ian McShane as Sergeant Pilot Andy. If Andy can face down the Luftwaffe, I can fight lethargy and start reviewing again — with the urgency of a Biggin Hill ground crew being Stuka'd.
And near my office, the Royal Festival Hall is advertising the new uncut version of Ken Russell's The Devils. I've been walking past an angry Dudley Sutton imploring me to carry on. Between him and McShane, I'm running out of excuses.
So, as we start the run to Christmas, let's raise The Divvy off the internet floor of laziness and dive into this Scooby-Doo adventure with our fab friends. Raise the Hispanic, here we come!
Proper farce. Real romp. One of my personal favourites, with Lovejoy, Eric and Tinker all here, although we're missing Janey and Gimbert.
This one reminds me of Frasier's "The Seal Who Came to Dinner", where a smelly, decomposing seal threatens a dinner party at a beach house. We recently went to see A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong — highly recommended — and there's the same pleasure here in watching a farce being set up.
We open with Lovejoy and Eric carrying furniture into the house Ralph Peagram is furnishing for his daughter Amanda and her bridegroom, Roger. A Sheraton sideboard goes in.
Our bridegroom, Roger, is a pillock. Lovejoy and Tinker catch him saying goodbye to an old friend rather more thoroughly than necessary before the wedding. Lovejoy tells him Ralph is more of a friend than a customer. Roger promises to settle down once he's married.
Back at the workshop, everything looks so warm and cosy. I want a workshop like it, with an old armchair and knick-knacks everywhere. In fact, this whole episode looks glorious. Warm, friendly and alive. The very reason I love Lovejoy.
The £400 greyhound
The farce's one contrivance for a plot structure is a debt. Malcolm Tandy owes Lovejoy £400, and Tinker and Eric are dispatched to collect it and buy a four-poster while they're at it. They come back with the bed and with Lassy. With a Y.
Lassy is a deaf, fat greyhound that Tinker has acquired in settlement of the IOU. Tinker presents him as a thoroughbred with terrific form, seven wins this season. Eric reckons they can train him down to his fighting weight and remembers his grandad's pair, Black and Decker. Lovejoy, who has by this point worked out that the £400 has become a £300 dog and a £100 bet, is admirably clear: he is an antique dealer, not a dog owner.
I really think they should have kept this dog in the show. Lassy with a Y and Lovejoy — no Mr. Writes itself. If this series is rebooted, then this is your starting point.
The wedding
Francis Beauchamp, Ralph's housekeeper, has done something clever with fish. Nobody appreciates it.
Ralph shows Lovejoy his new suit of armour. Keep an eye on that.
Delivering the bed to the stables, Ralph and Eric catch Roger rogering again, three hours into his marriage. This time it's Helen, the housekeeper's daughter. Ralph threatens Eric to keep him quiet and pays him. Eric looks horrified. I was horrified by Ralph's wallet. Ten first-class stamps. Why?
Ralph and Roger argue in Spanish. The band plays on — my favourite wedding band since the cantina band in Star Wars. Leading them is Denis King, who wrote the Lovejoy theme.
Lovejoy gives a friendly kiss to the woman he caught with Roger earlier. Francis says Roger needs taking down a peg or two. Lassy joins the dance for the last waltz.
By six, Roger has disappeared. Our gang must stay over.
Nobody believes him
Lassy won't settle and leads Lovejoy into the house, where he finds a dead Roger with a bullet hole in his head, squashed into the armour. The effort to hide a body here is incredible.
Lovejoy delivers this soliloquy to the camera:
That's a very nasty thought you've got.
It's been a very funny day.
I suppose a doctor wouldn't rule out insanity.
Lumme. I have been talking to you like you understand me.
Trouble is, I think you do.
Well, why shouldn't I?
Better men than me talk to plants.
Why shouldn't I talk to a dog and have him understand what I'm saying?
Too much booze.
That's the more probable explanation.
Yeah.
It's right up there with John of Gaunt's "This sceptred isle" speech in Richard II, which I watched a couple of weeks ago.
Somebody throws an axe at Lovejoy. It misses.
Tinker and Eric head to the next village to wake up Sergeant Hartley, leaving Lovejoy to babysit a corpse in the dark with a soppy greyhound. His idea of a good night out, he notes, is dinner with Jane Felsham. Which is as close as Janey gets: a mansion, a wedding, a houseful of money, and she is nowhere near any of it.
On to Sergeant Hartley, where Tinker and Eric's explanation only adds to the confusion. Lassy can't be a greyhound with a name like that. There'll be nookie at the bottom of it. There always is.
By the time they return, Roger and the armour have gone. Nobody believes Lovejoy. An "alcoholic fantasy", apparently. Eric eventually admits Ralph threatened him, and Lovejoy starts putting it together.
Meanwhile, Tinker and Eric train Lassy. The Jaffa Cakes are 49p. Eric pedals off with a fluffy rabbit dangling from his bike. Lassy runs in the opposite direction. A great scene.
Lassy is sent to follow the scent while Lovejoy heads for the Gothic hall. They look for a body and find another fight instead.
Then we have the great fight scene as Lovejoy and a masked Ralph fight through the medieval hall using swords, balls and chains, lances and shields. Brilliant. This has to be five stars. Lassy tries to revive the knocked-out Lovejoy. We do need more Lassy.
I've watched this a few times and I'm still not sure what the point of the folly is in the plot, other than that it looks good. Lassy follows the scent there, but there's no Roger. Anyway, we're off to the lake and ready to raise… something, at last.
The lake
After consulting Henry Miller about armour and treating Lassy's fleas, we're off for a lakeside picnic. Eric wants the toilet. Tinker remembers a childhood lake with no fish.
Then Roger's body floats back up in its armour. At last, we've raised the Hispanic.
The Hispanic
The final act is Lovejoy as bait. Dangled out to catch old Ralphy. This is great stuff. The police and Amanda are waiting, and the armour now contains a wetsuit full of polystyrene instead of Roger.
After you, Lovejoy.
"I am John Stacy." Not quite "I am your father", but not bad.
Stacy took the real Ralph's identity and estate after his death. Roger was Ralph's son, Rodrigo. He tried blackmail; Stacy shot him.
He won't pay Lovejoy to keep quiet, either. He knows the trouble with Danegeld: the Dane keeps coming back.
Ralph — John, rather — notices Lovejoy is wearing a wire, and we get a boat scene. Not quite as harrowing as Tony taking Pussy out on the boat in The Sopranos after discovering his wire, but enough to make you worry about Lovejoy.
Round two is on the jetty: a shotgun, an oar and Lovejoy trying to stay out of the way of both. Lassy comes to the rescue. Amanda has heard what she needed to hear, and Ralph — John — is put away.
Bungay
At Bungay, Tandy gets Lovejoy to rubbish Lassy loudly. His girlfriend has a fortune on the dog. It's all a scam, of course.
The traps open. Everybody shouts. With the right encouragement, Lassy runs. And wins.
So here are Lovejoy, Tinker and Eric at the dogs in March 1991, three years before Blur put greyhound racing on the sleeve of Parklife. The cover photograph itself dates from 1988, so strictly speaking the dogs got there before either of them. Nobody tell Damon.
Antique Lesson
Henry distinguishes between a German suit of armour and a lighter, more refined Italian one. Later, Lovejoy passes on his figure of about fifty pounds for the Italian armour, with the weight spread across the body. As he points out, men had to fight in this stuff, so they had to be able to move.
It's enough of an antique lesson to give Eric something to complain about during the picnic. He's here to learn about antiques, not sink the Bismarck.
Favourite Moment
The lake, and the armour rising. Everybody has spent the hour telling Lovejoy he imagined it, and then a picnic is interrupted by the evidence coming back up for air. The title, delivering on its promise.
Good Quote
"There'll be nookie at the bottom of it somewhere. You mark my words. There always is."
Guest Focus — Catherine Schell
Catherine Schell gets the job of keeping the wedding fed while everyone makes a mess of it. Her Francis Beauchamp is proud of the salmon, cross with the guests and quite open with Lovejoy about her feelings for Ralph. Her daughter has slept with the bridegroom, and she still has to deal with the catering.
Schell was Nancy in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Lady Claudine Litton in The Return of the Pink Panther and the shapeshifting Maya in Space: 1999. Here, she has to endure Lovejoy calling her Fran and asking her to save him a pudding.
The Divvy Verdict
Five stars. The medieval-hall fight clinched it for me, but there's so much to enjoy around it: the wedding band, the police-station confusion, the warmth of the place and Lassy steadily becoming the most useful member of the gang. A brilliant episode.
I just wish we'd kept Lassy. Lassy with a Y and Lovejoy — no Mr. There's your reboot.
The Hispanic is raised, The Divvy is off the internet floor, and Sergeant Pilot Andy has got me reviewing again. I might even manage another one before Christmas.